What the Hell Am I Doing? My Reflections on GTE-49 Part 2

This is part 2 of a 3 part series reflecting on my experience completing my first GTE. You can read part 1 here.

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A GTE, or Grow Ruck Training Event, is meant to test the physical, mental and emotional limits of the men who participate, to grow their leadership skills by taking them to the point of failure…and beyond. It’s a full weekend that starts with a meet-and-greet social event on Friday night, then hosts a Saturday morning workout, called the Kingbuilder, which is a traditional F3 workout beefed up to be a bit more intense than a regular beatdown.

Following that is GrowSchool, where Trainers spend three hours teaching leadership principles that will guide participants through life…and aid them during the Crucible Ruck that evening. The Crucible Ruck is an overnight heavy ruck that lasts approximately 15 hours and covers a mileage known only to the people who organized it and the Cadre leading it. In the weeks leading up to GTE-49, I spent as much time as I could training my body and preparing my mind for what I would face, not really even knowing all that I would have thrown at me.

 I went into GTE-49 thinking many things, the most noteworthy of which were:

“What the hell am I doing?” (I answered part of that HERE.)

“Why the hell am I doing this?”

“What the hell is the point in doing this?”

“I’m not quitting!”

• What the hell am I doing?

After completing a moderate ruck carrying packs weighing 40-50 pounds, a PT test that more-than smoked me, and another 45-minute workout that smoked me again, we then completed another ruck while also carrying an additional 400-500 pounds of weight via sandbags and a concrete-filled 5-gallon bucket. We had just finished doing bear crawls in the cold Mississippi River under an amazing starlit night. I was finding joy in my suffering under the canvas God had painted for us that night…a joy that I would struggle to find again for the remainder of the event. That joy would come in a few small and brief waves, only to be swept away by spirit-breaking obstacles to follow.

As we climbed up the boat ramp and out of the Mississippi River, we gathered as a platoon of 29 men. The other three platoons all had 30 men, bringing our total for the night to 119 men who — not only volunteered to be here — PAID to be here. It was here we were told we were adding two telephone poles, weighing at least 800 pounds each, to all the weight we were already carrying, and that we had just 90 minutes to move all that weight  approximately two miles to the next stop. In addition to also carrying the 50 pound ruck on each man’s back! It’s estimated that the total weight being carried by the platoon of 29 men was just under 3,000 pounds.

To say picking up — and ‘going under’ — that log for the first time was shell shock…is an understatement. It was like getting hit by a freight train of reality. The sheer, unforgiving weight of that beast made every muscle scream in protest. And knowing we had to haul that f’ing thing for 2 miles? That wasn’t just brutal — it was a soul-crushing and will-shattering gut punch that squeezed every ounce of confidence I still had right out of my mind. Every step felt like a war between sheer willpower and pure agony. The kind of suffering that makes you question every life choice that led to this moment.

Needless to say, it took us a little bit to find our groove and settle into a rhythm as a team in this challenge. We failed a few times, setting the log down to regroup before picking it back up and shuffling forward, one foot at a time. After “failing” and setting it down for maybe the second or third time, we learned that regardless of how much it sucked, it sucked worse to pick it back up off the ground, so we collectively agreed to not do that anymore. Whatever it takes to keep powering through the pain.

Early on in this challenge, all four groups of men (119 in all) got bottled up in a choke point, and we were crossing paths and intermixing groups. As we entered this mass of bodies converging in on each other, I was carrying a sandbag near the rear of our formation. In an effort to rally my platoon (Task Force Ranger or Red Platoon), I shouted to the man under the log next to me, “let’s go Red! We got this!”

The man at the front of the log — I wish I could remember who that was — looked up at me in disgust, “Red?! We’re not Red! We’re Blue!” It was eerily similar to that Pace Picante Sauce commercial back in the day. You know the one…

Actor playing a cowboy at chow time: “This stuff’s made in New York City!”
Entire group of cowboys looking disgusted as they searched for the rope to hang to the cook, “New York City!?”

“Shit!” I gotta find my men, turning to find my platoon.

I started yelling, “Red! Where’s Red platoon?”

I think I did that twice before I wised up a tick and realized that if a Cadre or Trainer hears me, I’m screwed!

Shuffling over to the next closest group of men, I whispered to the first man under the log, “Hey bud! Hey! What color are you?”

Looking back at me, his face was a raw mix of confusion, pain, and anger like I’d never seen before.

“Green,” he grunted…clearly not happy to have to expend the additional effort it took to step out of his own pain cave, look up at me, think about the question, and mutter his reply.

“Shit! Thanks! Go get ’em brother!” as I scooted off to find the next group without getting caught. Thankfully, the third time was the charm, and I found my men. Without getting caught.

We cleared that choke point in tact, though it wasn’t long afterward that we had to stop because we lost accountability. We were two men down. This one was on me.

As men rotated off the log, we were shifting to the back of the group to carry sandbags or whatever instrument of woe awaited us. This is where I was — at the back of the pack — wrapped up in my own pain and suffering. Brian “AOL” Boyer joined me at the back of the pack at some point, he and I exchanged some grunts, and then I went into a mental zone all my own, focusing only on my own pain and suffering. I failed to notice a third man joined us, and when he started drifting further back, AOL did what I should’ve done. He slowed up to stay with him. I didn’t notice this.

After probably 2-3 minutes, I realized AOL was gone and initiated a headcount with our leader. When that count came up two men short, we stopped, set the log and extra weights down and assumed the “forward leaning rest” position (aka planking). When AOL and the other man caught up to us, we learned that as they started lagging behind, they were yelling for us to wait up, but no one heard them.

