Expert: Aaron Shifferly - 3/7/2010

Question
I am a freshman in high school and am looking at going to Westpoint in the future. I have been looking at where the majority of people are that are registered for the upcoming years there and I figure at the pace I am going I will be one of the top candidates. When I graduate I will have had 5 years of Spanish 4 years of French and 3 years of German with all honors classes and a GPA of 3.5. I wrestle varsity and play soccer on varsity and I play on a traveling soccer team where I am the captain. I have also been confirmed at my church. I would like to know when I should start putting my application in to Westpoint and getting the necessary signatures and approvals. Another question of mine is, what are the duties of the many special operations forces in the military and the special forces in the army? Also, what is an estimated number of personnel that each contains and which of them does Delta Force recruit from? Thank you for your time, Brian.

Answer
You start putting it in in the spring of your junior year to ensure ample time to complete the process. Visit www.usma.edu and they will walk you through the process after clicking on the admissions link.
Second part of your questions is more difficult to answer due mostly to the fact that our Special Forces have an official training mission but the rest of the missions that they conduct are secret. Rest assured they are the finest trained troops in the world and are fully capable of whatever mission they are assigned to accomplish. I cannot give you estimated numbers or other information as it is not known outside of those communities.  

Hope I at least partially answered your questions.