I assume you are American?, if so, there are no police CT units in the US, except the FBI's HRT, which s almost has hard to get into as the Big D, the military "CT" units in the US, are SFOD-D and DEVGRU, but you haven't even made it to first base yet so talking about either of them is a moot point.....my advice for what it's worth is work hard at school, and see what way you want togo, if police and investigative stuff is to your liking, go to collage apply for the FBI, after a few years apply to the HRT selection, bust your ass there, and you might make it, otherwise, go to the Navy, apply for BUD/s bust your ass, pass, spend a few years in a regular team, apply for DEVGRU, bust your ass some more, pass, serve in DEVGRU, Army, join, apply for Rangers, or SF, bust your balls, pass into said units, spend few years there, apply for SFOD-D, bust your balls some more, pass into unit, enjoy your stay, get out/retire, and write books....make alot of money

haha nicely said. the bad thing is that i don't live in the United States. One of the reasons i'm studying is that if i fail and dont get the job i wanted, i can still find another good job, altough it might be the office job which i wouldn't really like to do. To me, it seem that it's easier to join police CT units than Army SF units primarily because police units are orientated exclusively to counter terrorism and SF units do lots of other operations, so i think the training is probably rougher(survival,etc)..  

Dude, you can't just join a police CT unit. Here's the deal. It usually takes 5-10 years of patrol to get on the PD's SWAT team, and they aren't truly up to Tier 1 standards...it takes alot of time. The only true Police units that are close to the tier 1 level are the LAPD SWAT team, Dallas and San Antonio SWAT, and NYPD's ESU/SWAT (?) unit...and they don't have the skill set like military tier 1 unit (ie: they can clear houses at close to the same level, but no real recce skills, no HALO/HAHO skills, very little VBSS skils, no combat swimmer skills, etc). At the Federal level, the FBI HRT unit is truly a tier 1 CT unit, but that is going to be AS TOUGH OR TOUGHER to get into than military Tier 1 units. Why? Because the FBI gets about 80,000 applications a year, and they only accept about 2,000 or less. So, you have to be extremely well studied (great grades, college degree) and experienced (police or military)...and even then, it's only about a 70% chance of getting accepted into the FBI if you are qualified. On top of that, I believe it takes 4 years as a special agent until you can apply for HRT selection, and only about 50% (or 30%, I forget) pass selection to become FBI HRT members. And, you usually only stay on the HRT team for like 4-5 years on average, then you are reassigned. So let's say you make it onto FBI HRT. It isn't a cakewalk. The training schedule is extremely difficult, with long, long hours and very repititive training. The duty hours can be very weird with you being on duty at odd times. You also may spend alot of times doing mundane tasks like writing reports or going to court testifying about some dude you arrested, and giving out all the facts. Also, you remember that thug you shot when he pointed a gun at your boys? Well, you'll be going up against a judge and jury so you can be cleared of any wrongdoing...and if the court thinks you did anything remotely wrong, it could be the end of your career or possibly jail time. Oh yeah, you can forget about being stationed in the US your entire career, as you'll probably be going to Afghanistan and Iraq to observe what CAG and ST6 are doing, and how you could improve your teams (and HRT as a whole) performance. Oh yeah! Vacation time with the wife and kids! Time to relax by the pool with the family!!! So now, you and the wife are having a intimate moment...then the beeper is going off g0dd@mnit sh*t, &^%&^*)*^*!!!!!! I've got to be back to HQ in 8 hours?!?!?!?!? But I'm 1400 miles away!!! Sh*t!!! So you get back to HQ, pissed off because your vacation is ruined, tired because you just flown 1400 miles on a red eye flight, and you get to the office to realize it is just a test to see what your response time would be, or possibly some gangsters are holding some people in a bank and won't let them go, and are claiming to have a bomb. You know that sports car you always wanted, and that nice house? You aren't going to be able to get it, because you aren't paid much (even though you work your a** off) and the wife needs beauty supplies and the babies needs diapers and supplies. Oh, and since you shot that thug and went to court, you now know that with such restrictive ROE's, even if some bad motherf*cker points a gun at you and your team, you have to think twice before you pull the trigger...and the old maxim "Those who hesitate are lost" may come back and bit you in the a$$ (or chest, or head in this case). This job isn't for everyone man, consider all the facts before making a choice because that new video game or that new movie makes everything look cool.

Horsesoldier, this is going a little off topic, but your post made me remember an article I read about the SAS getting a raise. Supposedly, an SAS soldier now gets close to 100k a year. The reason they did this (supposedly) was to lower the attrition rate as many SAS guys were going to work for PMC's for a lot more money. Is there any truth to that?Also, if there is, I would assume that CAG and DEVGRU all got raises? (As they are the most valuable operators in the US arsenal and the US can hardly afford to lose them to PMC's.) And Mough, I am sure you could probably answer that question as well (if your reading this).

SEALs are bringing in close to 65k-70k per year.Patrol cops start at about 30k-35k...so I'd say that SWAT cops and SOF types are bringing in close to the same amount of cash.

Ok, DEVGRU's out, red nomad it is, just to keep GOP happy

BTW GOP, SEAL's call it the group, DEVGRU is an actual name used, ST6 is not used anymore......sorry

Yes the  UKSF(SAS&SBS) were given pay raises, also they could take 6 month active sabbaticals, as they called them, basically go off for a few motnths to work for  a PMC, make their money and come back and slot back into a squadron, no questions asked.