Starting from the army Ranger requirements, the actual journey leading up to, making it to the Ranger training school is a tough one. All cadets start with the standard boot camp. They go through the intense ‘Basic Training’ and the ‘Advanced Individual Training’, following which they are granted the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). After the AIS, some cadets enlist at the 3-week course at the Army Airborne School. This part is the toughest and counts a lot as Rangers are elite airborne infantrymen and hence one needs to give a really good performance. Parachuting is a crucial and also the most important skill of Rangers.
The Airborne School then deputes suitable cadets to the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP). The selection is principally done by the Ranger Liaison Authority. This is a four-week program and it principally inducts the recruited Cadets in the 75th Rangers. In the final days of the RIP, some common qualifying tests that are fielded include, Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), the infamous 5-mile run, Combat Water Survival Test (CWST) and the Road march test. After this, the cadets are welcomed in the Ranger Regiment and re-deputed into either of the 4 battalions. It must be noted that the RIP has become Ranger Assessment and Selection Process (RASP) since 2010, and has been doubled from 4 weeks to 8 weeks. The brutality of this scrutiny is so high and concentrated that about 20% to 40% recruits quit halfway through the program and further more there are several others who do not qualify.
The aforementioned RASP is the Phase I. After joining in the battalion, after a period of about 6 months the soldier is deputed to the Pre-Ranger Course, the Phase II. Upon completion, the victor is sent to the Ranger school. The fate of the non-qualifiers differs from case to case and the decision of the command varies from case to case, soldiers may be offered a second change or in some cases, they are discharged from the 75th to be deployed into the regular US Army.
Army Ranger Training School: Training Scenario
How long is army Ranger training? 61 days a life time. This is most intense, brutal and merciless combat leadership program devised for an infantry. As a Ranger commandant once put, ‘…it’s worse than tough, it’s insane and it’s mad…’
The course work at Ranger school has been formulated in such a manner that the Ranger soldiers are treated as if in a combat zone round the clock. The standing task is that, the Recruit Rangers must stop ‘the Aragon Liberation Front’, a stipulated drug and terror combat situation. The entire exercise and training takes place around Fort Benning, in the mountains of Georgia, and swamps of Florida.
The army Ranger physical training is of course intense and soldiers conduct all imaginable combat exercises and do some live training with the help of several cargo planes such as C-130 Hercules and choppers such as UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook. The aim is to put the soldier through intense physical, psychological and mental stress and then get him to perform as a leader in near combat situations. Throughout the army Ranger school training, the soldier will have to endure the following conditions:
•20 hours daily exercise
•2 or less meals a day, with a 2,200 calorie intake READ MORE