Ranger School

Ranger School

Copied from a LinkedIn feed.

By Wes Cochrane

7 Years Ago I Graduated from Ranger School—Here are 7 Life Lessons that Remain with me to this Day

Seven years ago this week, on March 4th, 2011, I graduated from the U.S. Army’s Ranger School. Frequently, Ranger School is touted as the Army’s best leadership training and one of the most grueling experiences a soldier can endure, short of actual combat. The 62-day ordeal simulates the harsh, austere environment of combat. The school is designed to teach soldiers, NCOs, and Officers how to lead combat units successfully, under immense stress, with limited resources, while facing challenging terrain and a determined enemy. Trainees can expect to get 0-5 hours of sleep per night and consume 2 meals per day. Ranger grads laugh at the story that has made its way around over the years about a soldier, deployed to Vietnam, who woke up in a cold sweat one night, having just had a nightmare. The soldier looked about and sighed with relief, “Oh, thank God. It’s only Vietnam. I thought I was in back in Ranger School.”

Ranger School was one of the toughest seasons of my life. As I reflect back on the experience 7 years later, I’ve come up with 7 lessons that have stuck with me since.

FIRST. At some point, we just need to show up.

No one really wants to go to Ranger School. It’s absolutely dreadful. I still have the occasional anxiety dream about being back there, leading a patrol. But, we all acquiesced and showed up. Nothing could substitute for simply beginning the experience.

In life, talk is easy. Real credit goes to those who, ready or not, put themselves out there and take a shot at their goals. Often the momentum of merely beginning a new mission, task, initiative, or endeavor is sometimes just the spark you need to continue it. No magic amount of training or preparation can substitute for breaking that coefficient of friction and getting the ball rolling.

SECOND. More “readiness” and “preparation” is not always the answer.

Ranger School is immensely physically demanding. It’s no surprise that candidates preparing for it spend hours ruck marching under heavy loads, performing body-weight exercises like pull-ups and pushups, hitting compound lifts in the gym, and churning out 5-mile runs “for time.” All of this fitness is really only good for one thing—RAP Week; that is, the Ranger Assessment Phase, a four-day bout of testing that includes push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, a 5-mile run, 12-mile ruck march, long distance land navigation, survival swimming, an obstacle course, and other mental tests. Fitness really does matter here. One of the major reasons for a Ranger student’s failure is simply not getting through RAP week. It’s freaking hard.

But, after RAP week, Ranger School becomes much more about one foot in front of the other. In other words, after RAP week (and especially after the first of three phases), Ranger School is less about physical fitness, and more about mental toughness. This got me thinking…

Often we are comfortable endlessly preparing. We can easily be convinced that we are doing ourselves a favor by preparing more than necessary. It will only help, right? We can easily forget that so much of success in life comes down to grit and mental toughness. It comes down to resilience. Life is hard. Period. And it is a mistake to always view more preparation as the silver bullet for handling future challenges. Sometimes it just comes down to putting one foot in front of the other and simply not quitting. More squats and pull-ups can’t train that.

THIRD. Overcoming many of life’s challenges comes down to our perspective.

Ranger School is a battle for your mind. Back in January of 2011, my class had completed RAP week and many of us were thankful to finally start the real training of Phase 1. We had marched out to Camp Darby to begin “Benning Phase.” It was only the first night out there, and it was cold. Our Ranger Instructors (RI) were teaching a hands-on class on Battle Drill 1A (pronounced “One Alpha”), where we practiced dividing our unit in half; with one half providing suppressive (or covering) fire while the other maneuvered on the enemy. The RIs hadn’t let us put on some of our cold-weather gear yet. As ridiculous as it sounds (with it being just the first week there), my mind started to waver. I started to fear… I was so cold that I couldn’t think straight. All I could think about was being warm. In my head, I started to think, “How can I possibly do this? It’s the first night of real training and I’m already struggling so much. I can’t take 50+ more days of this.” That night was the only night I really considered quitting…

Thankfully, shortly after the “block of instruction” concluded, the RIs gave us an opportunity to layer up and eat one of our two meals. Instantly, my perspective changed. I realized that perspective, not super-human resistance to cold or hunger, would get me through. And it did. Each day was a battle to remind myself that I’d be able to rest soon. Or, I’d eat soon. The discomfort would eventually subside.

