Pain is temporary, pride is forever. Warfighters and athletes use this refrain to keep going when the pain is at its worst. When your muscles are burning, your heart is pounding in your eardrums, you’re shivering from the cold, and all you want to do is quit. But you won’t. You can’t because the mission is greater than the moment. The pain of the moment is temporary. The pride in accomplishing the mission lasts forever.
I remember long, miserable foot marches. In the Rangers, we had to “qualify” every year on a 30-mile road march carrying combat equipment. Why 30 miles? Because the other units down the road did 25 miles, and our creed demanded that we would go “further, faster, and fight harder than any other Soldier.” On those long miserable nights, we would say, “We DO have helicopters, right?” Right. Yet on we walked. Together.
Or the countless nights shivering myself to sleep in a patrol base, hidden from an imaginary enemy in some forgotten backwood or desert. Basically, most of my military experience was spent shivering. I hated it. Every moment of the miserable cold, which included learning what “spooning” meant when my Ranger Buddy pulled me over and wrapped his arms around me during the Pre-Ranger School program. “We DO have sleeping bags, right?” Right. Yet we shivered on. Together.
Courtesy of the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program, 75th Ranger Regiment, @75th_rasp
Or those bone-crushing PT sessions that seemed like they would never end. One time we had a platoon competition where the Battalion placed a bunker on one end of a field and timed us to move the bunker to the other end. Call it 300, 30 lb. sandbags and a platoon of 40 Rangers competing against every other platoon in the Battalion. It was a grunting, cussing moshpit shuttle run with sandbags. And it hurt. A lot. “We DO have forklifts in the Army, right?” Right. Yet we suffered on. Together.
Why?
Because we train as we fight, and to fight a determined enemy, we need to be more determined and more willing to go the distance when it matters most. The same can be said when facing an obstacle that stands in the way of accomplishing our goals. The option to give up is always most pressing when we are the furthest distance from the start, at the extent of our endurance, and close to the inflection point when the tide turns our way. It’s a dicey moment that we must choose to make us instead of break us. When our “F@#k it!” gets closer to “F@#k THIS!” the way through is towards purpose. Together.
Courtesy of Ranger Assessment and Selection Program, 75th Ranger Regiment, @75th_rasp
Before Morning Nautical Twilight (BMNT) is 30 minutes before sunrise when the sun begins to peak over the Eastern horizon, and the stars “go away.” The temperature drops 3-5° making it the coldest part of the day. Just before BMNT is the point when it has been darkest the longest. If you’ve been out all night, this marks the point when you've been shivering the longest and miserable the longest. It’s a low that gets lower when the temperature drops that extra 3-5°. And it is often the moment when we are most ready to give up.
Hold on. Hold on to why you started in the first place, and hold on to one another. No adversity lasts forever, but a character forged to persevere through the pain does. Because pain is temporary, pride is forever.
