S&S: Is Ranger School obsolete?
Stars and Stripes makes the claim that Ranger School is unnecessary now because so many NCOs have combat experience which negates the purpose of Ranger School which simulates so well the conditions of intense dismounted operations.
After a decade of extended war deployments and with little time back home for training, there is now a “critical” shortage of Rangers needed to fill hundreds of crucial combat leadership positions intended for them across the Army, school officials say.
The dearth is particularly noticeable among noncommissioned officers — the sergeants, staff sergeants and sergeants first class who lead small units of enlisted soldiers through combat — and among all ranks of combat maneuver operators — the infantry, armor, field artillery and cavalry units fighting at the front lines.
That’s an extremely short-sighted view of the force. Ranger School, more than anything else gives an experienced cadre of instructors and graders to disseminate the lessons they learned in combat, which probably differs from that of the students. Originally, that was the goal of the Ranger Battalions before they became the special service force they are today.
I’m pretty sure that all of the NCOES has been fairly disrupted by the last decade or so of budget cuts and war. The Ranger School is more than a “tab check” among the elites, it’s a baseline of training for military leaders. Even though it can said that combat leaders have performed admirably in this war, much of what they’ve learned is applicable solely to this conflict and not as useful looking forward to other threats we face.
The skills taught at Ranger School are under the harshest of conditions and under stresses that probably can’t be duplicated in the Middle East. I’m not saying the school is more difficult than leading soldiers who are being shot at, I’m saying it’s a different difficulty.
Our greatest defeats have come when the US was improperly prepared for the enemy they eventually faced. Task Force Smith and Kasserine Pass to name two. And what Canadian doesn’t know about the sacrifice at Dieppe. To dismiss the importance of Ranger School in perpetuating the professional force through the 80s and 90s endangers the future force.
Category: Military issues
Ok, that is officially a dumb idea. Ranger school teaches allot of things and they are the sorts of things that make better troopers and leaders. The ability to face and overcome adversity cannot be simulated. This war will end like all do, schools like Ranger school will help train future troopers for future wars.
My calendar doesn’t say April 1~ something is wrong here.
traditional american isolationist thought, starting already… history shows after every single war in which american irregular units perform beyond expectations, they are immediately cut in favor of more reserved european warfare traditions, when in reality we should be trying to build our force into a 70% / 30% of irregular / regular vs the traditional, as history also shows…. (british defeat of insurgent myanmar forces by dividing SAS into small teams, as the only recorded defeat of insurgent forces by a western army)
As a non-Ranger, we need to keep Ranger School, and keep it tough. My personal problem with the school is that there are not enough slots, so Infantry monopolizes the allocations. If we’re looking to upgrade the quality of the force, increasing the number of slots available to non-infantry is the place to start.
For a growing number of company-grade officers and junior soldiers, they will be come OEF/OIF-era soldiers: having served, but not in combat. For many of them, the closest they will come to the conditions of combat is Ranger School and/or the Combat Training Centers.
By this thinking, anyone and everyone who’s served in combat is the same caliber soldier as a Ranger.
I never went to Ranger School, but I play one in Bars in Montreal….:)
Can anyone say: “We’re getting complacent AGAIN!!
Something else that will come back to bite us in the ass. For all of the above stated reasons….this is truely a dumb idea.
Honor and Courage
Ranger School is the best damn small unit Leaders course there is. Getting rid of it makes no sense unless you are looking to deorive the Army with a way to train combat soliders with techniques to survive in combat.
LTs and privates who go throught the course haven’t been in combat yet. Normally basic course el-tees take the course right after they finish the Basic Course.
Not that S&S is a left leaning publication, but I got to wonder if somehow this will be pushed to better equilitize the military in the same way the black beret was.
I am NOT a Ranger. I do think the Ranger School is absolutely hands down the second best leadership course in the world. The best being combat itself. Ranger School will be THE most important way the Army will pass on hard earned knowledge and skills to the next generation while retaining and retraining skill that perhaps have atrophied.
