By T. J. KOZOIL
Eleven cadets from our Spartan Battalion team won first place last weekend in the small-school category of the Ranger Challenge Competition.
Out of all the teams, they had the fastest time for the hand grenade assault course and won the “warrior stick” for the team that best embodied the “warrior ethos.”
The competition challenged the cadets mentally and physically and aimed to enhance leadership development and improve team cohesion.
The event took place on the hallowed grounds of the US Army Ranger School in Fort Benning, Georgia.
James Culak, a support officer of the team, said that a big part of this year’s competition was consistency; they may not have won every category, but they consistently placed high in the rankings.
Forty-five teams from universities in the Southeast region were invited to this year’s competition, which included 11 different events over a continuous 36 hours.
Culak estimated that more than 450 cadets total participated. Some of the events included an obstacle course, land navigation, weapons assemble/disassemble and a 10K march.
Culak explained that the events were very rigorous and the cadets got very little rest over the course of the competition.The team started training as soon as school began in September.
“Our ethos this year was to train for everything so we can be ready for anything,” said Ben Bunn, a support officer.
They only had six weeks to train this year, rather than over two months, as in past years.
Bunn said that one of the biggest challenges this year was getting the cadets trained in a short amount of time.
“Based on performance and the amount of time we had to prepare, I’m really happy with the way we performed at the competition,” said Bunn.
T. J. Kozoil can be reached at tkozoil@spartans.ut.edu