What are the qualifications to become an Army diver?
I'm glad you asked.
- You need to be in great physical shape.
Dive school PT is tough. A lot of fast running, pushups, pullups, flutterkicks and so on. Dive school is divided into two phases: a 3-week session at Ft. Leonard Wood, and a six-month session in Panama City, Florida. The 3-week Phase I is like pre-Ranger; it separates the serious from the not-so-serious. It's probably got an 80% washout rate. However, those that make it have an 80% pass rate at Phase II.
Am I ready? Well, one way to tell is to take the DPFT, the Diver's Physical Fitness Test.
- Swim 500 yards in under 14 minutes using breaststroke or sidestroke only
- Ten minute rest
- 42 Pushups, chest to ground, no sagging or arching to rest
- Two minute rest
- 50 Situps, hands across chest, heels within 10 inches of glutes
- Two minute rest
- 6 Pullups, starting from dead hang, no swinging or kicking
- Ten minute rest
- Run 1.5 miles in under 12:45
- Keep in mind the DPFT is a minimum. We do it every drill weekend, and any one day of PT at dive school is harder. Before we send candidates, they must perform 20% better than the passing score on the DPFT.
- You need an ASVAB GT (General Terminology, or vocabulary) score of 110, and a physical profile or PULHES of 1's across the board. (If you're not in the military, this just means you're smart enough to understand concepts in the dive manual and are not disqualified physically)
Some things can be waived, like color blindness. In the National Guard dive teams, we can take up to E-6 prior service and send them to dive school, with some conditions.
If you contact us, we're going to have some other questions for you:
- How old are you? Older guys tend to be more mature, but dive school is harder on them. Not impossible, but harder. Which leads us to...
- What kind of shape are you in? How much do you run, how far and how fast? If you can score 290 or higher on the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), that's good. If not, you need to exercise more.
- Are you married? Kids? If you're going to commute to drill in Texas, we want to know your family is okay with the time and expense.
- What's your civilian job? Same deal. Are your employers going to be okay with your taking time off for training? Are you working for a commercial dive company?
- Have you ever been in trouble? Not necessarily the end of the world, but tell us before we find out elsewhere.
In the 627th, we train our soldiers between the time they enlist and the time they go to Phase I. We work with them on the skills they need to succeed. In the end, however, the effort has to come from within.
Some things to practice:
- Tread water with weights. Make it your goal to tread water with up to 20 lbs and 2 minutes with fins, and 5 lbs and 5 minutes without fins
- Run sprints, run 6:00 miles in half-mile intervals with pushups, pullups and abdominal exercises in between intervals
- Dive to the bottom of the deep end of the pool, swim across on one breath
- Perform the dead-man's float with hands behind back
- Dive to the bottom, put on mask, fins and snorkel and swim across on one breath
- Study the Navy Dive Manual, available for download at http://supsalv.org
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