A LONE RANGER CANNOT SUCCEED
Danae Upshaw
City, State
Exercise Science
Leadership Engagement
RANGER CHALLENGE
The Ranger Challenge competition is an annual event dedicated to fine tuning leadership skills through mentally and physically challenging tasks. In order to prepare in the weeks preceding the competition, I attended resistance training sessions five days per week, 2 hours per day for eight weeks. As this was an Army ROTC club sanctioned event, we were able to request funds from SUUSA. This did not cover the whole trip so we fund raised as a team. The community was incredibly supportive! With the support of our ROTC company and family we attended the competition held at Fort Carson, Colorado on October 16-17, 2015.
The events began on Friday night with a comprehensive Army knowledge written exam, as well as a push-up and pull-up competition. Saturday morning commenced with a 12 mile forced ruck march, followed by a series of practical Army knowledge lanes in which leadership qualities were assessed. The Warrior’s Dinner concluded the twenty eight hour ordeal. As evident from the above description, this project will not only further my future military career, but also provides a solid foundation for my current leadership position.
The inspiration for this project came form my heavy involvement in ROTC. As a contracted cadet, much of my time is spent in the ROTC classroom planning training events, participating in club activities, and ensuring the welfare of my fellow cadets. This is the beginning of my career as a commissioned officer, and I take this responsibility very seriously. It only made sense to put all the time I spent doing what I love to an alternative use as my EDGE project!
This was a fairly straight forward project, so I did not have too many complications. The ones I did have revolved around funding and course completion. The project was very fun and physically challenging so I had a great time actually completing it, but as the competition drew closer funds were still scarce. We had to reach out to a few different people before we found the right contacts through SUUSA and sponsorship was difficult to advertise. Eventually we were able to develop some very professional looking documents to help in our search for sponsors and we raised the funds to attend the competition.
EDGE 3000 was a little bit of a struggle. The assignments were very close together and provided no room for procrastination. It definitely forced me to get out of my comfort zone and look at the EDGE project form a different perspective. This ended up being very helpful in the completion of the course however.
My project did not have very far reaching benefits for the public exactly. This was a very personal experience for my team and me. If my participation benefited anyone besides myself it would have been them. I wanted to work hard to help them succeed.
The Ranger Challenge competition benefited me in more ways than I expected. Of course physical improvements were a huge perk to this intensive resistance training schedule. I also learned so much about Army doctrine by studying the material for the knowledge test that I would have otherwise had no reason to study. It also prepared me for my 26 mile ruck march I participated in spring 2016. The most unexpected however was receiving merits that assisted in my achievement of 3rd ranked cadet in my battalion and in the 20th percentile in the nation at the end of the 2016 spring semester.
This was such a cool experience! Even though it was a lot of early mornings, sleepless nights, and impossible tasks it was full of invaluable lessons. I will always remember the hill that I thought was impossible to climb with 45 lbs. on my back. I will always be grateful for my teammates who had to half drag / half carry me up that final push of the ruck. I will always have those experiences to reflect on as I continue to grow and develop as a leader.