That being said, there seems to be a disturbing undercurrent of “Ranger School is the measure of a soldier not combat” running through this discussion. Artificial stress, no matter how ingeniously applied, cannot match the real world pressures of a combat zone. Trust me NOTHING, not political correctness, DADT repeal, drawdown or budget cuts will destroy our force more than Soldiers with six and seven YEARS of real world experience being told “forget all that, NOW we are going to teach you the RIGHT way to do it” by someone who has never been there. And it is happening right now. Maybe not in combat arms, but in combat support and service support units where there is a sizeable population of leadership that has NEVER even deployed much less seen combat.
Right now I know of Majors who were 2LT’s in 2001. 1SG’s who were buck sergeants. They didn’t have the opportunity to go to many of the professionalization courses which were standard before OEF/OIF. They were too busy leading Soldiers in Combat Zones. Tell them they don’t cut it, not me.
I would actually say the exact opposite of this article. BECAUSE of the high optempo and the high level of combat over the last decade we need Ranger school now more than ever. I would recommend putting in more instructors and increasing the number of slots. I served in Iraq as a combat engineer. I was amazed at how many REMF’s thought that because of their MOS they would never be shot at. The enemy doesn’t care what your MOS is. Even if you’re a PAC clerk or work in the S2 or as a cook, or whatever – you still have to travel from point A to point B across Baghdad. That is a reality. And the enemy is waiting. It is at times like this when Ranger school needs to be expanded more than ever.
There will always be a need for Ranger School, end of story.
This non-RANGER, member of “The Florida Swamp Ranger Camp”, can see that this writer has never seen up close and personal the RI’s, nor the school in operation. These guys are the best of the best, Tabbed RANGERS themselves, and nearly everyone with a Right shoulder patch, or two, or three.
Bob Izzaninja’s comment is most fitting one here.
Now, more than ever,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I am not a Ranger. I have, however, met some men who are. I have also met people who have seen combat. From my experience talking with them, both things measure a person both to themselves and others. However, one is not better than the other. If anything, they compliment each other. As such, you need Ranger School as it would be the sole manner of that measurement during peacetime. But to think it obsolete during wartime is insane. Now, more than ever, schools and training of real combat techniques should be ramped up to give our troops the best training and all the advantages we can so they can succeed in their mission and come home safe.
Unfortunately, I’m seeing an evil push to start cutting back the military both in size and budget and have it act as the sacrifical lamb to pay for entitlement programs here at home. Exactly the wrong thing to do in today’s world, IMO. This is, sadly, what happens when non-military types run for public office. They truly have no concept of what the armed forces goes through on a day to day basis, under fire and putting their lives on the line.
Not even worth discussing, the author is a no-go at this station.
The reason for the Ranger School, as much as Recondo before is not to replace the combat veterans but to augment and make them more efficient and lethal. But also to train the green troops that just landed in country. Ranger School will refine, like all army schools based on lessons learned.
You also forget some things in combat. You may be so focused on COIN that you forget Anti-tank or how to do an ambush not just respond to one.
Yeah, well…all of my thoughts and opinions come from one (1) tour as a pure light infantrymen in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. As a joe, for the record.
Even after the nastiest, gritty firefight when you think you should have died three times over – guess what? Walk back to base. Refit! Clean your gear and weapon, hydrate (or chug Rip-It’s), sleep for 8-10 hours, maybe pull some guard…then get back outside the wire and repeat.
I am NOT a Ranger, nor Ranger-qualified. However, I have a feeling that by the time a man reaches the 2nd or 3rd phase of Ranger school…they’d trade me places during the roughest part of my tour without hesitation. Ranger school is there for a reason – to create outstanding leaders, and train them to lead in the worst places possible.
I’d feel more comfortable with a SL or PSG with a tab then some butterbar LT pushed through the school…this is all opinion, don’t take it personally.
Moronic. We need MORE people who have learned it right, not less. Lots of us have learned the “function in high stress” part on our own, making it up as we go; if that’s all that Rangers have been getting out of their school, then they haven’t been getting our money’s worth.