Discovery airing program on RASP

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idonov
Ranger
Posts: 58
Joined: December 28th, 2003, 12:11 am

Discovery airing program on RASP

Post by idonov »

So this Sunday at 9pm on the Discovery channel, they are airing "Hell and Back - Special Ops Rangers". 1 hour program on RASP I. I was pretty excited to see the 75th getting just a little PR until I found out from a Ranger buddy that the class graduated 91 out of 114. Not the best PR tool to be honest.
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3/75 2004 - 2007
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BruteForce
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Posts: 840
Joined: July 11th, 2006, 4:40 pm

Re: Discovery airing program on RASP

Post by BruteForce »

Interesting follow-up article on SOFREP regarding the show:

http://sofrep.com/9028/why-are-standard ... n-program/
This is why we were shocked when the Army press released stated, “114 Soldiers started Class 5-12; 91 Rangers graduated.” This is a shockingly high graduation rate of about 80% as opposed to the historical 30% that pass RASP and before that RIP. These graduation rates signify is massive drop in the physical and/or academic standards that RASP students are being held too in order to move on to a Ranger Battalion.

When questioned about this disturbing trend the Ranger Regiment’s Public Affairs Officer wrote, “The standards are the same. This happened to be a class full of studs and Soldiers determined not to fail on camera.”

This statement however does not pass the most cursory amount of scrutiny. An entire class of rare physical specimens is a laughable impossibility to anyone who has spent any amount of time in these selection programs. Perhaps some students were hesitant to quit in front of the camera but the presence of a camera does not magically grant RASP students with the ability to knock out an additional fifty pushups on the PT test or allow them to ruckmarch 12 miles any faster than usual.

There is also a robust Pre-RASP program that we did not have back when we went to RIP. This is a great addition to help prepare soldiers for selection but even the best preparatory program would increase the graduation rates by perhaps 5% or 10% on the very high end. Pre-RASP does not explain an alarming 80% graduation rate.
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