Similarly, in life and work, we have to fight for perspective. Circumstances will always be difficult. No one has a monopoly on suffering. In fact, there is plenty of it to go around. Take just one component of typical adult life, for instance—parenting. Add that to your already demanding work and you have a recipe for suffering right there! Because circumstances are not necessarily a dial that we can play with (since so often they are out of our control), we are left manipulating the dial of perspective.

If you struggle with this, find a friend, a partner to confide in. The truth is that despite what Instagram accounts and Facebook feeds may suggest, everyone struggles and no one has “it” together.

FOURTH. The best teammate or co-worker is the one who makes everyone around him or her better.

I was fortunate to have several Army Green Berets in my Ranger School platoon. These guys were the best of the best—fit, smart, likeable, durable, etc. More than that, they also consistently taught others what they knew. Most of them viewed Ranger School, even in all its challenges, as an opportunity to practice a critical mission of the Green Beret—to train “foreign internal defense” forces (or FID forces). These Special Forces soldiers viewed their Ranger School peers as opportunities to practice their craft of elevating the performance of those around them. And it was incredible to behold and experience myself.

In life, surround yourselves with people like this. Hire them. Recommend them. Befriend them. Become them. The best people to have in your organization are people who look not to their own needs, but also to the needs of others. You want men and women with their heads on a swivel, looking around and seeing how they can make the rest of the organization better. This will have a positive impact on your organizational culture and ultimately propel your organization toward its goals. On the flip side, if you are trying to add value as an employee, find ways to elevate the performance of those around you. Help others, behind the scenes, improve their performances. Become a mentor. You will reap what you sow.

FIFTH. Success often looks messy.

Success does not always come easily and sometimes it can look like a real hot mess. There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with this. In the third phase of Ranger School, in Florida’s panhandle, Ranger Students finish with a 10-day field training exercise (FTX), where they are assessed in leading long-range patrols and conducting raids and ambushes in the Florida swamps.

My Ranger buddy (we’ll call him Jay) was leading a patrol of exhausted, hungry, and loopy Ranger students. This was the final day of the 10-day FTX. Jay needed a “go” on his patrol to pass Florida phase. It appeared that we’d be late to our objective and miss our hit time (a big no-go). Jay could not accept this. He frantically (literally) ran about encouraging his fellow Rangers to run. He grabbed equipment from men who were struggling and transferred it to men who could handle the extra weight. He furiously checked his map and distance to the objective. He yelled (yes, not too tactical…) at his peers to keep it up. In essence, he spent himself to do anything and everything he could to help his unit reach its goal.

It worked.

We barely made our hit time and probably had the worst raid ever. Nonetheless, the RIs were inspired by Jay’s heart and the relentless pursuit of the mission. Did the RI’s see an incredible display of tactical expertise? No. Did they see a compelling display of selfless leadership? Yes. Jay was the only leader on that patrol to receive a “go.”

In life, things aren’t always perfect. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we just don’t look like we have it all together. But, that doesn’t have to be an obstacle to success. In this culture of digital image crafting, it’s easy to think that everyone’s work is perfect and flawless all the time. BS. This just isn’t the case. Anytime you have humans interacting, life will be messy. While it should be our aim to do things well all the time, we need to recognize when our own “need” for everything to be perfect is actually getting in the way of our goals.

SIXTH. Everyone can contribute something—find your value.

In Ranger School, not everyone has a gifted mind… There are some real “knuckle draggers” that make it to Ranger School. But, you know what? Some of these soldiers have unbelievable grit. They’ll carry anything you give them. They’ll carry the heaviest machine guns, extra ammo, radio equipment, special equipment, etc. Then, they won’t want to surrender it. They’ll bond with the difficulty and consider it their cross to bear. And others will gladly let them bear it. In Ranger School the body feels every extra ounce of added weight.

Some Ranger students literally collapse from the weight of 13 extra pounds. They simply can’t handle it.

But, there are those, with nothing cerebral to offer, that become the saviors of their platoons or squads for their willingness to simply bear burdens.

The lesson? Everyone has value to add. Find yours. Recognize the potential in others, even if it appears simple and unsophisticated. Don’t arrogantly belittle what someone has to add because it isn’t sexy or impressive.

