Ranger School
The Ranger School is a 62-day United States Army small unit tactics and leadership course that develops functional skills directly related to units whose mission is to engage the enemy in close combat and direct fire battles. Ranger training was established in September 1950 at Fort Benning, Georgia. The Ranger course has changed little since its inception. Since 1995, it was an eight-week course divided into three phases. The 62 day course of instruction is divided into three phases: Darby Phase, Mountain Phase, and Swamp Phase.
Overview
The Ranger School is open to U.S. military personnel from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force, as well as selected students from other nations allied with the United States. The course is conducted in various locations. Benning Phase occurs in and around Camp Rogers and Camp Darby at Fort Benning, Georgia. Mountain Phase is conducted at Camp Merrill, in the remote mountains near Dahlonega, Georgia. Swamp Phase is conducted in the coastal swamps at various locations near Camp Rudder, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.The school is not organizationally affiliated with the 75th Ranger Regiment. Ranger School falls under control of the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command as a school open to most members of the United States Army, but the 75th Ranger Regiment is a Special Operations warfighting unit organized under the United States Army Special Operations Command. The two share a common heritage and subordinate battalions common lineage, and Ranger School is a requirement for all officers and non-commissioned officers of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Those graduating from Ranger School are presented with the Ranger Tab, which is worn on the upper shoulder of the left sleeve of a military uniform, according to U.S. Army regulations. Wearing the tab is permitted for the remainder of a soldier's military career. The cloth version of the tab is worn on the Army Combat Uniform and Army Green Service Uniform; a smaller, metal version is worn on the Army Service Uniform.
History
Ranger Training had begun in September 1950 at Fort Benning Georgia "with the formation and training of 17 Ranger Infantry Companies by the Ranger Training Command". The first class graduated from Ranger training in November 1950, becoming the 1st Ranger Infantry Company. The United States Army's Infantry School officially established the Ranger Department in December 1951. Under the Ranger Department, the first Ranger School Class was conducted in January–March 1952, with a graduation date of 1 March 1952. Its duration was 59 days. At the time, Ranger training was voluntary.In 1966, a panel headed by General Ralph E. Haines Jr. recommended making Ranger training mandatory for all Regular Army officers upon commissioning. On 16 August 1966, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Harold K. Johnson, directed it so. This policy was implemented in July 1967. It was rescinded on 21 June 1972 by General William Westmoreland. Once again, Ranger training was voluntary.
In August 1987, the Ranger Department was split from the Infantry School and the Ranger Training Brigade was established.
The Ranger Companies that made up the Ranger Department became the current training units—the 4th, 5th and 6th Ranger Training Battalions.
Desert Phase was added in 1983 and the length of the Ranger course was extended to 65 days. The duration was again expanded in October 1991 to 68 days, concurrently with the reshuffling of the Desert phase from the last phase to the second. The 7th Ranger Training Battalion was added to administer this phase. The most recent duration change to Ranger School occurred in May 1995, when the Desert Phase was removed from the Ranger course, and Ranger School was reduced to its current 61-day length of training, at 19.6 hours of training per day.
The Ranger Assessment Phase, the first five days of Ranger School, was added in 1992.
In 2015 Ranger School was permanently opened to women.
Students
Ranger School is open to all Military Occupational Specialties in the U.S. Army, although—as of April 2011—an Army combat exclusion zone still limits some from attending. Ranger students come from units in the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and from foreign military services. However, the two largest groups of attendees for Ranger School are from the U.S. Army's Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course, and the 75th Ranger Regiment. Competitions and pre-Ranger courses are typically used to determine attendance. The Marine Corps is only allotted twenty slots for Ranger school each year, while the Air Force is only allotted six.Ranger students typically range in rank from Private First Class to Captain, with lieutenants and specialists making up the largest group. The average age of a student is 23, and the average class consists of 366 students, with 11 classes conducted per year. The vast majority of Ranger students have already graduated from Airborne School, and will make multiple jumps during the course. However, a small number of students have entered and completed Ranger School without being Airborne qualified. These individuals completed tasks assigned by cadre instead of taking part in the jumps alongside their classmates.
