Ranger School

Jimmy Blackmon, the author of Pale Hunting Terrorists, Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division, and Cowboys Over Leadership from the Saddle, recounts his own experience at U.S. Army Ranger School. The course is a leadership and small-unit tactics program widely regarded as one of the most demanding in the world.

The narrative begins with the nerves that come before the course and follows him through the physical toll of little sleep, scarce food, and constant pain. Blackmon also describes the emotional weight of those weeks and what he came to understand about himself. His central lesson is that a person must learn to lead himself before he can lead anyone else.

Ranger School is built to mirror the stress of combat across a range of terrain and conditions, and more than half of the students who start do not finish. Blackmon explains that nearly every student reaches a moment of wanting to quit, and he writes candidly about his own hunger, exhaustion, and freezing temperatures, and the pull to give up. Many of the ways students cope with these conditions are funny, and the book gives them room.

Because students must lead one another through demanding missions over rough ground, the book also looks at how to motivate and direct others under extreme pressure. Its lessons are aimed at leaders in any field, not only in the military.