Every battle is won or lost before it is fought.

know yourself and you will win all battles

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go
to war first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu makes clear the battle is won first within before ever going to war. I was so
confident about Selection I wrote my AAR before I started and have now had to go
back and rewrite it as a quitter. Despite not finishing, I think the quote still applies.
I won my battle before going to war and that was my downfall at Selection but my
victory in the long run. Forgive me if this comes off as a lecture or overly academic,
I am a college professor after all. Ive cited many works to illustrate the lessons I
learned in my preparation and to serve as an annotated bibliography of sorts for
others to follow.
Selection is an interview to represent the GORUCK elite, but not simply in physical
terms. I like to believe the Selection standard enforced by cadre is more moral than
physical. Cadre use fairness, or lack thereof, to filter out the humble from the
arrogant. The humble will embrace the suck with humor and enthusiasm; the
arrogant will whine and let the injustice get to their spirit. And the cadre are
masterful at their craft. You could not handpick a better group of well-rounded and
humble people that are the Selection alumn. Many of them have said it before;
Selection is more mental than physical. Their past AARs have done a great job
covering gear choices and the physical preparation necessary to complete
Selection; I want to focus on the overlooked mental preparation that is more
essential.
Anyone with enough time to train can prepare physically to pass Selection. Despite
this, nearly all who attempt it will not because they fail to prepare themselves
mentally. The physical training is straightforward and rewarding. We feel the
training through pain and see the results relatively soon. If we dont train,
physically we notice the difference. The moral training is more difficult because it
requires us to change how we live and who we are. The results are not immediate
and harder to notice; the bad habits more ingrained and difficult to quit.
I struggled for months to understand my desired to pursue Selection. Initially, I
manufactured my why but none of the justifications I came up with felt authentic.
I began to read in preparing mentally and came across this familiar quote by
Thoreau:
I went to the woods [Selection] because I wished to live deliberately, to
front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it
had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish
to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live
deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and
shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms
, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were

sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account

of it in my next excursion.
I identified with the quote and came to settle on the idea that Selection was my
woods; my trial and hardship from which I would learn the lessons of life. Selection
would serve as a right of passage into manhood and Id emerge understanding
what it really meant to live. This desire is internally hard-wired into everyone. In
The Warrior Ethos, Steven Pressfield explains this collective unconscious manifests
itself in archetypes that we progress through in stages as we mature; from youth to
warriors to husbands, fathers, teachers and kings among others. The warrior
archetype kicks in around our late teens in the form of a desire to prove ourselves
in a rite of passage and come out of it as a better person.
Pressfield tells the story of Alexander in Indian encountering a naked wise man.
One of Alexanders young soldiers points to the wise man and exclaims This man
has conquered the world! What have you accomplished? to which the naked wise
man responded, I have conquered the need to conquer the world. Alexander
replies, Could I be any man in the world other than myself, I would be this man
here. This man was a fighter when he was my age. He has taken the lessons he
learned as a warrior dueling external enemies and is turning them to use now as he
fights internal foes to achieve mastery over himself.
In order to evolve beyond warriors into loving husbands, caring fathers, wise
teachers and active citizens we must first learn the hard lessons and turn them
inward on ourselves. But how to you train mental toughness? Ive faced my
demons before, as we all have, and know that all of those reasons we give ourselves
to finish mean nothing when it gets real. What is authentic courage and how do we
develop it?
The best example of authentic courage I found is the Greek work andreia which is
illustrated in Pressfields historical fiction Gates of Fire. Andreia is posed as the
opposite of fear; it is superior to courage, which is often just a greater fear of
dishonor. Here is a brief discussion from an online source:
Andreia, 'manly' spirit, is needed to counter faint-heartedness,
laziness, and over-attachment to pleasure. It involves an attitude of
'taking the fight to the enemy', where the enemy is ones own
foolishness, vice and ignorance. Misused it manifests itself as anger,
aggression and military vain-glory (referred to by the Greeks as
katalepsis), or possession, the opposite of Andreia. Properly used it
involves self-directed, constructive anger. Andreia also manifests itself
as a willingness for, even a love of, toil and effort. It is one of the four
cardinal virtues, along with prudence, temperance, and justice.
-http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/words/andreia.htm
We dont have to look any further than Pressfields character Dienekes as the model
warrior and citizen. Dienekes wasnt bestowed by the Gods with physical
superiority like the great Olympian, Polynikes. Dienekes strength was derived from
a quality of mind, a power of self-possession. His courage, his Andreia, was that of

