Lessons From U.S. Army Ranger School

Looking to Others

            Around this time every year, I reflect on my experience in U.S. Army Ranger School. I hope to write a few blogs on the lessons I learned there. On Day 0, the day Ranger students report to Camp Rogers, we were all sitting in a big building getting a briefing in preparation for the greatest physical and mental test of our young lives. Ranger School trains leaders for combat and the training is very similar to what we’d face overseas. The Ranger Instructor (R.I.) briefing us put up a quote by Colonel Robert “Tex” Turner who said while he was serving in Vietnam, “I woke up in a cold sweat, I had a nightmare that I was still in Ranger School. Thank God that I was in Vietnam. Compared to Ranger School, combat was easy.” At that moment, I thought to myself, “what am I getting myself into?”

            The first week was sort of a blur because we had to take a battery of physical tests to weed out students in our class. Only about a third of the Ranger students who begin the school graduate. These events should be objective (i.e. there is a standard and all you must do is meet the standard), but there is some subjectivity in events like push-ups where the R.I. might not like you and he could fail you by not counting some of your push-ups. I was able to get through the physical events unscathed until I came to the land navigation (nav) course. For land nav, you must successfully find four out of five points in five hours. You start very early in the morning, around 3:30am, and you have about two and a half hours in the dark until the sun comes up and then you finish with the early morning light. There’s a swamp, bushes, briars, trees, and a whole lot of confusion. A Ranger student can expect to walk around five miles through very difficult terrain with only a map, protractor, compass, pencil, water, and headlight (only to be used at found points and while looking at your map). Getting disoriented is easy, passing is not.

            I felt confident in my land nav skills because I spent a lot of time on other land nav courses in previous training. However, I was extremely nervous because I knew this was a hard course and that there was curve balls I had to be ready for. I had heard the nightmare stories of the men the year before who failed land nav because there was a course error. Once I received my five assigned points, I furiously began plotting them on my map and creating my route for success. Picking the easier points first while it was dark. In my rush, I looked up and saw a bunch of my classmates, who could not help me and I could not help them because it is an individual event, take off in a hurry. So, I gathered my things, checked my first azimuth and distance, and took off. Some of us were going in the same general direction, which gave me confidence that I was going the right way. However, I made a dumb mistake in my pursuit of that first point. I crossed a hardball road (paved road). We were previously briefed to not cross a hardball road because that meant you were off the course and would be disqualified for a safety infraction. It did not take long for a R.I. to catch us on his four-wheeler, collecting the group of us like wandering sheep and bringing us back to the instructor shed. I’ll leave out the words he said to me, but I remember his last name and the wake-up call he gave me. Back at the shed, the other R.I.’s told me that I was a no go for the event, but that I should go back out and train. This meant I had the opportunity to search for my points, but no matter what I would fail this event. So, I went back out there and trained my heart out. I found the points I needed and came back with plenty of time to spare. After resetting, I took my time. The pressure off me I knew I could dial in on what I needed to do. I had seen the course and passed the course (despite being failed for my major blunder), so I had the confidence that I could pass this event again if given the opportunity.

            Since it was a serious safety offense, I was told to pack all my belongings to prepare to be kicked out of the school. I was crushed because I did not want to show up to my Infantry Battalion as the Second Lieutenant without a Ranger tab. I had to report to the Commandant’s office to learn my fate. When I reported to his office, the Commandant and the Command Sergeant Major were there to grill me on why I committed such a grievous error. I explained that there was no excuse and how in my excitement and haste I got disoriented, but I explained that I found my points and could do it again. The Commandant said to me that I would get a Major Minus (a demerit of sorts, which never showed up in my Ranger School record), that I would have to retake the event that night, and that he would see me at graduation! I was ecstatic and thanked him and Sergeant Major profusely and told them I would not let them down.

            The hard part about doing the land nav course again is that my body was exhausted from all the week’s events, and I still had a 16–18-mile ruck march out to Camp Darby ahead of me if I passed the event. Instead of getting a little more sleep, I had to report to the land nav course. I was given a second chance, but it would not be easy. My assigned points were much harder this time and I struggled. I felt like panicking, which is the worst thing to do while roaming the woods. I was running up against the time limit that would send me home packing for good. I just needed one more point and I could not find it. I knew it had to be close, but after searching for the point with all my troubleshooting methods I was at a loss. So, I did the best thing I could have done. I cried out to the Lord in desperation to help me find this last point. After saying amen, I heard a noise about twenty-five feet behind me and one of my classmates darted out of some brush. He did not say anything to me, but I knew my point was in there. I ran into that thicket to find my point like jumping into a cool swimming pool on a hot summer day, but now I was dangerously close to failing because I was running out of time. With sore and heavy legs, I ran all the way back to the head shed and turned in my found points just in time, a piece of paper with a unique design from the orienteering needle punch at each point. I would live another day in Ranger School.

            The biggest takeaway from this event was the problem with looking to others. Had I just stayed focused on what I had to do and not looked at the other students who took off in the direction of the road, I would have realized that they were wrong. And it is too easy to do this now with watching YouTubers’ who have the “perfect life” or neighbors or friends or anybody else. Ever run a race and try to stick with someone else’s faster pace early on? You will crash later in the race because you ran someone else’s race and not your own. My wife and I are constantly reminded that our lives are different with multiple children with disabilities. The struggle with sleepless nights, trying behavior, medical bills, insurance companies, medical providers, therapy, and schools. We will never be empty nesters. There are things that we cannot do because it is too hard for us right now, like taking a vacation. We must remind ourselves after we look at others, that “it is not our story,” something we pulled from C.S. Lewis and his children’s book The Horse and His Boy in the classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Psalm 16:6 has also been a comforting reminder that I can trust God with the unique life He has given me, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” A story that only He could write, and a story that I can only live out by His grace.

Vietnam Quote here.

The Discovery Channel followed a Ranger School class and made a series on it here if you are interested in learning more about Ranger School.

The Horse and His Boy here.