Check this space for my archive of GoRuck posts: December 5, 2012 – Ruck Across America: Hobe Sound to West Palm Beach May 25, 2012 – F**k Me I Did A Third GoRuck Challenge December 20, 2011 – Review: GoRuck GR2 XL Overnight Ruck December 5, 2011 – Interview with Jason McCarthy, Founder of GoRuck November 22, 2011 – Review: GoRuck Challenge Tampa – Class 083 July 12, 2011 – Interview with Lauren O’Leary, Class 029 Boston June 23, 2011 – GoRuck Training: Robocop Legs May 23, 2011 – Interview with Todd Garrett, Class 033 San Diego April 18, 2011 – 4.16 Seventy Pounds Sucks A Fat One April 13, 2011 – WTF is GoRuck Challenge and Why Do It? March 22, 2011 – Training for the GoRuck Challenge January 3, 2011 – GoRuck St Augustine Review – Class 007 December 27, 2010 – GoRuck Gear TestMy name is Uri. I’m an information security researcher that specializes in red team and digital ops. I served as a Recon operator and a sniper in the military for several years and I am the author of Pack Light, Go Fast, a blog about the art of packing light and enjoying the freedom that it gives you.

The bag I chose as my main carry is the GORUCK GR1.GORUCK was founded by Jason McCarthy, a US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) Operator. Toward the end of his service in the military – after serving in Iraq and other locations, he began to think about how much he was going to miss the high-quality, nearly indestructible backpack supplied by the US Special Forces. mcm duke backpack medium priceAfter searching for a replacement that he can use as a civvy and not finding one that was up to his standards he decided to build his own. backpack mosquito foggerThe result is the GR1. prada backpack iofferYou can see a vide of Jason explaining the origins of GORUCK, the philosophy behind the GR1 and some other cool information on Pack LightProudly built in the United States, Jason describes the efforts that went into designing each and every part of the GR1 in his post: GR1 explained by Jason, GORUCK’s founder.hot topic skunk backpack

The GR1 is an extremely tough backpack and, like all GORUCK gear, it comes with the Scars Lifetime guarantee. The backpack is designed to ride high on your back, with straps that are super comfortable, even when carrying a lot of weight. ursa laptop backpackThe 1000D Cordura is nearly indestructible and highly water resistant. ww1 backpack contentsI’ve carried my laptop and iPad under torrential rain and they remained dry. backpack denim kaskusThis bag was built to abuse it.The padded back of the GR1 and the straps. The more you use this bag, the more it becomes yours. The Cordura straps adapt to the contour of your shoulders and chest.Another detail that made me choose this bag is the fact that it can be customized. There are 3 lines of MOLLE webbing outside and 3 inside that allow you to attach MOLLE compatible pouches and gear to the outside and inside of the bag.

I like the idea that the pack is minimal and very streamlined out of the box but if I need it I can always add a pocket, pouch or other carry attachment.The MOLLE outside in the front of the pack and on the sidesand inside where you can also see the mesh pocket on the back of the main compartment (in the current model it was replaced by a solid Cordura pocket). The GR1 lays completely flat, a feature that I really love and that allows for optimal organization and efficient packing of your gear. You have access to all the gear inside without having to fight your way around it.The laptop compartment, also a hydration bladder compartment, is padded to securely take a laptop into combat. That is a great feature. You can place the laptop in that pocket and it will be protected. It sits close to your back and if for whatever reason something hits your pack it will be cushioned by the gear you carry on the main compartment and the padding in this pocket.And speaking of hydration bladder, the GR1 has a little hole on the top (protected by a Velcro closure) that allows the hydration bladder tube to be threaded out.

I used this hole to thread a rope and I used it to rappel off a roof during a physical penetration test.The pack’s flap has two pockets on the interior part of it and one slant pocket outside. The zippers on all the pockets and the main zipper are YKK zipper, made in the US and designed not to fail under any condition. The zipper pulls are silent, using paracord 550 and rubber tubbing to enable grabbing them when wet, cold and pretty much any condition. The inside of the ruck also has the only label, a very subtle patch that says GR1, made int he USA.You can customize the GR1 using a patch of your choosing. There is a 2" x 3" velcro strip where you can attach any of the patches from GORUCK or the ones you have. I usually have my GORUCK Tough patch on it. Further customization can include the GORUCK Field PocketsThe GR1 is also an excellent travel pack and helps you in packing light and going fast. In the following pictures I packed clothing and gear for a trip.The last picture also shows a Badass hat, the GR Tac.So, the GR1 is a fantastic, tough enough for Special Forces, easy to carry, easy customize, comfortable day backpack that can also serve as a travel pack.

