Finished RANGER School More To Follow

Too Dumb To Quit- Ranger School

After completing RAP week we were immediately thrown into classes for squad level patrolling. The detailed required to brief an OPORD was unreal and even for an officer straight out of school where we learned the process, it was like drinking from a fire hydrant. After a few days of classes we were moved onto cadre led patrols, which are very helpful and detrimental to learning the right way to conduct a patrol. The constant change of what is expected from each RI reduces the confidence of everyone, even an SF E7.  Graded patrols began before any of us thought we were ready, and guess who was the first one up. Being the first is not always a good thing especially when everyone is nervous and unsure what to expect. I will spare you the details, but we got 6 NO-GO's that day. Something I want to touch on is the RI AAR's don't look into them too much. I think part of the RI's job is to play mind games with the students. In this case, they tell you it was a good patrol with small imperfections, but "keep doing what you are doing and you will be just fine", which translates to you failed miserably and I just want to see you squirm.

Movements were very easy during Darby IF you have a good route and point man. You will rarely travel further than 3 or 4 kilometers through sparse woods. There are exceptions to this, and if you do not plan a good route you will suffer. There are erosion ditches that are 100 ft deep as well as swamps with mud that will go up to your chest, but you will rarely encounter this if you just pay attention to your terrain on the map recon.

The lanes will be almost exactly the same every time if you are transported to your infiltration point or walk there. Usually they will begin with indirect fire within the first one hundred meters inside enemy territory. After reacting to indirect fire you will move out of the area FAST (let me stress fast because its part of your grade). Once you are in a safe area you will get a head count and pinpoint your position on the map so that you can continue your mission. After moving out within a few hundred meters you will get hit by the OPFOR and you will have to REACT-TO-CONTACT, again another grading point. Again after consolidation and pinpointing you will move on to your ORP.

The ORP will almost never be taken by force, unless time is the issue. After setting up your ORP leadership will change and the second leadership will finish the mission. BTL will stay back for ORP security (easiest way to get a Go) and wait for further directions from the SL. After completing the mission (either a Recon or Ambush) you will move back to Camp Darby.

Movement at night with shitty night vision is a little difficult for guys who do not use NOD's very often. Most leaders overlook this portion on the patrol, but it is a portion of your grade. Keep good noise and light discipline and get your squad back to Darby quickly. There is a link up that you will have to do either to get onto a truck or to walk into Darby, its not difficult, just look at your Ranger Handbook and you will be fine.

The rest of the night will be dedicated to weapons maintenance, equipment accountability, and preparing for the next days mission. After all priorities of work have been completed you will be allowed to eat and sleep, some times 15 min. It is key to get back to Darby quickly and complete all of your tasks to get some sleep, do that and you can get 3 hours of sleep a night, that makes a world of difference on Go's and No-Go's. I could go on and on about tips and suggestions but I do not have a platform to stand on, because I have not successfully completed Ranger School. I do have a AAR for Ranger School from a friend who was the DMG, that will help more than I can.

I will beheading off next week for my second go at Ranger School, I hope to go through first time but I will stay as long as it takes because I am too stupid to quit. The tab means to much to me, my men and my career progression. I hope to be writing you next time as an Airborne Ranger. My wife will be updating with help from my letters, thank you for following and your comments.

Trial and Tribulation- Ranger School

Ranger School in the Infantry is the Holy Grail and you will never be a good leader without your tab, or at least that is what is ingrained into our heads during IBOLC. For the 16 weeks we were in IBOLC, Ranger School was the focus of training and the topic of every conversation. The result of all the pressure and expectations made Ranger School weigh heavily on every ones mind.
Although there is a ora of apprehension towards Ranger School, it is something that you do for the men you about to lead not for yourself. Many graduates have told me that Ranger School prepared them for the hardships of combat and the high stress situations that will arise.

Well to get down to it. I failed. I did not even get out of Darby, after 48 days of being in Ranger School it abruptly ended. I was sent home for failing patrols. Well now that's out we can get to the real purpose of this post, letting people know what Ranger School is like and how not to fail out.