By the end of Ranger School, we all learned to cherish the soldiers who volunteered to simply carry “heavy shit.”

SEVENTH. Bury the ego—we all need teammates.

Ego kills us. When everything has to be about us, we poison our ability to truly add value. We actually ensnare our value. We cage it. We don’t give people access to it because our Ego is jumping in the way. In other words, Ego is not only hurting you (by making others eventually despise you); it’s also hurting the people who have to work with you. They aren’t getting your best.

Ranger School, if it did anything, exposed us for who we were. It revealed how we acted when there was not enough energy left to posture. Take away food; take away sleep; take away family; take away leisure time; for 2 or more months; and you see the man underneath. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty. This goes for me too. There were moments when I was saddened, as if I could see myself from the perspective of a third party, by my own selfishness and self-centeredness.

If there is anything I learned in Ranger School, it’s that I need a team to do anything worthwhile in this life. There is nothing I can do unilaterally. If I want to be my best version, I need folks in my life in whom I invest and who invest in me.

--

**There is much that could be said about the benefits of Ranger School and the lessons to be drawn. I have not touched on all of them by any means. Folks will have other lessons to add to the conversation! Truly, as a society though, we must encourage our young men and women to pursue hard things for the sake of pursuing hard things. Trials foster grit. We ought not crave the easy path, when there is so much to be gained from embracing life's many versions of "Ranger School".

RLTW.

Ranger School

 

Copied from a LinkedIn feed.

 

By Wes Cochrane

 

7 Years Ago I Graduated from Ranger School—Here are 7 Life Lessons that Remain with me to this Day

 

 

 

Seven years ago this week, on March 4th, 2011, I graduated from the U.S. Army’s Ranger School. Frequently, Ranger School is touted as the Army’s best leadership training and one of the most grueling experiences a soldier can endure, short of actual combat. The 62-day ordeal simulates the harsh, austere environment of combat. The school is designed to teach soldiers, NCOs, and Officers how to lead combat units successfully, under immense stress, with limited resources, while facing challenging terrain and a determined enemy. Trainees can expect to get 0-5 hours of sleep per night and consume 2 meals per day. Ranger grads laugh at the story that has made its way around over the years about a soldier, deployed to Vietnam, who woke up in a cold sweat one night, having just had a nightmare. The soldier looked about and sighed with relief, “Oh, thank God. It’s only Vietnam. I thought I was in back in Ranger School.”

Ranger School was one of the toughest seasons of my life. As I reflect back on the experience 7 years later, I’ve come up with 7 lessons that have stuck with me since.

FIRST. At some point, we just need to show up.

No one really wants to go to Ranger School. It’s absolutely dreadful. I still have the occasional anxiety dream about being back there, leading a patrol. But, we all acquiesced and showed up. Nothing could substitute for simply beginning the experience.

In life, talk is easy. Real credit goes to those who, ready or not, put themselves out there and take a shot at their goals. Often the momentum of merely beginning a new mission, task, initiative, or endeavor is sometimes just the spark you need to continue it. No magic amount of training or preparation can substitute for breaking that coefficient of friction and getting the ball rolling.

SECOND. More “readiness” and “preparation” is not always the answer.

Ranger School is immensely physically demanding. It’s no surprise that candidates preparing for it spend hours ruck marching under heavy loads, performing body-weight exercises like pull-ups and pushups, hitting compound lifts in the gym, and churning out 5-mile runs “for time.” All of this fitness is really only good for one thing—RAP Week; that is, the Ranger Assessment Phase, a four-day bout of testing that includes push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, a 5-mile run, 12-mile ruck march, long distance land navigation, survival swimming, an obstacle course, and other mental tests. Fitness really does matter here. One of the major reasons for a Ranger student’s failure is simply not getting through RAP week. It’s freaking hard.

But, after RAP week, Ranger School becomes much more about one foot in front of the other. In other words, after RAP week (and especially after the first of three phases), Ranger School is less about physical fitness, and more about mental toughness. This got me thinking…

Often we are comfortable endlessly preparing. We can easily be convinced that we are doing ourselves a favor by preparing more than necessary. It will only help, right? We can easily forget that so much of success in life comes down to grit and mental toughness. It comes down to resilience. Life is hard. Period. And it is a mistake to always view more preparation as the silver bullet for handling future challenges. Sometimes it just comes down to putting one foot in front of the other and simply not quitting. More squats and pull-ups can’t train that.

