Alex Frank

After Ranger school I did mechanized leader's course.  I was assigned to a mech unit but found out last week I am being diverted to a stryker unit, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Vilseck Germany.  Mechanized means it sports the M2 Bradley armored personnel carrier.  At Mech Leader's we gained some basic familiarization with it.  We learned basic maintenance, how to assemble and disassemble the 25 mm main gun, some basic tactics and gunnery.  The coolest thing we did was this simulator where we simulated actual battles that were very realistic.  THe simulator looked a lot like the inside of Bradley and it was tons of fun when we did a force on force. 

The course was relaxed and chill, which I definitely needed.  I still feel much lazier than I did before Ranger school.  Additionally, my body doesn't recover nearly as well yet.  I will lift one day, rest three days, but still suck the next time I go to lift and not be able to do as much weight or as many reps.  I am starting to get back into the swing of things though.  I have gotten in some solid runs and feel strong again rather than the puny chubby Ranger student I was.

Here is a picture from the Bradley Range.  Firing the main gun was pretty sweet.  You can engage targets as much as 2 kilometers away effectively and it shoots a big round. 

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I went to the Ranger memorial today and I could really feel it. It was my first time going there. When I walked up to it my mind went still. I looked at the ranger creed engraved in the solid granite and the names of the men who died and distinguished themselves as Rangers. Energy washed over my body and I could feel a deeper part of myself. I could feel the energy, the strength of all Rangers past present and future, supporting me, giving me the confidence and energy I need to bear the awesome responsibility of leading a platoon in a counter-insurgency. It was an amazing experience.

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I've had a lot of time to reflect on ranger school lately.  I certainly didn't appreciate the full value of the experience while I was in it which is very understandable--while you are there all you want to do is get out of there.

Getting the tab is important for career reasons because it's considered very important in the infantry.  People  judge you for it.  That's not the important part though.  There are some great people that don't have the tab and some terrible people that do.  Anyone that has the tab will have a basic level of toughness and discipline though.

What's really important about the experience is the growth I got from it.  You really get perspective on what is required of you as a soldier in difficult circumstances.  Doing the right thing--the things that will make your unit an effective fighting force--is completely counter-intuitive in those circumstances.  The stress on you is such you just want to shut down.  The monkey chatter in your head--the endless stream of thoughts on nothing in particular that keeps you from being present in the moment--is constantly going on and on reminding you about how tired and hungry you are.  Eventually though you realize the monkey chatter is not who you are.  There's a deeper part that is much stronger than that, and learning not to listen to the monkey chatter is so important not just in Ranger school but life.

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Graduated Ranger school last week!  It sucked, but it taught me more about being a soldier than any army school could have.  It's definitely the hardest thing I have done yet, and it helped prepare me for the even harder things that lie ahead in Afghanistan.  I learned a lot about how I react in stressful circumstances and how to lead in those environments. 

Mountain phase was definitely the hardest.  We only got 1-2 hours of sleep a night in mountains.  In the other phases it was about 3.  Going up and down was also trying and tough physically.  I lost a lot of weight but quickly put it back on over Christmas break.

Now that is all behind me.  I am the fattest I've been in my life and in terrible shape.  I should be able to get into the groove though before heading to Germany.

Here is me and my Ranger buddy, John Ford, with our graduation's guest speaker, Ross Perot.

My mom pinning on my tab:

My squad, 2nd squad, after getting out tabs pinned on.  It ended up being an excellent squad.  We did all of the planning for our platoon's missions and working very well together. 

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And finally me with all my favorite international students.  Khergiani from Georgia, Mugizi from Uganda, and Horth from Canada.

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Ranger school starts tomorrow!  I am giddy with anticipation.  Definitely nervous, but it gives me so much energy and excitement.  It's going to suck more than anything ever has for me but you learn a lot about yourself, accomplish something great, and you just get an experience that is so different than anything we are used to in our normal lives.  Plus, some civilians will think you are a ninja who can jump 40 feet in the air and kill a man every way possible, which is only slight exargeration. 

Here are some more pictures from infantry BOLC. 

US doing a room clearing live fire.  That was cool stuff.  They had targets with balloons on them we shot with live rounds.  You really have to trust the people next to you not to shoot you.

Here is a squad mate of mine, Gentile, a very solid soldier in the South Carolina national guard, in a guard tower.  We act very serious and professional 100% of the time.

Here are our living acommodations in the training area.  Normally it would be more packed than this.  They were nice except for the first week we were there the AC was broken so it was very hot in our tent. 

My Squad before doing our Air Assault.  That was a cool mission.  We went in to clear a village and they had actual Iraqis there to cause us trouble. 

Gentile and I getting pumped up before the air assault. 

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I have now graduated Infantry BOLC.  We got out of the field and snapped this picture:

Then we spend the next few days cleaning weapons:

Overall IBOLC ended up being a good course.  The physical fitness we did was not great but I learned a lot of technical things and got a better understanding of leadership from it.  My peers were for the most part solid.  There were some people that got weeded out, mostly for not having the basic toughness you need.  Pretty much everyone else has a base level of toughness and competence. 

Ranger school is just on the horizon though.  I start on September 13th.  It's a significant event.  Ranger school has been built up and built up and there is so much mystique about it.  Now, I am actually about to do it.  I feel confident going into it, but anything can happen.

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The last few weeks we have mostly been in the field so I have not had a whole lot of time to make posts unfortunately.  I've enjoyed a lot of the training we have done.  We did one week of Situation Training Exersizes (STX, pronounce sticks, the army is the best organization ever at coming up with acronyms) lanes.  Those were some great training, especially if you were in leadership positions.  You are given a mission and then you run it using blanks.  You get evaluated and given feedback on how you did.  I was in a unique position to see what the platoon leader was doing each mission because I was the PL's radio man for most of the week. 

The next week we did some great live fires.  I was platoon leader for the first one, which was pretty tough one.  We were doing a support by fire live fire where we occupy a support by fire position and then shoot at targets on an objective.  We coordinate our fires with our platoon mentor acting as our company commander.  I learned a lot from the experience and had a good time doing it.  The next life fire we did was even cooler.  It was a section sized-25 people or so-STX lane.  We were walking through the woods and then a two man observation point popped up.  I was in the lead fire team carrying the SAW, the light machine gun, for this one and we all returned fire instantly and then did a frontal attack.  My team leader got up to bound and right as he did two targets popped up 20 meters in front of him.  I quickly let loose a burst and knocked both down, saving if life had they been real life.  Once we cleared them, we saw a bunker ahead and starting laying down supressive fires while the other team in our squad flanked them and assaulted.  Next, we saw a trench system in from on us.  Our whole squad acted as a support by fire while another squad assaulted the system and then we beat back a counter attack.  I fired a lot of rounds and really enjoyed it.

Last week was urban ops.  It ended up not being well run but we did some good stuff and I learned a lot.  One highlight was a urban live fire, where you go into a room with your team with live bullets nad engage targets.  I was nervous at first because you ahve to have good weapons discipline in close quarters to avoid shooting one another but once i got into it we did really well.  At the end of the week we had a 12 mile ruck march individual release.  It was the first time I had done an individual release and I was very happy with how I did.  It was one of the toughest things I've done just because I put so much into it,, but I felt great about it at the end. 

I also managed to get a few pictures.  Here three out of four international students in my platoon.  From left to right, they are CPT Mugizi from Uganda, 1LT Georgiani from Georgia, and 1LT Karageorgos from Greece. 

Here is a picture of a guy in my platoon on a ruck march.  Notice he's drenched in sweat but giving it his all.

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So far we have been training mostly on individual soldier skills and it's been a nice life.  We did a Land Navigation course a few weeks ago which was one of the hardest I've done.  You had to cover a long distances in a short time and if I didn't run the course I would have been a no go.  There was also a lot of thick brush which also made it difficult.

Since we have done a lot of shooting.  We started off just shooting M4s.  I got good training shooting moving targets for the first time.  We also did close range marksmanship.  Most recently, we did machine gun theory and application.  We did a night fire with which I had a little too much fun with.  I actually got in trouble with my Captain because I was firing in 16-20 rounds bursts rather than the required 6-9.  "I was just trying to have some fun sir" was all I could say.

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I have started IBOLC and like it so far.  The first week was inprocessing.  That means going to some place, waiting a while in line, and then getting a shot or filling out a piece of paper.  It's easy to get frustrated with those kinds of things, but I have started always carrying a book on me so I don't mind it at all.  We took a PT test too and got back up to my usual standards from before I was injured despite my run time not being back where it used to be.  We have some international students in our class.  I am sponsoring a guy from Greece, which means I answer whatever questions he has and make sure he knows what's up.  It's rather ironic we also have a Turkish exchange student in our platoon.  In addition we have Georgian and Ugandan officers.  It's interesting getting their perspective on things.  The Ugandan officer has been fighting the Lord's Resistance Army for a few years now and the Turkish officer has fought in the Kurdish parts of his country.

This last  week was basic troop leading procedures.  The Troop Leading Procedures is a process the army teaches that gives you a guide in how to formulate and carry out a plan.  The classes were alright, we learned how to do very detailed terrain analysis and mission analysis. 

Our platoon trainer is junior Captain and then we also have three non commissioned officers training us.  I've talked with our captain a fair amount about his deployment to Afghanistan.  The other infantry officers in my platoon are for the most part high quality and I've enjoyed working with them so far. 

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I got carried away with BOLC II and got really busy. On the whole, it ended up being not worth the investment in time. Taking people away from their families for that long, investing that many Staff Sergeants and Captains as cadre, and spending all that money didn’t seem worth it. I got better training than most people because I ran a range, which was a good experience. Despite that, the last week was fun. I’ve attached a picture of me at the top of Mount Scott, the highest point in the area.

For the rest of the course, we got classes and for the final week ran mission simulations. During our capstone exercise, I had tons of fun playing opposing forces, the bad guys, for the other platoons. First, I played a village sheikh for a negotiation which was great. I got to see what it looked like from their perspective. They came in pretty heavy, with a lot of guys coming in to pull security and I felt very threatened because no one was talking to me yet. The negotiator they picked did a good job though of building a relationship and addressing my concerns. Then, another platoon assaulted our town. I had a SAW light machine gun and since I could do whatever I wanted I did my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation, running across open fields firing from the hip. When we were running missions, I was a team leader for all of it and enjoyed that job. During one assault I was the first guy jumping up and going “Let’s go Alpha team follow me!” which was awesome.

After BOLC II, I flew home, had two days there, and then had to report on Sunday to Benning. I am excited to be at the home of my branch, infantry, and excited to be starting IOBC. It should be lots of good training and lots of motivated people.

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