At the back of the pack with them, that would be me. I didn’t hear them. And we paid dearly for it. It was a hard way to learn the lesson of maintaining situational awareness. It’s important in life to know who is around you and what is happening within your sphere of influence. Be on the lookout for people who are suffering, lagging behind, hurting, or struggling. We may not be able to lift them out of their pain, but we can join them in it. We can meet them where they are and offer hope and friendship.

More often than not, that is precisely what they need. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you don’t know what to say to make the other person feel better? Maybe they don’t need you to say anything. Maybe, they just need you to hear them. To see them. And to just acknowledge their pain by sitting with them in silence.

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It wasn’t too long after getting back on the road from that lesson — maybe a half mile or so — that our Cadre or Trainer said, “your two minute break from the log is a sandbag. Pick your pain, but the man under the log needs a break from his pain too.”

Pick your pain.

That’s a singular three-word sentence that stayed with me all night and resonates with me still today, over four months later.

Pick your pain. We either make time and put in the effort now — staying active, eating right, and prioritizing our health — or we make time later to deal with sickness, illness, and struggle. The choice is ours. This concept extends far beyond health. In every aspect of life, our choices — and the way we frame them within our own mind — shape our path toward success or failure. Discipline or regret. Growth or stagnation. Pick your pain.

It was here that the reality of our situation finally sunk in for me — and I think anyone else who had not noticed it yet. There was not one man amongst our 29 men who was not under the load of additional weight. In addition to our 50-pound rucks, you were either carrying a sandbag weighing between 50 and 120 pounds, a 5-gallon bucket filled with concrete, or “under the log” with seven other men.

There was no escaping the extra burden of the Burden Carry.

Pick your pain, but understand that the men who are suffering this with you are in just as much pain as you. There’s no hiding from the pain that awaits you, so pick your pain, embrace the suck, and endure it. Together.

Which is reminiscent of life really.

There will always be seasons of life when we have to endure hardship, pain, and suffering in some way, shape, or form. Whether under that additional burden by our own choices, or as collateral damage to someone else’s choices, is irrelevant. What matters is our mindset in those seasons — how we choose to frame that circumstance (our attitude) and how we respond to it (our action).  Our attitude and and our action are the only two things in this life within our complete control anyway, so resisting the pain is futile. It’s how we respond that matters.

I believe the point of the Burden Carry portion of the night is meant to live third, which is to remove ourselves from our self-appointed place at the center of the universe and live outside of ourselves. To see the pain others are carrying, the burdens they’re enduring, the hardships they’re suffering. To be moved to action in such a way that we come alongside them and help shoulder their burden, despite what we are also enduring.

Not because we hope someone will do likewise for us one day, but because it’s the right thing to do as the man God calls us to be.

“Pick your pain, but the man beside you is in pain too.”

—

After what seemed like an eternity, I was blessed during the Burden Carry to get to drop all that weight in front of the Crystal City firehouse, to cool off while doing flutter kicks, mountain climbers and push-ups — all while being sprayed with a firehose by some volunteer firefighters who gave up a night of sleep to do so. That was actually a gloriously enjoyable and refreshing break from the pain.

Until we learned we weren’t done with the logs and sandbags. Indeed, we had what I can only assume was another mile to go. Deflating, to say the least.

Coming to the end of that two-mile challenge was a breaking point for me that required every ounce of mental fortitude I could muster — and the encouragement of the man beside me, coaxing me through every single step. Not an understatement. For that last quarter mile or so, I was shouldering the 80 pound sandbag, in addition to the 50 pound ruck on my back. I was broken. Physically and mentally I had inexplicably come to the end of myself.

As I inched along, literally shuffling my feet forward one inch at a time, I was hurting in ways I had not previously known. Five months post-knee surgery, with chronic low back pain from a previous herniation, and a new diagnosis of plantar fasciitis just days earlier, pain was shooting from my foot, up through my knee, through my hips and back, ending in my shoulders under the 130 pounds it was under. The urge to quit was not only real, it was at the forefront of my mind. The thought of quitting right there consumed me. The only thing keeping me from it was Jim “Harbaugh” Otis walking beside me. Encouraging me. I needed his voice in my head. Every. Single. Step.

Unbeknownst to me as we entered a tunnel, we had what I estimate to be about 300 yards to go to clear the tunnel. Harbaugh asked me, “You good Cherry? You want me to get someone to take that bag?”

I thought I said, “yeah.”

I don’t know what actually come out of my mouth, but it was either some kind of guttural and incoherent groan, or he just didn’t care what my answer was, because his reply didn’t match my response, “that’s good, cuz there is nobody else. You’re it man. The end is just around that corner. You got this.”

Well, hell! Okay then. Let’s get this over with, shall we?

Over and over again all the way through that last 200 yards, he repeated that encouragement.

It allowed me so see — and believe for the first time — that I am capable of so much more than I think. And so are you. We set these expectations in our minds of what is possible based on past experiences. We limit what is possible for us by our mind’s inability to stretch outside of comfort.

When we can slowly and progressively stretch our minds and bodies further than what is comfortable, we begin to see that more is possible. More is always possible.

And we begin to believe that the only thing holding us back — is ourself. I shattered what I thought was possible in that last 200 yards. Into a million pieces. And it was only possible through the encouragement of my brother beside me, Harbaugh, believing in me — even when I didn’t believe in myself.

Dropping that weight, I was soon rewarded with an on-the-spot chiropractic adjustment when Harbaugh walked on my back for a few minutes…truly glorious. It was here, we began to understand just how well we had crushed the Burden Carry portion of the night, arriving first at that next staging point, forty-five minutes ahead of the last of four platoons. That victory gave us a longer break to rest, recover, rehydrate, and refuel our bodies before continuing on.

It was a rest well earned by the men of Task Force Ranger, even with the uncertainty of what challenges came next hanging over us.

One that would pay dividends in the grueling hours to come.