My Ranger School Experience

My Ranger School Experience

This serves primarily as a keepsake for myself and my family. I want to reflect on the adventures I had in my younger days and share the stories with my children and grandchildren when I am an old man. I wrote notes almost daily throughout Ranger School, sometimes in the form of simple journal entries and sometimes in letters to my wife and children. This will be a compilation of all those notes, feelings, and challenges I faced during Ranger School, put into a sequential narrative of the experience.

Day 0-

The first day of Ranger school does not count. It is considered Day 0 and is primarily in processing, being split into different platoons and companies and preparing for the real training to begin the following day. My wife drove me to Camp Rogers early on Sunday morning May 19^th. Before I left the house I had a big breakfast of steak, eggs, potatoes with my neighbor who is also hopeful he will get to attend ranger school in the future. Upon arriving at Camp Rogers, I got my bags out of the car, said goodbye to my wife and kids and went to join the other guys would were already standing around waiting for instructions. A Ranger Instructor (RI) came out and started getting several formations started. People came from all over the world, different ranks, different experience levels, and backgrounds. Once the formations were somewhat established, they had us get in a single file line and check in at a table they had set up.

When I told them my name, they told me to move to the left side and get in the formation starting over there with my bags, this formation was to be A Company. The second I got into the formation people were already talking about how A CO is notorious for dropping people and they were the hardest company out of all of them. Just my luck. Once everyone had been split into their respective companies, we moved into the fence line of Camp Rogers, and I moved my bags to the A CO Covered Training Area (CTA). In the end we didn’t do much this day. We were issued a 2-quart canteen we had to carry with us everywhere we went. We also had to do a layout. This took about 4 hours as the RI’s went line by line, person by person and inspected the gear we brought with us to make sure we had everything on the required packing list. This was also the contraband check and amnesty period for items we were not allowed to have.

We had lunch MRE at around 1130 and the hot A’s around 8pm. We were also told we were not allowed to sit….at all……ever. It didn’t matter if we had hours to kill standing around waiting, if we were eating our MRE, etc. we were not allowed to sit. This meant being on our feet every day, which added to the strain of Ranger school. Feet ached, legs ached, tendons ached, I just wanted the simple pleasure of taking a seat in the gravel pit but even that luxury had been taken from us. That night we slept for about 4 hours in the barracks (but had to be woken up for our fireguard shifts during that 4-hour block of sleep so actually less than 4 hours).

Ranger Assessment Phase (RAP) WEEK-

Day 1 started with the Ranger Physical Assessment (RPA). It consists of pushups, sit-ups, pullups, and a 5-mile run. Immediately we started dropping people for failing to meet the standards. If you couldn’t do enough pushups or sit-ups in the allotted 2-minute time or run fast enough during the 5-mile run, then you were dropped from Ranger School right then and there. I can’t remember the exact time, but I am pretty sure if you ran the 5 mile in under 32 minutes you got what they call a Major Plus (a positive report on your overall grade for that phase). I remember going into it thinking I know I could easily go sub 32 minutes, but I didn’t want to push myself and put any extra strain on my body because I had only begun with so much more ahead of me. So, I decided to just cruise for the 5 mile and ended up coming in at 33 minutes 20 seconds. I was upset because I should have just gone a bit faster and got the sub 32 minutes and received the Major Plus instead of taking it easy and still running almost the same time anyways. After the RPA events we went to the DFAC (military chow hall) for breakfast. It was surprisingly decent food and quite a bit of it. Granted we had to shove it down as fast as we physically could and there was not talking or lollygagging around in the chow hall. From here we went to the barracks to get our waterproof bags that had a full change of uniforms, boots, and a towel in them to get ready for the CWSA.

I had heard from someone that had been to ranger school that this was the worst part of the worst day of Ranger school. We had just finished 5 miles of running for the RPA, eaten breakfast, and now carrying a bag of clothes and boots and had to run 1.5-2 miles to victory pond for the CWSA. Mind you we are also running in a full uniform and boots. The run there sucked…. a lot. We got to some hills and had to fireman carry the other guys around us up the hill, do pushups, flutter kicks, etc. all during the run to the pond. I agree it was probably the worst part of ranger school. Once we got to Victory Pond it was time for the CWSA which consist of a gear drop (jump in wearing gear + rifle and while underwater shed the gear and surface) then swim 15 meters ( it felt a lot longer), a log walk high above the water that ends in a slide down a rope and freefalling into the water, and a zipline into the water. I am not the most confident or comfortable in the water, but I won’t drown. I hated all the events and everything about CWSA. It was terrible and I am glad I passed it and only had to do it once. In my notes I just wrote “Ran to CWST – Sketchy as fuck, I hate water, but I made it!” Enough said.

