Matt in TN

Stage 4 (5k)/Stage 6 (10k): HORSE SOLDIERS In the days following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Defense Department sent two teams of Army Special Forces soldiers to Afghanistan to bring down the Taliban. SFODA 595, the “Horse Soldiers,” went on missions that were extended for weeks and months. They did it all without body armor or tactical vehicles, living with Afghan partners and following an Afghan plan—often using horses and pack animals. 595 was charged with leading the Northern Alliance and the men of former (assassinated) Ahmed Shah Massoud to unite Afghanistan against Taliban rule. These Green Berets were among the first to deploy to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some of them rode into battle on horseback alongside fighters from the Northern Alliance. There were no guarantees that General Dostum of the Afghan Northern Alliance would safeguard the team, and many members had never ridden horseback before. The team found itself uniquely postured to react to the Nation’s call to duty after the 9/11 attacks.

Stage 5 (10k only): THE MIND IS THE BEST WEAPON Nicknamed "Texas 12", a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha designated “SFOD-A 574” was a 12-man team of U.S Green Berets. They worked side-by-side with irregular militia led by Hamid Karza, to capture the Islamic spiritual center in the city of Kandahar, and thus win over a critical center of gravity within the population of Afghanistan. The 12 Americans of ODA 574, assisted by U.S. close air support and 35 Afghans, successfully defended Tarin Kowt against 1,000 Taliban insurgents delivered by 100 trucks. Assisting the local militia, they helped to defeat the Taliban further along the Arghandab River and at Shawali Kowt and Sayyd Alma Kalay. These victories were the key to the Kandahar Campaign, ending when Kandahar was occupied by Marine Expeditionary Units. The battle and the overall defeat of the Taliban came at a heavy price. Master Sgt. Jefferson Donald "Donnie" Davis, Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, and SFC Daniel H. Petithory and twenty members of Karzai’s militia were killed. Five other members of ODA 574 and Karzai were wounded. Despite this incredible loss, members of SFOD-A 586 soldiers from Bravo Company, 3rd BN, 5th SFG, with reinforcements from adjacent units, were able to usher Karzai and new leadership into the center of power at Kandahar. President Karzai was able to negotiate the surrender of Taliban forces around Kandahar, drastically shortening the length of the war.

Stage 4 (10k only): THE MANBIJ POCKET In 2016, the reach and control the Islamic State had established in Northern Syria was staggering. It would take US Special Forces and their partners numerous operations and countless munitions to stem IS’s spread and retake key terrain, to turn the fight against IS. The Manbij Offensive, code-named Operation Martyr by the Syrian Democratic Forces was a 2016 military offensive to finally break through IS lines—at the time this was a small, critical pocket IS forces had established in Manbij city. Surrounding the "Manbij Pocket" in the northern Aleppo Governorate, Special Forces and the SDF saw the opportunity to cut off IS's last smuggling and supply routes from Turkey and shorten the battle. During the first 5 days of the offensive, the US-led coalition conducted over 55 airstrikes to support friendly maneuver. Desperate IS fighters used suicide attacks, improvised “mad max” vehicles, and drones to attempt counterattacks. After capturing Manbij city on 12 August, the SDF announced that the offensive would continue east from Manbij to crush IS.

Stage 3: RAQQAH RUMBLE Currently Special Forces from sister services are operating together collectively to combat our Nation’s enemies. Elite Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Operator, Chief Kenton Stacy was critically wounded in November as one of the few elite Navy EOD operators assigned to a Special Forces unit tasked with clearing areas which had been held by ISIS fighters. While his team was clearing improvised explosive devices from the second floor of a hospital that had been rigged with booby traps, one of the devices detonated within just a few feet of Kenton, injuring his spinal cord and forever changing his life. Stacy endured the brunt of the blast, saving many of his teammates. His team reacted and sprang into action to speed him to critical care facilities. The teams continued work to clear the hospital, wrecked buildings and tunnel systems for months to come. Special Forces and EOD experts must face uncertain environments such as tunnels, cave systems, and wreckage in the current operating environment.

