t Fort Benning, Georgia conducts the initial phase on basic Ranger skills. The second phase consists of training by the 5th Ranger Training Battalion in the desert at Fort Bliss, Texas and in the mountains of Dahlonega, Georgia. The 6th Ranger Training Battalion conducts the third phase in the swamps of Florida. Each phase is conducted in difficult terrain under mental and physical stresses, including nutritional- and sleep-deprivation, which are intended to approach conditions found in combat.
Ranger school trainees graduate to either the Army's single Ranger regiment, which specializes in sensitive missions requiring speed and stealth, or they are dispersed to units throughout the service to raise the general level of training. Most of those selected hold the rank of specialist, sergeant or higher. Ranger training is inherently dangerous. Since 1952, 56 Ranger students have died: seven of hypothermia, including two students who died at the Florida camp in 1977. Another Ranger student died in Florida in 1986 while trying to swim against a strong current . Another died during mountain training in 1993, apparently the result of a sickle cell condition the student had not reported. And yet another student died on a training apparatus at Fort Benning in 1992.
The Subcommittee believes that this history of Ranger deaths during training should have put the Army on alert not only that Ranger students were in peril during training, but also that the Army did not have sufficient precautions to prevent such deaths. Clearly, sufficient steps to minimize the risks to the soldiers' lives had not been enacted or had not been enforced. The tragic incident in Florida in 1995, therefore, was not unforeseeable and was only unprecedented in its scope, not its nature. The Subcommittee thus finds sufficient reason to believe such an incident could happen again.
Consequently, this Subcommittee must meet with a representative from TRADOC who ...