Day 2- Land Navigation. I wrote that we slept about 3 hours, woke up and had out “breakfast” MRE at 0130 and then went straight into land navigation testing. At Ranger the land nav course is considered Night into Day meaning you start the first hour or two in the dark and then it turns day during the course. You only have to find maybe one or two of your points in the dark before the sun begins to rise. They give you 5 hours to find at a minimum 4 out of 5 points. I went for my furthest out point first and spent the first hour plus just walking to get to it (it was way out there). By the time I got my first point it was already beginning to get lighter out and the following 4 points were easy. Note: there is a swamp in the middle of the land nav course with points around the edges of it. I do not recommend going through the swamp. I found my point at the edge of the swamp and my next point was on the other side of it. Instead of backing out and going around the swamp I went straight through the swamp. Once again, I do not recommend this approach, just go around the swamp.

When we finished land nav we had our “lunch” MRE at around 0830. I then filled up my 2 quarts at the land nav site. I took a few sips of it from here and then we ran as a platoon back to the barracks. The RI’s instructed us to fill up water sources and use the bathroom before we stepped out for our next event. I went to the bathroom but did not fill up my water because it was a 2-quart container and was at least 75% full still. That was a mistake. The instructors then went down the formation and inspected everyone’s water sources to make sure they were 100% full. Mine was not and I received my first Major Minus (a negative mark on your records). If you receive 3 major minuses, then you go to a board and will likely recycle (start over) the phase. I had just received one on my 2^nd day of training, not a good way to start.

From the barracks we ran out to a field to do Ranger Task Training (RTT’s). This consist of clearing, disassemble, reassemble, and performing functions check on the M249 and M240 (machine guns), and operating them (loading, firing, correcting malfunction, cleaning), emplacing a claymore, and loading frequencies into radios (both ASIP and IMBTR) There is a time standard for each event and you must perform it in the correct sequence, or you will fail. If you fail you get a retest, if you fail again, they just mark you down as a failure. Fail more than 2 of the 7 events and you get a major minus report. I went 5 for 7 overall failing to meet the 30 second times standard for the Operate the M249 and M240. I know how to do it and had practiced plenty, but the guns are old and beat up and nothing was going smoothly when it came time for me to do it.

When we finally finished RTT’s we ran back to the CTA and had dinner chow around 1900. From here we went onto the Malvesti obstacle course. It’s a bunch of walls you must jump over/through, rope climbs, monkey bars, crawling in the mud under barbwire, etc. It wasn’t hard but the whole course your either being sprayed with a water hose or crawling though mud so expect to stay wet while getting yelled at on an obstacle course. From here I took my first real shower at Ranger school and washed away the mud. I wrote in my notes again about not being able to sit and the fatigue it was generating in the legs. We ran everywhere we went and never got to sit, it just sucked.

Day 3 – I don’t have any notes on, but it was the Land Nav retest for those that failed the first time, and I don’t remember anything else.

Day 4 started with an MRE at 0100 after about 2 hours of sleep. We ate and then went right into the 12-mile time ruck. The standard to meet was under 3 hours but if you went under 2 hours and 30 minutes you got a major plus (a major plus counteracts a major minus and essentially leaves you zeroed out). I hit the halfway mark at 1:16 not knowing if I was going to full send it and get the sub 2:30. I was 1 minute behind pace at the halfway mark so Id have to pick up the pace on the return trip. I decided to go for it and gave it a hard push. I came in at 2:26 and received my major plus clearing my debt (my major minus) from the ranger school gods. Now here we began “the Darby Diet” in which you only get 2 meals a day. So, breakfast was at 1am, then a 12-mile ruck and we didn’t eat again till around 2200. That’s about a 21-hour period between meals and after rucking 12 miles burning tons of calories. The sleep deprivation had been ongoing but now also begins the food deprivation. I also conducted Basic Airborne Refresher (BAR) in case we get to jump at any point during Ranger School.