Preparation
  For IBOLC graduates we do not have to complete a Pre-Ranger Course, because IBOLC is set up as a PRC. That being said due to the poor results the previous LT's had at Ranger School during RAP week, HHC conducted their own RAP week. There is no reason to go into great detail about the HHC RAP week so I'll just list the events and a short excerpt.

Day 1 RPFT- To qualify for Ranger School: 49 PUSH UPS, 59 SIT UPS, 40MIN 5MILE RUN, 6 PULL UPS.

Day 2 LAND NAV- 5 out of 6 points to pass.

Day 3 RUCK- 65lbs in under 3 hours.

After the RAP week we were put on an OML and told we might not make it if we were low on it. I think the point was for us to sweat it out, but I was #2 and knew they were full of shit, long story short everyone that passed RAP week went to Ranger School.
My IBOLC class got about 10 days to relax before going to the 62 day course.

I will finish the Ranger School post on the next post so that its not too long.

Airborne

Airborne......So far the best Army course I have been to in certain respects. The Airborne Sergeants and company command of Bravo Company have the course running like a well oiled machine. This is also the first time that I have been treated like an  adult let alone an officer, the cadre and the students show respect for officers and NCO's.

Ground Week


You begin the course with a PT test, which you have to pass at the 18-21 year old category.

42 Push Ups
52 Sit Ups
15 min 54 sec or less on the 2 mile run.

During Ground Week you learn how to execute Parachute Landing Falls or PLF's for short. A PLF is exactly what it sounds like... the way you are taught to fall when you hit the ground, except that it is completely unatural. All week long you will practice these, in gravel rocks, all the while wearing a ACH. You will practice PLF's in slow motion, by the numbers, holding that damn helmet up with your head as you lay on the ground trying not to let your neck go into muscle failure. You will realize why paratroopers say that a ACH weighs 10,000 lbs. You also practice PLF's from off of a small wall about 2-3 feet high, and then you'll move on to the Lateral Drift Apparatus, a zip line type thing which you will perform PLF's off of (It's not very high), its funny to see some everyone drop for the first time unsure how bad it will hurt. You will bunny hop in line, sideways, keeping toe to toe and heel to heel contact until it's your turn to do PLF's to strengthen your leg muscles.


You'll do PT in the mornings just like anywhere else, but the PT is not challenging. You run to go run. Never in Airborne School will you walk anywhere. If you're PT for that day is to go for a run, you will form up and double time to the start point of the run.... and THEN your run will begin. All runs are formation runs that are never faster than 9 minute mile pace, it wears on your shins.

During this week you will also perform mock jumps out of a 34 ft. tower while being connected to a zip line that simulates lateral movement out of the aircraft and across a "DZ". You'll practice doing this "Hollywood" style (no ruck sack or weapon, and you'll also do it rigged up with combat equipment, which you have to lower before you get to the end of the zip line. Having jumped out of a plane I now know that this does not replicate exiting the plane at all. If you're to scared to jump from that, you'll be to scared to jump from an aircraft.

TOWER WEEK

The second week is Tower Week, where you will use the Swing Landing Trainer to perform PLF's from a little higher than the first zipline you used in Ground Week. (I think you're on a 12' ledge, not sure of the height though.) The Black Hat has control of your harness at all times, and he'll drop you on your ass when you are at the apex of the swing.

Our course was one of the shortest due to multiple 4 day weekends, so we only had 10 training days including jump week. Due to the shortened course we did not drop from the 250' towers, although we did get a demo of shoot malfunctions from the tower (I hope that no one falls from that height because I think the dummy bounced 5 feet in the air after hitting).


JUMP WEEK

Finally it is Jump Week, this is what you've been training for. You'll get a chance to make five successful jumps from an Aircraft while in flight. Your first jump will be the biggest rush you've ever gotten in your life. Every day that you jump, you will run in formation wearing your ACH, ACU's and boots to the harness shed. It sucks, and I think it's close to two miles but it's not that bad.