Stage 2: AT TANF, “DE-CONFLICTION ZONE” In 2017, American Green Berets manned and operated an austere outpost in the Syria-Iraq-Jordanian “Tri-Border Region,” to disrupt enemy forces and target ISIS or “Da’esh” militants as they attempted to escape the killing grounds of the Middle Euphrates Valley. The Green Berets were highly trained in preparing local ground forces for combat. Despite the austerity of their location, they remained vigilant for the opportunity to engage Da’esh as they fled toward the US Partner-Country of Jordan. In the past year, At Tanf has seen multiple engagements and remains a hot bed of enemy and international activity. During a security patrol, two separate Green Beret elements made contact with and interdicted a small, hostile smuggling force. When engaged by the enemy, elements in contact made radio contact with adjacent units for support. The two teams quickly adjusted their activity to move to the location of the firefight and engage the enemy. One team had to hastily mount their gun trucks, and upon positively identifying suicide vests on multiple combatants began engaging and neutralizing the enemy immediately. That day resulted in numerous Da’esh enemy killed in action, and zero wounded or injured Green Berets. The action sent a clear message to Da’esh attempting to flee that American forces were waiting, and willing to interdict.

And because these stories NEED to be told, I'm going to reprint the portions of the match books explaining the events behind each stage. Stage 1: BRONCO DOWN MACV-SOG, or Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group, was a joint service unconventional warfare task force engaged in highly classified operations throughout Southeast Asia. The 5th Special Forces channeled personnel into MACV-SOG under secret orders. These teams performed deep penetration missions of strategic reconnaissance and interdiction, such as the "Shining Brass" or "Prairie Fire" missions in 1971. When the Special Forces began operations in Vietnam, it didn’t take long to for the OV10, “Bronco” aircraft to earn its reputation as one of the most feared weapon in the US arsenal by the Viet Cong, NVA and Pathet Lao. The enemy knew the Bronco meant an air strike would certainly follow. On 6 July 1971, US Army Special Forces Capt. Donald G. "Butch" Carr, crewed a Bronco to find, fix, and support suppression of enemy forces. MAJ Carr was the Deputy Commander of the MACV-SOG element at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. His Bronco, Nail 48 assailed one of the major arteries of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. Its mission was to target this border road used by the Communists to transport weapons, supplies and troops from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, until his aircraft disappeared after reports of enemy activity. After his disappearance, there were wild and varied reports of a “crazy American,” who had survived the crash. Donald Carr was among nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in Laos. While it is not known exactly what unfolded when MAJ Carr and his partner crash landed, numerous reports indicated multiple Enemy Killed in Action at or around the crash site. We do know MAJ Carr’s body was found decades later, far from the site. MAJ Carr was recovered and his remains returned to his family this year.

There's no way a video can do justice to the spirit, comaraderie, catharsis, horrible and amazing weather conditions, explosions and 50 cal simulators, and demonstrations of sheer willpower and skill we saw last weekend. But here's six minutes in which I try to capture just a TASTE of all that. Thank you to everyone for helping me to pull this off and making it an extremely successful weekend from every single angle: from sharing 5th Group stories, to honoring their fallen and Gold Star Fathers, to raising a ton of money for the Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 - and welcoming the guys themselves into our awesome Run N Gun Family while testing ourselves against the hardest course I've seen yet. I couldn't have done it without each and every one of you.

Official match pictures are up at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/163548466@N06/sets/72157699713389221 As I mentioned at the match, please use them however you'd like, but give Lisa Stennett a photo credit if you do. If you see any pictures of yourself you'd like to be removed, simply send me a message and we'll take them down ASAP. It's hilarious that Flickr chose to use the horse as the cover photo.

Some stats: We ended up with 144 total competitors. 26 of those were 5SFG (3 ran on both days), 2 were Gold Star Fathers, and 5 were women (1 ran on both days). 3 were kids, and the youngest who ran and shot was 11. Here's the breakdown to show how many people failed to finish each stage (top bar graph), how many people failed at multiple stages (bottom bar graph), and how each day's weight classes filled out. I'm happy to report only one person failed every stage they attempted to shoot. And they kept going and never quit! Conditions played a HUGE factor, so I wanted to document those too: And this was totally informal and NOT part of the official match, but we had 11 people who ran both the 5k on Saturday and the 10k on Sunday. Many of them asked me, just for fun, to combine their scores to see how they stacked up against each other.

OK - someone paying more attention than me pointed out that the scores are correct on Practiscore if you dig deep enough. Go here for the 5k Results: https://www.practiscore.com/results/html/be846e41-3467-4776-b9e3-b5aeb3a8cbe2 And here for the 10k results: https://www.practiscore.com/results/html/b14bb2f6-743e-4a7d-8553-7092f148ab6b I'll continue to work on making it easier to find - sorry for the delay and confusion. And then we have two more follow-up items: 1. Please send any photos or videos you're willing to share to legionrungun@gmail.com 2. There were several lost and found items (including a prize table item) left over after everyone had left. Please email the address above if you've lost anything and they'll dig through the pile to see if it's there. Or we may find it still on the course next year (it happens every match!). More to come...