 But I did it, I passed RAP week and was headed into Darby Phase. Historically speaking based on stats put out by Ranger school, anywhere from 44-67% of people will make it through RAP week and I had done it. It sucked but it wasn’t that bad. I feel like a lot of the people that attend ranger are just not ready physically or mentally. Around 20% of the guys we started with were dropped on day 1 from the RPA. We lost I think 2 more at CWSA. Lost another 8 or so at land nav, then another 4 or so during the 12-mile ruck.

Darby Phase

                Day 5 began with our morning MRE and the loaded the busses for Camp Darby. There weren’t any air assets available so we drove in, but if a bird had been available, we would have jumped into this phase. Once we got there, we spent a lot of time tying down all the individual and platoon gear. Every piece of gear gets tied down to you or your ruck. This means if you are the platoon leader you have a map, grenades, rifle, night vision goggles, radio, radio battery, binoculars, etc. all individually having a piece of 550 cord tied to them and the other end tied to you. In the end this means you have a bunch of crap dangling off you and getting all tangled together (I promise it only gets better in the dark). We were working on 2 MRE’s a day and about 4 hours of sleep. This was the first day I had sent a letter home to my wife. People had already begun fighting over food and getting animalistic over the hot A’s.  

                Day 6 consisted of the Darby Queen obstacle course in which I went through all obstacles my first try and earned myself another Major Plus. We then went into classes on how to conduct an ambush and then practiced this through practical application exercises. We got about 3 hours of sleep this night. I wrote about how heavy the rucks were (I wrote 100lbs because that’s what they felt like but realistically probably closer to 70lbs-100lbs depending what platoon gear you’re carrying). In Darby phase you sleep outside every night between a couple of Connex’s on some gravel. This was home for the duration of Darby until we began the patrols. I wrote that we slept and ate minimally but my body was holding up alright. I kept getting these low points around 1400-1700 when I just got tired, low energy, and essentially just hit my low point for the day as my body adjusted to the schedule and food situation.

Day 7 began with an MRE then Church services. Now I have not been to church in a very long time, but it was actually a pretty good service (and they give you a slice of bread with peanut butter on it which is desperately needed in our calorie deficient states). The chaplain (I can’t remember his name) had both the ranger tab and the special forces tab so it was cool having someone that could relate to what we were going through. The message was something about being thankful that God is testing us and making us suffer. He told us that we need to find beauty in the suffering knowing it makes you a better man (very appropriate service considering the suffering of Ranger school).

                After Church it was time for more classes in a tiny metal walled and roofed shack that the RI’s called the planning bay. This is Georgia in the summer and the little shack turned to an oven once the sun hit the roof/walls with 50+ people jammed into the tiny bleachers with 0 air circulation. It was very conducive to the learning environment.

                Day 8 – This is when I started referencing the “Darby Lean”. This is what everyone affectionately calls the effects of sleep deprivation. People start to fall asleep on their feet and will rock back and forth doing the “Darby Dance”. If they get deep enough into their sleep they usually fall forward, wake up mid fall, panic, and hopefully catch themselves before they reach the ground. In my notes I talk about receiving our “dinner” chow at midnight – 1am and then waking up and getting our breakfast at 5am. This means both meals of the day in about a 4-hour window then fasting for the rest of the day resulting in about a 20 hour fast daily. I also talked about being nervous for the graded “patrol looks” as they are quickly approaching.

                Day 9 consisted of more planning in the oven of a planning bay. We slept for about 4 hours last night after carrying around 100lbs of gear through the hills of GA during practical applications of conducting an ambush. At this point I started feeling weak from calorie and sleep deprivation and started getting lightheaded thinking I might pass out. I wrote that I wouldn’t quit even though I felt like I might pass out and I hoped my body would hold up.

