Of the Tab and the Scroll

As you’ve surmised by the photo, the title of the post is not George R.R. Martin’s latest book. We’ve discussed this topic before, because it appears to come up every election cycle. Now it’s come up as a politcally motivated smear campaign against Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).

So what constitutes an “Army Ranger?” Leave it to the Army to complicate things, but there are really three types of Ranger.

First are those who have graduated the US Army Ranger School. It’s an arduous course that lasts more than two months and tests soldiers to their mental and physical breaking point. Operating for days in the field on little sleep and even less food, Ranger students conduct small unit combat scenarios. Along the way they learn mountaineering and waterborne operations. Graduates of the grueling course (fewer than half who attend graduate) receive the coveted Ranger Tab (top in the above photo) for permanent wear and the title “Ranger”. Most of these soldiers go back to their units as better leaders and pass on some of their skills.

Second are those who volunteer for the 75th Ranger Regiment. The 75th Rangers is a special operations force. Numbering about 3,600 soldiers, they can deploy one of their battalions on as little as 18 hours notice. These Rangers are the Army’s premier light infantry unit and have carved out a niche doing things like capturing airfields, capturing high value targets, and similar direct action raids. Soldiers volunteering for the regiment go through another eight week training program called Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP).  Graduates of the program move into the regiment and are operational Rangers.

Thirdly are those who have both graduated the Ranger School (been “tabbed”) and also served in the 75th Ranger Regiment (been “scrolled”). Some say these are the only “Real Rangers”. Of course there are also those with a scroll and no tab who say they are “Real Rangers” while those with tabs and no scrolls say they are Rangers too! In our discussions here, both tabbed and scrolled are to be considered Rangers in the context of how the US Army labels them. Blame the Army if you don’t like it.

Our thoughts on the matter are best summed up by Command Sergeant Major Rick Merritt, a former regimental sergeant major of the 75th Ranger Regiment, defended Cotton’s claim to be a Ranger, saying attacks on Cotton were “absurd”, and that Cotton is “…100% a Ranger. He will always be a Ranger. An attack on him is an attack on every veteran who has served honorably.”

It could be said, as this lovely “Wonkette” puts it “Anyone can go to clown school. I could go to clown school. You could go to clown school. But if you never actually work as a clown or register myself as a clown by painting your clown face on an official clown egg at the clown registry, can you truly call yourself a clown?” The author clearly does not understand what a Ranger of either breed is and denigrates their training by comparing it to clown school. I’m sure clown school has its own rigors, but people likely do not routinely lose 50 pounds or suffer serious physical injuries like broken limbs and torn muscles as Ranger candidates do. She also denigrates the noble profession of clowning by comparing them to the cold, mud-dwelling dog faces.

The Wonkette author describes herself thusly;

Robyn Pennacchia is a brilliant, fabulously talented and visually stunning angel of a human being, who shrugged off what she is pretty sure would have been a Tony Award-winning career in musical theater in order to write about stuff on the internet.

So take her opinion(s) with the requisite weight they should be properly afforded. She has waded into this argument after Salon.com jumped into it as part of a political character assassination against Senator Cotton. The Trump supporting politician seems to be getting swept up in the anti-Trump purge. Nothing revealed about Cotton by Salon isn’t known. Hell, it’s all in his Wikipedia article.

Cotton graduated law school and went to work at a NYC firm. He left that to join the Army on active duty in 2004. He didn’t go into the JAG Corps as most lawyers would, he became an infantry officer. With the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (the same regiment featured in the famous Band of Brothers book and TV mini-series) he deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned the Combat Infantryman Badge and a meritorious Bronze Star Medal.

After that, Cotton volunteered to serve with the 3rd Infantry Regiment “The Old Guard” at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia. The Old Guard provides the honor guard for funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as provide honor guards for visiting dignitaries and supporting the overall mission of the military in the D.C.-area.

After leaving the service, Cotton went into politics. He first won a seat at the House of Representatives in 2013 and moved to the Senate two years later, a position he was just reelected to with 2/3rds of the vote. If he thought the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents were bad, he hadn’t offended the militant political left.

Category: Army, Liberals suck, Politics, Ranger, Veterans in politics