Furman’s Paladin Battalion Wins ROTC Ranger Challenge, qualifies for national competition

Scaling an 8-foot wall. Assembling a weapon. A 6-mile march at night with a 35-pound ruck sack.

That’s just a small sample of the challenges that Furman University’s Paladin Battalion ROTC Ranger Challenge team faced during this year’s 4^th Brigade Ranger Challenge held Nov. 15-17 at Fort Barfoot, Virginia.

The team took first place overall beating out 40 other teams from colleges in their division, including Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Lieutenant Colonel Chad Monroe, professor of military science at Furman.

“We are very proud of our Paladin Ranger Challenge team,” he said. “The competition tested their teamwork, physical and mental fitness, endurance and technical skills. This is an amazing accomplishment.”

The Furman Advantage played a role in the team’s success, Monroe said, by developing well-rounded students who are exposed to a variety of experiences.

“They’re physically fit, but also extremely capable when it comes to technical skills. The rigors of the academic environment absolutely contribute to that,” he said. “These are young men and women who will lead our soldiers in the Army, and we want to make sure they’re ready and are leaders of character.”

The win is an improvement over Furman’s second-place finish last year, he said, adding the team beat its closest rival by 26 points, qualifying them for the Sandhurst Military Skills Competition at West Point, New York, in May.

The ROTC program at Furman has 60 cadets, said Monroe. Along with their regular studies in fields from history to business, they take a class to learn the skills necessary to be leaders in the military, he said.

Members of The Paladin Battalion compete in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.

Between junior and senior year, they attend a 32-day exercise at Fort Knox, KY, to ensure they’re well-trained, he said. And when they graduate from Furman, they are commissioned as second lieutenants in the United States Army.

The Ranger Challenge team consisted of 11 cadets, Monroe said, adding that while there’s a physical element, it also involves strategy, decision-making skills and mental prowess.

“It’s extremely rigorous,” he said.

After arriving on Friday, they immediately competed in a 1.2-mile run followed by an obstacle course, he said.

Over the course of the weekend, they competed in 12 events performed under pressure in a challenging environment, such as navigating a one-rope bridge, assembling a radio for communications and marksmanship, he said.

Members of the Paladin Battalion competes in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.

The teams earn points in each event and the one that accumulates the most, wins. Furman’s squad finished in the top-five in most events, which helped them rack up the most points.

Furman senior Luke Stewart, the cadet battalion commander and Ranger Challenge team captain, allowed that winning was “awesome,” even though days after the event he was “still pretty sore.”

“We didn’t know we were going to win, but we were so consistent throughout the day in every event,” said the business major. “We put in countless hours over the semester. (Winning) made all the hard work worth it.”

Hard work indeed. Training since August, the team has been rising at 4:30 each morning to focus on physical fitness before going to classes and gathering one evening a week to practice event skills, he said.

The hardest part of the challenge, Stewart said, was running about a mile with a 35-pound ruck sack between each event.

Members of the Paladin Battalion competes in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.

While the team was pumped up over the win, he said with a chuckle that he wasn’t able to celebrate because he had to study for a test the next day.

In ROTC for four years, Stewart said it’s provided a valuable support system and mentoring during his time at Furman.

And fellow senior Jack Mikell, the cadet command sergeant major and co-captain of the Ranger Challenge team, said ROTC also affords an opportunity to push yourself beyond what you thought was possible.

“We don’t have to do the Ranger Challenge,” the business major said. “But ROTC requires us to be up early in the morning, working out and learning how to be part of a team. It gives us real-world experience that most people won’t get until they have their first job.”