Strategic Response Unit

Created by Lieutenant AJ Taggart on Sun Oct 20, 2019 @ 4:40pm

The Strategic Response Unit, a small Special Missions Unit is composed of Fleet and Marine personnel that pass a rigorous training and selection course that includes training in advanced field medicine, Search and Rescue, marksmanship, and psychology. When deployed to a ship, the various team members assist in various departments when not on training rotations or deployment. Their primary mission profiles include infiltration and reconnaissance aboard enemy vessels or installations, Search and Rescue, Intelligence Gathering and Analysis, or Psychological Warfare. However, this list is not all-inclusive as vessel Commanding Officers can direct units to perform a wide variety of missions.

Selection

Personnel interested in becoming a part of their Task Force's Strategic Response Unit are selected by their Commanding Officer to attend the Strategic Response Unit Selection Course, simply known as 'Selection', where several assessments are administered over 48 hours with very little sleep or food:
- A Physical Fitness Assessment with increased standards including a 2 Mile Run with full gear, 100 Push Ups, a 50 Yard Swim, 50 Push-Ups,10 Pull-Ups, and an Extravehicular Action assessment.
- An assessment in Basic Field Medicine.
- A logic assessment
- A Marksmanship Assessment
- Final Interview conducted by the SRU Commanding Officer for the Task Force
Any members that are not selected are given one year to retrain and reattempt Selection again up to three times. Once these tries are exhausted, candidates are not authorized to reattempt the course.

Training

Officers for the SRU undergo over 14 months of training at Starbase 38 in the following course areas:
- Tactical Psychology and Crisis Negotiation
- Medium and Heavy Weapons
- Basic and Advanced Demolitions
- Basic Flight Operations (for personnel who are not qualified shuttle operators)
- Urban and Mountain Operations
- Incident Command
- Tactical Extravehicular Actions (T-EVA)
- Ground Vehicle Operations
- Advanced Emergency Medicine
- Advanced Hand to Hand Combat
Some personnel selected for Sniper duty may undergo Advanced Marksmanship courses, which may take an additional 2-4 weeks.
The Strategic Response Course culminates in a 3 Day exercise known as 'The Big Dance', which places each candidate into rotating roles in order to evaluate all skills taught during the Course. Following the successful completion of the course, enlisted personnel are authorized to place the post-nominal letters 'SRO' after their names (ie HM2 Jones (SRO). All personnel are awarded the SRU badge for wear on dress uniforms. All SRU qualified personnel are authorized the wear of the SRU patch on the left shoulder of the duty uniform.