Jump week was only 3 days long for me, we did 2 jumps on Sunday, 2 on Monday and 1 on Tuesday (one of which was an un official night jump). I was selected as a chalk leaders so I had my first experience of keeping privates in line. One private who will remain anonymize made the biggest bone head move I have ever seen.

The worst part about jump week is the weather and sitting in the harness shed for hours on end, waiting for the skies to part so that you can jump. While waiting you cannot touch your equipment or any part of your body after being JMPIed by a Jump Master, did I mention you cannot sleep or talk either. So after sitting in the shed for 6 hours without talking or moving everyone gets a little antsy, especially joe. The particular joe I spoke of before had to you the latrine but did not want to disturb the Jump Masters to recheck him. Instead of taking the tongue lashing he ripped a whole in his pants and filled two cups. He tried to hide the cup with the drinking cups and the 1SG caught him, needless to say he was removed from the course. 

All in all I enjoyed the course, it can be mundane and tedious at times but it is a very well ran course with great NCO's. The jumps were a lot of fun and I got a taste of being the leader of a 30 man group (which I loved even if I had little to do or authority). Don't worry no one died and everyone had fun jumping. 

Airborne!

http://youtuOsWUc

This is all I have to say about Airborne.

Week- 15-16 Graduation

The day after we returned from Leaders Forge we spent the entire day, from 0600-2000 cleaning weapons and then repeated the process the next day. I have not been in the Army very long but I do not think that making your company clean weapons for 28 hours is taking care of soldiers that have been in the field for 10 days, but again I am new. After the overkill cleaning we were finally given a break. The next week was a series of briefs and classes.
Graduation was low key, short and sweet just the way I like it. It was nice to get the coveted blue cord, I finally felt like I had accomplished something in the Army. I was also able to get myself onto the Commandants list even though I managed to do poorly on some quiz's.
IBOLC was a great course, I learned so much from the cadre and my peers. After spending a little time at Darby (Ranger School), I believe that it is IBOLC that is the premiere leadership school in the Army.

Week 14 & 15- Leaders Forge

The culmination of all our training and hard work went into the 10 day FTX they branded Leader Forge. This is the "light at the end of the tunnel" and up to this point about half of the platoon still needs graded patrols. Like most of the course the weather was not cooperating, the heat index was in the 100's each day and after loosing 13 guys to heat casualty again, we moved to reverse ops (missions at night and sleeping during the day).

The kickoff event to the exercise was the platoon live fire exercise. This was a realistic platoon sized assault on a bunker, with an elevated support by fire and an enemy counter attack. This was one of the best training days of the cycle because it was real and a real life scenario that we could relate to. The cadre dedicate hours of training for the event before we event step onto the range for the dry run. After a few re-cocks and the blank fire validation, oh yeah and an incident with an unexploded 60mm mortar round, we were ready. My squad was tasked to clear the trench and I got to be the first one in the trench so I was extremely excited, finally real trigger time. Like anything else the exercise didn't go according to plan. Although we were the first squad and fire team in the trench, we were only supposed to clear until we were stretched too thin to continue. Upon reaching the berm before the trench, one of our squad members was pulled off the course for a safety violation, so our already undermanned squad was down one more. The PL at the time then instructed us to clear the entire trench system by ourselves, so myself and 2 others cleared a large trench without support. I was lead on every turn so I got to make almost every shot, it was the coolest thing I did in IBOLC. After clearing the trench we exited the back and were hit by an enemy counter attack, our security squad made short work of the targets and our platoon successfully complete the live fire with just a few hick ups.

