Men under "downward pressure"

The leaders at the Army’s special operations schoolhouse explain how they are trying to fight through a tightening budget and a recruiting crisis to ensure the Green Berets are ready for the future.

Maj. Gen. Jason Slider (left), commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School, and CSM Lionel “Lee” Strong, the center’s senior enlisted adviser. (U.S. Army photo)

What follows is a very lightly edited transcript of an exclusive interview with Maj. Gen. Jason Slider, head of the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (or SWCS – pronounced “swick” – for short), and CSM Lionel “Lee” Strong, the center’s senior enlisted adviser. The High Side’s Sean D. Naylor conducted the interview on Oct. 15 in Washington, D.C., during the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army. Earlier that day, Slider and Strong had each participated in a “State of the Regiment” panel discussion with Maj. Gen. Gil Ferguson, head of 1^st Special Forces Command (Airborne). The High Side attended the discussion, to which several of the questions and answers below refer. We also published the following article based on some of the major themes to emerge from the panel discussion and the interview: https://thehighside.substack.com/p/two-new-jobs-but-too-few-people-and

THE HIGH SIDE: You said that you viewed the recruiting crisis as “an existential threat” to 1^st SFC. Please elaborate on that. Where is the existential threat and on what timeline might that be realized?

SLIDER: So why do I think that?…