EE 003: Ranger Regiment Stories with Tobin Foulke

Join me and my guest, Tobin Foulke, as we go over our four-year experience in the Ranger Regiment. We grew up together as privates, became sergeants, and were even deployed together numerous times. If you’re aspiring to follow that path in the future, you can listen to this and have a better understanding of what it looks like. If not, you can still enjoy our conversation and realize that it’s not always the same as it’s shown on TV!

 

Tobin and I begin with our different starting points. If you can remember in episode one, I chose to go to the Ranger Regiment as a big challenge to take. Tobin, on the other hand, was inspired by seeing Rangers in the books he read. Some people would probably say that their time in the Ranger battalion was a miserable experience, but for us, all things considered, we thrived there. It was one of the most formative years of our lives.

 

One of the two things that make good Rangers is the inability to quit. Just going into basic training, there was already a bit of culture shock. You get smoked out and screamed at on the regular! In our experience, there were no cellphones at the time, and everybody only got five minutes per week to call home and catch up. The detachment from all the drama back home was one of the critical components that transformed us from snot-nosed kids to soldiers. But heading to the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP) was on another level - three weeks of hell, being told how worthless you are, carrying logs over your head, and sleeping only for two hours a day! This intense beating really weeds out who were going to be the top performers fit for the Ranger Regiment and the others who’ll be sent to other units. The Ranger Regiment is better than regular infantry units because it’s a voluntary decision to go above and beyond what everybody else went through just to show up. Your non-performers are gone. You’re left with people that want to be there and work hard to stay there. 

 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg! Make sure to listen to the full episode on Endless Endeavor and hear about our stories! One of us almost lost their spot in the Regiment just for sneaking out peanut butter and jelly crackers then had to restart Ranger School from day one (yes, Ranger School is different from the Ranger Regiment!). And of course, don’t miss out on our deployment stories in Afghanistan and other times down range.

 

Outline of the Episode:

• [01:25] Asking an eighteen-year-old to decide a path to follow for the rest of his life.
• [07:29] Not wanting to quit and understanding how to work in a team dynamic.
• [15:00] Getting enlisted and facing the reality of things.
• [22:15] Zero weeks and thinking that people weren’t as bad. You only have five minutes a week to call home and catch up!
• [31:43] Seeing a Ranger for the first time and running after a truck for an unknown distance and time.
• [34:19] The Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP). Doing nothing but hard, physical tasks for 22 hours a day.
• [39:54] Having a healthy sense of shame and brining the military mindset into the civilian world.
• [44:03] Graduating RIP and getting into the Ranger Regiment. What’s great about being in the Ranger battalion?
• [54:37] Ranger Regiment and Ranger School. They are two different things!
• [01:03:52] Dreaming about food when you’re in Ranger school.
• [01:06:10] The road to redemption after an integrity issue and almost getting recycled unnecessarily.
• [01:12:23] Getting delirious in the mountains.
• [01:15:17] Being deployed to Amman, Jordan, after 911 and getting fired up to deploy.
• [01:20:31] The first deployment to Afghanistan. Waiting for something bad to happen. Riding on a helicopter that’s likely to be shot down.
• [01:45:48] Leaving the Ranger Regiment. Being a follower or a teammate is not derogatory. Do you best, and get recognized!

 

Resources:

• Eyes of the Eagle: F Company LRPs in Vietnam
• Six Silent Men: 101st LRP/Rangers
• Dan Crenshaw
• Adam Carolla
• Jocko Willink

 

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