Finding Light in Dark Places
Four Ranger School Lessons for High Performance Teams
No sh!t, there I was… meandering up another treacherous ridgeline in the mountains of north Georgia with 90 pounds on my back and a machine gun slung across both shoulders. I didn’t weigh much more than the gear I was hauling. “Why am I carrying all these heavy ropes if we’re never going to use them?” I initially disagreed with the patrol leader’s decision. He wanted to walk us the long way around our objective since some of the shorter, steeper routes had recently frozen over. I still committed myself to the mission. My brain had a funny way of justifying things according to their level of suck. “I guess it’s okay to keep walking. More walking means less climbing, and tying knots right now would probably suck worse.”
While platoon problems remained obvious and visible, we often kept individual struggles hidden. My gloves never had enough time to dry, which made it difficult for me to open or close my hands. My fingertips couldn’t feel anything at all. “Okay Andy — focus — if there’s one thing you can do right now, it’s walking in a straight line behind someone else,” I said to myself.
As we reached higher altitudes, the temperature plummeted, more snow fell, and the wind picked up so much it actually started to sting my face. The ice in my eyelashes crackled whenever I tried to blink. “I guess this is what freezing to death feels like… awesome,” my mind whispered, “as long as somebody gets in trouble if I die.” Completely exhausted, my mind started wandering into very dark places. “I still have nine more days in these mountains before re-supply. How will I keep moving? What the hell am I doing here? This is ridiculous.” Hold that thought.
Background Information (Rewind). This was now my second attempt at completing the Army’s “Mountain Phase” of Ranger School in the middle of winter. I’d already completed both the Ranger Assessment Phase (RAP Week) and Darby Phase twice. You got that right, there is no guaranteed end date in Ranger School. Do not be fooled by the brochures. Consider yourself extremely lucky if you complete the course in 62 days as advertised. Very few folks graduate by passing each phase on their first attempt. The rest of us must decide for ourselves whether we have the courage to repeat an entire phase all over again as a recycle (the true Ranger School experience).
Oh, I forgot to mention, if you fail a single phase twice in a row, you get to start the entire course over again with a brand-new class as a Day 1 Recycle. The physical fitness tests up front during “RAP Week” are grueling, considering the slightest infraction or mishap can get you dropped. Unless you have a serious medical problem, electing to discontinue the course at any time gets you kicked out indefinitely with a “lack of motivation” (LOM) on your permanent record.
Extreme Lows. I found out I recycled (failed) mountain phase on Thanksgiving Day, 2006. My Ranger Instructor called me into his hooch and handed me my mail. “You failed,” he said up front before I could finish walking into the room. “But today’s your lucky day… you get to repeat the entire phase beginning in six hours.” What kind of sadistic person would say something like that? “Oh, and we’re expecting a twenty-year blizzard tomorrow, might want to pack something warm.” Thanks. I walked back out and spent the first half of my six-hour cycle break consuming large quantities of chocolate, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff sandwiches before heading to the laundry room.
I opened a letter from my fiancée, Abby, in the laundry room. “Happy Thanksgiving” the cover said. “I can’t wait to get married… everything is all set up and ready to go for the wedding,” she wrote inside the card. Absolutely soul crushing.
“Oh boy,” my mind raced. “Looks like I’m gonna miss my own wedding… again.” Trying to plan a wedding while a spouse is in Ranger school with a 15-month combat deployment on the back end is what one might call a “logistical challenge.” Every time I recycled; we postponed our wedding date. I recycled a lot. That takes commitment. Military family members are just as dedicated as service members themselves. I’m lucky to be married to the same woman that put up with me then.
Back to the Mountain (Fast Forward). The mind is a powerful thing. Just as I found myself drifting into darkness, something interesting happened. The person in front of me started veering all over the place. Like, swaying at the neck and shoulders, walking around like a drunk person. “That’s different,” I thought to myself. I’d seen plenty of heat casualties in my day, but this was the middle of winter. Maybe severe dehydration or exhaustion? Who knows?
Our platoon movement formations varied, but we usually stayed at least 25 meters apart from one another. We tried to stay closer with limited visibility in the snow, but I could barely see or hear anyone else apart from the guy ahead of me, staggering about. “You okay buddy?” No response. I used up all the energy I thought I had left just asking that question. We kept walking another ten minutes or so until I started to hear conversation. “Dude, what are you guys talking about up there?” I still didn’t get any response. Okay, now curiosity started to outweigh my own misery. I jogged up to the guy to get a closer look. The voice in my head again spoke, “how are you jogging right now?” Once I reached him, I realized he’d been talking to himself the whole time. He finally stopped rambling and looked up at me with a frightened expression on his face before shouting at me, “when do we eat!??”
What the hell was this circus show all about? “Dude, just keep walking bro… we’re almost there.” I didn’t know what else to say, we definitely had a long way to go, and the last thing on my mind was food. Personally, I couldn’t stop dreaming about hot showers and comfy beds with electric blankets — not food. I gave him a piece of my wheat snack bread. That’s love.
My thoughts started racing again. “Man, I thought I was in bad shape… this guy’s nuts.” I had him hold onto the back of my ruck sack with one hand as I plowed forward and kept encouraging him to drink water while keeping his head up. Plenty of others had done the same for me. It wasn’t long until he came back to reality. It’s easy to forget to drink enough water in cold environments. The body’s thirst response is diminished. Blood vessels constrict when we’re cold, preventing blood from flowing freely to our extremities. This enables the body to conserve heat by drawing more blood to its core.
Every ranger student has a physical or mental break down at some point. It’s a special moment when someone is there to help you snap out of it. By focusing on helping someone else, we also prevent our own minds from drifting back into the darkness of our own misery. It’s so much harder to let others down around us than it is for us to justify letting ourselves down.
Summary. Teamwork and leadership are critical components of high-performance teams. People often ask me what I learned in Ranger School. I always respond with each lesson below. They have served me well in combat, manufacturing, consulting, and entrepreneurial environments. Each lesson is bite-size in nature, intended for reflection and application in your own professional context.
Lesson #1. You can operate well beyond your own self-imposed limits. This includes both physical and mental limitations.
Lesson #2. A leader must figure out how to get people and teams to do what needs to be done when they don’t want to do it. This includes breaking down what might seem to be large and impossible tasks into smaller, measurable, more realistic milestones people can wrap their minds around to accomplish.
Lesson #3. The Leader is responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do. The weight of responsibility is always heavy. As a patrol leader, I failed in the mountains the first time around because I neglected to check on my left and right-side security elements prior to an ambush. Yes, they fell asleep. However, I’m still responsible. I shouldn’t expect what I don’t inspect. We were operating on less than three hours of sleep per night. I could’ve checked on my support and security elements, or put better controls in place, but chose to do neither. I promise you I did not make the same mistake twice.
Lesson #4. Nobody earns their tab alone. While a ranger tab is considered an individual award in an Army personnel file, it is earned through the collective efforts of the entire fire team, squad, and platoon. Once this privilege is earned, much is expected. Graduation day marks the first day of a lifetime committed to earning the tab all over again — one day at a time — by living up to the ideals and expectations outlined in the Ranger Creed.
Call to Action. If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing your thoughts, reflections, or application stories you might have that relate to any of the lessons outlined above. This article is by no means limited to any specific audience. If you lead or work as a member of a team, and enjoy pushing the envelope, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
