The article compares the competition with a ruck. Fourteen of those over three days with no scant rest between. It is an Iron Man for U.S. Army Rangers. It is not part of their usual training.
Fifty two-man Ranger teams start out.
The day is described, exhausting just reading it. Photos of men doing outrageous things like carrying a 135 LB cement ball on their shoulders and many other challenging if unproductive feats that all sound like fun one at time but strung together like that are more challenging than American Ninja, through frigid water, and through lots of mud, up walls, up ropes, swimming under walls, jumping through fires, shooting rifles, running through burning logs, from freezing to fire, heights to depths, slogging through one physical and mental challenge after another.
Day two begins with twenty-six teams cut.
The photographs look like tremendous fun while the words describe hell. The hell of being so torqued with competition that you drive your body through destruction to prove you're better than everyone else.
I am duly deeply impressed.
While this one photograph from the whole lot sticks out from the rest.
It gets me, pow, right in the heart.
This is what my older brother saw when he told me, "You throw like a girl."
Bastard! It made me want to throw the rock in my hand at him.
7 comments:
You throw like a girl? You could be president!
But seriously, a picture taken during a wind up prior to actually loosing one's missile can be misleading. Ever see a picture of a pitcher about to throw? Can you say "Tommy John surgery"?
You don't throw a hand grenade like you do a baseball.
Nor as far.
Best Ranger competitors are truly world-class athletes.
Since switching to the round grenades in the 80s, you pretty much DO throw a grenade like a baseball. That was part of the attraction of the change: everyone knows how to throw a baseball. Though I'm not sure that assumption holds up like it used to?
But I do also remember the older, stiff-armed style with the heavier pineapple grenades. Didn't want guys tearing elbow ligaments.
Either way, like the t-shirt says, once the pin is out, Mr. Grenade is not your friend!
Best Ranger is one of the most astounding things you will ever see.
A lot of the men in it aren't all that young, but you see them go full out and often it's the younger guys that get left in the dust.
They show documentaries of it on channels like Discovery or sometimes one of the History channels.
Torque. Love that word. That's what leads to Tommy John. Well, excessive torque.
Something moving about these Rangers pushing themselves to the edge.
We'll go out to the area in Coronado where Navy Seals train. There's a nice stretch of public beach. A few times we've seen them "training." Looks like torture to me.
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