Morning guys, welcome to the Sunday edition of the Mike Force podcast. I hope you're having a good day.

A good week. The thousand yards stair. I had this idea last night when I was thinking about

some experiences that really shaped me. Ranger School was one of them. There are many of those experiences, by the way, but Ranger School is one of them. There are many of those experiences,

by the way, but Ranger School is one of them where I gained some perspective on this idea

of how experience shapes us. You know, Ranger School is a 60, I think it was 70 plus days of simulated combat,

sleep deprivation, and you eat at the time that I went during the wintertime, it was one

mill a day. And I describe a thousand yards stair because it was something that we often said.

I remember sitting at Fort Benning, Georgia, at fourth Ranger training brigade, fourth RTB,

and we were packing our rucks out, setting them in formation, getting ready for the trucks to move out to the field.

Because every phase, three phases, there used to be four, but three phases of Ranger School are broken down into different environments.

You have the mountains of Delanooga, Georgia, the Mount, I believe it was Yona. You

have Eglin Air Force Base in the surrounding area where it's swamp phase. At Fort Benning,

Sand Hill, there's a whole bunch of pine and poison ivy and oak a lot of sand the least favorite phase of ranger school as we were getting ready

we were only days from showing up at the time i was probably 220 pounds really fit really lean less than 10% body fat um in hindsight

it should have been a lot more fat because I would have been a lot more happier the food

deprivation is what hurt me the most I can get get through the sleep. I think everybody typically does.

It's the food, especially for bigger guys that hurts the most. But we were fresh. We had our heads

freshly shaved. We didn't look seasoned. I remember this perspective going to Eglin Air Force Base 6th RTB Ranger School, the last

phase of Ranger School, when I took my Special Forces detachment, my ODA with my team leader, Craig

Koppik, we went to 6RTB to kind of hang out and check out the area.

And I remember looking at the ranger students going, man, they look like kids.

Well, that was me because that was 18, 19 years old.

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