My name is Christian, I'm 18 years old and a future soldier. My contract is 11X OPTION 40 and my ship date is 20150929. I've be a consistent reader of this forum for years now. I've finally decided to register an account, because now I feel my words have a little bit more weight compared to me as a 12 year old and am 2 months away from beginning the whole process of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. I decided to become a Ranger when I was 12 years old and when I say "decided" I mean 'decided'. Once I read the Ranger Creed I knew this is the only thing I wanted and immediately memorized it and recited it every morning or any time I needed motivation throughout my years *especially when running*.
My reasons for being so content on becoming a U.S. Army Ranger are to serve my country to the best of my ability, to do things in my life with meaning, to look back on my life when I'm 70 or 20 and be proud of what I've done and eager for what I'm going to do. I want to defend this country against those that aim to harm it or it's fundamentals. I want to defend innocent people regardless if they were born in another country and punish those who mercilessly harm/threaten their lives. I also want the challenge and to know that the men I'll work under, with, and above will be the best set of men I'll ever meet in my life and if they ever waiver or get lazy the Regiment won't stand for it and they're out and the same applies to me
![Twisted Evil :twisted:](./images/smilies/o_icon_twisted.gif)
Those are some reasons I can express verbally, but that gut feeling that I know this is what I want and I'm determined to get no matter what feels impossible to explain, but I'm sure you know the feeling. That feeling where the only way RASP says I can't get it is if I'm on a stretcher or in a body bag, because I'll be pushing myself every second, of every day so there's no doubt in anyone's mind whether I belong there. Trust me when I say; I will never quit!
I suppose you Rangers see these as simply words and I'll need to prove myself and I assure you that's what I plan to do, but here's a little more about me and what I have done and have experience.
I've lived kind of all over the country, but mainly up north. My mom was in the coast guard so we did move a good bit, like once every 2 years. I'm very greatful for that experience it made me a stronger individual by being able to get comfortable, lose it all, and start again by giving it my all at school or with new friends. I've also been training physically and mentally for the Rangers consistently for the past year. Mentally, I've done a lot of research and I feel that I'm the best prepared mentally that I could possibly be and now all that's left is actually doing it myself and seeing where I stand compared to those before me. I've memorized Maj. Rogers' Standing Orders, the Ranger Creed, Soldier Creed, General Orders, Formations, Saluting, etc. Just yesterday I devoted myself to memorizing the Ranger Handbook (2011 Edition). I'm currently finishing up studying the Ranger History and after that I'll be studying one chapter a day, I'm confident I'll have it all down before I ship and then some.
I'm currently unemployed, I felt that considering that these are my last two months of being able to be a civilian (at least for 4 years) and I'm about to embark on a life that only truly few have ever attempted and succeeded I thought I'd take advantage of all this free time to be lazy and prepare while I can. I plan on staying in the army for 20+ years, but what do I know, I need to experience it first.
Now, as for the physical aspect that I've been training for in the past year... I've been training consistently with pushups, situps, pullups, and I've started running just this early-March and I've started interval sprinting just this week. My minimums are 100 on each section of the PT test and my running is the only thing I need to keep working on to be assured I reach that minimum and then some. I'll be posting an updated version of my PT scores tomorrow though.
Now that I'm on this site I hope to learn a lot more and get some great feedback from you Rangers who have done it and are doing it.
Even though it's just words, I swear to you all reading this, I'm GOING TO DO THIS! NOTHING, NOTHING will stop me, NOTHING and I can hardly wait to prove myself!