The Art of Manliness - #617： What It's Like to Go to Army Ranger School

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast which branch of

00:00:11.960 the military has the toughest training course for its officers and special operators is a matter of

00:00:15.860 animated debate there's no question the army's ranger school is a viable candidate for carrying

00:00:20.600 that designation over nine weeks and three grueling phases soldiers undergo physical

00:00:24.600 mental and emotional challenges that test their endurance resilience and leadership my guest day

00:00:29.220 went through ranger school twice first as an infantry officer in 2004 and then just last year

00:00:33.860 as the first journalist to embed with the class all the way through the course his name is will

00:00:37.820 bardenwerper and he wrote an article about his experience for outside magazine called army

00:00:41.500 ranger school is a laboratory of human endurance will and i begin our conversation with why he

00:00:45.620 wanted to observe ranger school from a third-party perspective after participating in it firsthand

00:00:50.140 as a soldier will then explains the difference between earning your tab by graduating from ranger

00:00:54.620 school and being an official army ranger who belongs to the ranger regiment special operations

00:00:58.700 force will then gives us a big picture overview of the three phases of ranger school

00:01:02.440 bending phase mountain phase and swamp phase we then dive into what happens at each phase taking

00:01:06.940 side trips along the way into the controversy of allowing women into the course whether or not

00:01:11.040 it's gotten easier since will went through and the importance of doing well in the combat patrol

00:01:14.780 exercises and peer reviews in which the students participate we end our conversation discussing the

00:01:19.100 lessons and endurance that civilians can take away from those who graduate ranger school and earn the tab

00:01:23.340 after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is slash ranger school will joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:29.400 all right will bardenwerper welcome to the show great thank you for having me so you are a former u.s

00:01:42.140 army infantry officer also the author of a book the prisoner in his palace

00:01:46.240 but back in 2019 you joined a class of soldiers and officers who were going through ranger school

00:01:55.620 the thing is though you yourself you graduated ranger school back in 2004

00:02:01.420 why do you think it was necessary to go back as a third party observer to write about what it was like

00:02:06.900 to go through ranger school when you already did it yourself well i think that's that's a good question

00:02:11.380 and maybe the the way i begin the article is the the best way of answering it which is that you know

00:02:17.580 i'm lucky enough to have spent 14 or so months in iraq during a pretty violent year there and in a

00:02:23.780 pretty violent place but luckily enough i don't almost ever have bad dream about that experience

00:02:30.580 however not a month goes by when i don't wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare imagining

00:02:37.120 that i have to go back to ranger school and so i think for that reason i i decided to go back

00:02:42.400 in an effort to kind of discover what it was about that experience that you know impacted me the way

00:02:49.460 that it did well so let's talk about the rangers for those who aren't familiar with them because i

00:02:54.740 think i don't know i say in the past 20 years like out of all the special operations groups in the

00:03:00.600 military the navy seals have probably gotten the lion's share of attention in the popular press

00:03:04.760 and the media so a lot of people aren't familiar familiar with the army rangers what sort of

00:03:10.120 operations do the rangers take part in like what's their specialty um i mean that yeah that that is i

00:03:15.300 think a valid point for whatever reason the seals have garnered you know a lion's share of the publicity

00:03:20.560 but i mean i think you know for for most folks not too familiar with the military but maybe they have

00:03:27.100 seen a few of those seal movies you know they're not that dissimilar obviously the army doesn't you know

00:03:33.100 engage in the underwater operations that seals are capable of but as far as the kind of work that

00:03:39.160 they've been doing in iraq and afghanistan there are quite a few parallels the army rangers are special

00:03:45.020 operators they're highly trained very selective and the kinds of missions that they would engage in

00:03:51.280 would be you know along those same lines of uh attempting to locate capture potentially kill

00:03:57.420 you know high value targets you know sometimes behind enemy lines so to speak in dangerous places

00:04:03.260 so you think about your traditional raid where you're trying to to to find an enemy target um that

00:04:09.560 would be the kind of mission that they would engage in they're also very skilled at reconnaissance

00:04:14.240 operations i mean if you think back i think a lot of people are probably still familiar with

00:04:18.500 the movie black hawk down that was a group of army rangers and delta force operators

00:04:23.480 who were assigned to capture a somali warlord the mission kind of went south and they had to fight

00:04:30.580 their way out of a pretty uh tricky situation but um that's that's the sort of mission that that they

00:04:36.220 would often be assigned well another interesting thing about the rangers so you can earn your ranger tab

00:04:42.600 but then you can also be part of the 75th ranger regiment so what's the difference between the two

00:04:49.480 yeah it's a little tricky i guess you know for those not in the army and well versed in the

00:04:55.140 the nuance of these things so the 75th ranger regiment is that special operations component of

00:05:02.360 the army and the way it typically works on the enlisted soldier side would be that you you sign a

