Inside the US Army's Grueling 14-Day Mountain Warfare School

The Army Mountain Warfare School

• 🏔️ The Army Mountain Warfare School in Jericho, Vermont, trains soldiers for combat in mountainous and cold-weather environments, crucial for the US's new Arctic strategy.
• 🎯 The 14-day course is designed to make soldiers military mountaineers, equipping them with skills to fight, move, and survive in extreme conditions.
• 💡 The school emphasizes that mountains are a common domain across various terrains, making this training vitally important for the Army.

Course Demands and Student Experiences

• ❄️ Soldiers endure frigid temperatures and dangerous terrain, with a significant attrition rate; only about 40 out of 51 students typically graduate.
• 🎒 Before training, students are issued up to 55 pieces of specialized mountain gear, including the Extended Cold Weather Clothing System (ECWCS).
• 🧠 The training tests mental and physical endurance, with instructors noting that students' own demons are often the biggest challenge, not the environment itself.

Key Skills and Tests

• 🪢 A major hurdle is the knot test, where students must correctly tie and explain the purpose of 15 different knots, with a 15% attrition rate attributed to this test.
• 🧭 Land navigation in near white-out conditions proved challenging, with a 49% failure rate on the test for finding four out of five points.
• 🧗 Skills like ice wall climbing, rappelling, and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) using specialized rope systems are practiced and tested.

Strategic Importance and Future of Mountain Warfare

• 🗺️ The training is directly linked to the Army's Arctic strategy, addressing the increasing strategic importance of the Arctic region due to melting ice and resource competition.
• ⚔️ Historical context shows the US Army's mountain warfare capabilities were developed in response to global conflicts and have been resurrected and expanded in recent decades.
• ✅ Graduates receive the Rams Head device, symbolizing their expertise and highlighting the demanding, high-return-on-investment nature of mountain warfare training.