Rangers lead the way!

Something cool happened this week.  You may remember last year that Brendan graduated from West Point. Well this week we all gathered in Columbus Georgia to witness yet another graduation. This time from Army Ranger training. If you thought he was cool before, he’s a badass Ranger now!

Waiting to get into the graduation area. Brendan's roommate, Sebastian, was kind enough to escort us around. (That's him on the far left with his back to us). Cubna, another of Brendan's friends from West Point, came from Minnesota to show his support. The remaining peeps in the photo are Destiny, Mom, Michele and John.

The graduation ceremony was awesome. The “trainers”, (if you can call them that because these guys were Army Rangers too!), did some demonstrations of the skills that these new Rangers acquired. There was hand-to-hand combat, Rangers inserted into enemy territory...it was incredible.

This was where they were demonstrating their ability to blow stuff up. This was really cool. First you saw a little bit of fire, then a loud BOOM, then the explosions. It was like a movie!

This Ranger is rappelling down the side of the building with an "injured" comrade. To be clear, this guy is rappelling down the wall while carrying another person who would, in theory, be injured. Unbelievable!

The little dots in the air on the rope suspended from the helicopter are Rangers being extracted from a location. These guys are harnessed to that rope. That's all that's keeping them from dropping to the ground. That's why these guys are badasses.

From the program, these were some the officers that graduated Ranger school. To do this, the Rangers-in-training were put through the ringer. They spent time in the mountains, the swamps and the woods in survival mode eating only MREs (which I understand tastes like crap on a cracker unless you've been in the woods, the swamps and the mountains and then it's quite delicious).

What's really awe-inspiring to me is that there were four women that graduated as well. They did everything the men did, no special treatment. Girl power!

A little selfie as we wait for the Rangers to be "pinned" with their Ranger tabs. Behind us is Mark, Sebastian, James and Cubna.

Before the guys took the Ranger oath, the families were invited to come down and "pin" their Rangers. It was pandemonium! You can kind of see Mark and Michele. They are in the middle back toward the river. Brendan was swallowed up by the crowd.

The Bravo Company graduating class. Brendan is second from the left on the second to last row.

All three companies graduating and reciting the oath.

The family there to support Brendan. Note the Ranger tab on his arm. It was a great day! The weather was perfect!

Brendan and Grans. I thought this was a great photo.

After the ceremony, Brendan took us to the National Infantry Museum. It's right outside Ft. Moore and it's free! 

Brendan and Sebastian telling us about the exhibit that we were looking at. What better guide to the infantry museum than an Army Ranger who is in the Infantry?

The museum is cool. It basically tells you about all the history of the U. S. Army Infantry through various wars. I would have liked to spend more time there.

This was one of my favorite photos. So not only was Brendan graduating as a Ranger but it was also his birthday. Because he'd been living on MREs for 3 months, he got to pick where we went for dinner. He chose Ruth's Chris Steakhouse...in Atlanta...which was about an hour and a half. Our reservation was at 7pm so we had to pick them up at 5pm. Five minutes into the trip, Brendan crashed and slept the whole way.

Downtown Atlanta was chaos because the Atlanta Hawks were playing a home game and the arena was across the street from the hotel. We had to park in some weird under the street type lot and then walk about half a mile to the restaurant. Clearly, that didn't matter. The birthday boy was happy.

What a great weekend!