Ruck Geek

A blog about Rucking.

Day of the Ranger - TT - Washington, DC

10/02/2020-10/04/2020

DOTR Patch

Index

Event Background

Day of the Ranger

In late August of 1993, an elite special operations force called Task Force Ranger (TFR) was deployed to Mogadishu, Somalia to find and capture a criminal warlord named Muhammed Farrah Aideed. TFR was un-precedented and formidable fighting force made up of the US Army’s Delta Force Commandos, US Army Rangers from the 3rd Ranger Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, Air Force Operators, Navy SEALS and the Nightstalker helicopter crews of the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Air Regiment. On the 3rd of Oct, TFR launched a daring daylight raid into downtown Mogadishu where 21 Aideed’s top officials were meeting in secret. While the initial raid was a success two Blackhawk helicopters would be shot down while the assault force, with its prisoners, were waiting for extraction! The mission now changed from a find and capture mission to a rescue mission for the downed members of the two crashed Blackhawks. This rescue would turn into the 18 hour Battle of Mogadishu or as Somalia’s were to name it! The Day of the Ranger. The heroics of the men in TFR both from the air and on the ground, fighting to save each other, is an extraordinary story of courage, perseverance and commitment and this event will commemorate the bravery of those both fallen and living who took part in this battle.

The first Tough will begin at 21:00 on 10/2/19

The second Tough will begin at 15:00 on 10/3/19

You must complete both Tough events to earn the coveted Day of the Ranger patch.

Packing List

Gear

Event Location

Founders Park, Alexandria, VA

Cadre

Cadre Igor Cadre Igor Cadre Belman Cadre Belman Cadre Whiskey Mike Cadre Whiskey Mike

The Events

Tough

64 Participants 1 of which was their first event!

Admin

Kicked off at 9pm on Friday October 2nd. Right away we split into 3 troops that would be our mini teams for the remainder of the event. Called roll call, asked for injuries/conditions they should know about and off we went. Leadership roles were assigned with a Commander and Sergeant Major in charge of the 3 troops and each troop having a Troop Leader and Assistant Troop Leader.

Welcome Party

Welcome party was roughly the following:

Then we filled sandbags in the nearby volleyball court and divided them along with team weights (ranger tab, SF tab, tail rotor, Ranger script, blackhawk chain, logs, axe, 3 flags, 3 water jugs, 4 120s and more). t1_weight_2 t1_weight team_weight

Movement

We then headed out as a gigantic squad for a 2 mile movement. We made it about a half mile before Cadre Igor had everyone stop real quick, we needed a team picture. As we all chuckled he informed us this was just like his first mission in Mogadishu, they were heading out and someone said wait we need a team picture! So they stopped and got one before loading up on the little birds! t1_wait_team

We reached our first stopping point and talked about how challenging it was to communicate front to back. Cadre Whiskey Mike, who had been a communication specialist, pulled out some radios for us to use! This made communication much simpler going forward! As we were rucking up to head out, we had 3 cop cars swarm into the field! Cadre calmly walked over and explained, then we were on our way.

Next stop was The National Mall, where we swung around the Jefferson Memorial, stopping quickly at the Washington Memorial before walking through the WWII Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial. lincoln

It was around this time temperatures started to dip into the 40s with a solid breeze. Needless to stay our breaks turned into shiver-fest pretty quickly. This was where the event really shined though. We got to hear 3 different perspectives from 3 people who were on the ground that day for the Battle of Mogadishu. This was truly amazing! To hear them triangulate the story was very special. It was also great to hear what from Black Hawk Down was BS (shocker, a lot of it) but also where they didn’t do it justice. Like the amount of gunfire and shells showering down. All 3 agreed the movie wasn’t even close. Watching the movie that is just unimaginable. Amazing men to keep their cool and execute during all of that. t1_movement

Endex

t1_endex_movement We worked our way back to endex stopping a couple times to cover events and bios leading up to the battle. Upon reaching endex we were informed as a troop we were responsible for getting our coupons back to the start point by 3pm when we would be stepping off for the second Tough. No patch for this first Tough, it was training for the second Tough. I assure you though, it was no less of an event because of it. It was around 8:30am when we finished. Time for food, shower, and sleep.

Tough+

63 showed back up

Admin

Started promptly at 3pm, as a troop we decided to show back up at 2:20 to organize and get ready. Admin was troops reporting numbers to account for everyone.

Welcome Party

Each troop did a given exercise for an unknown time before switching to the next:

Movement

Get it on, which was the get ready call the Rangers, so we Rucked up and weighted up. Then the call to go: IRENE! t2_irene First movement was a couple miles through the nearby harbour area to a big park under a highway bridge. We found a nice wet field for fun activities. We did relay races between troops through the mud in the field. We had to take a 120# sandbag, run out to the Ranger tab, low crawl back, then the next 2 low crawled out to the sandbag and ran back, repeat for everyone in your troop. t2_relay My troop lost and headed to the mud hole for some muddy 4ct pushups and swim strokes as payment. Everyone else joined and Cadre Igor appreciated that and rewarded us for it. t2_team_punish t2_breakdown

Next was a long movement to The George Washington Masonic National Memorial through town with lots of stop lights, very challenging with 63 folks! t2_movement_2 t2_movement t2_masonic_temple t2_squad

Next movement was an aggressive time hack of 2 miles 40 minutes. We ended up running the last half mile with all of our coupons. Ended up at a basketball court with restrooms thankfully as we couldn’t use them at our previous stop. Shadows brought a large pizza for themselves and cadre and ate in front of us, sick torture of some sort.

More great conversation from all 3 Cadre:

Movement to next area, stopped for use of the tree line, then we start back up to immediately ground things. Had a med issue. Ambulance shows up to check them out and clear them. Then plategate + rookie, integrity drop. Won’t go into that, but if you were there you know. t2_movement_mid

I become commander, and we had a 4 mile movement down a path in the middle of nowhere and read additional bios as we had been doing during both events. I read mine for Staff Sergeant Daniel Busch. The cold was setting in, along with the second tough hitting me, start dozing off unintentionally. Never had that before.

Movement backtracking a bit towards 4 mile run park. Fill water up since everyone is black, read more bios. Everyone is in rough shape, few people crying some people contemplating dropping. Sun starts to peak, and Cadre Igor gives the news we are heading back to index. He gives us the chance to earn dropping sandbags with some trivia questions and we mercifully get 2 out 3 required to do so. Spirits are picking back up since endex is near! t2_sunrise

Endex

t2_move_to_endex t2_to_endex t2_endex_sunrise Long final movement back to endex, moving a little slow but steadily. We dumped remaining sandbags in volleyball pit and formed up for patches and beer! We go the coveted Day of The Ranger patch, plus a bonus OG Tough patch for the first Tough. endex_patches troop_1

Lessons learned

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