yet ranger school is gay. @#$% me!

so it has come to my attention that of the 450 students to start with my class, by the end of week one (rap week), over fifty percent were gone. by the end of darby phase, another twenty percent were dropped or recycled. only about 15 percent make it all the way through without recycling. and yet those who make it past rap week have like an 85% chance of making it through.

it’s not that ranger school is especially difiicult. sure, we have zero food and sleep, we carry very heavy loads over long distances, and we’re constantly bordering on absolute exhaustion. but the real challenge is the mental one. it’s extremely frustrating that at ranger school, the way things are run entails always doing it the hard way, even when a much simpler solution is readily apparent. so it becomes a test of whether or not the individual has the intestinal fortitude to stick with it and never back down, despite how incredibly and needlessly painful we make things for ourselves. going through winter ranger only amplifies the torment, as it means shivering in the freezing cold and carrying even greater loads (gotta pack the cold weather gear, even if you aren’t allowed to wear it!)

i just bumped into vince wiggins, who i attended obc with at fort bliss. of the six air defenders who came to ranger school, only he and i are left. kenny vaughn got SOR’d for going into the shopette and buying a gatorade after failing the newly redesigned lan nav course. (holy shit, talk about a difficult land nav course! our class had over 200 land nav failures! i got 5 of 5 luckily.) dustin hackey failed out during rap week. i think it was for pushups. dave libert and pedro quintero LOM’d. wiggins is a Day 1 recycle, i think for land nav failure. and then there’s me.

now that i’m here, i really want to get that tab. but even if i don’t, just making it as far as i have already says something. it says that i have what it takes. it’s just a matter of going out and doing it. because when it comes down to it, there’s only two kinds of officers: those with the tab and those with excuses.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 15:34:34 and is filed under army. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.