A female United States Air Force captain who quit special forces training three times but was reinstated admitted in an April memo that her treatment appeared unfair.
The female captain, who has been named in an anonymous letter posted online as Captain Morgan Mosby, had passed the physical fitness test needed to graduate from the special warfare assessment and selection course in January 2021.
But when she left for Combat Control School in North Carolina - the most challenging part of a years-long training that entails air traffic control, parachute and dive training - the captain reportedly learned that the physical training standards had been lowered.
'I believe the change in standards invalidated me with a majority of my team,' she wrote in an April 2021 memo obtained by Air Force Times.
'One [instructor] cadre member had a conversation with a student and said the cadre "rioted" when they found out the PT test was changing back to lesser standards.
'Perhaps all of this timing was coincidental, but looks highly suspicious with my arrival on campus.'
She noted that her prospective teammates knew the standard for a deadlift was 300 pounds, but she just lifted 250 pounds and still passed. Had she been held to the previous standards, the Air Force Times reported, she would have failed.
Now, she is expected to return to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for another try at the special forces in April, after senior leaders at Hulburt Field in Florida allegedly counseled her to stick with the program.
Most trainees are not offered another shot at the special forces training, but it remains unclear if officers can retry the course or if this is an exception to the rules.
Mosby had quit the grueling training multiple times, according to the letter posted on social media, only to be reinstated by the leadership of the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and the 24th Special Operations Wing.
She quit twice in water confidence sessions and once during land navigation training, the letter claims, and soon, she 'became known for quitting and getting preferential treatment.'
Gen. Jim Slife, however, has repeatedly denied that Mosby received any special treatment, claiming the standards are changed on a regular basis.
Gen. Jim Slife (pictured) has denied that the standards were changed for Mosby's benefit
The training to be a special tactics airmen is grueling, with about 70 to 80 percent of candidates dropping out each year
When she took the test in March, the change to the standards was so recent that her scores were still marked as a failure on electronic records, since the grading database had not yet been updated.
'Since I passed, they believe the standards had been bent for me,' she wrote.
Eventually, the Air Force Times reported, Mosby chalked it up to poor communication, saying any changes to the requirement should be 'widely disseminated and provided with time to train.
'If a person can meet the standard of a job, they should be allowed to do the job,' she wrote, noting that multiple students told her instructors were 'preparing their warships' and did not want her to graduate.
'Had I chosen to continue, I would be responsible for leading these men,' she wrote in the memo. 'Any bias that is created and supported by people in positions of authority [the cadre] would make it difficult for me to lead them.'
She did not say that any instructor had advised her to quit.
But the revelations come after Mosby was accused in an anonymous letter posted on Instagram of being allowed to repeatedly quit then rejoin the training 'pipeline' and was offered an 'unheard of' special assignment in one of the military's most elite units in the hope of encouraging her to keep going.
Special tactics airmen, under 24th Special Operations Wing, make up the service's ground combat forces and embed with SEALs, Army Rangers and Marine Raiders to help call in airstrikes, provide medical care and recover wounded and slain personnel.
The training is as tough as it gets with the two-year combat controller training pipeline historically seeing between 70 and 80 percent of candidates drop out.
Personnel are on hand to the technical and physical standards as other special operators such as Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs.
They also receive extensive training in the form of air traffic control and combat medicine in order for them to be capable of
