Spotlight Ranger

I’ve written before about US Army Ranger School and how difficult it is. At least it was when I went. I won’t pass judgement now because I know things change all the time. If you’ve been, you know it sucks in the worst way. Lack of sleep, lack of food, high stress. I lost 37lbs while I was there. In 89 days.

Yeah, I was “lucky” enough to get to go through Florida Phase twice. Lucky me. That’s pure sarcasm for folks that haven’t been.

There are some great things about Ranger School. Everyone is equal. You literally leave your rank outside the gates. No one has it on their uniform and everyone shares the load, literally. It doesn’t matter if you’re a young Private First Class or an old Major, you will carry a heavy rucksack, you will rotate in and out of leadership positions, you will not sleep much, you will not eat much. You will be a team member and a leader, sometimes in the same day. You will succeed and you will fail.

Which brings me to my topic; the infamous “Spotlight Ranger”. These folks are pretty low on the scale of people you want in your platoon. Maybe the only thing worse is a chow thief. As you rotate through leadership positions, the eyes of the instructors are on you. You are being graded. If you fail in those positions, you may fail the phase and have to do it over again. You may even fail out of the course all together.

The Spotlight Ranger is the student who, when in a leadership position, has their game face on. They are focused. They are awake. Alert. In charge. Directive. Decisive. They are trying to ensure the instructors can see how good they are so they have a better chance to pass. They are under the “spotlight” and are promoting THEMSELVES and they are doing it, usually, at the sacrifice of others.

Oh, and when the Spotlight Ranger is out of the spotlight? Total shitbag. That’s what makes it worse. They don’t pull their weight. They sleep and eat when they aren’t supposed to. They are terrible teammates.

Listen, everyone has bad days at Ranger School. It sucks. Everyone is tolerant of a bad day. But when you are that guy, every day and all the time, EXCEPT when you are under the “spotlight”…you are despised. Lower than low.

There is a peer evaluation system at Ranger School that helps prevent people like this from graduating. You can actually let the instructors know someone is a Spotlight Ranger, if they haven’t already figured it out themselves. Karma is a bitch.

So, why do I bring this up? For those of us that have been through Ranger School, being a Spotlight Ranger and living off self-promotion is something we hate. We carry that with us the rest of our career and fight diligently to NEVER be a Spotlight Ranger during our career, even though we are long gone from the school. Some of us carry it the rest of our lives. I have.

Frankly, it has made promoting Keep Moving, Keep Shooting a challenge. It has been difficult for me, who is responsible for 100% of my own marketing and my own promotion, to say “Look at me! Look at what I did! Read my book! It’s really awesome!” It isn’t in my DNA. Posts about the book are painful for me. I rarely blog about it, if at all. I don’t want to be a Spotlight Ranger, even when it is in my own best interest.

So, this blog is a “Thank You” to everyone that has been helping. If you’ve posted about KMKS, written a review, sent me pictures, or even a private note, I just wanted to say thanks.

All of that helps me NOT feel like a Spotlight Ranger.

By the way…please keep doing all those things. Remember, good sales equals a sequel.

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One for the Parents