THIRD. Overcoming many of life’s challenges comes down to our perspective.

Ranger School is a battle for your mind. Back in January of 2011, my class had completed RAP week and many of us were thankful to finally start the real training of Phase 1. We had marched out to Camp Darby to begin “Benning Phase.” It was only the first night out there, and it was cold. Our Ranger Instructors (RI) were teaching a hands-on class on Battle Drill 1A (pronounced “One Alpha”), where we practiced dividing our unit in half; with one half providing suppressive (or covering) fire while the other maneuvered on the enemy. The RIs hadn’t let us put on some of our cold-weather gear yet. As ridiculous as it sounds (with it being just the first week there), my mind started to waver. I started to fear… I was so cold that I couldn’t think straight. All I could think about was being warm. In my head, I started to think, “How can I possibly do this? It’s the first night of real training and I’m already struggling so much. I can’t take 50+ more days of this.” That night was the only night I really considered quitting…

Thankfully, shortly after the “block of instruction” concluded, the RIs gave us an opportunity to layer up and eat one of our two meals. Instantly, my perspective changed. I realized that perspective, not super-human resistance to cold or hunger, would get me through. And it did. Each day was a battle to remind myself that I’d be able to rest soon. Or, I’d eat soon. The discomfort would eventually subside.

Similarly, in life and work, we have to fight for perspective. Circumstances will always be difficult. No one has a monopoly on suffering. In fact, there is plenty of it to go around. Take just one component of typical adult life, for instance—parenting. Add that to your already demanding work and you have a recipe for suffering right there! Because circumstances are not necessarily a dial that we can play with (since so often they are out of our control), we are left manipulating the dial of perspective.

If you struggle with this, find a friend, a partner to confide in. The truth is that despite what Instagram accounts and Facebook feeds may suggest, everyone struggles and no one has “it” together.

FOURTH. The best teammate or co-worker is the one who makes everyone around him or her better.

I was fortunate to have several Army Green Berets in my Ranger School platoon. These guys were the best of the best—fit, smart, likeable, durable, etc. More than that, they also consistently taught others what they knew. Most of them viewed Ranger School, even in all its challenges, as an opportunity to practice a critical mission of the Green Beret—to train “foreign internal defense” forces (or FID forces). These Special Forces soldiers viewed their Ranger School peers as opportunities to practice their craft of elevating the performance of those around them. And it was incredible to behold and experience myself.

In life, surround yourselves with people like this. Hire them. Recommend them. Befriend them. Become them. The best people to have in your organization are people who look not to their own needs, but also to the needs of others. You want men and women with their heads on a swivel, looking around and seeing how they can make the rest of the organization better. This will have a positive impact on your organizational culture and ultimately propel your organization toward its goals. On the flip side, if you are trying to add value as an employee, find ways to elevate the performance of those around you. Help others, behind the scenes, improve their performances. Become a mentor. You will reap what you sow.

FIFTH. Success often looks messy.

Success does not always come easily and sometimes it can look like a real hot mess. There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with this. In the third phase of Ranger School, in Florida’s panhandle, Ranger Students finish with a 10-day field training exercise (FTX), where they are assessed in leading long-range patrols and conducting raids and ambushes in the Florida swamps.

My Ranger buddy (we’ll call him Jay) was leading a patrol of exhausted, hungry, and loopy Ranger students. This was the final day of the 10-day FTX. Jay needed a “go” on his patrol to pass Florida phase. It appeared that we’d be late to our objective and miss our hit time (a big no-go). Jay could not accept this. He frantically (literally) ran about encouraging his fellow Rangers to run. He grabbed equipment from men who were struggling and transferred it to men who could handle the extra weight. He furiously checked his map and distance to the objective. He yelled (yes, not too tactical…) at his peers to keep it up. In essence, he spent himself to do anything and everything he could to help his unit reach its goal.

It worked.

