In today’s day and age, there are several professionals within the Special Operations world of medicine. But there’s one community that stands out among them. That is the Navy SARC.
SARC stands for Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman. These are highly trained corpsmen who are trained to operate in the world of special operations medicine, and work in Recon Units, MARSOC, and Naval Special Warfare.
What makes Navy SARCs so valuable to the world of SOF medicine is that their entire purpose is medicine. It’s not a collateral duty for them, it’s literally what they do. They are hospital corpsman first, which are the enlisted medical asset to the Navy, and then are further trained to operate in SOF environments. Don’t get that confused with the notion that ALL they do is medicine. That is quite the contrary. While their primary purpose is medicine, they are trained up just like an operator is, meaning that they also have a combative role in the battlefield. And, since SARCs are corpsmen, that means that SARCs are only an enlisted job. If you want to be an officer, you cannot be a SARC. Keep that in mind!
While they are quite literally called recon corpsman, they are also used in MARSOC, and in DEVGRU, also known as SEAL Team 6. They are actually becoming more utilized in NSW because they receive so much training in medicine that they are considered a better asset to have than the PJ’s.
One thing to note about Navy SARCs is that most of them spend the entirety of their careers attached to Marine Units. That means that while you’ll officially be in the Navy as a SARC, one could argue that you’re practically a Marine. They receive the same training as a Marine, they wear the same uniform, and they are treated as one of them. While also sporting the long hair and tattoos, of course.
Their official title is also SOIDC, which stands for Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman. This is essentially a fancy term that means that they are special operations medicine qualified personnel who can prescribe medicine and perform certain medical interventions and procedures on their own, under the direction of a physician. IDC’s in the Navy, whether they’re special operations or not, are essentially a Physician’s Assistant without the title.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): MEDICAL TRAINING
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): PIPELINE
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): WHERE ARE THEY STATIONED?
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): CONCLUSION
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): MEDICAL TRAINING
SARC get the gold standard of medicine training at SOCM, which stands for Special Operations Combat Medic Course. They do the short course AND the long course, meaning they are the only other community besides the 18D Special Forces soldiers to do both.
At SOCM, they receive a plethora of medical training alongside other SOF medic communities, ranging from EMT training, clinic fundamentals, clinical medicine, trauma, and paramedic rotations. At the end of SOCM, they take the Paramedic exam and become registered paramedics. Once they finish SOCM, they receive their ATP card. Once they start the long course, known as SFMS, they receive follow-on training in surgeries, dentistry, veterinary care, laboratory stuff, and much more.
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): PIPELINE
As a SARC, you have multiple opportunities to advance your skills as an operator, despite the fact that you’re a medical asset first and foremost. Depending on the timing, funding, drive, and happenstance, a SARC can receive training with additional medical courses, mountaineering, breaching, foreign language schools, coxswain, tactical driving, sniper school on a very rare basis, and even ranger school. Again, this is all dependent on what unit you get placed in and where they are willing to send you.
Let’s get into the pipeline of Navy SARCs. Their pipeline is one of the longest training pipelines out there for SOF, so it will take some time for the Navy and Marine Corps to build you up to the standard they want you at.
The pipeline for Navy SARCs is:
- Navy Boot Camp - 10 weeks
- Hospital Corpsman ‘A’ School 14 weeks
- Field Medical Training Battalion (FMTB) - 8 weeks.
- Recon Training and Assessment Program (RTAP) - 5 weeks
- Basic Reconnaissance Course (BRC) - 13 weeks
- Special Operations Combat Medic Course (SOCM) - Roughly 12 months
- Marine Combatant Dive School - 8 Weeks
- Dive Medicine Course - 5 Weeks
- Army Airborne Jump School - 3 weeks
As you can understand, the pipeline is quite lengthy and challenging. That’s not even counting the weeks of hold you might be placed in between the courses.
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): WHERE ARE THEY STATIONED?
What about where you can be stationed? Since Navy SARCs work in Recon, MARSOC, and DEVGRU, they are stationed where they’re at. With 1st Marine Raider Battalion moving to the East Coast in 2022, any SARC stationed with MARSOC will be at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as well as with 2nd Recon Battalion. First Recon Battalion is in Camp Pendleton, California, and 3rd Recon is in Okinawa, Japan. They can also be placed in Dam Neck, Virginia, San Antonio, Texas, and Panama City Beach, Florida, for various billets.
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): TRAINING & SELECTION
How does one start their journey on the path to becoming a Navy SARC? It either starts as a civilian trying to earn an HM/ATF contract, an active duty sailor who wants to cross-rate into a corpsman and take a shot at the pipeline, or someone who’s already a corpsman and wants to do something extra. The Navy has realized how important SARCs are and has ramped up their recruiting efforts towards the community, so there is more awareness of the program among people.
But before you even get a shot at the pipeline, you’re going to have to ace the Navy PST, which stands for Physical Screening Test. This is the screening that all specwar and specops candidates in the Navy have to conduct. It consists of a 500 yard swim, pushups, situps, pullups, and a mile and a half run. The PST minimums for SARC are the same as SEAL standards, which are:
- 500 YD Swim 12:30 mins
- 50 pushups in 2 mins
- 50 situps in 2 mins
- 10 pullups in 2 mins
- 1.5 Mile Run 10:30 mins
Obviously, those are the minimums, and you’ll have to put up much better numbers than that to get selected for training.
NAVY SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN (SARC): CONCLUSION
And that pretty much sums it up for Navy SARCs. We went over with you what they are, what they do, the training they go through, the opportunities they have, and how to get the ball rolling if you want to be one of these professionals.
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