Best Ranger!

The Best Ranger competition is being held this year from April 13th to the 14th at its usual location, Ft. Benning, Georgia, home to the Ranger Training Brigade and the 75th Ranger Regiment.  The above picture shows previous winners from a few years ago, in this case Sergeant Nash who was one of my intructors when I went through the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP) in 2003.  I have some fond memories of SSG Nash reading the Ranger Standards to us and explaining that the reason why Rangers don’t wear a high and tight haircut with a mustache is because Freddy Mercury had a high and tight and a mustache.  Seemed like a good reason to me!

From Bestrangercompetition.com:

The Best Ranger Competition 2012 is the 29th anniversary of this grueling competition, starring the best soldiers of the world, our United States Army, RANGERS! The Best Ranger Competition was started in 1982 after Dick Leandri found a way to honor his personal friend, Lieutenant General David E. Grange, Jr.

Leandri wanted to recognize his friend, past director of the Ranger Department and former Commanding General of Fort Benning, Georgia, with a perpetual event. He and several other professional businessmen formed Chairborne Rangers, Inc., to help support the initiation of such an event.

The competition has evolved over the past twenty seven years from one that was originally created to salute the best two-man “buddy” team in the Ranger Department at Fort Benning. Every year the competition is reviewed and tweaked, to what is currently in place for this year, to determine the best two-man team from the entire United States Armed Forces.

Be sure to check out the Official Army webpage for this event as well.