My Juneteenth Like Epiphany at Ranger School

There I was sinking into self-pity, being tossed about by fierce winds of confusion, and up to my neck in the rising water of lost hope. In 1985, US Army Ranger School was a 58-day course with an average weight loss of 25 pounds and an even higher attrition rate. After day number 23 of the course, I was set to become a part of that washed out number. The prospect of having to go back to my Ranger Battalion without graduating, without that little piece of cloth known as the “Ranger tab” on my shoulder, filled me with dread. Before I give you the whole story, let me give you the bottom line of why Ranger School is the best leadership school in the world right up front. It was there that I learned to always overdeliver, and how true leadership is inspiring others to do the same.

The funny thing about coming to a major fork in the road of life is seldom do we recognize the significance of it until we have long since pasted it. I was barely 20 years old when I reached a major fork in the road at Ranger School. I had been sent back to Fort Benning (now re-named Fort Moore) after the Mountain phase of training because I failed all three leadership positions I had been assigned. It was a long four-day weekend with nothing to do except ponder my situation. I was told that after the weekend, the recommendation that I be dropped from the course would be submitted. It didn’t seem like a fork in the road at the time. It seemed more like the end of the road.

That was one of the longest weekends of my life. I remembered what it took for me to get to Ranger School. I remembered how I was the last one among those who graduated from my Ranger Indoctrination Program to be sent to Ranger School. I remembered the day I had to bang the head of one of my Ranger buddies on a wall locker just to get him off my back. I remembered how I had to take whatever my squad leader dished out until he became convinced that he could not break me. And I remembered how I had to tell my Platoon Sergeant that if he didn’t want me to be here, he needed to DX me (kick me out) because I wasn’t going to quit. Going back to my Ranger Battalion without my Ranger tab would be more than just my personal failure. It would mean giving an occasion to celebrate to all those who never wanted me to be there in the first place.

I would be given one last opportunity before my fate was sealed. First thing after the weekend, I had an appointment to meet with the Ranger School Command Sergeant Major (CSM). I would then be given one chance to convince the CSM to allow me to stay in the course. But what would I say to him? I don’t remember asking, but I was offered two very different counsels that weekend. The first was from a black Staff Sergeant with a Ranger tab who was also a member of the cadre. He told me there is no prejudice here. Every Ranger candidate takes off their rank so that everyone is equal and treated the same. I think he honestly believed this, but it just didn’t jive with my personal experience. The second unsolicited counsel came from a black lieutenant who was also facing the likelihood of being dropped from the course and flunking out just like me. He went on and on about how it doesn’t matter what we do, they would make sure that most of us never made it through this course. I listened to him because he was older and better educated. He was an officer, and I was just a private first class from a tiny little town in the second smallest state in the country. He was a big city college graduate, and I just barely graduated from high school after having dropped out twice. And then there was my own lived through personal experience that seemed to support all he was saying.

No way both of these counselors could be right. To believe the first one, I would have to live what I knew to be false. On the other hand, to accept the other’s point of view was to take up residence among the defeated collective convinced that resistance is futile. Frankly, I could accept neither position, which only made my already too heavy rucksack even harder to bare.

I remember anxiously waiting in the hallway for my turn to see the CSM. I couldn’t hear what the cadre’ or the guy who went in just before me said to the CSM behind the closed door. I certainly heard what the CSM thundered at him though. “And I I’m going to call your unit. They will be waiting for you when you get back. Now get the ____ out of my office!” That guy came out of that office like a little puppy dog looking for a place to go hide and lick his wounds. My senior cadre followed him out, pointed at me and said, “you’re next.”

