At 0730 on Sunday morning, 18 July 2021, five students from the 214th Judge Advocate Officer Basic Course assembled to undertake the Order of the JAGWAR’s first “Triple-R Challenge” administered since the COVID-19 pandemic compelled the suspension of all Challenges eighteen months earlier.
This endurance-focused athletic trial was a smashing success despite the uncompromising heat and humidity for which a Charlottesville summer is renown. As the Challenge entered its final hour, the thermometer registered a highly fitting 82° Fahrenheit!
Fitting, of course, because CPT Chris Scribner—a “JAG from Bragg”—arrived in C-ville around 0100, having driven up from the Center of the Universe to knock out this final requirement for JAGWAR membership. He elected to negotiate the Triple-R Challenge a mere 36 hours after completing a 24.6-mile relay ruck march to commemorate the Army JAG Corps birthday!
CPT Scribner joined JAOBC students CPT Dominic Fiore, 1LT Katelyn Hammes, 1LT Luke Miller, and 1LT Trevor Potter in negotiating what is likely the Order’s most challenging course.
But the primary guest of honor was JAGWAR member MAJ Chris Monti, who traveled from Maryland to serve as the Challenge’s official Pacer—running, climbing, and rucking alongside the participants to cheer them on before personally awarding the finishers a JAGWAR coin at the finish line.
PHOTO: MAJ Monti briefs the Challenge participants on the contours of the Run route.
The TJAGLCS “Triple-R” follows a grueling route that snakes across the University of Virginia campus and winds through downtown Charlottesville, leveraging the hilly topography with which JAG Corps members first become familiar during morning PT sessions at the officer and paralegal basic courses.
The route distance in the attached Google Maps screenshot doesn’t reflect the 1½ loops around “The Park” and ascent up the TJAGLCS parking lot staircase, or the second time around Observatory Hill. Total Ruck March distance is 10 miles.
The three-event Challenge begins at Solidarity CrossFit, about two miles (as the crow flies) southwest of the Schoolhouse. Earlier this year, Solidarity graciously partnered with the Order of the JAGWAR to support the Triple-R Induction Challenge’s “Rope Climb” event, in response to the removal of the 25’ climbing rope from its former perch behind TJAGLCS. Solidarity thus provides aspiring JAG Corps personnel with a means to hone their rope climbing skills, and is now the Charlottesville Triple-R’s official SP.
From the Solidarity parking lot, participants undertake their first event, to wit, a 4-mile RUN. Racing two miles up Preston Avenue/Barracks Road, runners then veer up Millmont Street to the artist-formerly-known-as “Residence Inn” (it’s now a Sonesta Extended Stay Suites location), and then promptly “about face” to hightail it back to Solidarity CrossFit for the second event.
Changing from PTs into their ACUs, participants head into Solidarity CrossFit’s spacious gym for a quick rope climbing lesson, before individually ascending Solidarity’s 20’ climbing ROPE.
Then, it’s on to the Challenge’s third and final event: the RUCK March, the route for which is strategically designed to celebrate downtown Charlottesville, tour UVA’s most iconic symbols, and trigger a TJAGLCS graduate’s nostalgia.
The first leg of the ruck yet again sets its sights on 1111 Millmont Street, once more traveling past the Barracks Road Shopping Center to Sonesta ES Suites.
Marchers then sneak their way around the hotel to the notorious “secret trail” through the woods to UVA’s “North Grounds” (more commonly known as “The Park”).
Then it’s 1½ times around the fields before ascending the steep staircase up to the TJAGLCS parking lot, past the Schoolhouse’s front entrance, and onto Massie Road.
From Massie, marchers turn right onto Copeley Road and ruck past Palmer Park and Lannigan Field (Copeley turns into Alderman Road) until arriving at the intersection of McCormick Road.
Then it’s up and around Observatory Hill!
McCormick turns into Edgemont Road at the Observatory; when marchers reach the bottom of the hill, they conduct their second about-face of the Challenge and retrace their steps back up and around O-Hill until McCormick once again deposits them at the Alderman Road intersection.
Marchers stay on McCormick Road through UVA’s beautiful main campus until turning right on University Avenue, thereby presenting Challenge participants with a pristine backdrop of both the Rotunda and a statute of Thomas Jefferson, the University’s “founding Founding Father.”
The Declaration of Independence’s author designed the Rotunda to represent the “authority of nature and power of reason.” Jefferson modeled it after the Pantheon in Rome. He’s now depicted by statue in front of it.
Marchers race through scenic downtown as University Avenue becomes Main Street. By the time participants have turned left up 10th Street NW en route back to Preston Avenue, they’re less than two miles to the finish line at Solidarity CrossFit!
In the following photos, MAJ Monti congratulates the finishers—drenched in sweat and nursing the morning’s wounds—and urges them to support their future JAG Corps colleagues in augmenting their Soldier skills.
Via handshake, he then presents them each with the official JAGWAR coin—earned by and awarded to all Triple-R Challenge finishers.
Following the Challenge (and desperately necessary showers thereafter), MAJ Monti treated all participants to a lunch at Three Notch’d Brewing Company, so as to trade (literal) war stories and offer pointers to the newly-minted Judge Advocates about their upcoming JAG Corps careers.
MAJ Monti poses with the four Triple-R Challenge finishers, proudly displaying their Order of the JAGWAR coins!
It was a reminder of how crucial are the JAGWAR’s efforts to further foster community and esprit de corps among the members of our “dual profession.” Situated in the heart of our Regiment, there was something particularly special about a Triple-R Challenge conducted at TJAGLCS.
We look forward to the next iteration in Charlottesville. Join us!
Click HERE for detailed instructions re: the TJAGLCS (Charlottesville) Triple-R Challenge.
For those looking for turn-by-turn directions, click HERE for a Google Map that accurately details the TJAGLCS Triple-R Challenge course. (Due to the limitations of Google Maps, this route doesn’t reflect the 1.5 iteration turn about The Park, the staircase, or the back-and-forth around O-Hill.)