{"id":35380,"date":"2024-11-22T16:54:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T21:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=35380"},"modified":"2024-11-25T09:38:40","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T14:38:40","slug":"furmans-paladin-battalion-wins-rotc-ranger-challenge-qualifies-for-national-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furmans-paladin-battalion-wins-rotc-ranger-challenge-qualifies-for-national-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman’s Paladin Battalion Wins ROTC Ranger Challenge, qualifies for national competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scaling an 8-foot wall. Assembling a weapon. A 6-mile march at night with a 35-pound ruck sack.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just a small sample of the challenges that Furman University\u2019s Paladin Battalion<\/a> ROTC Ranger Challenge<\/a> team faced during this year\u2019s 4th<\/sup>\u00a0Brigade Ranger Challenge held Nov. 15-17 at Fort Barfoot, Virginia.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very proud of our Paladin Ranger Challenge team,\u201d he said. \u201cThe competition tested their teamwork, physical and mental fitness, endurance and technical skills. This is an amazing accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Furman Advantage played a role in the team\u2019s success, Monroe said, by developing well-rounded students who are exposed to a variety of experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re physically fit, but also extremely capable when it comes to technical skills. The rigors of the academic environment absolutely contribute to that,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are young men and women who will lead our soldiers in the Army, and we want to make sure they\u2019re ready and are leaders of character.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win is an improvement over Furman\u2019s 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<\/a> at West Point, New York, in May.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Cadets

Members of The Paladin Battalion compete in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.<\/p><\/div>\n

Between junior and senior year, they attend a 32-day exercise at Fort Knox, KY, to ensure they\u2019re well-trained, he said. And when they graduate from Furman, they are commissioned as second lieutenants in the United States Army.<\/p>\n

The Ranger Challenge team consisted of 11 cadets, Monroe said, adding that while there\u2019s a physical element, it also involves strategy, decision-making skills and mental prowess.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely rigorous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After arriving on Friday, they immediately competed in a 1.2-mile run followed by an obstacle course, he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Cadets

Members of the Paladin Battalion competes in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.<\/p><\/div>\n

The teams earn points in each event and the one that accumulates the most, wins. Furman\u2019s squad finished in the top-five in most events, which helped them rack up the most points.<\/p>\n

Furman senior Luke Stewart, the cadet battalion commander and Ranger Challenge team captain, allowed that winning was \u201cawesome,\u201d even though days after the event he was \u201cstill pretty sore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know we were going to win, but we were so consistent throughout the day in every event,\u201d said the business major. \u201cWe put in countless hours over the semester. (Winning) made all the hard work worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

\"Cadets

Members of the Paladin Battalion competes in the 4th Brigade Ranger Challenge. Photo provided.<\/p><\/div>\n

While the team was pumped up over the win, he said with a chuckle that he wasn\u2019t able to celebrate because he had to study for a test the next day.<\/p>\n

In ROTC for four years, Stewart said it\u2019s provided a valuable support system and mentoring during his time at Furman.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to do the Ranger Challenge,\u201d the business major said. \u201cBut 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\u2019t get until they have their first job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Paladin Battalion beat much larger universities, including Clemson, the University of South Carolina and Duke, to win the Ranger Challenge. The victory qualifies Furman for a national competition in West Point in May. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":35381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[224],"class_list":["post-35380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-science-rotc","tag-the-furman-advantage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35380"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35398,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35380\/revisions\/35398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}