Ranger-On

Yesterday, I delivered the eulogy for a member of our church. He had been an actual Army Ranger, he served 25 years on active duty, he returned to Mississippi, and was a great supporter of the Royal Ranger program, in which his grandson became our most decorated Patrol Leader.

Below is the text of the message:

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RANGER ON...

Those were some of the last words that I spoke to Don, when I visited him at Tupelo, last week. I told Don that there probably weren’t four other people in the hospital that knew what those words meant.

Don went into the United States Army during the height of the Vietnam War. He started off as a Private; an Infantryman. Don became a Paratrooper, and then completed the U.S. Army Ranger course: a course that has only about a 38% completion rate. 62% of all accepted applicants fail to complete the course. And this is not 62% of plain Army personnel (cooks, clerks, truck drivers, typewriter repairmen). This is 62% of Paratroopers, Infantry Officers, and Pathfinders, who must pass an advanced Physical Training Test, to even enter the school.

When I was at Fort Benning, in the Regular Army 45 years ago, I heard that our military relaxed the standards for foreign Officers and Sergeants who attended our schools. In fact, I was told that it is our policy to never flunk a foreign officer. I felt indignant that we would relax the high standards of our training, just for international politeness. I was then told that this came about, because a foreign nation (I believe to be from the Middle East) sent one of their officers to a U.S. school (I believe Ranger), and he failed to pass the course. And so when he went home, for disgracing his country in front of the Americans, they executed him. (Hmmm?)

During his first tour in Vietnam, Don earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. That is a silver badge with Infantry-Blue Enamel, showing a Musket and a Wreath around it.

While he was enlisted, Don also completed Army Drill Sergeant School, earning him the feared “Smokey Bear” hat.

During the height of the Vietnam War, the Army was in need of a great number of Helicopter Pilots, and so after doing his first enlisted tour in Vietnam, Don applied for, and was accepted for, the Warrant Officer flight course, at Fort Rucker, Alabama. A Warrant Officer is an “in-between” Officer. He is saluted by Privates and Sergeants, but he salutes Lieutenants, Captains, and Colonels.

Don went back to Vietnam for two more tours as a helicopter pilot and received a Bronze Star and 3 Purple Hearts. There aren’t many trees to hide a helicopter behind, up in the air. Don didn’t speak to me a whole lot about his wounds. I do know that he still had enough metal in him that the hospital could not perform an MRI on him.

Don still wore his black and gold Ranger Tab on his shoulder, when he flew helicopters. This actually reassured the other pilots, because they knew that Don could be just as “at home” down in the jungle as he was in the air. They knew that with a map and a compass and a rifle, he could probably get his crew safely through the snakes, leeches, spiders, and Viet Cong; even if it might be at a slightly slower pace. To Don, it would just be another walk in the woods.

Don flew UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) helicopters. These were the troop helicopters that ferried men into combat, and ferried the dead and wounded out. They took the seats out of the Huey’s, and so we sat on the flat aluminum floor. The reason was that it was easier to slide the stretchers and body bags onto the flat floor of the aircraft, and it was easier to spray water across the bare aluminum floor to wash the blood and body parts from the aircraft after they flew the mission.

The only times that I saw Don “tear up” and heard his voice start to crack was when I heard him talk of the dead bodies that he came into contact with, during the war.

Don told me that John Wayne came to Vietnam to visit the troops, while he was there. Don said that he was in his bunker (like one of our storm shelters, with little slits to shoot out of), and John Wayne walked in and sat down. After they spoke for a few minutes (long enough to establish a rapport), John Wayne reached into the jacket of his combat fatigues, pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey, and asked Don, “Will you have a snort of Jack, with me?”, to which, Don replied, “Yes, Sir.”. Since this is a Church crowd, I’ll say that it was just a swig; just enough to formalize their acquaintance. Shortly after that, John Wayne got up and left to go on to visit with other troops in other bunkers, and maybe to share another “Snort of Jack”.

Don served in Germany and on the border of Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. He remarked that being on the Czech border in an open-top Jeep in the winter gave an entirely new meaning to the term “Cold War”.

During his last years in the Army, Don took a commission as a Regular Officer. He made the grades up through Major, and was even appointed as a Lieutenant Colonel, and was the Deputy Commandant of the Rock Island Ordinance Depot, on the Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa, and Moline, Illinois.

The Rock Island Ordinance Depot supplied the big steel A-shaped carriages that cannons and howitzers were mounted on. If you think about it, it makes sense why they made artillery carriages there, because of the John Deere and Minneapolis Moline tractor factories, there on the Mississippi River. It took foundries of this massive size to be able to manufacture the frames.

In church, Don had mentioned that he was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, during the late 1970's. I was there at/about that time, and so I asked him what unit he was with. He said, “6th ACCB: Sixth Armored Caval....”, I interrupted him and said, “No. That’s Sixth Air Cavalry Combat Brigade”.

Don said, “How do you know that?”.
I said, “Because I was in it.”
Don said, “You were not. It was helicopters. You were Infantry.”
I said, “I know. I was a Blue.” A Blue was an infantryman who was assigned as part of the helicopter crew for their security and air assaults.

