I found this on another message board and thought it needed posting here.
This mainly applies to the College Ops going Infantry, but is open to all. I've read some of the other messages in the past about Ranger School, and I get the feeling that there are some misperceptions about it.
First, I have to say that this is not a commando school. This is a school designed to teach and assess you in the fundamentals of combat operations at platoon level and below. Let me say that this is a great school, and the Ranger Tab is coveted. However, not getting your tab does not mean the end of your career as an Infantry officer; nor does graduating from Ranger School place you on assignment to a commando unit. Special Forces: you have to go to a different school for that, and you have to be a 1LT(Promotable) to go (active component). 75th Ranger Regiment: you have to prove your worth at your first assignment to apply.
This is a leadership school. You are not graded on your ability live with lack of food, sleep, and toilet paper while humping for miles. You are graded on your ability to make competent decisions as a leader (on the days you are assigned to be a leader for a particular mission) while you are tired, hungry, cold and wet (or hot and wet). In addition, you are graded by your peers. If you are a turd, then everybody will write things like "lazy" or "whines more than my wife" (actual comments) on their peer evals at the end of each phase. Somebody will be rated last on the peer list, and that's ok. What the instructors look at are the comments.
1. Who can go? This was a "cut and paste" from the RTB website:
"Commissioned officer personnel. Ranger training is available on a voluntary basis for officers in the following career management fields:
11A - Infantry Officer
12A - Armor Officers allocated against authorized
12C positions
12C - Cavalry Officers
13A - Battalion and Company Fire Support Officers
(Habitually associated in direct support to
Infantry battalions)
14B - Short Range Air Defense Officer (Habitually
attached or in direct support to Infantry
battalions)
18A - Special Forces Officer
21B - Combat Engineer (In companies that directly
support Infantry battalions)"
"Those officers of any branch or specialty assigned to Ranger Coded Positions within the 75th Ranger Regiment or the Ranger Training Brigade may attend."
"No security clearance is required."
"No additional obligated service is incurred by active Army Commissioned Officers for attending the course."
"Students are not required to be airborne qualified, but are encouraged to attend airborne training prior to attending Ranger School."
"Ranger qualified officers or NCOs should brief all Ranger school candidates on the course prior to their attendance. Applicants should concentrate on improving upper body strength and foot marching in properly fitted boots with a full rucksack, for distances up to 16 miles."
#s 2 and 3 below can be completed during week 1 (aka RAP Week or Hell Week) at Camp Rogers, but it is highly advised you complete them during Zero Week (volunteer orientation week). I don't care what the cadre officially say about how fair they are about grading the PT Test during RAP Week, when they get a full class of people that passed their PT Test during Zero Week, and they are in danger of overflowing with students, it becomes "number-crunching time. I STRONGLY urge you to go to Zero Week to take the PT Test. You get the weekend off between Zero Week and RAP Week (about 1700 Friday to 0300 Monday).
2. PT Test: here's the standard to pass.
-Push-ups: 49 reps
-Sit-ups: 59 reps
-2 mile run: 15:12 or less in running shoes
-Pull-ups: 6 reps (palms facing in)
-this is the standard regardless of age
3. Combat Water Survival Test (CWST)
-15 meter swin w/BDUs, boots, LBE, and rifle
-3 meter drop (with rifle and blind-fold)
-equipment removal (underwater)
4. 5 mile run in 40 minutes (completed in formation): completed during Week 1 only
5. 3 mile buddy run: with boots, BDUs, LBE, and rifle. Completed with a partner (you must be able to touch your partner at any given time). Completed in 30 minutes. During Week 1 only.
6. Day and Night Land Nav Test (individual) During Week 1.
7. Obstacle Course: don't know what to say about that... either you can do it or you can't. Can't remember if that was during Week 1 or at Camp Darby.
8. There are a number of other tasks you will complete during weeks 2 and 3 at Camp Darby, but they are no big deal. The patrols are what you need to concentrate on.
9. Ranger School is gonna suck. There's no way around it. Your muscles are going to atrophe due to lack of nutrition (you'll know it when you start smelling like ammonia... some of you will experience that in OCS), and your immune system is going to break down for a while. Your fingers and toes will be numb for a while. You will need about 6 months to recover from this school (no, I don't mean 6 months of bed rest). Everybody had their own plan before Ranger School to beat the atrophe problem. Mine was to get fat on donuts while still being able to complete the PT tasks (they don't care about height/weight regs there). In the end, I still lost muscle mass.