a mortal man with uncommon valor. Courage cannot exist without acknowledging
fear. Dienekes earned the respect of Sparta in a way that Polynikes never could
because he was a common man who feared just like everyone else. Great warriors
are common men demonstrating uncommon valor. You dont have to be a Geek god
to finish Selection; but if you want the respect of the GORUCK community it starts
with earning it at home, seeking to be good husbands, fathers and citizens that
make great warriors like Dienekes and the Selection finishers.
I pursued Selection because I wanted to know andreia, the courage of a warrior, and
earn the respect of my city; to experience the comradery between soldiers. I dont
know how many times I explained Selection to people who didnt understand why
Id subject myself to such conditions. People dont understand why we would
choose to scorn the life of leisure which is so available to us in America and
instead to enroll ourselves into the academy of discipline and sacrifice.
War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War,
and the preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in
a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love,
eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble.
There in the holly mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and
find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines
forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the Gods. Do not
despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and
compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.
-Pressfield, 2007. Gates of Fire.
Selection was my manufactured war; my opportunity to produce virtue and purge
vice, to be united with my brothers and discover all that is noble and honorable in
myself, to find andreia. Selection is not war in the literal sense but trial and
hardship; the crucible of necessity. Fear is the enemy we fight for control over the
battlefield of our mind.
to harden the will against responding with rage and fear, the twin
unmanning evils of which that state called katalepsis, possession, is
comprised.
Remember what I told you about the house with many rooms. There are
rooms we must not enter. Anger. Fear. Any passion which leads the mind
toward that possession which undoes men in war. Habit will be your
champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only,
when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great
strength in battle.
-Pressfield, 2007. Gates of Fire.
Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author or Mans Search for Meaning, states
that everything can be taken from a man except for the ability to choose his own
attitude. Your attitude is the only armor you have in Selection. For 48+ hours your

defenses will be assaulted and if you let cadre crack your shield and get into your
head quitting becomes inevitable.
Of course, none of this mattered when it mattered most. I still VWd. The cadre are
excellent at the Jedi mind f*ck; getting you to quit and not even knowing why you
quit. It is the hardest thing to try and explain why I dropped. Physically I felt fine, I
was in good spirits and smiling at all the abuse. It came down to the realization that
I just didnt want it any more. The cadre say it all the time but most people dont
listen; Selection is about survival. If Selection isnt life or death for you, if your
why isnt bulletproof, dont even bother showing up.
He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. -Nietzsche
The Nietzsche quote says it all. The physical preparation, the right gear, the perfect
boots dont matter. Assuming you have a basic level of preparation, the only thing
that matters is your will to finish. You can overcome anything the cadre present if
your will to finish remains steady. I quit after 18 hours, less than a quarter mile
from the evolution end point. Even if I had finished the evolution, I would have
eventually quit because my will to finish had already diminished.
I probably would have quit even earlier if I didnt let the other candidates answer for
me when cadre asked if we wanted to quit. There is strength in numbers but when
one person quits, the poison spreads and candidates start falling like dominoes.
Even if multiple candidates remain, there is nowhere to hide from cadre and you will
be isolated and the spotlight shined on all of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
You have to know that these vulnerabilities are not enough to overcome your will to
finish or that same seed of doubt will be planted in your head and begin to grow
until the possession takes you.
I pursued Selection to become a man; however, its the journey that changes you
not the destination. At some point I realized that I got out of Selection what I came
for and that I didnt need to be a Selection finisher to be a good man. If you take
anything away from this AAR, it should be that you dont have to finish, or even
attempt, Selection to be a better person, a great warrior or part of the GORUCK
family.
I remember several Selection finishers telling me after I quit that no matter what,
Im still part of the family. That is just one example of the humility that I didnt
possess and why I didnt deserve to be one of the elite to represent the GORUCK
community. I watched all the special forces selection documentaries and I could
never understand how candidates just quit when they werent even breathing hard.
They would look so nonchalant about their decision to VW. I dont think anyone can
understand that feeling without having the humbling experience of having your will
broke. Class after class of Selection I looked down at those who didnt finish and
was happy to see such a high standard being enforced. Now Im glad that the
Selection standard is greater than I was and I know cadre will continue to select only
the worthy.
Regardless of if you want to attempt Selection, my advice to everyone in the
GORUCK community is to live your life to the Selection standard. Strive to a higher

morality and set the example of a model citizen in your own community for others
to follow. If you still want to attempt Selection, dont show up thinking Selection will
make you like the alumn; always strive to be the best person you can before you
attempt Selection. Win the battle before you go to war. You direct your own destiny
as an extension of your thoughts, words, actions and habits that form our character,
or who we are.
Our
Our
Our
Our
Our

thoughts become the words we speak.

words become our actions.
actions become our habits.
habits form our character.
character becomes our destiny.

My character was flawed and my destiny was to be humbled. I heard Jason say
Selection is only positive if you finish or if you fail and learn some form of humility. I
couldnt see it before but I needed to fail more than I needed to finish. We learn
more from our failures than we ever do from our successes. Im far from the man I
need to be for my wife and kids, but Im on the right path and have gained all the
tools I need to succeed. Lifes journey is a destination you dont hope to reach too
soon so take your time, learn the lessons and enjoy the ride. Selection was the final
capstone to the year of GORUCK that started with my first Challenge, Salt Lake City
class 614, on June 1st, 2013. I lived Selection for the better part of 2013 and now
that both are over I still think about it every day. Once youve been infected by the
Selection bug it is with you forever; regardless if you finish or not. However,
Selection was only one chapter in what I hope to be a much longer story. You wont
see me back at Neptune Beach in October. Im ready for my next adventure. Ive
conquered the need to conquer Selection.
-Ryan Leick, Selection Class 014, Candidate 007