Due to the extreme heat and losing 1 or 2 guys per mission we began operating at night. This was the first time that the leadership was given the full reigns and the freedom to develop their own course of action. The missions were now more elaborate and the intelligence collected built the next mission, it made things more interesting. Almost everyone who stepped into a leadership role ended up getting the mission completed, some need a little help from their supporting leadership, but thats what it is all about. The platoon was operating with 2 rifle squads with a weapons squads and the HQ's element. The PL had the option to select their RTO and sometimes their PSG for the mission. During our 5 days of patrols and about 20 leadership positions, I was PSG for 8, RTO for 6 and Weapons Squad Leader for 1 mission, I was exhausted by the last mission. The opportunity to be in leadership that much taught me so much about platoon level operations and also how to motivate people when they are tired. We did not only learn doctrine, instead our cadre and prior service students taught us their unit SOP's that made more sense and worked better than the cut and dry standard.

Leaders Forge was very demanding on your body, conduction missions 24hours a day and getting only 2 hours of sleep at the most. The basic load was about 65lbs, that is if you were not carrying squad equipment which only leadership did not, if you were on the weapons squad your load could be 115lbs. During the 10 days in the field I lost 10lbs and some lost more. It was a good assessment and preparation for ranger school.  As hard as the week was it brought the platoon closer together and by the end we were well meshed and working great together.

Week 13- COIN Operation

All tactics can be implemented in some form or fashion in today's battlefield, but the Counter Insurgency approach is the policy to this war. I had only read about the system and had not really herd an in depth discussion about it. The best tool was our Platoon Tac, who was assigned to a major city right out of Ranger school, and his duties were to be a mayor, economist, contractor for projects and their protector. It was great getting first hand account of what programs and approaches worked for him.

Mon- Stability and Coin Operations with a really good intelligence brief.

Tue-Tactics on employing COIN in stability, offensive and defensive postures.

Wed- Intel driven operations. This was very interesting and insightful. As a PL you do not have significant impact on the large picture, unless you gather good intel from your area that can later be used to support an operation.

Thursday- OPORD's ...... Enough said

Friday- 12 Mile Ruck March. This was a little more difficult than anticipated, at 0400 it was 104 degree heat index and the humidity was so bad it felt like a sauna.

Week 12- Urban Operations

Hollywood

Urban Operations was the funnest week during IBOLC, we got to bust in doors and look like Hollywood commandos clearing rooms, killing bad guys and high fiving after words. I had never cleared a room let alone done any urban operations, so I was ready to learn. Due to the 4th of July holiday it was a short week and they crammed it all into 5 days. The first two days were instruction and they built up from what each individual in the stack does all the way up to how to clear a complicated multi level building with a platoon. Most of my instructors had served in Iraq multiple times, so they have cleared a few buildings, and you could tell that this was their bread and butter. Everyone was very enthusiastic and training and rehearsals went great. The third and fourth days were 24hr operations and I got my first taste of 48+ hours without sleep. I was again asked to be RTO for a few missions and again I learned more than I would have if I would just been on the line. The missions had a real life feel to them and everyone took them serious, the whole week was a great success until the last mission, when everyone was tired. To briefly set it up, we had two of our platoon members that were taken by the enemy and our mission was to retrieve them. We had to leave one squad to guard a gigantic 3-story building and then take the remaining squads to conduct the mission. Well after securing our MIA's we preceded back to the building were our security squad had been sleeping. The OPFOR took over the building and we were in for a rude surprise, we had to retake the building, with only 20 guys. It was kind of a disaster, but we got our first taste of the repercussions for falling asleep on duty. 

The week went great and I learned so much about the urban environment and the added risk of operating inside it. In an urban environment it is 3 dimensional and you have to be looking everywhere and planning for the capabilities the enemy can gain from it. 

Week 11- Defensive Operations

Classroom!!!

After being in the field for a solid week it was nice to get a little break and I enjoyed it until about 1200 Monday after our first round of PowerPoint’s. The week was pretty low key but we still had to complete a dreaded OPORD by Thursday. Enemy Analysis, what you think the enemies possible and probable courses of actions, was stressed this week and rightfully so. For our operation we were assaulting a village to secure a set of buildings, and knowing the defenses that the enemy might emplace had a huge impact on our planning. The classes will not get you all of the information that you will need for your OPORD so this week I had to do a little studying defensive operations. Wednesday night into Thursday was a little crazy, all OPORD's had to be completed on Thursday and we had the 10 mile ruck march that began at 0200 on Thursday as well, to top it all off we had to take a major exam Thursday morning after the ruck. There were a few (most) guys that were up for about 48 hours. I guess the only lesson is time management, but who is really great at that.

Week 10- Platoon STX

HEAT CAT!!!!

Rough week we had 5 consecutive days of 100+ degree-days, conduction 24-hour missions...pretty good glimpse into Ranger School.  After the 4th guy went down it was a rude awakening for everyone that we were just going to have to put our heads down and push through.

Platoon STX was a great learning experience and a good gauge of where you need to improve. The missions were never very tough, short distances only a few thousand meters total from patrol base to objective to patrol base. Moving through the woods in Georgia for me was very easy because I grew up in the Ozark Mountains, which are much thicker and have greater elevation changes. The amount of equipment that we carried took a little getting used to; the basic load was more than 60 lbs. After the first round of guys from our weapons squad went down as heat casualties, I took their gear (bad idea) my new load weighed over 100 pounds with the tripod, extra barrel and 400 rounds of 7.62. It gave me a newfound respect for our weapons squad and what they have to do, I remembered that when it was my turn as PL and moving them from place to place. During platoon STX it seemed like if I was not carrying the AG equipment I was carrying the radio as the RTO for the acting PL, this was great because I got to help guys out on their missions and I also learned a lot about what the cadre were looking for. Typically how our platoon and most platoons run missions is as follows; you are in a patrol base that was established by the previous PL, then the new PL is called forward to begin the planning phase. The OPORD that is given to you is not in the strict format that you are used to as a cadet, you will have to do some thinking and ask some questions to get all of the information that you will need, don’t worry your PSG and RTO are present and can help you out with anything you might miss. Depending on the type of mission and the time allocated you will either have more than enough time to plan or no time at all. For my mission I took over command after someone was fired before the planning phase was complete and my mission was to act as a QRF, so I had to hash out a detailed plan on the fly, it ended up working to my advantage. After your planning is done and you give your OPORD you will step off and begin movement, the next portion is flexible. Some times leadership would change right after you stepped off other times they would wait a little while to see if your plan was working to switch it up. I got to run my mission up until after receiving contact and reconsolidation, so I kind of got to do actions on. Depending on the situation you take command before actions of the OBJ, at that time you do a leaders huddle and receive any information from the previous leadership that you might need. You have the ability to change or tweak the plan to fit what you want to do, and don’t be afraid to do that if you are not comfortable with the way it was briefed, but make sure that everyone knows your plan. The new PL then leads the platoon through actions on and consolidates to move on to the follow on mission or to the next patrol base. Most of the time we fit in an AAR for the entire mission including the two leadership positions. Next the new PL takes over and leads the platoon to set up a patrol base and then transfers over command to the next planning PL. Most things that you do in patrolling were learned in the classroom during ROTC, OCS or West Point; you just improve and hone those skills with the information you learn in the IBOLC classroom. There are prior service guys as well as a few high speeds that you will pick up very helpful ways of doing things you can put in your proverbial tool bag. 

Things I Learned or Should Have Learned:

Machine gun emplacement and capabilities. Your weapons squad is your platoons main firepower, they possess the highest casualty producing weapons, so use them and use them well. Know how they are emplaced, what they have to do to set up a SBF (support by fire line) and the capabilities they have. 

How to rely on others. There are guys in your platoon that can help you out and can make or break your grade, so even if you get a weaker leader in a SL or even PSG position, there are others that will help him out to complete the mission.

Lead don’t micromanage. Not everyone is a stupid cadet anymore we were all taught the basic infantryman tactics and tasks, let them act on them. 

Always put forth your best effort. The guys will notice when you are always helping, lending advice (not to be confused with telling him how he should conduct his own mission), carry your own weight and then some when you can so that your buddy can rest for a while. 

Have fun. Even though we were sleep deprived and wore down I was still having fun, because yet again I realized I am getting paid to shoot guns and play in the woods with friends.