160th SOAR Assessment Explained: The Most Professional Selection in the Military

About this video

Ritland interviews Nick O’Kelly, a former Green Beret who became a 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) pilot. O’Kelly recounts his experience going through the 160th assessment and training pipeline, describing the highly professional instructorship from veteran Night Stalker contractors, the technical challenges of precision navigation under time constraints, and his first combat mission. Throughout the pipeline and deployment, O’Kelly discloses he struggled with ongoing anxiety, dizziness, and fleeting depression, though not while flying.

Key takeaways

• O’Kelly describes the 160th assessment and Green Platoon training as professional and skill-focused rather than attrition-based, with legendary contractors teaching navigation techniques that progressed students from missing targets to hitting them within 30 seconds
• According to O’Kelly, his prior Special Forces background provided mutual respect during assessment and helped him better understand ground force missions when flying for SOF units, bridging a gap most junior pilots lack
• O’Kelly recounts that anxiety and dizziness persisted throughout his training pipeline and deployment, but adrenaline and focus while flying prevented symptoms from manifesting in the cockpit

Episode details: published March 18, 2026 · 112.4K views · 30:32 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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