as techniques for employing a platoon for continuous combat patrol operations in a mountainous environment". Adding to the physical hardships endured in the Benning phase, in this phase "the stamina and commitment of the Ranger student is stressed to the maximum. At any time, they may be selected to lead tired, hungry, physically expended students to accomplish yet another combat patrol mission". The Ranger student continues learning how to sustain themselves and their subordinates in the mountains. The rugged terrain, severe weather, hunger, mental and physical fatigue, and the psychological stress the student encounters allow them to measure their capabilities and limitations and those of their fellow soldiers. In addition to combat operations, the student receives four days of military mountaineering training. The sequence of training has changed in past decades. As of 2010, the training sequence is as follows. In the first two days students learn knots, belays, anchor points, rope management, mobility evacuation, and the fundamentals of climbing and abseiling. The training ends in a two-day Upper mountaineering exercise at Yonah Mountain, to apply the skills learned during Lower mountaineering. Each student must make all prescribed climbs at Mt. Yonah to continue in the course. During the field training exercise (FTX), students execute a mission requiring mountaineering skills. Combat missions are against a conventionally equipped threat force in a Mid-Intensity Conflict. These missions are both day and night in a two part, four and five-day FTX, and include moving cross country over mountains, vehicle ambushes, raiding communications and mortar sites, river crossing, and scaling steeply sloped mountainous terrain. The Ranger student reaches his objective in several ways: cross-country movement, parachuting into small drop zones, air assaults into small, mountain-side landing zones, or a 10-mile march across the Tennessee Valley Divide. The student's commitment and physical-mental stamina are tested to the maximum. At the end of the Mountain Phase, the students travel by bus to a nearby airfield and conduct an airborne operation, parachuting into Swamp Phase. Non-airborne are bused to Eglin Air Force Base for the Swamp Phase. Swamp phase The third phase of Ranger School is conducted at Camp James E. Rudder (Auxiliary Field #6), Eglin Air Force Base, Florida by the 6th Ranger Training Battalion. According to the Ranger Training Brigade, This phase focuses on the continued development of the Ranger student's combat arms functional skills. Students receive instruction on waterborne operations, small boat movements, and