What else would you need in a backpack…? A GR1 at the Boston GORUCK Challenge. And mine after having survived the GORUCK Challenge in ChicagoHere’s a GR1 with the new Brick BagGORUCK also has smaller and bigger packs. The Echo, Radio Ruck, GR1 and GR2. And a GR2 being badass in a combat zone with Green Berets.Last Saturday at 0700, I met up with 68 men and women at the Irish Hunger Memorial in downtown Manhattan to get our asses kicked as part of the inaugural class of the GORUCK Light Challenge. I’ve been wanting to do a GORUCK Challenge for a while and when I found out they were doing a Light version and the first would be here in New York City, I was quick to sign up with my buddy. This was the very first Light Challenge so we didn’t really know what to expect. Most of us were aware of what the GORUCK Tough Challenges are all about but didn’t know where Light would sit on the suck scale. As we loitered that morning, half dizzy as the second guessing swirled through our heads and half groggy because of the coffee we decided to forgo, our cadre startled us out of a daze as you would expect from a US Special Forces leader.

At our cadre’s command, we attempted to organize ourselves into formation for role call, brick inspection1, and splitting off into our two groups to start the challenge. What we were about to get into was a military-inspired physical and mental endurance team challenge. I was confident that morning, as we saw the sun starting to peak above the skyline, that I would have the mental endurance to get through the day. I was nervous about my physical endurance but became even less sure when I could see we had 34 people but no team. We were a mess. We had trouble following basic orders and quickly realized that without pulling together, it would be a long day ahead of us. GORUCK lives by the phrase Under Promise, Over Deliver and we learned early that Light did not mean easy. Maybe it was the intense hour of pushups, bear crawls, and fireman carries, or it could have been the freezing cold pond we found ourselves waist-deep in, but that daze we began with started to lift. We started to see strengths and weaknesses in our teammates and figured out ways to work through them.

We learned that it wasn’t a race but that time was still an important thing and we’d have consequences for missing time objectives. The saying goes, “Embrace the suck.” Embracing it is the only option because the suck isn’t something you can fix. More training doesn’t fix the suck. The suck is baked in; it’s part of the Challenge. What you don’t have to embrace is the things that you suck at. We were too quiet. We weren’t telling our teammates when we were tired from carrying the team weights or our “coupon”—a special present from our Cadre that we picked up along the way, in this case, a big sandbag. We thought we were toughing it out by keeping our mouth shut but what it meant was that we were wrecking ourselves. We marched through Manhattan to our different objectives as the morning sun gave way to a chilling wind. I guess we should have expected it because change can suck, but our objectives could quickly shift and our cadre would issue a FRAGO—where something happened in our imaginary battle and we would need to adapt.

This usually meant “casualties.” We would have to carry our teammates. At the worst, we had five casualties. Carrying five people around the streets of Manhattan, through the busy St. Patrick’s Day parade crowds really sucked and that’s when we learned how to be team. It was moments like this where we were getting near the edge of our physical capacity when we would have lapses in communication with our team. Walking through midtown Manhattan on a normal day is a challenge; doing it with a team of 34 people in already crowded streets with people on your shoulders makes things like all getting across the street together before the light goes red a real issue. It only happened once (because we learned from it fast) but only blocks away from one of our objectives of making it to the Empire State Building, our team got split up by a red light. Cutting through traffic carrying a litter with a casualty in it isn’t a great idea no matter how much of a New Yorker you think you are.

We paid for our lapse of communication that caused the separation by doing lunge walks—CARRYING PEOPLE—for the last two blocks to our objective. The slowdown from the lunge walks caused us to be overtime by 1 minute and 30 seconds, which we paid for with 90 reps of some of our favorite PT exercises, like high-lifts of our brick-filled rucks and burpees2. We went from clouded to sharp minds when together we realized that the suck of the PT was something we’d have to embrace but the suck of our team communication could be fixed. We each had to be open about when we were tired and needed help. By having team leaders constantly checking with how we were doing, swapping in fresh legs when needed, and rotating people through positions, we were able to work together to survive through the rest of the Challenge. The snow that started to fall in the last couple hours was a nice touch to see us through the end. In 11 miles and—in Under Promise, Over Deliver fashion—7 hours for what was advertised as only 4, we came to be Light Class 001.