Quote Originally Posted by KenWats View Post
On Ranger School:
For me, as a brand new Engineer 2LT, Ranger School was a good leadership exercise (my Ranger School time dates back to '97, so ymmv). I saw what worked and what didn't work and had to do all the troop leading procedures under the most stress I faced in my relatively short military career. I got to see how different folks reacted differently to stress and learned a little about how much nudging folks needed. I saw firsthand one of the most physically tough and intelligent officers from my OBC class fall apart under the strain. I fell apart under the strain a little myself.

While the troop leading procedure training and giving an operations order Ranger School style was all done in the Benning phase, there were tests of your ability to lead, plan, organize, and control under stress throughout the school.

Was Ranger school a necessary or sufficient check for "good leaders"? No. I saw some idiots with the Ranger tab. One of my best ROTC cadre was an infantry captain who didn't make it, and he's a man I learned much from and a big reason why I developed into (I think) a fairly decent Platoon Leader.

As an Engineer, who had to work with Infantry companies that rotated leaders fairly frequently, showing up with the Tab I think at least showed that I had a shared experience with the Infantry folks. There was some value in that. I think the NCOs who got stuck with me at least respected that I had tried to take every opportunity to make myself a better leader before I showed up at the Platoon.

As far as folks joining ROTC for the scholarship money, I think that can end up working in a couple ways. Some folks show up for the scholarship money and find comraderie and a sense of service and dive in. Other folks just do the minimum to get the scholarship money. So, I think an incentive to "try it" may not be out of line. But somehow you need to weed out the folks who are only there for the incentive.

All of this is just from my own (limited and out of date) experience. One data point does not a trend make.
Ken, I believe your experience confirms Bumperplate's concerns about officer training (in the US). If you needed the Ranger course to "find yourself" what do you suggest was wrong with your officer training course in that it failed to apply the necessary "stress tests"?