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…

FAAR. . . You're on FAAR!!!

YOU'RE ON FAAR.....YOU'RE ON FAAR!!

Mashburn ako The Preacher, was from Northern Georgia...his accent so thick you could cut it with a knife...and the knife better be sharp!

As I woke up...I smelled the burning hair and flesh..it just didn't register that it was MY hair and flesh!

The incredible amount of pain was my first clue....you see...this night had started like any other night in a Ranger's life. We had parachuted onto Vancouver Island....linked up with the Canadian Navy, then boarded a Destroyer anchored in the harbor. After boarding, the Destroyer immediately departed for our objective. We were herded into the bowels of the ship and giving a hot meal with a briefing on our next mission. Around midnight we climbed over the side of the ship into landing craft and headed to shore.

After landing we linked up with partisans who took us part of the way to the objective and then they disappeared and we were left to our own fate. As a young Specialist Fourth Class, these were exciting times. I had recently returned from Ranger School and was only 10 or 15 pounds below my ideal weight. I still ate everything I could get my hands on and I was constantly falling asleep; Ranger School is the most demanding experience a Soldier will have...to include combat...I can't speak for everybody but for me...when I was in a combat situation..I was never that hungry or that tired as in Ranger School. I'm glad I did it but once was enough!

One of the scariest and weirdest things to happen to us on this particular patrol was when we surprised a homesteader chopping wood at night...the look on his face was priceless...he hollered "Indians!" and took off at a pretty good clip down the side of the hill. Expecting our wide-eyed woodsman to return with other sceptical islanders, we also high-tailed it. After quite a hump we finally arrive at our Objective Rallying Point (ORP) and 1LT Garrison disappears into the darkness with a small element of Rangers to conduct their recon of the objective. Unfortunately, the incident with the traumatized axeman made me lose my bearings. I was totally turned around as to our whereabouts and this was very frustrating to me...I had been drilled and drilled to always know your position...at least down to an eight digit grid coordinate.

I whispered to the Preacher....Mashburn!.....What!....Keep your eyes open, I'm going to make a map check. Now understand it is now about 0400 and we had been going non-stop for about 36 hours. I pulled my poncho and map out, got underneath the poncho so that no light could be seen. But here lies the problem...my flashlight would not work (we always joked about how a flashlight was a cylinder object which held dead batteries). The one thing I did have was a very small storm candle; so I pulled it out of my cargo pocket and lit the candle. I remember staring at the contour lines of the map and thinking what a pretty pattern. The next thing I remember is Mashburn whispering really loud about how I was “ON FAAR!!”

Well, what had happened is the warmth from that little candle was just enough to put me into a “Ranger Trance” and I fell asleep. A couple of unfortunate events transpired; the poncho that I was holding above my head burst into flames like a Roman Candle on the Fourth of July and the sticky burning goo acted like napalm and stuck to my jungle fatigues which immediately burst into flames. I now look very similar to the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four Comic Book series. As I am rolling down the side of the hill trying to put the flames out, Mashburn is helping by beating me with an entrenching tool since, as he later explained: “Well Rogers, I figured you was in quite a fix..you being on faar and all..,so I grabbed the first thang handy and commenced to help.” After this, I promised Masburn that I would NEVER ask for his help again.

I am not sure which hurt worse...the second degree burns on my face or the multiple blunt trauma wounds on my ribcage and torso. We finally got the flames under control and I was no longer on fire..just smoldering. It was now time to make an assessment of the damage. For starters, the flames had burned the pocket flaps right off my jacket. One entire side of my uniform was gone. My eyebrows looked liked remnants of a used SOS brillo pad. Most of my hair was gone..and what wasn't gone was was still smoking. The pain was incredible, but I didn't tell anybody because we had a mission to complete. 1LT Garrison finally comes back from his recon, we attack the objective and head back to the Destroyer anchored off shore. We get back aboard the ship and all my friends get a really good laugh at my predicament...our medic gave me some aspiring for the pain and told me to go on sick call when we get back to base.

As our Destroyer is pulling back into harbor, 1LT Garrison has us all standing up on deck in formation...as he walks in front of my squad he finally notices that one of his men looks like an extra from “Apocolypes Now”. “Rogers, what in the world happened to you!”

“Sir, I can explain..you see sir...I was just checking our grid coordinates when my poncho caught fire and Mashburn beat me with his entrenching tool so as not to cause me any further damage..although I think two of my ribs are broken..”

1LT Garrison raises his hand for me to stop explaining... ”Forget I asked...and Rogers.......you will pay for those unauthorized alternations to your uniform..is that clear!”

Even though my burns healed and my ribs mended....I have never been able to look at a candle or a shovel the same way ever again! I still get shivers when somebody lights a birthday cake. The morale of this story...always, always have fresh batteries and NEVER us a candle...for anything!

Signed, CandleBoy

Heeeeeeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaaaack !!!

I left the Ranger Battalion over 30 years ago but this doesn't mean none of it stuck. For example, just this week a group of us went to the rifle range outside of Kabul, Afghanistan.

We left for the range about 0430 and as we were getting ready to leave in our armored trucks I reached into my rucksack to make sure I had packed my favorite boonie hat to keep the hot sun of my bald head. A friend of mine walks by and sees what I am doing and says “Here Jack, let me help.” He then turns on his 10,000 candlelight powered flashlight and shines it into my rucksack. Of course I am now blinded for life and all I see are little purple dots floating in front of my face.

The point I am making here is this; I never would even think of using anything that produced light during “hours of limited visibility” better known to the civilian world as “NIGHT”.

As a young, impressionable Private...newly minted out of Airborne School, I realized that my Squad Leader wasn't actually God but was just one level below Him. SSG Gustofson was everything that I wanted to be. Everyday was an opportunity for me to emulate my hero in all things military. I knew in my heart that if we ever went to war...this they man I want to go with.

As a soldier in the Ranger Battalion, we never missed an opportunity to train at night. It was on one of these early extended patrols through the largest swamp in the United States that somebody had dropped their rifle during a river crossing exercise and now it was resting somewhere in the thick mud below our feet. The river wasn't that swift or deep but it was like staring into a cup of coffee; the blackest water I have ever seen....plus for added excitement, this part of Georgia had more Water Moccasins per square foot than anywhere else in the State...for that matter..in the world!

A very unfortunate young soldier made the mistake of turning on his flashlight to look for this weapon. Within a tenth of a second, SSG Gustofson had this poor individual in a death grip and was physically and verbally (quite colorful) explaining the importance of good light discipline at all times! I think the young soldier went into some kind of shock and basically walked in a haze for the next couple of days.

Needless to say, we found the weapon after I did my best impression of Mike Nelson from the “Sea Hunt” series (dating myself) and we continued the mission because that's what Rangers do.

To this day...I have the hardest time using a flashlight...even while camping...it's kinda sad. I almost never turn a light on in my house. I'm positive that I have the lowest electric bill in Texas...no kidding. We once got a letter in the mail from the city of Fort Worth, asking the “occupants” if the address was vacant! I replied with a short note; “House is occupied however the current owner was and still is severely mentally scarred with FW (flashlight Withdrawal) and requires extensive flashlight therapy and re-training.” We never got another letter. They either did not take us serious...or DID take us serious...Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.

Ever Ready Boy signing off....