Ranger School
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The United States Army Ranger School is an intense nine-week long combat leadership course, conducted in three three-week phases - at Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S.A., (the woodland terrain, 'Benning Phase'), at Camp Merrill, Georgia, (the Mountain Phase), and at Camp Rudder, (Eglin AFB), Florida, (the Swamp Phase). The Fort Bliss, Texas, (the Desert Phase) was eliminated more than ten years ago.
Ranger School training centers on a basic scenario: the flourishing drug operations of the enemy forces, “the Cortinian Army,” must be eradicated. To do so, the Rangers will have to take the fight to the enemy's territory, the rough terrain surrounding Fort Benning, the mountains of northern Georgia, and the swamps and coast of Florida. Rangers students are given a clear mission, but they determine how best to execute it.
Fort Benning is the home of the Ranger Training Brigade and its 4th Ranger Training Battalion, which hosts the “crawl” phase of Ranger School, where students learn the fundamentals of squad-level mission planning. This phase is critical to success, as it lays the groundwork for phases two and three, the “walk” and “run” phases.
At Benning, students must successfully complete the Ranger Assessment Phase, which includes many of the tasks Best Ranger Competition spectators have become familiar with: the Malvesti Field Obstacle Course, the Darby Queen, and the log-walk-rope-drop. They also learn the basics of close combat, using a pugil stick, a knife, and bare hands.
At the 5th Ranger Training Battalion, the students learn mountaineering skills, and at the 6th Ranger Training Battalion, they must demonstrate tactical and technical proficiency in swampy terrain leading a platoon patrol. This phase includes small boat operations and an extensive do-or-die field-training exercise.
Ranger School students will participate in three airborne and ten air-assault operations. A student's leadership ability is evaluated at various levels in various situations. Part of the evaluation is a peer evaluation, failing a peer evaluation can result in disqualification.
If a student performs successfully, but suffers an injury that keeps him from finishing, he may be re-cycled at the discretion of either the battalion or the brigade commander; he’ll be given an opportunity to heal and finish the course with the next class.
Field instruction is the majority of the coursework; students carry gear weighing as much as 45 kg (100 lbs), spending each day planning and executing attacks against widely dispersed targets, followed by a rapid march to a new patrol base to again begin the planning cycle. Training during the course averages 19.4 hours per day, thus, students sleep only an average of a couple hours per night, and eat two, or fewer, meals per day. This heavily fatigues them throughout the course. Common folk wisdom, reported by students, is that they begin the Ranger course at their peak life-time physical fitness, but find themselves worn down to their lowest life-time physical fitness upon completing the physically and psychologically punishing soldiering course; only one-third pass the course.
Many Ranger students come from the 75th Ranger Regiment, where completing and passing Ranger School is requirement for any leadership position, but many other students come from regular Army units, and return to them with greater leadership skills. Passing Ranger school is a de facto requirement for success as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army.
Since the 1950s, students have received a copy of Rangers Standing Orders, a version of the guidance Major Robert Rogers composed for his unit, Rogers' Rangers.
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| United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) |  |
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