We barely made our hit time and probably had the worst raid ever. Nonetheless, the RIs were inspired by Jay’s heart and the relentless pursuit of the mission. Did the RI’s see an incredible display of tactical expertise? No. Did they see a compelling display of selfless leadership? Yes. Jay was the only leader on that patrol to receive a “go.”

In life, things aren’t always perfect. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we just don’t look like we have it all together. But, that doesn’t have to be an obstacle to success. In this culture of digital image crafting, it’s easy to think that everyone’s work is perfect and flawless all the time. BS. This just isn’t the case. Anytime you have humans interacting, life will be messy. While it should be our aim to do things well all the time, we need to recognize when our own “need” for everything to be perfect is actually getting in the way of our goals.

SIXTH. Everyone can contribute something—find your value.

In Ranger School, not everyone has a gifted mind… There are some real “knuckle draggers” that make it to Ranger School. But, you know what? Some of these soldiers have unbelievable grit. They’ll carry anything you give them. They’ll carry the heaviest machine guns, extra ammo, radio equipment, special equipment, etc. Then, they won’t want to surrender it. They’ll bond with the difficulty and consider it their cross to bear. And others will gladly let them bear it. In Ranger School the body feels every extra ounce of added weight.

Some Ranger students literally collapse from the weight of 13 extra pounds. They simply can’t handle it.

But, there are those, with nothing cerebral to offer, that become the saviors of their platoons or squads for their willingness to simply bear burdens.

The lesson? Everyone has value to add. Find yours. Recognize the potential in others, even if it appears simple and unsophisticated. Don’t arrogantly belittle what someone has to add because it isn’t sexy or impressive.

By the end of Ranger School, we all learned to cherish the soldiers who volunteered to simply carry “heavy shit.”

SEVENTH. Bury the ego—we all need teammates.

Ego kills us. When everything has to be about us, we poison our ability to truly add value. We actually ensnare our value. We cage it. We don’t give people access to it because our Ego is jumping in the way. In other words, Ego is not only hurting you (by making others eventually despise you); it’s also hurting the people who have to work with you. They aren’t getting your best.

Ranger School, if it did anything, exposed us for who we were. It revealed how we acted when there was not enough energy left to posture. Take away food; take away sleep; take away family; take away leisure time; for 2 or more months; and you see the man underneath. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty. This goes for me too. There were moments when I was saddened, as if I could see myself from the perspective of a third party, by my own selfishness and self-centeredness.

If there is anything I learned in Ranger School, it’s that I need a team to do anything worthwhile in this life. There is nothing I can do unilaterally. If I want to be my best version, I need folks in my life in whom I invest and who invest in me.

--

**There is much that could be said about the benefits of Ranger School and the lessons to be drawn. I have not touched on all of them by any means. Folks will have other lessons to add to the conversation! Truly, as a society though, we must encourage our young men and women to pursue hard things for the sake of pursuing hard things. Trials foster grit. We ought not crave the easy path, when there is so much to be gained from embracing life's many versions of "Ranger School".

RLTW.

Amen.

Amen.

No no no! It's HooRah, if you're a Marine.

HooYaiy if you're a Sailor,

Hoo-ah if you're a Soldier, and

Thanks Wes! if you're and airmen. :D

And Sierra Hotel if you're an aviator! :D

I never went through Ranger school (wasn't Army), but my closest experience to that was Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school. After that experience, if I find myself in the midst of (shall we say) a "miserable challenge" I just tell myself that I made it through SERE, so I can do this too.

The best part of that lesson was the bit about just grinding it out. The dichotomy of the grind: you just look at things from one day to the next so you don't get discouraged about how far you have to go, but you also keep the "eye on the prize" at the end so you can remind yourself why you're putting yourself through this.

EDIT: Dang! Wish we could still rep posts!

In a ever more polarized world,

This essay deserves a new look.

Truly words to try to live by!

Be safe!

Be kind.

Give love.

All will be returned tenfold!

BUMP!

3 hours ago, Hawkeye60 said:

In a ever more polarized world,

This essay deserves a new look.

Truly words to try to live by!

Be safe!

Be kind.

Give love.

All will be returned tenfold!

 

 

BUMP!

And have a plan to kill every one you meet!
~ The Sniper

*Cue TF2 theme*