10. Meals: you get 2 per day now. In garrison, you get to eat in the dining facility. In the field, MREs. Don't worry, you'll still be hungry.
11. Sleep: about 4 hrs per day in garrison depending on how good your class is at getting things done. In the field, about 2 hrs per day. Sometimes, your Instructors will put you in a "clandestine patrol base" when the students are so tired, they become untrainable. That means everybody goes to sleep for about 4 hours uninterrupted (after a while, four hours will feel like you slept all day). Don't worry about the whole sleep thing. Your body will acclimate to it after a while.
12. Tobacco is no longer allowed. It was once allowed during summer phase, but they finally outlawed it all together. Gum is allowed though.
13. How bad it sucks... I said this in another post "My Life in OCS." You will hear from other Ranger School graduates about how bad their lives were, or some scary story that happened to them. Don't combine all those stories into one big story that will be your life in Ranger School. You'll experience some bad things, but you won't experience ALL the things you heard from everybody else you talked to. For me, the worst and scariest day of Ranger School (same as OCS) was the first day when I walked through the gate to inprocess, because I did not know what to expect. After that, it became "just another day." Also, remember... (and this applies to OCS as well) when you feel like you want to quit, just tell yourself "I'll do it one more day." Do that everyday until you graduate. When you're bored or when you need to stay awake, make a small list in your notepad of all the things you will do when you graduate down to the detail (what movies you want to see, what restaurants you will eat at, and what you will order there). Although life will suck there, just remember, everybody else there will be going through exactly what you will be going through... you're not doing it alone.
14. DO NOT show up with any type of Ranger t-shirt. And if you bring your POV, DO NOT show up with any Ranger stickers or license plates on your car. The Ranger Instructors will supervise while each and every student parks his car in the gated parking lot.
15. You CAN, however, keep a Ranger Tab tucked inside your cap or in your pocket as a reminder of why you are there.
16. Have some kind of outside support group going for when you get your 3-4 hour pass at the end of Benning Phase. They will be able to do your laundry and fix your stuff while you sleep (or have sex, for some of you). And they can have all the food you want (like pizza) already there for you when you get released. I found that the National Guard was real good about doing that for their guys (except for the sex part). My wife did everything for me, except show up on time.
17. Some of you will get fat when you graduate. During our last week, outprocessing week (this week is easy), they gave us a bunch of Ranger School "Miller Time" t-shirts. They were all in X-Large. They said, "don't worry. You'll get fat and grow into them."
18. This is something for the wives of future Ranger graduates. Your husbands may leave there in a wierd state of mind. They may act unusual, like they don't care about anything. They may not want to have sex for a while either. My wife became suspicious after a while. She called some of my friends' wives to ask if their husbands were the same way; and they said yes. Don't worry about it. This may last about a month (for some, longer). Nonetheless, it'll pass. Just give them time. But it's best you know it now.
19. I know this is a lot of information to put out. And some may wonder what this has to do with OCS. Once I knew I was branched Infantry (before I even went to OCS), all I could think about was Ranger School. And by that, I mean, "Oh my God. I gotta go to Ranger School. I'm scared sh*tless." Everyday until I went, this feeling hung over my head. So, this message is meant to open some of your eyes and dispel some of your fears. Let me tell you what my Ranger Tab did for me. I am no longer afraid of any "this sucks" school the Army has to offer: SERE (POW school), SFAS, SCUBA (although it has it's own unique difficulties that makes it suck), etc. What it did was build my confidence, because I am no longer afraid of a life that sucks (except Staff Duty). For those who are interested about Ranger School, or what life is like throughout your pipeline Infantry training, I would be happy to open up a chat forum. As far as life in an Infantry platoon, I would like to get some other Infantry PLs on board to discuss that issue. My life as a PL is at NTC, different from other PLs at 82nd, 10th Mountain, 1st Cav, etc. We all have different experiences in that field.
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I've heard about the legendary pancakes in Mountain phase!!! I should be going to school rather quickly once getting to the Regiment.
:mp5:
