Small Scale Military Headquarters

According to several sources like the French magazine "assaut" and the "secret defense" blog, the navy seals and the french navy combat divers are suffering from a weird shortage.

in 2006, no candidate passed the tests to the Saint-Mandrier Ecole de plongée. The Navy kept a low profile about it and emphazied the fact that for the 1st time a woman became a member of a French UDT.

The DGSE's Service Action suffers form the same shortage.

weird considering the fame of the combat divers

I'm a certified SCUBA diver with various speciality qualifications (including stress & rescue) and have made over 100 dives in a variety of ocean conditions off the coast of California. Not tropical waters, mind you. Still, I don't think the Navy would want me, even if I got past the physicals...

sounds like the 2007 session was better in France :

11 new swimmers have succeeded. among them the sailors will join the famous Commando Hubert and the soldiers will join the DGSE (French intelligence agency)

Hey T-man. I'm a SCUBA diver also. I have only made about 40 dives so far and mostly in tropical waters and lakes. The diving off the coast of Belize was the most fun. Don't knock your skills as a diver. The waters off the Central California Coast are not exactly a cake walk. When I lived in Santa Maria as a boy, I remember that the currents were god awful strong and the water got deep very quickly. It was a long time ago and my memory might not be as accurate as I think it is. My last dive was about 15 years ago and I would probably spend my vacation in a decompression chamber if I tried it today.

Mark

Oh man I want to learn how to dive so bad! I absolutely love snorkeling and exploring stuff underwater but for some reason I've never taken SCUBA lessons. The only place I've been snorkeling (besides Canada) is Mexico and I loved it.

The only thing better is sky diving!

KAMIKAZE wrote:Hey T-man. I'm a SCUBA diver also. I have only made about 40 dives so far and mostly in tropical waters and lakes. The diving off the coast of Belize was the most fun. Don't knock your skills as a diver. The waters off the Central California Coast are not exactly a cake walk. When I lived in Santa Maria as a boy, I remember that the currents were god awful strong and the water got deep very quickly. It was a long time ago and my memory might not be as accurate as I think it is. My last dive was about 15 years ago and I would probably spend my vacation in a decompression chamber if I tried it today.

Mark

Tell me about the currents! There's been several times where I didn't pay attention to them - the underwater scenery was just way too cool - and wound up a few hundred yards down current from the boat when I surfaced. That made for a long swim Night diving & wreck diving were other neat things to do, though if you ran into poor visibility in the dark it could get a little scary. The cool thing about SCUBA diving (and other extreme sports like skydiving, rock climbing, etc.) is the simplicity: you either do, or you do not, and if you do not, you die... I haven't been diving in about a year and a half and am just itching to go!

I HATE SHARKS can't get me back in the ocean, I had a close encounter with a tiger shark.

VMF115 wrote:I HATE SHARKS can't get me back in the ocean, I had a close encounter with a tiger shark.

really

i's stay forever on land if i had met one of these