00:05:08.640 contract to to join that or to have the opportunity essentially to to join the ranger regiment assuming

00:05:13.660 you pass all the prerequisites and so a young soldier that that signed that sort of a contract

00:05:19.000 would go to basic training he'd go to his infantry training he'd be assigned to one of the ranger

00:05:23.480 regiment battalions and then pretty quickly you know within the first year or so he would go to

00:05:29.340 ranger school and and he would essentially have to pass ranger school in order to return to the

00:05:35.440 ranger regiment and be assigned there on a more permanent basis so for them it's almost like a you

00:05:41.580 know an extended tryout in order to remain in the regiment it gets a little more tricky on the

00:05:47.920 officer side of the house because officers are generally not allowed to go straight from like

00:05:53.700 west point for example or rotc or officer candidate school as i did and become an officer in the ranger

00:05:59.380 regiment they would need to go to a conventional combat arms unit first and then if they were a

00:06:04.880 high performer there they would then have a chance to apply to be selected to be an officer in the

00:06:11.240 ranger regiment and i guess just the final part to that answer would be for someone like me

00:06:16.320 as a young infantry officer who was commissioned from officer candidate school we are afforded the

00:06:23.020 opportunity to go to ranger school receive that high quality training and then the theory basically

00:06:30.160 goes that we can return to whichever infantry unit that we are assigned and impart you know some of

00:06:37.480 those skills and some of that knowledge to the young soldiers that we are responsible for leading so

00:06:43.140 that's kind of the reason why young officers would go to the school even if they were not

00:06:48.080 immediately destined to go to the ranger regiment so i mean why did you was that the reason why you

00:06:53.280 went to ranger school and earned the tab so you could do that or was there something else going on there

00:06:57.760 um i mean no it's if for an infantry officer it's pretty much expected that that you go and give it your

00:07:03.540 best shot clearly not everyone completes the course but you're at least given the opportunity to attend and to

00:07:09.380 try so yeah i mean it was it was an expectation but i think for a lot of young officers such as myself

00:07:15.360 it's also you know an opportunity to kind of prove ourselves and i think that the you know one of the

00:07:21.460 underlying principles is that if you can you know withstand the physical and the psychological stresses

00:07:28.280 and challenges of ranger school you're going to be better equipped when you get to your first

00:07:33.040 assignment because you'll have at least a degree of confidence that comes with knowing that you've

00:07:37.800 you know at a minimum you can go an extended amount of time without a lot of food without a lot of

00:07:42.720 sleep and be assigned to lead guys who are equally stressed and fatigued and so i think you know in

00:07:49.140 addition to the whatever tactical skills you are are expected to learn there's a degree of confidence

00:07:55.240 that comes with that that ideally you emerge from the course having gotten and that will serve you

00:08:01.260 well as you move forward in the army correct me if i'm wrong is it all isn't ranger school also open to

00:08:06.100 people and other branches of the military yes there there are a handful you'll see a few marines a few

00:08:12.680 air force folks it typically they will draw from those organizations you know more more specialized

00:08:19.720 units as well there's not a lot of them but but there will be there will be some and there actually

00:08:24.620 are some foreign students as well on occasion so this article you wrote for outside magazine you talk

00:08:31.560 about how ranger schools is sort of laboratory you were talking about that this laboratory of human

00:08:35.040 endurance and i think one of the interesting things that was useful were you going back and

00:08:39.140 and and walking through the class with with this with these guys you're going through is that you're

00:08:44.800 able to like talk to them and get their experience like i mean something that's different to hear

00:08:48.240 like write about your own experience but then actually like hear from someone else and their

00:08:52.720 perspective so let's talk about ranger school and this experience you had first start off big

00:08:57.840 picture how long is ranger school and what are the phases like a big overview and then we'll dig

00:09:02.460 into the details with each phase here in a bit sure so it it's essentially nine weeks you know 62 or 63

00:09:08.920 days and it takes place in three three-week phases as you called it it begins at fort benny in georgia

00:09:15.800 at a place called camp darby and as the battalion commander there explained to the students and as it

00:09:21.820 became you know clear to me um as i observed really the only the only individual you know physical

00:09:28.740 assessments that that take place are on those first three or four days when you're when they go

00:09:34.780 through a sort of a battery of physical fitness tests that are basically designed to determine you

00:09:40.140 know if you're uh you know in shape to to complete the rest of the course and so those are pass fail

00:09:46.140 if you pass you move on if you fail you basically get sent home and then so that's that's that's the

00:09:51.980 better part of the first week and that's followed then by two weeks of simulated combat patrols and

00:09:59.160 those basically take the the same general form throughout the rest of the course in the ensuing

00:10:04.240 two phases as well and i can i can you know maybe we can come back to to what that's all about because

00:10:09.560 that's really at the heart of what the course is all about but uh after that three weeks you get if

00:10:14.480 you're you know successful you move on to what they call mountain phase which takes place in north

