# MFF Rangers



## Smurf (Aug 25, 2009)

When did the regiment really start sending guys to MFF?


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## AWP (Aug 25, 2009)

angryirishkid said:


> When did the regiment really start sending guys to MFF?



Before there was a regiment.

And why do you ask?


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## Looon (Aug 25, 2009)

MFF?


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Aug 25, 2009)

Military Free Fall


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## Looon (Aug 25, 2009)

Not everyone attends. And you have to be a Ranger School grad first before you can get a slot.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Aug 25, 2009)

I thought only RRD Rangers were MFF slot? I know LRS & SF has MFF slots but I thought most of it was for SR types???

ETA: not that I would know anything about it, just word of mouth...


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## Tyrant (Aug 25, 2009)

angryirishkid said:


> When did the regiment really start sending guys to MFF?



Who are you collecting for?


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## Looon (Aug 25, 2009)

J.A.B. said:


> I thought only RRD Rangers were MFF slot? I know LRS & SF has MFF slots but I thought most of it was for SR types???
> 
> ETA: not that I would know anything about it, just word of mouth...


To be honest, I'm not sure if it's changed or not. Back in my day, after successful completion of RS, you could put in for slots to all of the cool schools. HALO, Scuba, etc.......

There were also more 'minor' schools you could attend without going to RS. Scout Swimmer, Demo, Stinger, etc.....

My first wpns squad leader was an E-5 with a scuba bubble.:)

One of these newer guys could be more help.


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## Boondocksaint375 (Aug 25, 2009)

Looon said:


> To be honest, I'm not sure if it's changed or not. Back in my day, after successful completion of RS, you could put in for slots to all of the cool schools. HALO, Scuba, etc.......
> 
> There were also more 'minor' schools you could attend without going to RS. Scout Swimmer, Demo, Stinger, etc.....
> 
> ...




Yeah that is how it is.  After you pass Ranger School you can put in for the other ones (aside from the MTT's and all that happy stuff, any Ranger can go to those)


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## Smurf (Aug 25, 2009)

*Clarify*

I was only asking because I read "Hunting the Jackal" recently and it got me really interested in MFF/Airborne operations as a whole. I was curious about the Rangers because I always read about how Ranger's have the opprutunity to go through various post Ranger school training and they mentioned the MFF course. I knew SF was doing it way back when, and was just curious as to when the Rangers got into it.


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## tjwest (Aug 27, 2009)

I spent about seven months at the Schools NCO for 3/75.  I could get slots for just about any school on the face of the planet.  The issue, at least at the time, wasn't usually a question of whether the Regiment or the Battalion _could_ send you, it was whether they _would_.  A lot of times this is a matter of unit policy and time available.  Sending guys to school meant that they would be spending time away, and there is nothing that Ranger leadership hated more than a disruption of the training schedule.

A lot of times this meant that for guys that had jobs that would require it - or if there were slots on the MTO&E that needed to be filled - they got to go to high-speed schools.  For example, if you ended up with the sniper section, you were almost certainly going to be sent to Sniper School at some point (if you hadn't already gone before you were assigned there).  Similarly, at each level there was requirement to have a certain number of guys that were Jumpmaster qualified, scout swimmer certified, etc.

For most guys on the line, however, the unit pretty much dictated who got to go where.  As was mentioned above, you *HAD* to go to Ranger School first before anyone was going to even let you think about attending another school.  If you graduated, your reward was that you got to stay in the unit, not that you got to attend other schools.  

This meant that for most guys they usually had to re-enlist to get permission to attend other schools.  Even then, it never really worked out like most guys hoped.  That's because when it came down to it, the needs of the unit always came first.  So, the first priority usually went to the guys that wanted to go to schools that would make the unit better as a whole.  These were schools that taught skills NCO's could pass along to young Rangers.  SERE school is a good example of this.  

The converse of this, of course, was that schools that didn't benefitted the individual, but not the unit receive lower priority.  These were schools like MFF.  Schools like SCUBA were even tougher, because (at least at that time, I don't know if this is still true) you had to pass pre-SCUBA first before you could get a slot in SCUBA.  This meant that you had to be away for two schools instead of just one.  Another good example is that for a long time we didn't send any of the line guys to Air Assault School.  This was because the belief was that the average Ranger didn't need to know how many snaplinks it takes to sling load a humvee to the bottom of a Chinook, he only needed to know how to fast rope out of it.  Since we taught FRIES inhouse, it was viewed as a waste of time to send guys up to Campbell or Drum to take the Air Assault course.  As a consequence, it was much easier for the soft-skill guys to get the blessing to go.  This thinking sort of changed when we had a string of guys fail out of the Pathfinder course because they couldn't pass the slingload material.  Suddenly, it became a priority to get guys into Air Assault slots.

This is a long way of getting to the answer to the original question.  Are there MFF qualified Rangers?  Yes, but with few exceptions the guys that have this qualification usually have a job that requires it.


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## Smurf (Aug 29, 2009)

tjwest said:


> I spent about seven months at the Schools NCO for 3/75.  I could get slots for just about any school on the face of the planet.  The issue, at least at the time, wasn't usually a question of whether the Regiment or the Battalion _could_ send you, it was whether they _would_.  A lot of times this is a matter of unit policy and time available.  Sending guys to school meant that they would be spending time away, and there is nothing that Ranger leadership hated more than a disruption of the training schedule.
> 
> A lot of times this meant that for guys that had jobs that would require it - or if there were slots on the MTO&E that needed to be filled - they got to go to high-speed schools.  For example, if you ended up with the sniper section, you were almost certainly going to be sent to Sniper School at some point (if you hadn't already gone before you were assigned there).  Similarly, at each level there was requirement to have a certain number of guys that were Jumpmaster qualified, scout swimmer certified, etc.
> 
> ...



Thanks! That's what I really wanted to know!


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