(Left to Right) – Carl Stone, Shreeman N. Misurya, Andy Buckley, Sam Riley, Bryan Jones and Brad Born holding the Theta Chi and US flags after completing the challenge.
Seven members of Alpha Pi Chapter at the University of Minnesota recently participated in and successfully completed the GORUCK Challenge, April 3, 2015, in Minneapolis, MN.
The GORUCK Challenge is a 10-12 hour event that challenges individuals to put their team before themselves. Based on lessons learned by GORUCK founder Jason McCarthy while serving in the Green Berets, the GORUCK Challenges serve as a bridge between the military and civilian worlds. The endurance focused events are based on conditions and environments Special Forces operations are conducted in. The leaders of the class known as Cadres, teach participants how to lead, how to follow, and how to overcome adversity together while carrying a 45 pound rucksack on their backs. Participants learn that everyone is capable of so much more when they work as a team.
Brothers Shreeman N. Misurya (2016), Sam Riley (2016), Andy Buckley (2016), Bryan Jones (2018), Brad Born (2018), Carl Stone (2018) and Alumnus Peter Andrada (1995), all had their own personal reasons for taking the challenge, but they mainly wanted to challenge themselves physically, mentally, and test the bonds of their brotherhood.
To train for the event, the brothers were told to push their limits if they intended to succeed, so the group committed to begin training two months prior to the event. Due to their academic schedules and extracurricular commitments, the brothers decided that training on their own would be best. The men worked out at the recreation center, and practiced exercises recommended by GORUCK such as bear crawls, push-ups, and jumping jacks. The group also got together for long hikes and carried rucksacks with four to six bricks.
“After arriving and hearing the various rules and expectations from the Cadre Instructor, we were made to do activities such as flutter kicks, bear crawls, jumping jacks and push-ups continuously for the first two hours with our rucksacks on,” said Shreeman Misurya. “After that, we proceeded on an 18 mile hike through the city of Minneapolis. There were several legs to the hike, and we had to complete the leg in a specified amount of time. Whenever we finished a leg we were given a momentary break of about five minutes,” Misurya continued. “We moved at a steady pace and were made to do different things. At the University of Minnesota Campus we had to take quick stair climbs and do bear crawls in the parking lot. As the night progressed, the activities became more difficult making each leg of the hike more difficult. For one leg we had to carry sand bags in addition to our rucks, and then we were made to carry huge logs, and then members of the team along with the logs and the sand bags. This was to simulate the scenario of rescuing an injured comrade during a Special Forces operation. Upon reaching our final destination, we were made to do three sets of push-ups before the successful participants were presented with their GORUCKS patch,” he said.
In the end, the challenge had pushed even the most physically fit brothers to their limit. Performing and successfully completing the physically taxing activities throughout the night helped to bring forth qualities that were otherwise mostly dormant in most. The newer brothers showed exemplary leadership qualities when they were assigned to lead the team by finding the most efficient direction and effectively coordinating the passing of the different team weights they were instructed to carry while maintaining a positive attitude. Seeing a brother struggling to carry a weight and offering to carry that weight for him for a time, edging him on when he seems to be fading even though every muscle of your own body is aching.
“These things most definitely contributed to reinforcing the brotherhood bonds we hold sacred in our fraternity,” said Misurya. “We were called to rise up to the oaths we had taken as brothers and we saw this challenge as a trial by fire that we had to pass to truly reaffirm the highest ideals and promises enshrined by our brotherhood. As a consequence of training for the challenge, performing it and ultimately emerging victorious, we not only better understand each other and ourselves but we now better understand how important the bond as brothers we share actually is and how difficult at times it can be to live up to its responsibilities and expectations in the truest sense of the word,” he added.
