So you want to be an Army Ranger?

All Rangers are 6 foot or taller …chiseled muscles…and ruggedly handsome….well…in the movie version anyway…most Rangers I knew never saw 5 foot 10…more like 5 foot 7 or 8. The one or two words I would describe Rangers would be either scrawny or wiry…depending who gave the description.

Handsome….not on your life…the word that comes to mind is homely…or if your not kind; the term butt-ass ugly would be sufficient. I will never forget my squad leader seeing me for the first time….“Private…if I had a dog as ugly as you…I would shave his ass and make him walk backwards……I guess you’ll do! I was actually happy to hear this…I knew I was going to fit in.
There were only a couple of soldiers in the Battalion who could fit the movie mold. One of these soldiers was Specialist Kegler…one of the largest…strongest specimens of a human being I have ever seen. His helmet looked ridiculous on his huge head…it looked like a child’s beenie helmet. He was also the Battalion boxing champ….he would literally pummel his opponents into a pile of quivering flesh…then they would collapse…cool!

But Specialist Kegler had his weaknesses…..actually several….phobias…Kegler was afraid of the dark like nobody else I have ever seen….and even better than that..he was also deathly afraid of snakes….or as his roommate would say…”He’s sceered of them thar snakes.”….He also was not fond of leaping out of a perfectly good airplane….I really can’t fault him on this last one…Kegler probably weighed 240 pounds without his equipment…once you put a machine gun on him and all the other required gear we had to carry…I’m sure he exceeded 350 pounds when he left the airplane…our T-10 parachutes were good but I’m sure he still hit like a ton of bricks….somebody once told me that after Kegler hit…there was a small crater at the impact point…darn!
So now let us put all these factors together….in the Battalion…we normally jumped at night…with a full combat load….into the swamps of Georgia…where there are thousand of poisonous snakes. So it wasn’t a surprise to any of us when poor Kegler did not last long in Charlie Company.

So it was in our best interest… as far as entertainment went…that we should capitalize on this poor man’s phobias …at every opportunity… Now that may sound cruel and unusual…but at the time…it seemed perfectly normal….remember….we had to be able to depend on everybody to carry his own weight…no weak sisters allowed…even if he weighed 240 pounds and could pummel all of into something resembling hamburger.
 
A couple of events come to mind….we had just jump onto Taylor Creek Drop Zone…it was early fall in 1974.…and we were heading into one of the many swamps that surrounded the drop zone…when somebody spotted a huge Water Moccasin wrapped around a small branch maybe ten feet up in the tree….this guy was a beauty….close to four feet long and as big around as my arm….his head looked like it was the size of a baseball…and boy…was he grouchy! We immediately dropped our rucks and grabbed pine sticks to poke and jab at the poor snake….Weapons Squad, Third Platoon, Charlie Company needed a mascot and this snake seemed an excellent candidate for that position. Now for the plan…we would catch him…place him in a waterproof bag…and when we stopped to set up our ORP…we would let him out and play with him….this was the plan until we could get him back to the barracks and get him into a proper home….like somebody’s footlocker.

So picture this….there are seven or eight scrawny Rangers jumping up into this tree and poking at a poisonous snake. Kegler, of course, would not come near our activities….he was standing twenty feet away with his hands in his pockets and still carrying his 90 pound rucksack like it was a purse….his helmet sitting on top of his skull like a child’s party hat. …and then it happened…Shufelt got a good poke at the snake and flung him out of the tree….we all watched the snake go airborne….flipping end over end..as if in slow motion….then it hit its unwary target….Kegler….smack dab in the chest….plop! Well…..a couple of things happened…the snake was irritated and had enough Ranger fun for one afternoon and after hitting Kegler in the chest…dropped to the ground and wiggled off to safety of a small creek…..
　
Kegler…on the other hand….had other ideas….I will never forget what happened next….Kegler’s rucksack and M60 machine gun were suspended in midair…it reminded me of a scene from a Daffy Duck/Elmer Fudd cartoon….Kegler never broke stride….we finally caught him over a quarter of a mile away…Kegler was never quite right after that incident…for the next couple of nights…we had to attach a rope to him…he seemed to be in a trance…kept mumbling about “snakes everywhere!”….of course he was mistaken…the snakes were only in the wet areas…..come to think of it…I just described Fort Stewart…hmmm…maybe Kegler had a point.

Ranger Rogers signing off…