From Ranger to Chicken
Safe today, Safe tomorrow
Ranger training takes place in the mountains, which means it demands real nerve. Of all the courses, the ones that involved crossing between peaks or rappelling down them brought out a special kind of fear.
So I let trainees with a fear of heights sit those out and do PT instead. A small mistake up there could easily turn into a matter of life and death, and if it did, my assistant instructor and I would be the ones to answer for it.
And "answering for it" meant exactly one thing: military prison. To keep that from happening, I went over the safety rules more times than I could count, and I made a point of never forcing anyone through.
Even so, something unexpected always seemed to happen. The One Rope Bridge was one of those things.
The One Rope Bridge Course
The One Rope Bridge is a course where trainees cross a mountain gap along a rope about thirty meters long. They wear a harness clipped to a double safety line, so even if someone slipped, there was no real risk of falling to their death.
Still, once training actually started, the trainees found themselves staring down from roughly ten stories up, and it overwhelmed them. F-bombs went off in every direction, followed by groans. And yet almost no one ever asked to sit this one out for PT instead. They were all fired-up young men, after all.
Three Ways to Beat the Fear
I had three tricks for talking up their courage.
The first was asking for a volunteer.
After my assistant instructor demonstrated the course, I'd always look for the first person willing to go. The trainee brave enough to step up usually made it across without trouble, and watching him do it gave the rest of the group enough confidence that the whole session went more smoothly.
The second was having them shout "Ranger"—the name of the training itself—over and over as they crossed.
It worked pretty well at pulling a terrified trainee's mind elsewhere. Of course, plenty of them were too scared to get the word out straight.
The last method was having them shout their girlfriend's name, at the top of their lungs, three times.
If they didn't have a girlfriend, I had them shout their mother's name instead—and that turned out to help just as much with settling their nerves. A girlfriend and a mother stood for the same thing: someone who loved them, somewhere they had to make it back to. I couldn't think of a stronger motivation than that.
Tom Cruise Turns Into a Chicken
That day, I went looking for a volunteer as usual. A baby-faced soldier who couldn't have been more than twenty raised his hand.
"Got a girlfriend?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Shout her name three times, loud. Go!"
"Emma~ Emma~ Emma-a-a~~~"
He set off light on his feet. Compact, solidly built—for a second he looked like Tom Cruise out of Mission: Impossible.
And then, wouldn't you know it, he turned into a "chicken." Whenever a trainee turned into a "chicken," it usually sent them straight into a panic.
The course is meant to be done lying flat on your stomach across the rope, inching forward while chanting, "Ranger, Ranger, Ranger..." But most soldiers lost their balance, flipped over, and ended up dangling by their hands alone, body hanging underneath the rope.
Which, admittedly, looks exactly like a chicken strung up on a line. So from that point on, the chant had to change to "Chicken"; they'd keep moving while shouting "Chicken, chicken, chicken."
Once in a while, a trainee would manage to flip himself back onto the rope and switch the chant back to "Ranger." But most of the time, it wasn't long before he slipped back into "Chicken."
That day's Tom Cruise was the rare exception. He hauled himself back onto the rope without much trouble and finished the whole course chanting "Ranger, Ranger, Ranger..." the entire way.
That, by the way, counts as a real success story. Out of sixty men, maybe one or two ever make it across chanting "Ranger" from start to finish without once flipping. It's genuinely rare.
The Trainee Who Froze
As usual, trainee after trainee that day suffered the indignity of turning into "chicken." Two of them gave up partway across.
When someone gives up in the middle of the rope, the assistant instructor goes out to get him—clipping the trainee's harness to his own and hauling him the rest of the way.
Most of the time that's the end of it. Desperate to get out of that moment of terror, they cooperate without a fight.
But there was one time—just once—a trainee froze solid on the rope and would not move.
He'd seemed a little slow and unsure of himself even before he started. Sure enough, he was unusually slow, and he flipped into "chicken" faster than almost anyone. Still, he made it about halfway.
And that's where it ended. He suddenly stopped and shouted that he couldn't move. My assistant instructor went out and clipped onto his harness, but the man didn't budge an inch.
Yelling at him to move did nothing. Pulling on the line did nothing. And on top of everything, he was a big guy—there was no dragging him by force.
So I collected myself and reached for my usual trick.
"Got a girlfriend?"
"No, sir."
Time for Plan B. I started asking him whatever came to mind—where he was from, his family, how many days he had left before he'd see them again back in the States. The moment we got to family, he sank further into sentiment and looked even more miserable.
Change the subject. Something lighter.
There's always a moment in the "One Rope Bridge" that cracks everyone up—the moment I tell a trainee who's flipped over to switch his chant from "Ranger" to "Chicken." So I brought that memory back up, and asked him to try shouting the word that had made him laugh—"Chicken"—all the way to the end. Sweating and pale, he finally started, little by little, to move.
My assistant instructor shouted "Chicken" right along with him. The trainees watching from the ground picked it up too.
"Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!..."
After a long stretch of chanting, he made it across safely, and all of us gave him a round of applause.
Safe Today, and Hopefully Tomorrow Too
The training that gave me such a scare that day ended up fine.
Three days down, four to go before this batch finishes Ranger training. Then they'll leave, and next week another group of American soldiers will take their place.
Some of them will make it across the One Rope Bridge chanting nothing but "Ranger" the whole way, clean and sharp. Others will flip into "Chicken" and find their way back to "Ranger."
And—though I hope not—there might be another frozen man on the rope like today's.
And so another day will pass.
That night I lay down and counted how many days I had left before I could get out.
120.
Today's done, so 119. Tomorrow night it'll be 118, the night after that, 117... I counted myself to sleep like that.
*You can check out my previous post, Fake it Till You Make It.
* The top image was created by Nano Banana.
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