Having looked back at what I, and everyone else has said here..... I'm going to go on a bit of a
fucking rant..... but there's a method to the madness.
A: Ranger Regiment revolves around the Airborne Ranger Infantryman. Every other MOS in Regiment, and every attachment TO Regiment, is there for the sole purpose of being a force multiplier on the battlefield for the Ranger Fire team up to Regiment as a whole. The supply guy. The medic. The communications specialists. The mortarmen (Although they're infantry as well), the Forward Observers... the armorers... the intel weenies, the cooks the the the the. Everything is there to make sure that steely eyed rather poorly socialized and extremely well trained Ranger Infantryman only has his own physical and mental faculties to have to worry about when he's closing with and destroying the enemies of our country. Even CST's are only there because they happen to sometimes make it easier to find the person who needs a bullet to the dome. That's the mission, that's the task, that's the blood stain on the spear.
B: Regiment conducts operations on its own. A LOT. When other smaller SOF elements need more people than they can shit on their own, yes we'd help. It's a grand time, someone else did most of the legwork already and we get to blow shit up and probably shoot someone in the face, and you're providing ammo/explosives too? FUCK YEAH SIGN ME UP. Lived for months with an ODA in Afghanistan. Know how many ops we did with/for them? ZIP. There's been plenty of joint missions that Regiment's been on, because once again, Regiment's pretty much got more manpower than damn near any two other SOF elements combined, and a fuckton of organic assets that we bring to the fight.
It's like calling that one cousin because you need some demolition done prior to putting up an addition to your house, except he shows up with 10 guys piled into the crew cab of his truck, 2 coolers of beer and a truck bed with another 15 dudes you never even met but they heard on the grapevine something needed to get broken. Just make sure you do a good OPORD so only the wall you want taken out gets taken out, otherwise Sua Sponte might get put into effect and you'll be remodeling the entire damn house, like it or not.
C: Regiment is a stand-alone entity and is not, should not be considered as, nor really ever will be, a stepping stone organization within the DOD. Those that think that are careerist fucks and probably won't last long IN Regiment because once you get INTO Regiment with a mentality like that, the pack sniffs you out because you're different, act different, and we generally don't like you because you're different in that manner. We could care less about race, orientation (but we'll mock you the same if you stare in a shower), etc... but careerists don't have a focus on the shit at hand because their hearts aren't in it, nor are their minds... and it shows in their quality of work from PT to ranges to, to, to.
D: Regiment is a GREAT place to move forward from if you are a solid performer. I have buddies who are officers of all makes and models from cyberwarfare to intel to supply to aviation. I have buddies who are Green Beanies and bearded ones and everything inbetween. Your performance in Regiment will follow you as a general rule one assignment beyond, if not two, from within Regiment simply due to "bleedover" from Regiment when people just want to try something different due to personal choices. Regiment has, does, and will support solid Rangers that decide that they want to try to do something else, somewhere else, down the line after being in Regiment... but you're not going to get that support unless your chain of command has seen that you're squared the fuck away.
E: If you take the Ranger mentality, even in a subdued fashion, elsewhere in the military.. Anywhere else in the military.... you'll usually do fantastic. Having said that though, no other unit in the army IS Ranger Regiment. SF does things the SF way. 160th does things the Nightstalker way. Other branches/elements do things their way. Sometimes you might have to buck the system Ranger style if things are failing to be adequate, but thinking/executing outside the box in that manner requires a requisite and intimate knowledge of what's IN the box, to know the factual basis where standard doctrinal or otherwise "accepted and appropriate" methods of operation do NOT apply for that situation...
Regiment has a strong, well trained foundation in simple infantry operations and tactics.... and then takes that first layer of the cake, slaps on some icing of good personnel that are solid performers, throws on another layer of Regiment Specific operation types and methods, and then finishes the cake off with more icing of joint operations experience and hard focused training.. That is why Regiment can do what it does... without the basics, you *can't* be highspeed. Otherwise it's like benching 450 and never having done leg day, it's imbalanced and in the end will bite you in the ass at some point.
Long story short... Don't even bother trying to go to Regiment unless you're going to fully give 100% and then some TO Regiment and what Regiment is and does.