                Day 10 Began the graded patrols. I didn’t think I would get a “look” on the first day and was ready to support the platoon to help others get their “go’s”. We started with about 3.5 hours of sleep and hadn’t eaten for 13+ hours. And man was I wrong. I did in fact get my look this day. I wrote in my notes “Holy shit that was a lot.” That was my initial impression of what getting my look felt like. Let me explain how it went. In Ranger school, specifically Darby Phase they split the “looks” into two sets of leadership. The first set of leadership plans, briefs, builds terrain models, etc. They begin to execute their plan with movement to the objective but during the movement they will take “chance contact”. This essentially means they will run into some enemy who shoots at them. We then conduct a reaction to contact battle drill and then usually receive incoming Indirect fires (IDF). We then conduct a react to IDF battle drill and then there is an administrative pause where the RI’s put in new leadership to continue the mission. This essentially means if you are the second chain of leadership you are executing someone else’s plan that you may have had little to no involvement in developing. You tend to know the gist of the plan but the nitty gritty details that will lead to your success you simply do not know because you didn’t spend hours planning the mission rather you are given 20 minutes to talk to the outgoing leader about the plan and get your gear ready to execute his plan. When the second chain of leadership was put in, I was assigned as the actions on PLT SGT. It was super hectic, but I got it done. I was unsure if I did well enough or even what the grading criteria was, so I continued not knowing if I received my “GO” or not. I would have to wait another 9 days or so to find out. We finally finished the missions for the day at around 3AM then went to sleep at 0415 and had to be up again at 0500 so essentially no sleep. Great way to start the FTX.

                Day 11 begins very similarly. More mission planning all morning, then briefing the FRAGO, then stepping off to execute the mission, taking contact along the route, killing the enemy, receiving IDF, running away, changing leadership, continuing mission, actually executing the ambush (every day is an ambush), walk in the dark on NODS to wherever they want us to bed down, do medical checks (feet checks every day from medics), clean weapons, “establish a patrol base”, sleep for anywhere from 0-1 hour, and repeat the following day. After my mission the previous night they rucked us what I estimated as 2.5-3.5 miles to our patrol base location. I wrote about being so tired I was falling asleep while writing my letter to my wife. Taking the micro naps where you just blink your eye and before you know it your straight into deep sleep and having a full-length dream, then you wake up and this all occurs in a matter of seconds. It made it hard to focus on things because I kept falling asleep. On day 11 we completed the final mission for that portion of the FTX and had to ruck back to base. I thought I was going to pass out during this. Again, my body was not handling the food/sleep deprivation very well and I kept feeling like I was going to pass out. I wrote how I felt like it was just a matter of time till I actually passed out during one of the movements but for the time being I had survived to fight another day.

                Day 12 was supposed to be a refit day before heading back into the field and executing more missions. It wasn’t much of a refit, more of a retraining day where the RI’s made us execute more missions but with their oversight and their contributing to what we were doing right and wrong since we were not being graded at this point, just training. I wrote about how I had about 40 hours of sleep and 3 showers in the last 12 days averaging out to 3.5 hours of sleep a night and a shower every 4 days or so. I also wrote about brain fog, sleepiness, fatigue, hunger, weight loss, etc. and how every day I hit that low point where I get low energy and feel like passing out. At this point the RI’s had told us that of the 36 people that received graded “looks” during the first week of the FTX only 8 of them had passed. The chance that I passed was getting smaller and smaller.

            Day 13 follows the same pattern as all the other FTX days. I ended up carrying the M249 (SAW) and around 500rds of ammo + our heavy rucks + 8 MRE’s for the week. I estimated the load to be over 100lbs. When we completed our mission we took a long walk through the woods on NODS to our patrol base location. On the way we found a massive copperhead. We walked for well over 2 hours in what seemed to be a never-ending ruck. By the time we got to our patrol base we had less than 1 hour to eat and sleep then be up for the next set of missions.

            Day 14 is more of the same but with an air assault (instead of walking all the way in we have a helicopter pick us up, fly us to near the target and drop us off). People were falling asleep mid meal, mid conversation, mid planning, middle of standing. It didn’t matter, at this point everyone was so sleep deprived we could fall asleep while doing anything. I thought my second chance at a “look” was coming soon. I wrote that if I double “no go” I would have to talk to my wife and see if I should just come home because I was over playing the games.