00:10:19.240 georgia right along the tennessee valley divide at the very southern tip of the appalachian trail

00:10:24.260 you have three weeks there and if you're successful there you move down to florida for the final phase

00:10:29.840 which is called florida phase or swamp phase it takes place on the florida panhandle at a place

00:10:34.600 called eglin air force base the the ranger school has like a little outpost on on this larger air force

00:10:39.360 base and that's the final three weeks and if you finish that successfully then you go back to fort

00:10:44.400 and you graduate so that's basically how it's laid out it's it's nine weeks three three week increments

00:10:50.520 and at no point will you basically expect should you expect to sleep more than about four hours and

00:10:58.160 more often than not they're sleeping maybe one to two hours outside in the elements and eating if

00:11:05.400 they're lucky you know two pre-packaged mres meals ready to eat a day so that you you have a pretty

00:11:12.220 dramatic calorie deficit that's built up because you're burning you know in the neighborhood of

00:11:17.020 six thousand plus calories and you may only be consuming you know three or four thousand calories so

00:11:21.940 that's why a lot of the students graduate and they've lost 15 20 pounds over the course of that time period

00:11:27.200 and that's all on purpose because that's part of the training yeah yeah i mean uh lack of sleep and

00:11:32.960 lack of food makes everything more difficult um and again you know i think the idea is you're

00:11:38.500 preparing these soldiers for combat and you want to kind of simulate some of the stresses that you may

00:11:43.960 encounter overseas as best you can in a situation where they're not in any actual you know danger of

00:11:49.760 someone trying to to kill them so you can try to identify other stressors that can make their

00:11:55.620 leadership you know uh evaluations more challenging so that that's how the school generally works and if you

00:12:01.140 like later on in the conversation i can get into a little more about the the patrols and and what

00:12:06.100 the students are kind of uh evaluated on well let's let's move that so let's talk about that

00:12:10.120 bending phase you're doing that physical fitness test see if you're you're in shape for that then you do

00:12:13.680 the simulated patrols what what are they what are they being evaluated and what is what are those

00:12:18.480 simulations like sure so the physical fitness tests you know on the surface are actually

00:12:23.300 not you know i think most fit you know i go to a crossfit gym for example and you know i think most of

00:12:29.280 the the folks that come to my gym you know on a good day would be able to do 49 push-ups 59 sit-ups

00:12:36.340 run two miles and whatever it is you know under i can't remember the exact amount of time there

00:12:41.120 actually it's a five mile run in under 40 minutes and then there's some other tests a land navigation

00:12:46.200 test and a combat water survival test but you know on their own you know they're probably not you

00:12:51.800 know very intimidating to a young fit athlete but what makes them more difficult is the fact that

00:12:57.920 you're doing those you know essentially in the middle of the night you're getting getting woken

00:13:00.980 up at three in the morning it's pitch dark it might be raining it might be cold it might be muddy

00:13:05.100 you haven't eaten and you know that you know that the future of your army career to some extent is

00:13:10.920 going to be impacted by your performance so there's a lot of professional stress so something you know

00:13:15.540 it's a lot different to do 49 push-ups in the comfort of your gym on a good night's sleep after

00:13:19.520 a nice meal than it is three in the morning in a driving rainstorm you know having not eaten and

00:13:25.200 not slept and in conjunction with all these other tests that are being administered so assuming you

00:13:30.140 can get through that portion of the first week then you transition into those patrols and that's

00:13:35.800 really at the heart of what ranger school is all about and how that works is each day you wake up

00:13:41.400 you know let's say again you know three in the morning or so and you're broken into let's say maybe a

00:13:47.440 30-man platoon and then four squads within that and the ranger instructors will then identify a group

00:13:55.940 of three four leaders for that day's operation that might be a raid it might be an ambush it might be

00:14:01.580 a reconnaissance and they then will be evaluated over the course of the next you know 20 or so hours

00:14:07.780 on their ability to accomplish the mission and as as a student you need to successfully accomplish one

00:14:15.020 leadership role during each phase to move on to the next phase and you might get two to three

00:14:21.180 opportunities in the event that you fail in your first attempt and so that's essentially at the

00:14:26.120 heart of what ranger school is it's it's it's the ranger instructors observing you as you spend a day

00:14:32.180 leading your your fellow ranger students on that day's combat mission and they're soldiers whose job

00:14:38.760 it is to play the part of the enemy for all of those missions so they try to make it as sort of

00:14:44.200 lifelike and and realistic as possible so if it's an ambush you know you'll go to the location it might

00:14:49.700 be a pretty long overland movement through the woods you have to navigate your way there successfully

00:14:55.200 you have to put your soldiers in place and then the soldiers will play the other soldiers will play

00:14:59.500 the part of the enemy you know coming down the road that you then engage in your ambush and so that's

00:15:04.480 how it works and at the end of it the ranger instructor will take the leaders aside and we'll

