 The first two best ranger competitions in 1982 and 1983 were held as competitions between teams from each of the three ranger department camps. I honestly just wanted to compete with the best of the best around the army. You know it's such a historic competition and you know it's one of the hardest across all branches and you know that's something I felt like I really wanted to do and continue to do throughout my career. Competition, it's about being in the arena you know so it's about challenging yourself and not just being a standard by and just watching everybody else do something bigger and better. It's about pushing ourselves farther than anybody else can. Think consistency, just making sure that every day you have the same output. I mean training for four and a half months with somebody it's a lot so you just got to make sure that you're focused and doing what we got to do. Be the guy that asks for all his advice you know how to you know the shortcut just go. It's easier than you think it is. You just got to do it, motivate yourself and for a best ranger I mean you just got to send it. Come out, have a good time. It's really not that bad. Like all the suck is there for sure but you get to make some really good friends, get to have a lot of good training, a lot of good experience and when you get back I promise it's going to all be worth it. People recognize hard work when you put out. Just prepare yourself you know how that discipline, lots of mileage, lots of shooting but it's definitely here. I know you only get three times to compete so they constantly need new faces so you got nothing to lose just come out and keep trying. I just expect to come out here and perform you know like we practice so you know whatever happens happens it's in God's hands now and I have a great training partner so I just hope that you know everything that we've gone over you know just comes out to fruition now. I wanted to challenge myself and bring out the best in myself as well as it's just something I've always had my eye on. This is before I joined all my other books about it and what not so it just seemed like you know the best proving ground for me at the time. Seeing my old platoon sergeant competing before is Staff Sergeant First Class Mercado. He came in second and I wanted to like you know get to that level as well that made me want to compete. I would say put in the work put in the time for it. Don't veer off your training commit to it and trust the process. Well we did like we did okay at night stakes which kind of like slow rolled into day stakes but then we picked it up and we probably picked up a few spots so hopefully we can go strong and land out and make the final cut. Who said on the fields a friendly striker or sown the seeds but another days on other fields will bear the fruits of victory. Over the next three days regardless of which team wins help each ranger see how their efforts contribute to a greater victory for the ranger community our military and our nation. Amen.