            Day 15 at around 2 AM I found out that I was indeed going to be in a leadership position again for the next mission. I had to complete some tasks (ungraded task during this phase) that night like establishing a patrol base before getting to sleep around 3AM with the standard 5 AM wakeup right around the corner. My portion of the brief went alright, but when it came time to physically execute it, I knocked it out of the park. I was the assault 2 element in the platoon, so we took up the rear in our order of movement. We received contact on the way to our mission with direct fire from the 3 o’clock. We returned fire and established my element as the base of fire since we were the ones in direct fire contact. I was giving fire commands to the team leaders, ran to the acting Platoon Sergeant and gave him a situational update on where the enemies were, how far away they were, and a description of them (We call this the 3 D’s – Distance, Direction, Description). I let the PSG know that we had set a base of fire and would need either the security or assault 1 element to flank onto the enemy. I ran back to my team and by now the gun team was established and the M240 was up and rocking as well. Everything was going great until at some point right before the maneuvering element started bounding through the objective committed fratricide.  We had heard that if this occurred everyone in leadership was going to fail because cumulatively the platoon had failed. This made me very uneasy knowing that I had done well and should pass but because of the fratricide I might also fail. I received my AAR (after action review) of my lane that night. The instructor had only positive things to say and never mentioned the fratricide but did not tell me if I officially passed or failed the “look”. I tried to stay positive as I waited to have my fate determined on Wednesday. This night we were up till 4AM with 1 hour of sleep. Cumulatively in the previous 3 nights we had slept about 3.5 hours.

            Day 16 was the final day of the FTX. I was assigned as a team leader and ended up earning a Major Plus for doing a good job. Once the FTX was over and we were back on Camp Darby we began cleaning platoon gear for turn in. Simultaneously we were also cleaning our weapons as well. We continued these tasks well into the night and then into the next morning. We were all falling asleep and half assing the cleaning job so the instructors would come out, catch someone sleeping and then make us stand behind our rucks while we cleaned. People were falling to the ground falling asleep while cleaning on their feet. It was more of a mental test to see if you had the mental fortitude to stay awake (and I use the word awake very loosely because we were all zombies at this point, swaying back and forth on our feet going in and out of consciousness). There was 0 sleep and only 1 MRE that day (the instructors messed up and forgot to let us eat our dinner/breakfast MRE). In total I received 3 major pluses: 12-mile ruck in under 2:30, Darby obstacle course, and as team leader. I also received 1 major minus for not having 100% full 2-quart canteen during week 1. We got pulled over to where the cadre was letting us know out fate as a squad. We then approached a small table 1 by 1 and were told if we were moving forward to the next phase or getting recycled and trying Darby again. We had 12 people in my squad, only 4 of us received “GO’s” and moved onto the next phase, the other 9 were recycled and would have to repeat Darby. I was relieved that I was moving forward but it was weird seeing all the people you had gotten to know around you that were not going to move forward with you. There was a mix of emotions in the air, a lot of sadness, a bit of happiness, regret, relief, etc.

            Day 17 was the infamous DOGX. I had heard about it the entire phase as we were starving and sleep deprived. Some of the recycles explained it to us as you will eat a ton of food, specifically hot dogs, and they will either be happy dogs or sad dogs depending on whether or not you were moving forward but either way you got dogs and that’s all that matters. We did indeed get dogs. I ate 6 hotdogs, 2 bags of chips, 2 sodas, and 2 candy bars. Additionally, after eating that I bought 2 ice cream sandwiches as well. The cadre had also realized their mistake of not giving us our dinner MRE the night prior so they let us eat that prior to the DOGX as well. And then upon completion of the DOGX we had another MRE. In the end that day I had the DOGX food + 3 MRE’s. We all needed the calories. We had started Darby phase with 98 people and ended with 53. Alpha CO was know for having a notoriously low pass rate and that proved to be true. I was also excited that I was about to get a phone call home to my wife as well.

            Day 18 – Pass. We turned in our weapons back on Camp Rogers, had breakfast chow then released into Darby Pass (an 8 hour pass where you can see your family, eat tons of food, rest a bit, then return for more training). I was excited to see my family and eat a ton but it was very short lived and I was on my way back. I knew the upcoming training consisted of some mountaineering and I was excited to learn it.

