The Operator Readiness Assessment

The Operator Readiness Assessment gives health care providers an objective tool to which they can determine if a Special Forces Operator, who was wounded or injured, can return to full operational status. It also gives the command element a sense of an Operator status and if he should return to a combat position. The assessment consists of 11 tasks commonly reflected while on a deployment. Each assessment has a time standard and a two-minute rest between events. In the validation of the assessment, 84 healthy Special Forces Operators were used and after a baseline was established, 24 of the operators would have failed the standards that were set. After the standards were put in place and an evaluation of operators assessed was performed, it was determined that the individuals with passing assessment times participated in a functional performance program compared to the ones that failed who participated in traditional programs. The conclusion drawn is that a holistic functional based program could better prepare an operator for combat over traditional methods.