Just wanted to let everyone know that the match shirt is still available online at https://www.shredderlife.com/shop/ until 9/14 for anybody that wasn't able to get the size they wanted. Thanks to everyone involved for coming out and supporting the SFA Chapter 38 and the Legion! DOL!

A word of warning: this is not your typical match, in which I design stages so most people succeed. To give you a taste of 5th Group life, the shooting stages are pretty complex. The shooting itself is fairly simple - IF you were fresh (not exhausted) and had all the time in the world. But you don't. And you won't be. It will be a rare person that finishes the entire match without failing at SOMETHING. I'm guessing there will be a few who fail to complete EVERY shooting stage. When that happens, keep in mind 5th Group is not successful because they never fail. They are successful because they KEEP GOING despite failing over and over again, and being faced with situations MUCH more dire than simply failing a stage at a match. Then pick yourself up, gather your gear, and trudge forward to the next challenge. I promise you, you will NOT be the only one to fail. Embrace it. Learn from it. And keep going.

And I am also excited to announce our own Todd Banus has contributed a certificate for a free entry into his HeartBreak RnG coming up in February!

I am pleased to announce Heckler & Koch has donated an Exemplar knife and a whole box of hats to support the match - thanks HK!

I sent an email to all competitors this morning through Practiscore with all the final details I think you need to know before the match. Let me know if you didn't get it or if you have any other questions. And I screwed up some details using copy/paste between the two matches, so just for clarity's sake: the 5k is on Saturday, September 8th, and the 10k is on Sunday, September 9th. Sorry for the confusion!

You got this, Ryan!

So we’re a little over a week from match day. I’m guessing several of you are second-guessing yourselves right now. Maybe you didn’t get in as much training as you’d hoped. Maybe you trained you’re a$$ off and didn’t see the results you wanted to. Maybe you’ve seen all of these crazy hints and promises about what’s to come, and are intimidated as hell about trying to do all of this while 30-ish bada$$ Special Forces soldiers and even more Run N Gun regulars stand by and watch you. Don’t be. If you signed up and just SHOW UP to start this race, you’re already better than 90% of the shooters out there who stayed home on the couch on match day. If you FINISH, no matter how long it takes you, you’ve won. Trust me – you’ll feel it just as soon as you cross that finish line – and for many days (months?) thereafter. At some point in the course, you will ask yourself: “Why on earth am I here? I’m not ready for this. I don’t belong here.” The dirty little secret I can promise you: EVERYONE asks themselves that at some point. You DO belong here. The satisfaction and self-image you will get from just finishing this course will stay with you forever, and is something no one can ever take away from you. Many people have found matches like these to be a turning point in their lives, and in a year or two you may not even recognize the person you have become. Just remember - for every person you see pass you, there is someone behind you wishing they could keep up with you. Look behind you every so often just to acknowledge how far you’ve come. And before ANYONE judges anyone else as being "too slow, too fat, or too lazy" - bite your tongue and listen to their story first. Across the country at matches like these we've had people recovering from recent strokes, heart attacks, cancer, pregnancy, amputations, and any other issue you can think of; just because "F#$K CANCER", that's why! Give them an encouraging word when you pass them - it really makes a difference. Even better - if you pass someone really struggling on the course: finish your race, set down your gear, and run back out to find that person. You can run beside them and offer them all the words of support and encouragement that you can think of - you just can't physically help them in any way. Let's do this.

Reminder: you will need eye and ear protection in order to shoot. Yes, running with eyes and ears on sucks. Either figure out how to do it, or take the extra time to take them off and put them back on again before shooting. But if you show up to a shooting stage without eye and ear protection, you will not be allowed to shoot and receive a ZERO score for that stage. Also - has everybody figured out by now that Kentucky has hills? Here's the elevation map for the new 10k course. It royally kicked my a$$ on Friday during a weight vest recon run. And a public service announcement: running it in pants sucked. But running it in shorts would have sucked even more. You do what you want to, but I would STRONGLY suggest long pants, and treating all of your clothing with permethrin. I forgot to treat my socks and ended up with this on both ankles: #fugginchiggers

Reminder: This Saturday, August 25th is the cutoff to withdraw and get a 50% refund. Any withdrawals after that for any reason will get ZERO refund as per the cancellation policy. The Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 thanks you for your donation! The best way to withdraw is through Practiscore - that time stamps and sends me an email so I can keep track of the requests and get the refunds processed.

