The newest Rangers Trainees

[Bcar]

If peering was in, bravo. Not an easy task. I still think there are others issues besides the physical that will make it a challenge integrating combat units, but if they want it and their unit(s) are OK with it, do it, do it.

[Gepeto]

After you graduate from Ranger School, are you part of the 75th Ranger Regiment?

You do not automatically go to the 75th from the ranger training brigade.
Your permanent party Post is predetermined as part of the selection process.
Where you go if you do get through and where you go if you don’t are dialed in beforehand.

In my day, the Post after failure was not good for noncoms.
Gun Bunnies - loading toed 105mm howitzer rounds in TX or OK or if you had security clearance you ended up at a missile silo at some nasty outpost. More motivation not to fail.

Where you go after graduation is determined by your MOS (military occupational specialty). Whatever your trained skill set was before RS will be how you are utilized under a new command.

I'd like to know more about "recycles". what does that mean?

You fail to complete something; an obstacle, a run, a march.
You are continually harassed to quit, give up and walk away.
If you don't succumb to the abuse and you still can't get through an obstacle for reasons other than mental/emotional, you are given the opportunity to rest and recover until the next class reaches the portion you failed and join that new class.

You cannot recycle over and over. You can recycle more than once, but you can't fail for the same reason or at the same part of the course.

Common reasons for recycling were foot blisters, broken bones, shin splints, and lacerations that don’t heal or get infected. I came close to recycling for blisters across the very top of my arch and still sport the scars.

you say that RS isn't what it was but then you mention biting the heads off chickens. Do we need more chicken-head-biting? Or is it good that there's less now?

One of the last big obstacles was a three day insertion. 3 Man teams were dropped with a live chicken strapped to the back of your ruck with the beak taped closed along with 80# of everything else and a map with a start and end point. Each night, you kill 1 chicken and make a meal for the 3 of you. Blood and bones for soup and the meat shared between the 3 of you. We also had the equivalent of mre's with us.

The training for this exercise included the biting off of a chickens' head. It was considered a major right of passage and the obstacle was done the week before graduation.

For better or worse, I'm told this obstacle is no more.

what is a "challenge coin"?

A challenge coin used to be given as part of graduation. It was given by senior cadre and was not an official thing. If you were wearing civvies and someone challenged your ranger status, you produce the coin. Typically slammed on a flat surface and the protagonist is supposed to provide libation until you and whoever you choose are satisfied. At 19yo and making $571.50 a month - this was a big deal.

It also sealed the bond between the training cadre and trainee. You hated most of them for at least the first phase, but the relationship improves and the coin sealed the deal.

is RS more rigorous than back in the day, or less?

The tab has come to connote prestige and (solders) try RS because of the perceived status. My unit (1/75^th) stood up (ready state) in 1974. Prior ranger companies were disbanded in 72 and stopped training in 69. Known as LRRP’s - Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) during Vietnam. Very Badass.

A Ranger Tab did not have the cachet outside of the military in the 70’s that it does now.

How has it changed?
You had to have the rank of Sergeant or Spec5 (E-5) and 24 months of service and you had to have a qualifying MOS for nomination. You couldn’t volunteer to be a ranger at your local recruiting center.

I ran 30k a day for the first 4 weeks. Dropped a lot of bodies quickly. Trucks would follow the platoons to pick up the quitters. Packed up and gone before we returned to the barracks. 7000k in 48 months.

Now there is RASP (ranger assessment and selection program) which is 8 weeks of PT+ and gets you ready for what's to come. You went through jump school as you went through RS with a 5 jump requirement to graduate. Now you go through jump school during RASP.

Sleep deprivation was a cornerstone, 40hrs on the move and 5-8hrs sleep. Lots of long duration physical demands in the first 30 hours with HO shorter duration action along with mental gymnastics tossed at you towards the end of each period.
I hear its 24 on and 5 sleep with only a few long duration sleep dep trials now.

We took salt tablets with every meal.
I passed out a few times in the first weeks from skipping meals to sleep.

This type of shit does not happen anymore. There is much more data now; nutrition, biomechanics, bla-bla. So the effort to break you down and rebuild you is entirely different.

The same result?

Wet finger in the air reckoning - mental acuity higher now maybe - as tough maybe not, but going until your fucked maybe ain't such a good idea after all.

[iceman]

Gotcha. Hard to say what's really more effective overall but the badass factor has been diminished. Pity at least in a way.

I knew a guy who had been a LRRP in Vietnam. That guy had the thousand-yard stare for sure. He didn't talk much, but when he talked about it one time he described how, when they got picked up, the chopper pilots made them ride on the <skids?> (not sure of the term) outside the chopper because they stunk so bad, the uniforms rotting off them. And then when they got dropped off, walking though the base and people just clearing a path. Everybody knew not to mess. Lost track of that guy but he was somebody I'd take on my team.

[Meathelmet]

[SIZE=3]

I ran 30k a day for the first 4 weeks. Dropped a lot of bodies quickly. Trucks would follow the platoons to pick up the quitters. Packed up and gone before we returned to the barracks. 7000k in 48 months.

Thank you for a really interesting reading! This just got me thinkin...like how the hell? I mean even if that is KMs and not miles, that is 210km a week?? And it is not the psych part that I am baffled about but how the hell did the body hold up?? That is like...damn. Forced march or just plain running, with the footwear you had? Shit, one can not run 10km without getting your skin torn off with mil boots, let alone do that 24/7/30 and not have total gimp squad?

[snoqpass]

OTPHJ's are the rage this month.

She is going to Bangkok for the Fists of Fury Tournament

[old goat]

I'm fairly certain that both those Rangers would beat the shit out of you with their hands

I'm fairly certain my wife could beat the shit out of me with her hands. It wouldn't take much.

As far as chicken head biting off--does that make Ozzy Osbourne a Ranger--I mean bats are tougher than chickens and carry rabies.

[wooley12]

I'm curious as you were in the same battalion as my father was in, do todays Ranger feel any kinship/link/history with the Rangers of WWII?

[iceman]

I don't now shit but I know the answer is no. You want 20-year-olds to honor guys from 50 years ago. If asked they would give the right answer of course but come on. Yes they respect their elders, no they don't know a thing about them outside of the Ranger history lesson that I'm sure they give,.

[Gepeto]

This just got me thinkin...like how the hell? and not have total gimp squad?

Kilometers -- Yea, 30 klicks a day, 7 days a week seems like bat shit nuts, but it’s not all that. 7000k in 4 years is only 30+ a week spread out evenly. The 16 weeks surrounding RS, I ran, marched or crawled more than 2000k.

So you rise and run 3k to chow. Calisthenics while waiting in the chow line. Which can easily be 30min of push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, squat thrusts then finally 20 pull-ups to get into mess. By this time you are fkn ravenous. Digest 20min (best part of the day-after formal meals), then run 7k to a class - 30 minutes of booby trap ID & fab - get on it again - 5k to the short obstacle course. That's 15k done and it’s just 9:30am. So it sounds redic, but it’s not all that once it becomes routine. It’s the first week that is the MF.

After the first 4 weeks, you don’t run anywhere near as much, just to and from all the torture, plus the 10k routine in the morning. Also the stand around time gets significantly shorter (less calisthenics) because there aren't 455 mouths to feed anymore. We lost at least 200 bodies in the first 10 days.

The hardest part is staying nourished and hydrated. A water buffalo (water tank trailer) follows or is already at wherever you stop. After the first week, you’re running with gear so you always have a canteen – that’s usually empty and you’re looking for the water buffalo. (BTW: this is all happening in Georgia). You put candy and the like in chest pockets and you need shit that won’t melt. M&M’s were very popular. I loved the white, pink and black coated licorice, can’t remember the name.

You stepped on a real important part. I could do 10 paragraphs on just boots. Combat boots are what made it suck and gave lots of guy’s fits. Blisters put a lot of guys out and there was no crazy glue for a fix. Even regular army PT was done in boots. Not so today.

We were issued 2 pair of jump boots, one for inspection and drill and one for running. Jump boots have a little more lateral support and are easier to break in. The hardest thing was flushing the salt out of the leather and no amount of polish could hide it. Hot water and hand rub or toothbrush the salt out. Eventually your running boot got real malleable and could almost be called comfortable. It was the laces part that killed me. You need to run them tighter as the boot got softer and the leather tongue would wrinkle and pinch your skin until it cut. Way more tolerable than a blister though.

The high top boot run tight is what caused such a high incidence of shin splints. Your calves get strong and grow above the boot and eventually start pulling away as they mushroom over the boot top giving you very painful shin splints. I have pretty skinny looking calves and though I suffered from SS, it was nowhere near the suffering of someone with meaty calves. A lot of guys cycled out do to SS. Lots of the training cadre had the same problem and couldn’t do the long distance stuff.

My first two years didn’t net me 1500k total, basic training and light PT in a covert op hidden in an artillery group/3^rd Corp (3-5k - 4 days a week).

