10:49 a.m., Nov. 5, 2009----It was 5:45 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and Team Diesel of the University of Delaware Army ROTC Ranger Challenge team was preparing to start practice. While the rest of campus slept, 10 dedicated cadets could be found running on the streets of Newark, or doing push-ups on Frazer Field.

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For the past two months the team prepared five days a week for the annual Ranger Challenge Competition, which was held Oct. 23-24 in Fort Bragg, N.C.

The Ranger Challenge Competition is “a competition that tests cadets both physically and mentally,” said senior team captain Bill Sieber, a three-year team member. “It teaches technical skills while pushing cadets beyond their limits.”

The UD team, consisting of three seniors, two juniors, one sophomore and three freshmen, competed in eight events over two days of competition. Despite its youth, Team Diesel finished ninth out of 19 teams in the Black Division. While points could be deducted for certain penalties, Steve Huvane, a senior and four-year member of the UD Ranger Challenge team, said this was the first year in which Team Diesel was assessed zero penalties over the course of the two days.

Early in the morning of Oct. 23, Team Diesel took a physical fitness test that included push-ups, sit-ups and a two-mile run. The rest of the day's events consisted of day and night land navigation, in which teams of two and three were given a map, protractor and compass and had to find specific points in the woods. “With night land navigation, all we had to see was a small flashlight, which makes finding points exponentially harder,” said sophomore Jeff Swierzbinski, who also led the team in the physical fitness test with a score of 340 out of 300. Extra points can be earned by cadets who score above the maximum in each event.

On Oct. 24, Team Diesel started by successfully building and crossing a rope bridge in under four minutes, one of their better times in recent years. After the marksmanship event, the team completed a hand grenade assault course, where they landed 12 of 18 grenades in the 10-meter zone.

The team's best performance of the weekend came during the written land navigation test, in which each team member was given a map and had to answer 20 questions about various topics ranging from measuring distances and directions from one place to another to identifying certain terrain features.

Team Diesel topped the 19 teams in this event. Senior Jeff Timmick said of the performance, “Outside of the fitness test, this is the event we trained most for. The freshmen were new to land navigation so we spent extra time teaching them the fundamentals. I'm not surprised by how well we did.”

The most challenging event of the competition was the 10-kilometer “ruck march.” Battling rain and rough terrain, and wearing 40-pound rucksacks, Team Diesel members completed the march in 95 minutes. “I played sports in high school but this was harder than any game or practice I've ever done,” said freshman nursing major Kyle Smith, who enjoyed the experience and “can't wait to come back and win next year.”

It was a successful competition for Team Diesel of the Blue Hen Battalion this year, according to Cadet Lt. Col. Seiber, who also is cadet commander of the UD Army ROTC program.

Judging from the results and youth of the team, the future looks bright, Seiber said, adding that he believes this year's competition will be a valuable experience for the underclassmen and will “with no doubt help them for future competitions.”

Article by Scott Smith