Side notes on some interpersonal introspection. Darby pass made me home sick again. I have been in the military for 12 years and it has been full steam ahead the entire time. I have traveled a ton, up to 50% of the year, every year, for over the last 7 years. Then I went to OCS and was away from family for 4 more months, then I went to infantry basic officer leaders course and was in the field Monday- Friday about 75% of the 17 week course. And now I am at Ranger where I will see my family 1 day in the next 62 days. I have probably been away from more of my youngest daughters life than I have been home. I love the military but it can be draining and the continued drain and time away from family is difficult at times. I wrote that I think it is time for me to put on the breaks after Ranger school and focus more on my family and hobbies after all this. I am also getting older, 30 years old at this point, and a lot of the training I have been doing is a younger mans game. I hold up physically because I am a fucking beast and refuse to let the young kids beat me but it takes a toll on my body now days. I know I enjoy a challenge but I wrote to my wife, the next time I say I want to do some hard dumb shit to just remind me of this note. I missed my kids entire summer break while I was away at ranger. It was about day 2 or 3 of ranger school when they started summer break. I wrote about how much I loved and missed my wife and how I knew she was just as stressed and probably sleep deprived as me as she was essentially a single mother of two while taking an accelerated nursing program.

            Day 19- Early rise to catch the buses to mountain phase. It was a 4-hour bus ride to the mountains, and I slept the whole way. Once we got there, we conducted layouts, issued mountaineering gear, and taught us how to employ the gear. The cadre were much more relaxed than in Darby and I learned a lot quickly. The barracks were nicer, and the entire situation seemed to be improving.

            Day 20- Big mountain breakfast! Enough said. I had heard rumors of a glorious daily breakfast in the mountains, and it did not disappoint. They served a surprising amount of food, and it was pretty good. The base itself is situated in the mountains but there are civilians all around, a bar next to the barracks and beautiful mountain views, scenic waterfalls, and good temperatures. If I wasn’t stuck in the middle of military training, it would have been a nice place to visit with my family. We were told early on that in the Darby phase of ranger it is you versus the instructor, but in mountain phase it’s you versus the mountains. We got to rappel from a tower and a wet cliff face this day, learned a lot of knots, how to tie down anchors, etc. All basic mountaineering stuff but it was new and interesting to me.

            Then I jumped to day 23ish cause I lost count of my days. Meaning some of the days above are off a bit or more likely combined as the days and nights just blended together and there was not a real big distinction between the two and the sleep deprivation made it difficult to keep track of anything. We did more rappelling, buddy rappels, knots testing, etc. Still learning and having relative fun for ranger school.

            Day 24 – We took another bus ride to a place called Mt Yeona (or something like that). We had to hike up the mountain at an aggressive pace carrying about 45lbs of gear. It took about 40 minutes to get to the top. It was a beautiful mountain, tons of nice views as we climbed the mountain and now, we are rappelling off the cliff faces. There are civilians around, hiking and camping as well so it is weird seeing them enjoying their lives as we are starved of sleep and nutrition. There was a church service at the top of the mountain which was cool. The service wasn’t that great, but it was as the sun was setting and we had amazing views. My feet and legs were tired but not to beat up.

            Day 25 – We did more ropes training, helicopter casualty evacuation (utilizing hoist systems), complex rope systems (lead climbing) and building rope bridges. I did not take many notes at this point, but I do remember it being generally fun and exciting climbing and rappelling off the mountains. We did this for 2 days (if I remember right) before heading back to base to prepare for the FTX.

            Day 26 – Now we begin to prepare for the patrols portion of this phase. We tied down weapons, platoon gear, received classes on patrol bases, raids, and ambushes before stepping out on the FTX. We did most of the practical application exercises around the camp and I wrote about how beautiful it was. I love the mountains.

            Day 27 – We were out late the previous night for patrol base training and only got about 3 hours of sleep. I remember trying to write down a bunch of information that needed to be disseminated to the platoon and how difficult it was to write under NODS (practically impossible, you cannot focus the NOD to be able to see your own writing to you just guess and hope for the best). We had more classes on ambush and then proceeded to practice it as well. There is a large field that has a mile (guessing length) long paved loop on it that doubles as a flight line for small planes and helicopters. There were some ranger regiment guys jumping into it (using it as a drop zone) while we were out there training. It is a really flat stretch of grass seated in the mountains surrounded by woods and creeks with mountain views in all directions. It would have been a nice loop to run for any sort of endurance training.