Ranger school has the toughest and strictest packing list inspection in the Army. This Ranger student is immediately given a 'NO GO' due to the fact that he brought his own unauthorized goggles, unauthorized M68 optic, unauthorized knee pads, unauthorized MILES gear, and unauthorized unit patch.
To add insult to injury, CIF turned him away because his Flyer Gloves were too dirty to turn in.
US Army
One of the quickest ways to show how hungry, tired, and skinny you once were in the Army is to wear a Ranger tab. In the thirteen months it takes to earn, a soldier's ability to act completely against common sense is tested to the absolute limits. He survives on one meal a day and a few hours of sleep per guard rotation.
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He arrives at Ft. Benning with 10 extra pounds of fat and will lose an average of 20 pounds if he stays the full course.
The Discovery Channel's "Surviving the Cut" shows the 61-day course at Fort Benning - 48 days of which are apparently during 'RAP Week' - and offers the world a glimpse at some of the most pointless military training around. The attrition rate at Ranger School is intense and less than one-in-three achieve the tab.
But that exclusivity carries certain privileges such as laziness. Never again will a Tab wearer have to conduct Physical Training or really do any work at all. When given a task to complete, his first recourse is to find a group of Privates and give them his task, saying "I have my Tab and I already know how to do this...go figure it out." Or something very similar.
The 338 Ranger candidates randomly selected to win the pushups lottery for the Ranger Physical Fitness Test stand ready to begin their combatives hazing.
Most Ranger students stand around hugging, mimicking an awkward junior prom, pretending to grapple until an Ranger Instructor (RI) looks over. But this guy...this guy just went full huah for no reason.
Tired Ranger students carry each other until the RIs get tired.
More elite Ranger students are taught top secret tactics and techniques of maneuver so they are highly trained and able to bear crawl further, faster, and harder than any other soldier.
Ranger students are closely inspected to ensure their headlamps have red lens headlamps so as not to ruin their night vision...despite the ginormous white light behind them.
This photo is clearly staged. Malvesti is never dry.
These specially selected soldiers become more elite and well trained by demonstrating they have the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective.
..............As long as the Ranger objective is on the other side of a muddy cargo net.
This clearly inferior Ranger student is punished by an RI for the egregious double-taboo of: 1) stepping over sandbags and 2) not yelling loud enough. Dirtbag.
Depending on the time of year, Victory Pond is either the best highlight (cooling off from a Georgia summer) or worst experience (dodging the edges of broken ice and then getting hypothermia) of RAP Week.
This is almost cool...until you hit the water and get a combo enema/water jammed up the nose with a vengeance.
This guy is getting yelled at for laughing when someone hesitates on the balance beam. After stepping over the sandbag and not yelling loud enough, this Ranger student is on thin ice. Dirtbag.
This RI taunts a Ranger student crossing the balance beam. When the Ranger student is unaffected, the RI yells louder, threatening to taunt him a second time.
This guy doesn't look like he's ready to meet the enemy very energetically. What an embarrassment to your country. Go haze yourself.
There are two types of Ranger students: 'smart Rangers' and 'strong Rangers.'
...This student is clearly not one of the smart types.
These Ranger students are intensely engaged in the largest major activity of RAP Week - standing around. Throughout Camp Rogers and Darby Phase, Ranger students will spend approximately 98.34% of their time standing around. Not until they get to Mountains and Florida Phases will they move on to spending 98.34% of their time laying around.
Four Lieutenants try to help a PFC figure out where the heck they are.
It doesn't work.
At Mountains Phase, Ranger students climb Mount Yonah. A crucial test for students, this timed ruck proves which students were able to stand up fastest. The ones who stood up first and got in the front of the line pass while the ones that stood in the back fail and are penalized for not trampling over the person in front of them on the single-file trail. At the top, students are tortured by seeing civilians doing very similar things with much more comfortable, lighter, practical, and more efficient equipment and...enjoying themselves?
This Ranger student is neither smart nor strong. He's already getting peered out so he should probably just stop trying.
While all three of these Ranger students pretend to pay attention as they're told how to do the same elementary task for the 42nd time in a row, they're actually all asleep.
What is wrong with my camera? Why is everything green?
Airborne Ranger students are 'lucky' enough to get birds for their class. These students are now questioning their decision to do Airborne before Ranger (the jump pay isn't worth it!) and contemplate running away as they hope and pray that 1) the flight is canceled or 2) they don't break anything on the way down.
Shortly after this video was taken, this Ranger student descended deeper and deeper into the swamp until the water was up to his chest, his chin, and eventually over his head. Too sleep deprived to notice, the Platoon continues the patrol without him. The worst part about it isn't that he died...it's that his Platoon Sergeant and Squad Leader will now get a NO-GO for not knowing he's dead. Dirtbag.
In this picture, Rang...wait...wrong documentary...Rangers use paddles...this is Navy SEAL BUD/S...forget this picture.
This is what Chinooks look like with an Instagram filter.
At this point, the students are standing up under withering enemy blanks fire just begging to be casualties so they can lay down and take a nap while their Ranger buddies carry them.
This Ranger student is impressing RIs by demonstrating superior loudership by MAKING LOUD NOISES!!!
Once a mission goes to hell-in-a-handbasket, RIs initiate a MASCAL (Mass Casualty) which is the cue for Ranger students to kick into action and execute a well-oiled drill where everyone begins yelling loudly and running in different directions until the RIs are merciful/annoyed enough to finally end the misery.
When loudly and violently asked, "WATCHA GONNA DO PL?!" this Ranger student looks around, realizes he's lost, curls into a ball, and begins to cry.
After dozens of seconds of walking in a straight line with night vision on, Ranger students suddenly fall asleep while walking. Then they randomly change the direction of march. And the student sleepwalking behind them follows. Then they randomly change direction again. And the student behind them follows. Now you know how to drone.
The moment of truth. The claws come out as Ranger students fill out peer evaluations with scathing comments about others' leadership qualities. Criticisms like "He smacks out loud when he eats his MRE" or "He falls asleep mid-sentence" or "He never gave me my pencil back" or "He refused to trade M&Ms for my cheese spread" go to the student's core, convicting them of their shitbaggery. Other comments are illegible as Ranger students fell asleep writing theur pere paeunt btteur elavutions mascal sklittes tnighot.....................................................
Our camera crew became mesmerized by the Ranger tab at Malvesti and subsequently missed the actual graduation ceremony.
103 lone survivors made it through Ranger school. Now all of these lone survivors get to impress their girlfriends and moms as they watch the RIs do sweet stuff that they never dreamed of doing in Ranger school. Only 14% of these students will be morally straight enough to actually admit that, "No, in fact, we didn't get to rappel upside down, blow things up, or jump into exploding geysers of water."
