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Lauren Frias
- Over 100 US Army troops endure grueling challenges to determine the service's toughest soldier.
- More than 50 teams of two competed in the annual Best Ranger Competition in April.
- Two first-time competitors came out on top — the 75th Ranger Regiment's fourth win in a row.
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For four decades, US Army troops have tested their strength and endurance to determine the toughest soldiers during the annual Best Ranger Competition.
Over the course of 62 nearly continuous hours, Ranger-qualified soldiers compete in two-person teams, participating in a gauntlet of challenges mirroring real-world Ranger operations.
From the early hours of the morning to the dead of night, competitors demonstrate tactical skills, complete difficult obstacle courses, and traverse dozens of miles on both land and water.
In April, more than 100 US soldiers competed in the Best Ranger Competition, a mix of an outdoor adventure course with the soldiering's most grueling tasks. This is a look at the contest's three unforgiving days and the first-time competitors from the 75th Ranger Regiment who took home the title.
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A measure of determination
The Lt. Gen. David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition was first held in May 1982 at Fort Moore, then known as Fort Benning, near Columbus, Georgia.
Initially a contest among members of the Ranger Training Brigade, it has since expanded to include personnel from across the service, including Special Operations and Army National Guard.
"This competition is not just to see who is the toughest or the most physically fit," Lt. Gen. David E. Grange Jr., a commanding general of then-Fort Benning and namesake of the competition, once said. "It is to see who is mentally the strongest, the most determined to finish."
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Competitors and participants
According to Ranger Training Brigade Staff Sgts. Kevin Teran and Jim Moran, who won the competition in 1999, there are "two basic types of people that enter the Best Ranger competition — competitors and participants."
"Some arrive with the aim of simply surviving the challenges thrust upon them and to win a 't-shirt.' Such individuals usually fall out early on and even get injured," they wrote in an essay for the Association of the US Army. "Competitors are there to win. They exude the guts, mental toughness, intensity, and burning desire to succeed that characterize the US Army Ranger."
"These are the folks that are champions, both at the Best Ranger Competition and in their units," they added.
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A challenge right at the start
Even before the sun rose on the first day of the competition in mid-April, soldiers were already put to the test in the first event — a 7-mile run wearing a weighted vest and carrying a 60-pound sandbag.
Teams were required to cross the finish line together to complete the event, and the time to complete the race determined each team's ranking.
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Malvesti Obstacle Course
Competitors had to clear all six obstacles of the Rangers' notoriously difficult Malvesti Obstacle Course as quickly as possible.
The obstacle course is part of the Army's Ranger School and tests students through a series of pull-ups, rope climbs, ladders, and the "worm pit," a shallow, muddy pit of water covered in barbed wire.
Competitors had little time to recover before proceeding to the Ranger Mile, a series of events that included carrying two 40-pound kettlebells, doing six dead hang chin-ups, and running two runs totaling three miles.
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Fast-roping
Teams were also tested on their fast-roping skills, following commands to load onto a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and exiting the aircraft in one minute.
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Marksmanship
Competitors demonstrated their marksmanship with several different firearms, including an M240 machine gun, an M17 pistol, and an M4 shotgun. Each team was given two minutes to familiarize themselves with the weapon, followed by one minute to load, fire at five targets, and unload the weapon.
Rankings in the event were determined by the team's total number of targets hit, and in the event of a tie, the number of rounds remaining after the course was considered as the tiebreaker.
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Putting their skills to the test
The second day of the Best Ranger Competition featured a round-robin series of events, including mortar emplacement. Lobbed mortars can rain explosives on enemy positions like trenches and can suppress fire for infantry movements.
Heavy lifting
Competitors put their physical strength to the test, lifting heavy objects like tires.
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Difficult maneuvers
Other events included lifting, throwing, or crawling with weighted sandbags.
Simulating real-world Ranger operations
Competitors tackled obstacles resembling real-world Ranger operations, such as cutting through a steel-reinforced frame or using tools to pry open a door.
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Zip-line to the finish
After completing the day-stakes events, soldiers then underwent an arduous tactical water movement event, which included tasks on land, water, and air. First, competitors embarked on a run to a zip-line tower and zip-lined across the Chattahoochee River.
Paddling along the Chattahoochee
They then used rafts to paddle along the river, after which they carried on land to the finish line to complete the event.
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Another obstacle course
The final day of the competition included yet another obstacle course, requiring competitors to climb a rappel tower using a rope. The rest of the course was split into two tracks, allowing teams to compete side-by-side.
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3-gun event
The third day featured another marksmanship event using an M1911 pistol, an XM7 assault rifle, and an M1 rifle.
Competitors were tasked to move through the course as quickly as possible while engaging with as many targets as they could, with time penalties given for missed targets.
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Helocasting
As part of the competition, soldiers also had to complete a "helocast," a little-known insertion and exfiltration technique used by US special operations in hostile territory.
Competitors had 10 minutes to construct a poncho raft, which they had to load onto a UH-60 helicopter. The helicopter carried them to an exit point over a pond, where competitors had to swim and transport the raft and equipment to a finish point on shore.
Final buddy run
The final event of the three-day competition is a buddy run, in which both team members carry an inert M4 while traveling together toward the finish line.
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Newcomer team named Best Ranger
At the end of the competition, scores from all of the events were tallied to determine team rankings — and a team of newcomers came out on top.
Team 40 — First Lt. Andrew Winski and Sgt. Matthew Dunphy — earned the highest cumulative marks out of all 56 teams, granting them the title of Best Ranger. Among more than 100 competitors, Winski had the highest marks on marksmanship.
Both first-time competitors, the duo represented the 75th Ranger Regiment, marking the fourth year in a row that members of the unit won the competition.
"It means a lot to me, mostly for my partner, I didn't want to let him down, and we didn't want to let the regiment down," Winski said after completing the buddy run event.
Winski said he was "truly grateful" for the opportunity to participate in the competition and show "what the Army's Ranger Regiment is and … what kind of Rangers we produce."
Gen. James Mingus, the Army's vice chief of staff, acknowledged that completing the competition is no small feat.
"At the end of the day, the physical, mental — all those things have got to come together in a technical way," Mingus said during the awards ceremony after the competition. "You have to be a master at your craft, you have to be at the top of your game physically and intellectually and mentally, which sets this apart from, I think, any other long endurance event that's out there."
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