Following the graduation of Captain Kristen Marie Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Lynne Haver in August 2015, the Army announced that Ranger School would henceforth be open to female students. While acknowledging that in the past he "would have doubted a woman could pass the rigorous course", Brigade Command Sergeant Major Curtis Arnold described Griest and Haver as "tough soldiers" who "proved their mettle beyond a doubt" and "absolutely earned the respect of every ranger instructor". In October 2015, Major Lisa Jaster also graduated from Ranger School, becoming the first female Army Reserve officer to receive a Ranger tab. In 2019, First Lieutenant Chelsey Hibsch became the first female Air Force officer to graduate from Ranger School. In 2024, Captain Molly Murphy became the first female Army nurse to graduate from Ranger School.
Training
Ranger School training has a basic scenario: the flourishing drug and terrorist operations of the enemy forces, the "Aragon Liberation Front," must be stopped. To do so, the Rangers will take the fight to their territory, the rough terrain surrounding Fort Benning, the mountains of northern Georgia, and the swamps and coast of Florida. Ranger students are given a clear mission, but they determine how to best execute it.The purpose of the course is learning to soldier as a combat leader while enduring the great mental and psychological stresses and physical fatigue of combat; the Ranger Instructors – also known as Lane Graders – create and cultivate such a physical and mental environment. The course primarily comprises field craft instruction; students plan and execute daily patrolling, perform reconnaissance, ambushes, and raids against dispersed targets, followed by stealthy movement to a new patrol base to plan the next mission. Ranger students conduct about 20 hours of training per day, while consuming two or fewer meals daily totaling about, with an average of 3.5 hours of sleep a day. Students sleep more before a parachute jump for safety considerations. Ranger students typically wear and carry some of weapons, equipment, and training ammunition while patrolling more than throughout the course.
Darby phase
The first phase of Ranger School is conducted at Camp Rogers and Camp Darby at Fort Benning, Georgia and is conducted by the 4th Ranger Training Battalion. The "Darby Phase" is the "crawl" phase of Ranger School, where students learn the fundamentals of squad-level mission planning. It is "designed to assess a Soldier’s physical stamina, mental toughness, leadership abilities, and establishes the tactical fundamentals required for follow-on phases of Ranger School". In this phase, training is separated into two parts, the Ranger Assessment Phase and Squad Combat Operations.The Ranger Assessment Phase is conducted at Camp Rogers. As of April 2011, it encompasses Days 1–3 of training. Historically, it accounts for 60% of students who fail to graduate Ranger School. Events include:
- Ranger Physical Fitness Test requiring the following minimums:
- 5 mile individual run in 40 minutes or less over a course with gently rolling terrain
- Combat Water Survival Test
- Combat Water Survival Assessment, conducted at Victory Pond. This test consists of three events that test the Ranger student's ability to calmly overcome any fear of heights or water. Students must calmly walk across a log suspended thirty-five feet above the pond, then transition to a rope crawl before plunging into the water. Each student must then jump into the pond and ditch their rifle and load-bearing equipment while submerged. Finally, each student climbs a ladder to the top of a seventy-foot tower and traverses down to the water on a pulley attached to a suspended cable, subsequently plunging into the pond. All of these tasks must be performed calmly without any type of safety harness. If a student fails to negotiate an obstacle they are dropped from the course.
- Combination Night/Day land navigation test – This has proven to be one of the more difficult events for students, as sending units fail to teach land navigation using a map and compass. Students are given a predetermined number of MGRS locations and begin testing approximately two hours prior to dawn. Flashlights, with red lens filters, may only be used for map referencing; the use of flashlight to navigate across terrain will result in an immediate dismissal from the school. Later in the course, Ranger students will be expected to conduct, and navigate, patrols at night without violating light discipline. The land navigation test instills this skill early in each student's mind, thus making the task second nature when graded patrolling begins.
- A 2.1 mile buddy run, followed by the Malvesti Field Obstacle Course, featuring the notorious "worm pit": a shallow, muddy, 25-meter obstacle covered by knee-high barbed wire. The obstacle must be negotiated—usually several times—on one's back and belly.
- Demolitions training and airborne refresher training.
- Modern Army Combatives Program training was removed as a part of a new POI at the start of 2009; it was reinstated with Class 06–10. The Combatives Program was spread over all phases and culminated with practical application in Swamp Phase. However, MACP has been removed from Ranger again, starting with the Combatives Program in Mountains and Florida and followed by the removal of RAP week combatives in class 06–12.
- A 12-mile forced, individual ruck march with full gear on roads and trails surrounding Camp Rogers. This is the last test during RAP and is a pass/fail event. If the Ranger student fails to finish the march in under 3 hours, they are dropped from the course.