Hi all. Thought I’d share some of my experiences in the Army. Ranger School is a 61 day plus combat leadership course oriented towards small-unit tactics. It’s grueling. It sucks- sleep deprivation, starvation, exposure to the elements. It’s good for you. Infantry Officers can’t progress through their careers without it. For an Enlisted Soldier, Ranger opens the door for leadership opportunities in the regular Army, or better yet a chance to apply for one of the Army’s Ranger Battalions- elite groups aligned under Special Operations Command. I was lucky enough to earn a slot through hard work and perseverance, and eventually graduated on a cold morning at Victory pond after doing mountains twice. What I learned has been broadly applicable to my life and I hope it can help some other guys who are exploring or rediscovering traditional masculinity.

1. You are always being evaluated- Ranger School is divided into three phases: "Benning" or basic tactics, Mountains, and Swamp Phase. To progress from each phase you need to earn a GO while being observed in a leadership position. If you fail, you repeat the phase over again. You must also pass peers: at the end of each phase everyone rank orders their squadmates from first to last. If you’re a shitbag, your buddies will peer you out. Sucks to suck- pull your own weight next time. Therefore, while your turn at being in leadership lasts only a half day or so out of a three week period, you must remember that your peers and evaluators are constantly comparing you to the other men around you and forming opinions based on your performance. It’s all inter-connected. If you’re in the habit of helping the guy who’s in charge- by taking point, by keeping crew served weapons clean, by carrying heavy shit and busting your ass when he tells you to move, your authority is going to carry more weight for those few critical hours that you’re in charge. Your graders will form preconceptions of you by observing how you perform on routine tasks. Got an unfair reputation because of a moment of weakness? Sucks to suck. Hope you can perform under pressure.

2. When in charge, be in charge- There is nothing more frustrating at Ranger than an indecisive leader- he doesn’t know what he’s doing and has to be coached through routine tasks, wasting hours on the side of a mountain in the freezing rain, or he gives unfocused guidance then loses his temper when you fuck it up. Seriously fuck that guy. When in charge, make it clear and unapologetic, and have a plan. “Hey my name is Ranger Bob. I am in charge of today’s mission. Here is how we are going to accomplish it.” A simple plan boldly executed will win every time over paralyzed analysis. Some people aren’t cut out for leadership: the unprepared, the unfocused, the weak. That’s okay. Not everyone has to be a Ranger. Do everything in your power to never be in that position- work your ass off to be worthy of that leadership position. Lead from the front.

3. Growth is Mandatory- Ranger School is a course for leaders. If you aren’t willing or capable of inspiring confidence in your Soldiers in the midst of danger and adversity, you will be weeded out. That being said, Ranger School is a journey, and it is expected that the majority will fail and have to repeat a phase. Guess what- those guys wear the same tab everyone else does. When you recycle, you’re expected to brush yourself off, learn from your defeats, and grow in your leadership abilities so you can be successful the next time around. Often these guys will become some of the most valued members of the platoon, because they’re familiar with the terrain, the mission sets, and with the structure of the course itself. The guys who opt to quit rather than repeat another grueling phase aren’t missed. Sucks to suck.

4. Fair is for the weak- Ranger Instructors, or RI’s impose a significant amount of mental stress throughout Ranger School. Is your patrol going according to plan, are you moving quickly towards your objective according to schedule? The RI’s will throw artillery simulators and assess casualties to evaluate your casevac procedures. Or they’ll tell you that you can’t use your primary route. Are you in charge, and one of your guys lost a map? You just failed your patrol. Sucks to suck. Are you waiting in formation, your shit squared away, and an RI decides he just wants to fuck with you because he’s bored? He’s going to find some flaw and you’re all getting smoked- push ups, or overhead rucksack presses. It’s even worse because it’s so damn petty and not even that hard. It extends to your peers too- different cliques might form pacts when peers are due, and if you’re not an enlisted kid, or a lieutenant or if you’re just out of the friend group then you’re getting peered. Sucks. You should have tried to integrate harder, but sometimes there’s literally nothing you can do except recycle. Fair at Ranger School is often a laughable concept. The course is deliberately constructed so everything is against you: the rain, your eighty pound pack, your sleep deprived buddies who keep wandering off on the march, the unreasonable time hacks, that one dick instructor, your stupid decades-old weapon that keeps jamming. Tough shit suck it up and overcome. Time and time again you hear about a really good dude who peered 95% which means that basically he busts his ass and everyone rated him as the number one MVP, but he failed his first patrol and on his last-chance evaluation on the last day there’s a huge fucking rainstorm and the platoon gets lost in the dark on the way back from the objective so he fails his patrol. That sucks. That kind of thing is why fairness was invented by men. But you don’t hear this dude complain about it. He sucks it up and drives on. Everyone at Ranger has a little pity party for themselves at some point but it’s only the bitches who cry and whine about how things aren’t fair. You don’t hear too much of that by swamp phase- those guys either got weeded out or they’ve overcome their inner bitch to become valued members of the platoon. Circumstances in your life will never be perfect, and you will never get the “fair” evaluation you think you deserve, so figure out how to overcome limitations and perform against all odds.

5. Improvise/ Know when to collaborate- This might seem to counter being in charge but they’re actually inseparable. You must be able to alter plans on the fly in the light of new information, communicate them clearly, and carry them out through personal, hands-on leadership. In short, you must be the kind of guy that people look to when bullets start coming from an unexpected direction. It looks like a Sergeant, when the whole platoon is pinned down, being willing to make a decision, stand up, and tell his men to “Follow me.” And they do, because they trust him. If they won’t, he’ll put boot to ass and literally get them moving until the formation is maneuvering/shooting again. In other words plans are essential but actually useless if they can’t be flexed or carried out in the moment. This takes a high degree of coordination across a team- well practiced drills, and aggressive subordinate leaders who understand the commander’s intent and can carry it out without waiting for permission at every step. These teams are built through collaboration. The best leaders, when creating a plan, seek input from team members. They weight advice carefully and integrate the good while discarding the bad. There is never any question of who is in charge, but in the Army, an Officer’s legitimacy in a real sense comes from the confidence of his NCO’s. Typically they’ve got years of experience on a young platoon leader. The best leaders understand that real authority is earned from the trust of your subordinates rather than a piece of paper signed by someone you’ve never met. At Ranger School, you’ll actually spend most of your time being a subordinate. This is the time where you build your trust network. When I did mountains for the second time, I earned my GO because the guys who happened to be put in as my subordinate squad leaders when I was named platoon leader were guys who had recycled with me. We’d worked together, helped each other, griped with each other, and motivated each other. I’d busted my ass to make them successful and when I was put in charge I couldn’t believe that they’d given me my dream team. The guy who ran my lead squad had literally walked the same route before, my assault squad leader as a pit bull of a kid who couldn’t wait to grab his team by the balls and close with the OPFOR. When we stopped to take a knee on those windy mountain tops it was as if we all communicated with a kind of telepathy, because everyone grasped the operation and we needed only a few words to communicate concepts which had already been rehearsed to death. Short halts of only five minutes, leaders padding about checking magazines or redistributing water. Eyes and heads up scanning the hill tops. Like wolves in the mist.