Mike Crow is the newest addition to the CASS family. He is a  veteran of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, with a combat tour in Afghanistan to his name. He also carries a jaw that upon close examination still shows the screws where it was put back together.

Mike is a recent graduate of the course, passing several years ago. Of his classmates, one is now working in Panama and one is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan with a foreign Army.

Since his graduation, Mr. Crow has been busy. He was deployed to Haiti during the crisis with a high risk Search and Rescue team. Their mission was to identify and locate trapped American students. The operation was a classic in the sense that he took part in all facets of the mission, from running advances through extremely hostile environments to breaching a building to positively effect the rescue. It should be noted that Mike was originally tendered for the mission via another CASS member who was already in country, testimony to the tightness of the CASS family.

During his probationary period as an assistant instructor, Mike excelled, especially with younger students. In a strange twist of fate, Mike then went on to become an informal Team Leader for many of the very same individuals who recently deployed to Afghanistan with him.

Keeping to the tenet that all Instructors remain operational, Mike is currently in Afghanistan, where he is performing a multitude of tasks in an extremely hostile environment.
During his rotations out, Mike continues to teach at CASS, bringing cutting edge information and tactics from Afghanistan in the same manner that Hamish Burling Claridge does from Iraq.

Thus one class in three can expect to have Mike Crow on board as an instructor. As a more recent and younger graduate (Mike was 23 when he completed the course) his insights, though useful to all, have extra weight in regards to applicants in the 21-28 age range.

His thoughts to future potential students?
"Its real. When I arrived I thought it was a “check the block” course and I wouldn’t have any problem. Wrong answer. A lot of people my age have a “sense of entitlement” and automatically assume they will pass.  Wrong answer again. When I went through I remember thinking, “There is no way I will ever use all this stuff…all I want to do is get a job and go to work.”  If I could turn back the clock I and take the course again I would pay twice as much attention because not long after graduation I found myself doing EVERYTHING I learned in the course for real with loaded weapons and all of a sudden it wasn’t funny any more. In the space of three weeks in Haiti I actually performed every class I was taught. What I found out was that the stuff you learn here actually increases your chance of getting a job and in no way should be considered “extra material to learn”. It’s all critical.

Looking back on the course, I will admit that I didn’t understand how everything fit together in the big picture. However, the second it went “real” the proverbial light bulb flashed and I connected all the dots….really fast. So I guess the next thing I would tell potential students is that everything, and I do mean everything you do here has a reason behind it.

Another comment I often hear is from civilians with no pertinent experience. The bottom line is that about half the people we place have no “pertinent experience” but they are working in the industry. About half the guys I am with in Afghanistan have no experience but here they are so I get tired of hearing from civilians about how they don’t think they will get a job. The truth is that it has more to do with you than with us. Want it, work for it, and odds are you will get it.

I guess my last point pertains to everybody, although I was thinking of my own age bracket when I wrote it. If you come in here thinking you are going to cruise through and its all warm and fuzzy, just be prepared to get hit by a truck cause that’s how it’s going to feel. It happened to me. I made it through by my fingernails, learned a lot, acted on it, and gathered a lot of real world experience. I am now in a position to pass some of that along so I take it pretty seriously. So should you, because it’s for real. Be serious, work hard, and understand what you are getting into and you should be fine."

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