Received an update from my Chaplain friend today and thought I would share (I PCS'd from the unit back in January).
He went through RASP and was selected by the board for service in the Regiment. Due to needs of the Army he had to move from there to fill an emergency vacancy at Ft. Bragg but will be attending Ranger school from there with service in the Regiment immediately after (hopefully).
Thought I’d give a rundown of what we did with him and how it worked for those interested. I’ll reiterate I am not Ranger qualified and have never attended RASP, RIP, or ROP so the plan relied on what intel we could gather second-hand.
Ultimately what we ended up doing for his RASP preparation due to time, perceived weaknesses, and resources was focus on three main lines of effort:
1. Mission Command. Thought this was the area he was weakest in due to his background and experience. Focused on teaching him troop leading procedures (TLP), warning orders (WARNO), and operations orders (OPORD) as quickly and squad/platoon focused as possible. I took the lead on this one and essentially set up a crawl/walk/jog during office hours over a few weeks. First we executed a class on each, with reading assignments from the Ranger handbook and 5-0. Second we went through essentially a TEWT where he would put notes together, then talk me through actions he took on a regular basis but now within the framework of TLPs, or orders. As an example he went through TLPs, then an order, for some of the races he had organized in Afghanistan. After that the ‘jog’ phase (run wasn’t possible in the timeline) was he would come in and receive a tactical mission from me in the morning, then would construct a timeline of events he would go through with TLPs and brief me before he went home – then put together an OPORD and brief me the next day. We focused on major concepts – backwards planning, 5-point contingency plans, delegated planning, and timelines (1/3 – 2/3).
2. PT. He was already a great athlete and PT stud – great runner, great swimmer – so we focused on ruckmarching and injury prevention. For this LOE he took the lead with advice from one of our 1SGs who had been an instructor at the RTB. We tried to make it a team effort with various Soldiers coming in for PT events with the Chaplain to try and smoke him – none were successful.
3. Tactical Skill. He had never fired a weapon or moved tactically so we tried to build some basic knowledge of individual/Squad movement techniques (IMT) and battle drills. Two of our NCOs took the task over and conducted some limited training in the BN area but no major FTX or anything like that. We did some rubber ducky training but never put a live weapon in his hands. This LOE was probably the most immature and could have been executed much better. Largely it was familiarization with concepts, the only thing he really learned to do well was IMT.
Result:
Ultimately the board at the end selected him for service in the Regiment so it was a good result. Obviously his individual character and performance mattered far more than anything we put together for him in preparation. Based off his feedback (without giving away too much G2 on the course) the major lessons I took away if I’m in a unit where we have a similar situation are:
- Start earlier, the earlier the better.
- Nothing beats a formal program, an earlier start would have let us get him to the pre-Ranger course which would have been invaluable.
- On LOE 1 I should have had him brief more people, and should have grilled him harder in latter phases. Would have helped prepare him for the board at the end of RASP.
- On LOE 2 we should have done more rope climbing and obstacle course work. Sounded like those were very challenging at the course
- On LOE 3, and really all the LOEs, we could have done a better job of showing him something – then coming back a week later unexpectedly to test him on it. Sounds like learning quickly, rather than knowing things up front, were clear differentiators at the course. We likely could have prepared him better for that circumstance.