00:15:08.420 explain to them what they did well and what they did uh not so well that's the thing the big takeaway

00:15:13.340 i took from this that you often think of these these special operations schools as very about the

00:15:17.700 individual your ability to endure individually yeah there is that but like really the the most the

00:15:22.620 essential part of those things like can you lead and work as a team like that seems like the thing

00:15:26.900 that's the most important part of this or what what the what the instructors are trying to get

00:15:30.080 through their heads no that's absolutely right um and that is something that i think became more

00:15:36.700 clear to me watching it than was maybe clear to me when i was a student going through it 15 years ago

00:15:42.480 when i think i kind of viewed it more as kind of like a an individual tryout to evaluate you know just

00:15:49.840 how tough you were as an individual and what you could endure clearly that's important but what's more

00:15:55.200 important is your ability to contribute uh to the group and the students who i i you know kind of

00:16:02.020 started to observe as being among the more successful ones were the ones who were always

00:16:07.100 externally focused on picking up their teammates you know even when they were not in a leadership

00:16:12.600 position they did it all the time and so you know what what really contributed to their success was

00:16:17.880 their ability to figure out what am i good at you know maybe i'm just a real big strong guy and

00:16:23.080 i can carry more equipment than other people when we're you know on these endless you know marches

00:16:28.000 up and down the mountains maybe uh as the case was the case with with one or two of the the younger

00:16:33.600 female officers who weren't as physically imposing but they were really good at delivering operations

00:16:39.660 orders which is something that's very important for young officers to be able to do and so maybe there

00:16:44.380 was a young soldier going to the ranger regiment who didn't have a lot of experience with that and so

00:16:48.580 they could help him out with that so it was critical to kind of identify what is it that i'm good at how

00:16:55.060 am i uniquely qualified to help this group and then do it and what i really found to be interesting was

00:17:00.060 the fact that not only did that help the group and not only did it help those soldiers when it came

00:17:06.380 time for there to be these peer evaluations which we can discuss later but it helped the soldiers

00:17:10.880 themselves because it took them out of their own minds if you're actively engaged helping other people

00:17:16.620 you're less likely to just sort of recede into your own discomfort and misery and kind of the dark places

00:17:23.800 that you can go if you allow your mind to go there we're going to take a quick break for your word from our

00:17:29.420 sponsors and now back to the show well so you mentioned something women now can go to ranger

00:17:37.220 school that always always hasn't been the case when were women allowed and was there was there any

00:17:42.060 controversy about that allowing females to take part in ranger school yes and i wish i could give

00:17:46.880 you a good date but i would say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 maybe 16 ish i might be off

00:17:52.980 a year or two in either direction but around that time period i think to date there have been somewhere

00:17:58.240 in the neighborhood of 40 that have graduated so i mean it's still a very small percentage for

00:18:03.340 example in the you know in the platoon i was covering of 30 people i think there were two

00:18:07.640 you know so it's not it's certainly a small number but there are some now who are going through

00:18:12.600 and one of the ones who graduated with the course i covered was among the the higher performers she did

00:18:17.820 she did exceptionally well and yes there was controversy as there has been with the decision

00:18:22.920 to kind of allow women to to join combat arms units to begin with and i think that was you know for a

00:18:28.540 number of reasons some valid probably some less valid but the fact is that from what i observed you know

00:18:35.280 they were treated pretty much the same as as everyone else by the instructors and by their their peers

00:18:41.780 now it so happened that the women i was following were among the the higher achievers had they been

00:18:46.440 struggling you know i don't know if that would have changed sort of the chemistry among the platoon

00:18:51.680 but in the situation i found myself watching it actually went i think surprisingly smoothly

00:18:57.520 given just the the realities of what life in the field is like and the complications that you know

00:19:03.420 could have arose had had things not been managed as well as they were and you mentioned you there's

00:19:08.620 some of like the valid invalid what were some of the valid and invalid you know reasons do you think

00:19:12.280 people there was a controversy um i mean i think there's always the concern you know over standards

00:19:18.600 and you know will standards you know especially some of the physical standards be reduced in order to

00:19:25.680 you know make it more likely that women can pass i think in i think ultimately there were very few

00:19:33.020 things that i noticed really that were any different from when i was there there was one change but i think

00:19:38.060 this predated the admission of women but it i think made the school maybe slightly less physically

00:19:44.440 demanding um cumulatively and that was we did a uh 16 or 17 mile road march carrying all our equipment

00:19:52.260 you know so 80 plus pounds at the end of that first week whereas now they do a 12 mile march with less

00:19:59.240 weight and so i and a lot of other students you know after just one week already had feet that were

00:20:05.700 completely torn to pieces and so we were essentially limping around on those combat patrols trying to do

00:20:11.600 the best we could but in a lot of physical pain which of course makes everything else harder i think these

00:20:16.440 students you know got out of that first week maybe in slightly better physical condition just