I asked him if he was with the Chinook Battalion, the Cobra Battalion, or the Huey Battalion, and he said the Huey Battalion. I said that I was too. We marveled at how, in an army of 784,000 soldiers, we were assigned to the same city-block of 500 men in Fort Hood at the same time. I, very-well, may have saluted him as we passed each other. We definitely ate in the same dining facility, because it was a Battalion Mess Hall, designed to feed about 500 troops within an hour.

But then the 6th ACCB was reorganized, and the troops were sent elsewhere. I went to the First Cavalry Parachute Section, supporting their Ranger and Pathfinder Companies. Don said that he went to Second Armored Division, where he was a maintenance officer.

I asked, “Maintenance officer for what? Tracks (armored personnel carriers)?”
Don said, “No. Helicopters.”
I said, “There is only one helicopter unit in Second Armored Division,
Second Aviation Company.”
He said, “That’s right. I was the Maintenance Officer.”

I said, “For crying out loud. Out of all of the soldiers in the Army, you and I were stationed in the same 500-man unit at Fort Hood. Then when they split us up, you went to the Second Aviation Company, where my wife, Marilyn, was the company clerk. She did your paperwork, so that you, and 119 other people, got paid, every month.”

So out of 784,000 soldiers, Don and I were stationed in the same 500 soldier battalion, and then from there, he was moved to the same 120 person company with my wife Marilyn, and then we came together at this little Church of God in Red Bay, Alabama, where I taught his grandson, Jackson Futrell, where Jackson became my Patrol Leader and my most decorated Ranger.

Now, let me show you how this is a “God Thing”. The chances of Don Roberts and me being stationed in the same Battalion in the Army was 500 in 784,000, or 1 in 1,568. The chances of Don Roberts going to Marilyn’s unit was 120 in 784,000, or 1 in 6,533. The chances of Don Roberts serving in BOTH of our units was 1 in 10,244,266. And the chances that, 40 years later, we would all come back to the SAME church of the 380,000 churches is
1/ 3,892,821,080,000 (3 Trillion, 892 Billion, 821 Million, 80 Thousand).

If you divided that by the total number of people on the earth (7.8 Billion), and wanted to know the odds of a man getting hit on the head by a particular rock from space, it would be 1 in 7.8 Billion. That is 499 times as likely as the odds of Don Roberts being in the same Army Unit as me, going to the same Army Unit as my wife, and then us all coming home to the Red Bay Church of God.

And finally, to convince you that this is a “God Thing”, I was not a born-again Christian, and never really thought too much about it. But in about 1979 when we were visiting Marilyn’s family, at the little Red Bay Church of God, I was introduced to Pastor Joseph Jackson (a former Marine), who was extremely excited, warm, and welcoming.

Eventually, because of Pastor Jackson, I told Marilyn that I wanted to attend a church in Milwaukee like her grandparents attended Red Bay. Ten years after that, Marilyn convinced me to become a Royal Rangers Commander (church sponsored Boy Scouts), and fifteen years after that, we moved to Mississippi (which had not originally been in our plans), I would be coming back to the Red Bay Church of God, and I would be teaching Pastor Joseph Jackson’s grandson, and he would be the FIRST Patrol Leader of the Royal Ranger outpost, here. Multiply our roughly 1 in 4 Trillion odds by THAT.

Much too much coincidence to be coincidence.

So my point in this is to show that God has been active in Don Roberts’ life for Decades. God could have taken Don on any of the three occasions, when he was wounded in Vietnam. Any lucky bullet could have taken out Don, his helicopter, and his entire crew.

But God had more plans for him.

In Ranger School, the students were on their feet, patrolling, swimming, rock climbing, and slushing through swamps for 18 to 20 hours per day. They were given 1 cold greasy C-Ration meal per day, and were not allowed to heat it, because making a fire would break light discipline. And yet, they were expected to not only trudge ahead, but to efficiently function in a combat environment to effectively close with and destroy the enemy.

So when you were exhausted, mal-nourished, cold, wet, and sleep deprived, and you were unable to take even one more step, as a Ranger you had to take that one more step. And after that, take just one more step. And after that, one more. That is the definition of “Ranger On”.

And Phyllis, you were the final hero of this story. When this “Tough Guy”, this 2 percent of the best that the Army had to offer was sick, immobilized, and as vulnerable as a new-born kitten, you were there watching out for him, so that he didn’t have to fend for himself. You insured that he had something to eat, when he could eat. You required the hospital staff to give Don the best care and attention possible, and you refused to leave his side. And I was told that a final thing that you told Don, as his heart was fading (and it may be the last thing that his spirit heard before going to heaven), was your saying, “Ranger On”.

Don is not here. He has been with the Lord since Monday. This is the Huey helicopter that faithfully carried Don’s spirit around this earth to Asia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Rock Island, and back here to Mississippi. But eventually the old helicopter wears out. The hydraulics start to leak, the bearings start to squeal, the windshield becomes scratched & cloudy, and the turbines cannot provide as much power. The rotor blades become fatigued and cracked, and they cannot support the old aircraft any more.

But this airframe served him well, and left the earth better than it found it.

So Don, job well-done. Ranger-On.

Claymore
Sorry for your loss, Don sounded like a Godly man of adventure and a great man to have known.

Kelly,


Thanks, much.

It is interesting to note that Don's grandson was an Eagle Scout, and also my Patrol Leader. He started at 7 years of age, and already had Patrol Leader bars in Ranger Kids.

Moral of the story: Greatness Begets Greatness.