I got up, marched into the CSM’s office, snapped to the position of attention, and gave the proper hand salute and greeting. “He’s had three patrols, Sergeant Major. He was a no-go on all three due to a lack of supervision. We recommend that he be dropped from the course,” said the cadre. The CSM looked up from the written report in front of him and said to me, “you are not ready. I’m going to send you back to your battalion so you can watch and learn from you leaders.” The very axe I had been dreading for the past four days was now poised and ready to strike. I settled myself and said, “CSM, I’ve learned that it isn’t enough to give a task and what is necessary to complete it. You also have to go back and make sure the task has been completed to standard. If you give me another chance, I know that I can do this.” He told me to go outside while he talked with my cadre. 

It was just a momentary delay of judgment as it wasn’t very long before I was called back into the office. “Would you be willing to go back to Day 1,” said the CSM to me. “Roger that, Sergeant Major,” I said without even skipping a heartbeat. It wasn’t because I was some kind of glutton for punishment that I agreed to go back to the beginning of Ranger School after completing nearly half the course already. It was just that sometime during the last day of that past weekend I had an epiphany. I realized that the truth was somewhere in between the extremes of my two would-be counselors. I accepted the fact that I would sometimes have to work twice as hard as the guy standing right beside me just to get by. This was and is liberating. Not because it is fair, but because how hard I work and how well I do things largely depends only on me. This concept of being better than you have to be and always striving to overdeliver has served me well in all the years since. It is not however, all that I learned in Ranger School.

Back to Day 1 of Ranger School I happily went. It wasn’t the least bit easier the second time around, but I was much more successful. I reached the final Florida Swap phase having passed every patrol in which I was evaluated. The rules changed in Florida though. Everyone had to successfully pass a leadership evaluation (get a go) in Florida regardless of how many other patrols were passed in the prior phases. Throughout the entire Florida phase, the cadre won’t tell any of us if we had passed or failed after each evaluation. After the leadership assignments for the last patrol were announced, everyone who was not put in charge sighed in relief. It is understood that the final patrol during Ranger School is given as a last chance to those who have not yet passed a patrol in the Florida, and everyone else has essentially earned their Ranger tab already. When the assignments were given, I was to be the weapons squad leader for that final patrol. Once again, it was do or die time for me.

Being in charge of the last patrol in Ranger School is a nightmare. Everybody was suffering from all the prior accumulated weeks from the lack of sleep and food. We were tired all over. The natural thing that everybody wanted to do was to curl up ball somewhere and wait for things to be over. Still, I was running around fueled by adrenaline alone, kicking and screaming trying to get everyone to wake up and do what they needed to do. Sure, that worked while I was kicking them, but as soon as I turned around, they went right back to sleep again. This turned out to be another one of those forks in the road for me. “Look guys, I know you are hungry, tried, and can’t wait for this to be over. And all of you already have your Ranger tab, but now I’m asking you to help me get mine,” I said. That worked so much better than kicking and screaming. Many leaders never learn that. So many ascribe to the weak leadership philosophy that essential says, “do what I say because I’m in the boss, or else.” Ranger school taught me many years ago that a good leader inspires cooperation rather than depending on coercion. 

When we the reached the objective on that final patrol, one of my ammunition bearers left the machine gun ammunition back on the boat. I was the weapons squad leader and when the gun ran dry, I got the no-go for a lack of supervision. Turns out it really didn’t matter though. I had already gotten a go from my first patrol in the Florida phase. In fact, everyone in the squad was tabbed out before that last patrol. However, somebody had to be put in charge of that final patrol. Why they chose me I will never know. I wasn’t so happy about it back then, but I wouldn’t change a bit of it now. 

Why is Ranger School the best leadership school in the world? Always over deliver! Whatever your hands find to do, do it better than you have to. Be it a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, the job itself is less important than how well you do it. Some have very prestige jobs while others not so much. Mere window dressing compared to what really matters from the two-day old employee all the way up to the CEO. Doing what you do well is the one important thing, and there is honor in all honest work well done. Knowing this is the beginning of lasting freedom, and being able to inspire it in others is real leadership. Just one place on earth to learn all that in only a few short months, and that’s the US Army Ranger School. Happy Juneteenth everyone.