00:20:20.460 because of the that that march had changed but aside from that you know i i certainly when i did

00:20:26.220 the article i didn't want to be one of these guys who who said you know oh you know i went through it

00:20:31.020 when it was hard and and now it's gotten easier because i think pretty much since the first class

00:20:34.860 every ensuing class has said that about the next class um and and that's not really the case i mean

00:20:40.180 you still don't eat you still don't sleep there's still a lot of stress you're still out in the cold

00:20:44.240 and the rain and the mud you know those things haven't changed even if there's a few things here

00:20:48.180 and there that that have maybe made it you know ever so slightly more manageable all right so you

00:20:52.880 do binning phase you start those combat patrols there's battle patrols after that you go to mountain

00:20:58.040 phase and you're still more patrols but what what's going on there how does how do they how do the

00:21:03.400 instructors you know ramp up the stress to make it harder there yeah well so just to get to mountain

00:21:08.320 phase you need to have earned you know what they call a go so you need to have successfully passed one

00:21:12.760 of those patrols not everyone does i think 50 percent of the incoming class doesn't even make

00:21:18.040 it through that first you know three or four day test of physical fitness and so there's a smaller

00:21:23.880 group of people you know moving forward at that point but yeah assuming you pass your patrol you get

00:21:29.280 through the fitness prerequisites you move on to the mountains i mean what really changes there isn't so

00:21:34.680 much additional stress as the instructors give you it's the mountains and the terrain and you go from

00:21:41.260 kind of walking across you know relatively flat fort ben and even though there's some you know kind

00:21:46.200 of dense vegetation and and swampy elements to it it for the most part it's it's relatively flat

00:21:51.780 you get to mountains and all of a sudden you know a five kilometer patrol looks a lot different when

00:21:57.920 when four of those kilometers are straight uphill carrying 100 pounds on your back and so that's one

00:22:03.600 element that makes it tougher i think most people agree that the mountains are in many ways the toughest

00:22:08.460 phase uh primarily for that reason just because you're carrying so much weight over such long

00:22:13.160 distances over such challenging terrain and then the weather of course you know up in north georgia

00:22:18.740 can be uh can be rough you know the winter weather in particular there can be snow and cold i went

00:22:24.780 through with this class you know it was already march i believe into april but there were still nights

00:22:30.540 where it was freezing at night and you know they're just sleeping out there you know they're not in a tent

00:22:35.720 or in any kind of shelter i mean they're just on the ground and so that makes it of course pretty

00:22:40.060 pretty difficult as well and they're not always walking on nice paths you know it's not like a

00:22:45.220 nice trail some kind of times they're just breaking brush going downhill at night with no visibility

00:22:50.440 over steep terrain not on a trail so people are falling down left and right it can be it can be a real

00:22:56.340 mess well speaking of the weather when you were the crew you're with like some two soldiers got hit

00:23:01.000 by lightning up on the mountain yeah yeah it was more than two actually it was it was i think four

00:23:06.340 or five including an instructor got hit i actually wasn't on that particular patrol but i spoke to the

00:23:11.680 people who were and yeah i mean they were i think it was they were very fortunate to escape a serious

00:23:17.160 injury and and that's not entirely uncommon i had spoken to some other folks who had been through

00:23:22.520 different classes that also had either had near misses or been hit by lightning in this case they were

00:23:27.900 medically evacuated and they returned to duty the next day but uh but yeah you're dealing with

00:23:32.420 some pretty unforgiving weather in those mountains and when you when you were talking with these

00:23:36.980 soldiers during the mountain phase like what were the things that they were struggling with the most

00:23:41.020 that they were willing to share with you well that was kind of one of the cool parts of the story

00:23:45.900 was was being able to sort of earn their trust and have them confide in me i mean that was what i

00:23:51.300 spent the first three weeks doing was trying to establish a rapport with with a handful of soldiers so i could

00:23:55.620 kind of tell this story through their eyes and through their experiences and um and they maybe

00:24:01.420 shared with me things that they wouldn't be too you know as enthused to tell their friends um

00:24:05.800 and so yeah i think i think one element of it is just this the uncertainty of you know what am i

00:24:12.740 going to finish or not or or get recycled which is kind of this other thing that can happen if you

00:24:17.260 if you don't earn your go on a patrol you don't necessarily get dropped from the course you may be

00:24:21.560 given the opportunity to pick back up with the next class but that means you have to wait

00:24:24.740 four more weeks until they come through and so that's four more weeks away from your family and

00:24:29.180 your loved ones and your friends and and just you know the comforts of of society so it was just this

00:24:34.620 uncertainty you know when am i going to see my girlfriend again or or my wife or or my buddies

00:24:39.480 you know am i going to get graduate in time for the you know you name it the super bowl or the world

00:24:44.260 series or whatever you know event is on the horizon that people are looking forward to

00:24:47.780 and just the sense of you know we're we're we're uh kind of occupying this weird limbo and we're we're

