Day three of the 2015 Best Ranger Competition includes The Darby Queen Obstacle Course, Helocast, a Combat Water Survival Assessment and The Final Buddy Run to the finish line at Camp Rogers, April 12 at Fort Benning. The competition was started in ... VIEW ORIGINAL
First Lt. Roy Glasgow, and 1st Lt. Michael Matthaeus, the incoming and outgoing executive officers assigned to Heavy Troop, 3rd Squadron "Thunder," 3rd Cav. Regt. completed the 32nd Annual David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition held April 10--12 at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The team originally came up with the idea to compete while they were deployed to Afghanistan earlier last year. The 3rd Cav. Regt held try-outs for the competition at Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. With only four month for train-up, the team had to act fast to prepare for the challenging competition.
"We wanted so see how far we could push ourselves," said Matthaeus, a native of Austin, Texas. "The hardest part for us was balancing our everyday jobs and responsibilities while deployed with training-up up for such a prestigious event," he said.
The team traveled to Fort Benning immediately after returning from their nine-month deployment. Long hours were spent with conditioning drills and 12-mile ruck marches in preparation for the competition.
The team finished in 20th place overall -- an accomplishment in itself with more than 35 events to include a HELOCAST, unknown distance foot march, night land navigation, written test covering the Ranger Handbook, demolitions range, unknown distance kayak, as well as the famous Malvesti Obstacle Course.
"It's really all about teamwork and really knowing the guy next to you," said Glasgow, a native of Philadelphia. "We had to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses going into each event -- we would switch who would take lead based on how we were feeling or who was more knowledgeable in one area," he said. "There were numerous times when our bodies were telling us to quit but the encouragement from our friends, family and unit really helped us push through to see the finish line," he said.
Fifty-two "buddy-teams" competed this year and only 24 made it to the end.
Social Sharing