Ranger battalions run constantly. You (your company/4 squads of 12) are on station (meaning ready to fly) in 96hr intervals. What do you do when you can’t go anywhere? You run – they ran us into the ground – in Boots!
Epson salt baths, creams, those stupid sanding pads, sand paper. Concoctions from aunt jemima in Arkansas. Safety razor blades snapped in half so you could carve the callouses in to shape. Not a lot of fleshy feet in a ranger squad. You lived in flip-flops any time you could. Trench foot or athletes foot was worse than malaria. There was a designated shower head and shitter for guys with athletes foot.

So 5000k from July of 78 to Nov of 80. That’s just under 42k a week.

I was a walking set of lungs that had trouble spelling my first name which is only 4 characters. I was also the finest weapon the US Army could produce.

RLTW

This should make you laugh. When running, if the formation got to loose and spread out over say 1/8 mile, we would stop for cigarette breaks and reform. I smoked Kool Filter Kings at the time. I can still hear the coughing

[LightRanger]

^^^ Hah. That last part is entertaining.

130 miles/week is serious mileage. I ran XC in college and only some of the guys peaked at that mileage (granted, likely faster pace). I can't even begin to imagine the horrors that kind of mileage would do to your feet in 70s era combat boots. Fuck that shit.

Thanks for sharing the fascinating background Gepeto.

[wooley12]

Ice, I'm often like a lawyer. I don't ask a question that I don't know the answer to. I doubt my dad thought much about Rogers' Rangers either. And a non answer is a good answer and I respect that. I never was a warrior myself, but I've been friends with a few from in every war since WWII. And every one of them said their outfit was the meanest, toughest outfit on the planet. My dad thought the troops in the ME had it easier than he did in the ETO. In many ways he was right.

There was an active duty Ranger in the color guard at my fathers and he was misty eyed is why I asked. That and I've done 100 hours of research on the Rangers in the last month.

Edit to say "Honor" wasn't a word I used on purpose.

[old goat]

The Rangers and Pointe du Hoc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_du_Hoc

[iceman]

Ice, I'm often like a lawyer. I don't ask a question that I don't know the answer to.

Well then unlike you I generally ask questions because I want to learn something.

[Tippster]

Well then unlike you I generally ask questions because I want to learn something.

Yeah, me too. Otherwise you just come across like an ass.

[highangle]

The Rangers and Pointe du Hoc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_du_Hoc

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-hurtgen-forest.htm

http://www.2ndrangerbattalion.org/ETO.html

http://hurtgen1944.homestead.com/

[wooley12]

I hope I sounded more like an ass than I am but you never know. What I meant was that based on a few times trying to connect with modern Rangers, they've been reluctant. I get it.

And because we all have trouble communicating here, myself admittedly more than most but " kinship/link/history " did not equate to "honoring" in my mind when I wrote it. But that's how you read it. I think.

I'm reading up on the Guma Moroccan soldiers that fought along side the Rangers. My dad said they were truly crazy, fierce and feared. Savages. Liked to kill with a blade and then rape and pillage.

[XavierD]

There is no real connection between the 75th Ranger Regiment and Ranger School.

The 75th Ranger Regiment is the world's premier light infantry unit. If you need someone to conduct a raid, these guys are the best there is right now. It is current (and historical) policy of the 75th Ranger Regiment to require that all leaders have a ranger tab (awarded at Ranger School).

Ranger School is the world's best and most intense combat leadership school. It is a suck fest that last a minimum of 62ish days. Many students (to include these two) take significantly longer. Traditionally the school has been reserved for leaders in combat MOSs. In the past it has required a waiver for non combat MOSs. Neither of these Female Officers are in a combat MOS.

I personally know several people who have been involved in this process (to include Instructors, and other Students). These two Soldiers earned their tab. period full stop.

I doubt there will be a significant issue with further integration if/when it happens. The female soldiers who are willing to do so are not the type to use their gender as an excuse. You generally won't find them bitching about glass ceiling bullshit since they are usually already working several floors above it. while this was happening I was doing dismounted patrolling exercises in another country with a local female forward observer. We were walking up and down mountains, through bogs, with combat loads. She was far from the weakest link in the group.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Isn't there some kind of additional course for officers and senior NCO's?
That sounds not fun.

[XavierD]

For Ranger School? No.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Ok then.

[flatlander#2]

One of my childhood friends went through Ranger School after West Point. He came out to Colorado to go backpacking with us for a few before going to Panama. We'd be hiking along, he's hammering a hard clip, I put most of my shit in his pack. Stop for a water break and he smokes, I know, habit he says. Said it helped with the hunger and the sleep thing.

One of my cousins graduated at top and went on to spooky things, 79-99. Retired and is still a spooky spooky fuck.