The United States Army Ranger School is an intense 9-week long combat leadership course, conducted in three 3-week phases - at Fort Benning, GA (woodland terrain, 'Benning Phase'), Camp Merrill, Georgia (Mountain Phase), and Camp Rudder (Eglin AFB) (Swamp Phase). The Fort Bliss, Texas (Desert Phase) was “phased out” more than 10 years ago.

Ranger School training centers on a basic scenario: the flourishing drug operations of the enemy forces, “the Cortinian Army,” must be eradicated. To do so, the Rangers will have to take the fight into enemy territory, the rough terrain around Fort Benning, the mountains of North Georgia and the swamps and coastal areas of Florida. The Rangers students are given a clear mission, but it’s up to them to determine how best to carry it out.

Fort Benning is the home of the Ranger Training Brigade and its 4th Ranger Training Battalion, which hosts the “crawl” phase of Ranger School, where students learn the fundamentals of mission planning at the Squad level. This phase is critical to success, as it lays the groundwork for phases two and three, the “walk” and “run” phases.

At Benning, students must successfully complete the Ranger Assessment Phase, which includes many of the tasks Best Ranger Competition spectators have become familiar with: the Malvesti Field Obstacle Course, the Darby Queen, the Prusik climb and the log-walk-rope-drop. Here they also learn the basics of close combat, using a pugil stick, a knife or bare hands.

At the 5th Ranger Training Battalion, the students learn mountaineering skills, and at the 6th Ranger Training Battalion, they must demonstrate tactical and technical proficiency in swampy terrain leading a platoon-sized patrol. This phase includes small boat operations and an extensive “do-or-die” field-training exercise.

All in all, Ranger School students will participate in three airborne operations and 10 air-assault operations. They are evaluated on their ability to lead at various levels in various situations. Part of the evaluation is a peer evaluation, and a failing peer evaluation can result in disqualification from the course.

If a student performs successfully but suffers an injury that keeps him from finishing, he may be “recycled” at the discretion of the battalion or brigade commander, meaning he’ll be given an opportunity to heal and finish the course with the next class.

Field instruction composes the majority of the course. While in the field, students carry gear weighing as much as 45 kg (100 pounds), spending each day planning and executing attacks on widely dispersed objectives, followed by a rapid movement to a new patrol base to begin the planning cycle yet again. Training during the course averages 19.4 hours per day. Thus, students average only a couple hours of sleep every night, and two or fewer meals per day. This leaves them heavily fatigued throughout the course. A common piece of folk wisdom reported by students is that they begin the Ranger course at their lifetime peak of physical fitness, but due to the punishing training they find themselves degraded to a lifetime low of physical fitness upon completion of the course. Only one-third of those who attempt the course pass.

Many Ranger students come from the 75th Ranger Regiment, where passing Ranger School is a requirement for any leadership position, but many other students come from regular Army units, and return with increased leadership skills. Passing Ranger school is a de facto requirement for success as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army.

Military education and training in the United States