00:24:55.020 disconnected from everything that that we enjoy in life and you know when when is it going to end

00:24:59.660 that that was kind of the source of of some of their anxiety so you mentioned earlier after each phase

00:25:06.700 so like the bending phase the mound phase after all these patrols that they're the soldiers are getting

00:25:10.260 evaluated by the instructors but also by their peers and that's kind of a weird situation because a bad

00:25:15.700 evaluation by one of your peers could like injure ranger school experience like you could recycle

00:25:20.700 or maybe you're just done so with that in mind was like there any pressure like not to give bad

00:25:25.980 reports they didn't want to ruin some guy's chance at the tab yeah so that's i mean that's a very

00:25:31.980 unique and important part of the school is is what they call these peer evaluations and so after each

00:25:36.600 phase and and i guess the short answer to the question is is no because you have to evaluate all of

00:25:42.800 them and so you're given essentially a scorecard and you have to rate everyone in your squad from one

00:25:47.200 highest to you know let's say 14 lowest so you can't just say no you know i don't want to i don't

00:25:53.580 want to vote you have to um and someone has to be number one and someone has to be number 14 i don't

00:25:58.100 know the exact formula but if enough of your peers vote you you know in the bottom third let's say you

00:26:04.400 can either get dropped or recycled i think they basically they'll take that in conjunction with how you

00:26:09.440 did on your patrols what the ranger instructors had to say and if the ranger instructor said this

00:26:13.640 guy was was a disaster and all your peers say he was a disaster you know more than likely you're

00:26:18.820 going to get dropped if the your peers may say you know hey maybe not the best performer but the

00:26:23.160 instructors saw some good things or some potential maybe they'll give you another chance with the next

00:26:28.120 class but yes i think you know that can be certainly a rude awakening for for some students i mean there

00:26:33.960 was one student i believe who in the first phase was literally ranked dead last by all 14 of his

00:26:39.700 peers and so i would have to think that's kind of devastating to learn but you know if there i guess

00:26:46.040 that if there's anything good to come of it it can help him to identify his weakness and and try to

00:26:51.620 improve you know before he potentially is in charge of you know real soldiers in a in a real more high

00:26:57.440 stakes situation but yeah that that's an interesting part of the class and it leads to i think you know

00:27:03.520 a lot of stress among you know some of the the weaker performers so after mountain phase it's

00:27:09.340 swamp phase where does this take place again and then what what goes on there same is it more of the

00:27:15.400 same yeah so that that takes place down in the florida panhandle it's it's in the swamps as the name

00:27:20.860 suggests and it's the same idea as far as you're doing these combat patrols and you're being evaluated

00:27:26.440 on them i guess one of the changes there is that you know some of them are waterborne on zodiac

00:27:31.020 boats i should have said that during all these phases you're doing some airborne operations so

00:27:36.000 you're you're actually jumping out of uh airplanes and then there's some air assault movements so

00:27:40.780 they're doing uh operations on blackhawk helicopters and then in florida you would do yeah some airborne

00:27:46.640 some air assault and some uh some waterborne combined which is you know slogging through the

00:27:51.480 swamps through you know water that can be up to your your neck you know obviously surrounded by

00:27:56.320 snakes and whatever else are are in the swamps but yeah you're being evaluated on on your missions

00:28:01.400 um i think that for a lot of the students uh by that point though they're so close to the finish line

00:28:08.280 that that it's it's perhaps not as challenging as the mountains or simply because you know you can see

00:28:14.360 the end at the light at the end of the tunnel and by that point you've already successfully finished

00:28:18.600 two phases so there's a degree of confidence that comes with the fact that you know i earned my

00:28:23.060 go in benning i earned a go in mountains i've probably gotten some decent peer reports at this

00:28:28.120 point to have made it this far and you know i'm only two or three weeks away from graduation so i

00:28:32.780 noticed that there was actually a little bit of bounce in the step of the students i was following

00:28:37.500 when they got to florida for for those reasons so some of the most poignant parts in your article

00:28:43.640 were when you were talking to these guys after they they failed they got a no-go and how i mean what

00:28:49.840 was the typical response if you talk to a guy that they got the no-go after a mountain phase or

00:28:54.520 bending phase or swamp phase oh man i mean it it was tough and and i mean i i had gotten to know some

00:29:01.760 of them i had grown to like them i was kind of you know rooting for them so to speak and so to see them

00:29:06.960 come up short you know it was you know i felt for them for sure you know not in all cases i mean in

00:29:11.760 some cases they they were just you know they just you know had had just not done well at all and and

00:29:17.400 and and you know but but for others there were guys who were you know just right on the fence and

00:29:22.380 were really trying hard and their heart was in the right place and they were giving it 110 percent

00:29:26.400 and their performance you know wasn't necessarily terrible it's just not a perfect science and

00:29:30.840 sometimes people don't don't pass and so um you know their responses were usually they weren't all

00:29:37.480 uniform but i would say there they were there was kind of a weird mix of like short-term

00:29:44.000 frustration and sadness but coupled with a little bit of relief you know hey this is over and and for

00:29:49.100 better or worse i'm going to be home you know eating a pizza with you know my loved ones in 24 hours

00:29:55.980 and you know the misery is is finished but i think an awareness that you know despite that it's something

00:30:01.680 that they're going to regret and and that's going to stick with them for a long time so yeah there i mean

00:30:06.800 there were there were some definitely some you know kind of depressing scenes of guys you know

00:30:11.560 giving their best and coming up short a lot of them decide they're going to recycle and try again

00:30:16.240 if they're allowed to most of them did you know attempt to do it again in a few cases there were guys

00:30:22.280 who had already recycled once or twice you know so they've already been in this place for like

00:30:25.920 over a hundred days i think i think there was one guy that had was pushing like 200 days you know so

00:30:31.820 i mean yeah it's like it's like groundhog day you know yeah yeah i mean it's like a horrible

00:30:35.620 groundhog day i mean the quality of life is definitely far worse than at you know a minimum

00:30:39.900 security prison and so imagine like a 200 day you know sentence of jail and it's it's pretty much worse

00:30:46.020 because you're you know you're not you know sitting in a climate controlled room you know napping or

00:30:51.160 watching tv you're you're you're out in the mud in the rain you're not eating you're i mean it's just

00:30:55.180 it's it's miserable and so in a few in a few cases those guys did just say you know what i'm out of

00:31:01.200 here i just i can't be away any longer in one case there was a guy whose best friend was getting

00:31:06.260 married he was the best going to be the best man and he just said you know this this is an important

00:31:10.820 relationship i've been here for you know 100 plus days i'm not you know necessarily confident the

00:31:16.740 outcome's going to change if i try yet again you know i'm done i'm i've given it my best and and i'm

00:31:22.440 moving on and when you talk to the the students that made it through ranger school what did they say

00:31:27.780 that kept them going even when they wanted to quit that there were all different kinds of

00:31:32.460 motivations and and they would often write you know some kind of like an inspirational little

00:31:36.860 slogan inside their their patrol cap and you know look at it when they needed to kind of dig deep and

00:31:41.620 and keep pushing in one case you know a soldier was and it's kind of a strange coincidence but he

00:31:47.120 actually knew the brother of one of my real good army friends and his brother perished on 9-11 in the

00:31:53.980 world trade center and so he wrote that guy's initials in his cap you know as as kind of a

00:31:59.820 motivational um force you know hey you know this may be miserable for a short amount of time but you

00:32:06.060 know this is kind of why we're here and drew strength from from that other people would you know draw

00:32:11.840 inspiration maybe from a parent or a grandparent who had served in the military and gone through

00:32:16.140 you know equally or more challenging circumstances another guy wrote remember the little things you know

00:32:22.140 so an attempt that you know no matter how bad things are i'll at least have a few minutes to

00:32:27.000 maybe you know scarf down an mre or get an hour of sleep or maybe get on a you know an extra good

00:32:33.660 day get a letter from home and get a chance to look at it but to try to just you know derive some

00:32:39.020 form of pleasure from you know the most modest you know circumstances so they all kind of had some

00:32:44.460 kind of a trick i think for you know when moments got real dark to kind of keep pushing forward

00:32:49.620 well it seems like the common theme is that what you talked about earlier is they they thought

00:32:53.380 outside of themselves they thought about someone else that was the thing that kept them going

00:32:56.980 so i'm curious why i didn't ask this like what do we know like what the typical passage rate of ranger

00:33:02.780 school of a class is yeah i mean they monitor that very carefully and and it's generally hovers

00:33:08.820 anywhere from 45 to 55 of the students who start will eventually graduate but of that group or of the

00:33:18.760 starting group only about 15 to 18 will go straight through you know nine weeks without recycling at

00:33:25.960 all so yeah that that's kind of how it typically breaks down half of the people who start will

00:33:31.140 eventually finish but but the majority of them will have to recycle one if not more than one phase

00:33:37.280 you know after following this uh ranger class as a reporter journalist did it change the way you viewed

00:33:43.480 your own ranger experience uh yeah i mean i think one of the reasons i went back again was because i

00:33:49.360 you know and i mentioned this in the article i was not the world's best ranger student and and and i was

00:33:55.280 surprised by that to some extent because i i had always been pretty successful at what i had set my

00:33:59.940 mind to um i was a always a good student i was always a good athlete i was always a hard worker

00:34:05.140 and yet you know i struggled and and so part of the reason i went back was to to kind of identify

00:34:11.180 you know what was it about this place that why did i have such a hard time and so yeah watching these

00:34:16.360 students on the one hand part of it was humbling because i would see some of the high performers you

00:34:21.860 know i don't want to say they made it look easy but there were a few students who really did

00:34:25.400 you know not appear to struggle very much they were in the minority but they were there there was one

00:34:30.200 young special forces soldier for example you know who just really didn't look much different on

00:34:35.860 graduation day than he did on day one you know and he had and i was just like how in the world is this

00:34:40.680 guy capable of getting through this you know without you know really even breaking a sweat you know um

00:34:46.460 but at the same time it was you know i saw plenty of other people who were probably more similar to

00:34:51.740 myself you know who who really did have to dig deep and and who you know for whom it didn't come easy

00:34:57.000 but but at the end of the day they they graduated and they could hold their heads high did you think

00:35:01.920 there are any lessons or insights about i don't know the human condition uh that ranger school can

00:35:06.780 give people even those who who've never gone through or probably never will yeah i mean i think i think

00:35:12.000 that lesson of of remember the the little things is an important one that that can be applied you know

00:35:18.300 to anyone's life um i you know i find myself certainly not every day thinking about this but i mean

00:35:24.420 there are times when when things get tough and you can get stressed out and then if you step back and

00:35:29.520 you say wait a second you know is it really that bad you know at the end of the day i hopefully you

00:35:34.500 know well i have a roof over my head you know if it's raining out i'm dry if i want to take a hot shower

00:35:39.640 i can you know presumably i can find some food you know so you know as long as some of these sort of

00:35:46.020 elemental needs are met you know as they are for fortunately for for most americans you know other stuff can

00:35:52.100 can fall into place but i think it's that idea of just not taking those little things for granted

00:35:56.380 that can help you know power you through situations where you know other stuff may may be um you know

00:36:03.560 more more stressful in your life so that that was one enduring lesson and the other one i think is

00:36:08.100 just you know just very simple but just don't quit usually things if you set your mind to it and keep

00:36:13.760 pressing ahead uh things will get better one of the the chaplain in the mountains would tell the

00:36:19.040 students you know because everyone i think wants to quit at one point or another and he said you

00:36:24.000 know the moment you quit and you go home and you get a good night's sleep and a good meal you will

00:36:29.760 regret having quit for the rest of your life because you'll have kind of scratched that itch you know that

00:36:33.880 desire to to leave this place and to to rest and to eat and to enjoy those things but as soon as you

00:36:39.400 enjoy them even for a minute you you're going to realize that you can't undo that decision and that

00:36:45.160 you wish you hadn't you hadn't made it so that was another i think lesson that you can apply to

00:36:49.940 you know any number of of elements of life uh today well the article is army ranger school is

00:36:55.980 the laboratory of human endurance is on outside online.com what are you working on now where can

00:37:01.160 people learn more about the rest of your work sure well i would suggest anyone who's interested take a

00:37:06.120 look at my first book which was uh the prisoner in his palace saddam hussein his american guards and

00:37:11.060 what history leaves unsaid that's an account of some young american soldiers who most improbably

00:37:17.300 found themselves responsible for living alongside and guarding saddam in the days before his execution

00:37:23.280 and then ultimately leading him to his execution and in the process of doing that they developed some

00:37:28.960 really strange i guess you could say relationships with him and that they knew you know intellectually that

00:37:35.280 he was a very terrible person and he was guilty of of some horrible crimes but they also found

00:37:40.300 themselves kind of growing to like him on a human level to the point that when they had to deliver

00:37:44.460 him to be executed you know some of them found themselves in tears because they had developed

00:37:48.600 this strange bond with this with this person so that that book hopefully people will enjoy and then

00:37:54.260 right now i'm just beginning to write a book on what is expected to be the end of the minor league

00:38:01.240 baseball's appalachian league major league baseball is in the process of getting rid of about 40 minor league

00:38:07.120 teams and in the case of the league i'm writing about these teams have been a part of some of these

00:38:11.920 small appalachian working class towns and cities for over 100 years and their loss is going to really

00:38:17.920 leave a hole in the lives of of these communities but hopefully they will find a way to to you know

00:38:23.540 restore baseball in some form and get back up on their feet but i'm going to tell the story of kind

00:38:27.820 of the forces that led to baseball's extinction and then maybe if we're lucky it's rebirth in at least

00:38:33.160 some of these towns i'll have to check that that sounds like a great one well will barden werper

00:38:37.100 thanks so much time it's been an absolute pleasure no thank you for having me i appreciate it my

00:38:42.220 guest today was will barden werper he is a journalist and the author of the latest article in outside

00:38:45.820 magazine army ranger school is a laboratory of human endurance you can check that out on

00:38:49.700 outside magazine online.com also check out his website will barden werper.com where you find more

00:38:54.540 information about his work and his latest book the prisoner in his palace also check out our show notes

00:38:58.360 at aom.is slash rangerschool we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:39:02.560 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com

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00:39:55.560 you

The Art of Manliness - June 08, 2020

#617： What It's Like to Go to Army Ranger School

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