[msandford]

The folks in the special forces community have access to doctors. They're in the military. There are doctors in the military too and their whole job is looking after soldiers.

If you really want to get right down to it, why are guys in special forces (arguably reasonably smart, also evidenced by their figuring out this antibiotics trick) NOT going to see an army doc right away?

If I was going to be a really snarky asshole I might suggest that perhaps because it's a single-payer system the quality of care isn't that great and blah blah blah. I don't really believe that but arguments can be made both ways.

Don't be a troll.

[a3n]

I think maxerickson over in another subthread hit it on the head, "Active duty special forces is likely more worried about keeping a clean medical history than expense or inconvenience." These people are by definition and filtering hyper-motivated.

More generally, what makes sense for your career sometimes negatively affects other areas, but we tend to protect our careers.

[brazzy]

Another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7063539 ) seems to imply that special forces soldiers avoid seeing army docs because any recorded medical problem might hurt their career.