Reminder: you will need a light of some kind to navigate and shoot in the cave (Stage 3). If you show up without a light you will not be allowed to shoot and will be given a zero for the stage. Weaponlights are fine to shoot with, but you'll also need a separate light to navigate parts of the cave before the shooting starts. I don't care if you carry a giant spotlight with a 12V truck battery, but you must carry it for the entire course! If you've never been to the cave before, here's a preview video from March 2017 that will give you a better idea what to expect. The details will be different, but this is the same cave we'll be using. https://youtu.be/hq52C43sXD4

Everyone knows how to shoot from a horse, right? If you don't know the story of 5th Special Forces Group's Horse Soldiers, you should. Read the book Horse Soldiers: the Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (https://www.amazon.com/Horse-Soldiers-Extraordinary-Victory-Afghanistan/dp/1416580522) And watch the documentary Legion of Brothers (https://www.amazon.com/Legion-Brothers-Jason-Amerine/dp/B06Y4Q213B) to learn more about these amazing men. Pro tip: the pic above is NOT the way to shoot from a horse. It's just me goofing off and testing the patience of my mighty steed.

Just a reminder: August 9th (Thursday) is 30 days before match day. The refund policy is non-negotiable: Full refunds will be given if you withdraw more than 30 days before the match. Half your fee will be refunded if you withdraw between 14-29 days before the match. NO REFUND will be given if you withdraw less than 14 days before the match.

Round Count: It's complicated. First of all - the Group guys in general hate the idea of shooting anything with a pre-prescribed number of shots. If they see a threat, they engage the threat until it is no longer threatening. Or as Matt Sipe says: "shoot it until it changes shape or catches fire." Since we haven't figured out a way to do that at a match, they went back over various encounters they've had and tried to guess at an average number of times they shot something with various weapons. That's how we came up with 3 shots to neutralize a paper rifle target and 5 shots to neutralize a paper pistol target. Oh yeah - and D-zone hits don't count. Second - you will have some options on what you shoot and how. I'll let Tier 1 guys figure out their own game plans based on the target counts, but in general pistol targets must be hit with pistol rounds and rifle targets must be hit with rifle rounds. Steel and clay pistol targets CAN be engaged with shotgun birdshot ONLY if you are shooting Tier 1 and decide to carry a shotgun. Shotguns are not allowed on paper targets - mostly because I don't want to paste that many holes! And finally - one stage has 9 total paper targets that can be engaged with either pistol or rifle, or any combination of the two. Just know you have to get 5 hits if you use pistol or 3 hits if you use rifle. And if you're smart (or lucky), you may not have to engage all the targets. You'll see... So all that to say: here's the required hit count on various targets. The totals at the bottom assume you have to engage every target just to be safe. I'd recommend carrying AT LEAST double that amount of ammo - but that's totally up to you. Group guys definitely change their equipment to match the mission - you should do the same.

I've had a few RO cancellations recently, so I need to find two more volunteers. You'll run/work Friday, and then work all day Saturday and Sunday. I can promise you that you'll work your butt off all three days, and have both frustrations and plenty of last-minute changes to deal with along the way But you'll also have one of the most rewarding experiences of your life - working with these guys really is a treasure. And you'll get a comped run slot, half-price hotel room, and lunch provided and delivered Saturday and Sunday. Preference given to anyone who has RO'd a RNG before. This is going to be a pretty complex match and I need experienced people who can move quickly for three days straight. If you haven't ROd a RNG before but would still like to help don't be shy - just let me know who you are and how you're qualified and we'll go from there. Email me at mstennett-at-twlakes-dot-net if you're interested.

I am amazed at people's kindness: Robert Hundley had to cancel, and instead of getting a $100 refund for the 10k he donated his slot to the next shooter on the waitlist "because this is for such a good cause". I've contacted that shooter and let him know - not only did he just get in, but he got in for free! I also told him he'd better bring plenty of cash for the side matches and other fund-raising goings-on to make up for his good fortune. And since I was in the registration data anyway, I had to pull some stats. We have 21 5th Group guys currently signed up out of 158 total competitors. And here's the other data summarized: