Remembering Ranger School and the difference it has made throughout life

By Bill Connor

Labor Day weekend held special significance for me. September 3 was the 35th anniversary of my Ranger School graduation. The significance comes because it was a defining moment for me as the toughest challenge I have faced. Though this was only nine weeks of my life, it has helped define it in so many ways. As I have pondered Ranger School with this anniversary, I thought specifically about the importance of challenges like Ranger School, personally and nationally.

First, an explanation of the challenge. Ranger School was developed to teach small unit infantry leadership in the crucible of simulated combat. It began in 1952 as an intense roughly two-month course to train Rangers going to Korea. It has gone through some modifications since but with the same basic dynamic: Training small unit infantry leadership under the stress of lack of food, lack of sleep, physical exhaustion, under mission demands. When I attended in 1991 (class 10-91), Ranger School was nine weeks. My class started the first phase with just over two weeks of physical tests at Ft. Benning, weeding out over half the class (Ranger students dropped from quitting, physical injury, failing tests, failing peer evaluations or committing violations of rules). Our class then went to the mountains in Dahlonega Georgia for over two weeks, climbing and patrolling mountains. Much of our class dropped for various reasons there. Then we went to the swamps of Englin Air Force base, Florida for over two weeks of patrolling through the swamps and rivers. More drops. Finally, we spent our last two weeks in Dugway, Utah operating in the Desert.

Around 10% of us made it through Ranger School without being recycled in one (or more) of the phases. Around 35% of the class eventually graduated later due to recycle. We started in late June 1991 and graduated September 3, so the heat at Ft. Benning, Dahlonega, Eglin, and the Desert was unmerciful. Dozens of classmates became heat casualties. During the time conducting missions and patrols we were given only one meal a day. In the couple of days before starting our missions in each phase we received two meals. I lost almost 50 pounds during those nine weeks. We slept only an hour or two after all night missions. I can remember falling asleep walking and even hallucinating due to lack of sleep. The stress of leading exhausted Ranger students on missions at night, in the challenging terrain, is hard to describe: Navigating at night, coordinating sub movements in the dark, keeping everyone alert and awake. Interspersed with the Ranger missions was the extremely long road marches and parachute drops. I went to Ranger School just after getting married and my new bride literally cried when she saw all the weight loss. Tabbing out was the proudest accomplishment since.

Just before showing up at Ranger School, a Ranger tabbed Infantry Lt. Colonel spoke to a group of us new Infantry Lieutenants. He asked us to pick up a blade of grass. He asked us to compare the length of the blade of grass to the length of the large field. It was such a miniscule portion. He then compared the blade to the hardship of Ranger School and the field to the benefits of that hardship to the rest of our lives. Getting through the hardship of Ranger School was but a sliver of our lives yet would have the greatest impact. I have since found his words to be both profound and prophetic.

The primary fruit of Ranger School on this life has been that nothing else has been as hard. Nothing I encountered later in Infantry combat (though combat was more dangerous) was as hard. Nothing else during lengthy deployments. No other school was as hard as Ranger School. I can remember Ranger Tabbed Vietnam veterans expressing the same about Ranger School being harder, though not as dangerous, as Vietnam. This went beyond the military into the other hardships and challenges in life. For me, challenges like law School and bar exam were not easy, but the remembrance of the hardship of Ranger School was there getting me through. Whether the challenges of starting new businesses, raising a family, deaths in family, physical hardships. With every challenge since Ranger School, I am able to use the memory of what we surmounted those 35 years ago to know I would get by.

Beyond individuals, Ranger School remains an incalculable positive influence on the military’s ability to fight wars. Ranger grad senior leaders have brought the fruits of toughness to the force. The ingrained knowledge, from experience of the seemingly impossible, that when things are toughest you must take one more step. Quitting or surrender are not options. The end of the Ranger Creed puts it perfectly: “Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission, though I be the lone survivor.”

The benefits of the hardship of Ranger School go to other similar challenges. Challenges pushing to the limits but giving an experience (and remembrance) benefiting the rest of life. Few challenges like Ranger School are left in the American military and fewer left in civilian life. We need them. Let us end life claiming as Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Rangers Lead The Way!

– Col. Bill Connor is a retired U.S. Army Infantry officer and career attorney, From 2007 through 2008 he was deployed to Afghanistan where he became the senior U.S. military adviser in Helmand Province. Visit him online at https://www.citadel.edu/bov/board-of-visitors-membership/colonel-william-m-bill-connor-v-usa-retired/(opens in new tab)