My Share of the Task(15)

                Suddenly the field lights flashed and another Ranger instructor, a master sergeant, shouted instructions to us to go immediately to our wooden barracks up the hill from the field. Our tactical officer, a major, surprised by the countermanding order from a subordinate, protested. Yet in our joy to be released from the cold and pain, we ran from the field as quickly as our nearly hypothermic bodies would carry us. Even in my haste, I was struck by the courageous action of the master sergeant in stopping the foolishness. Tragically, several weeks later when we were in the mountain phase of the course, cold killed two Ranger students in the class ahead of ours as they patrolled in the swamp phase in Florida.

                The essential vehicle for teaching leadership was the small-unit patrol. Instructors graded students on how well they led squads and platoons, frequently rotating the Ranger students assigned leadership positions. Because patrol leaders depended on the support of fellow students, a “cooperate and graduate” attitude permeated the class. Yet cooperation was challenging when fatigue and hunger wore down otherwise good team players. Most of us found the personal discipline required when things were tough was an accurate measure of the man.

                Some of our classmates from West Point had been puffed up as cadets but buckled once they were shivering in the woods. One fellow student stood in stark contrast. Lieutenant Dave “Rod” Rodriguez, caught my attention. A six-foot-four-inch, 230-pound defensive end when we were together at West Point, Rod was quiet and modest yet wickedly funny. One night, assigned to lead our exhausted patrol away from an objective to a base on a route calculated to take up to seven hours of walking, Rod studied the map and gave the order to “ruck up,” and despite tired legs and heavy rucksacks, we moved purposefully enough to reach the base in less than two hours. A good man, I noted. Doesn’t mess around.

                At our graduation in February 1977, the Ranger tab did not make us Swackhamers or Jutrases. No one was instantly stronger, braver, or smarter with it on his shoulder. But it changed the way others viewed us and thus changed the way we viewed ourselves.


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                I followed graduation with the inelegant eating binge most new Rangers undertake. I remember Annie, who had come down to Fort Benning to see me pin on the tab, staring in amazement as I washed down Hershey bars dipped in peanut butter with beer until I vomited, only to repeat the process. But my insanity was temporary, and in early March 1977 I reported for duty to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

                From its inception, the ethos of the 82nd drew from stark realities: Jumping out of an airplane is an egalitarian process, and luck often determines how and where jumpers land. Generals and privates wear the same parachutes and hit the ground with the same bone-jarring force, and on a hot landing zone, there is no “safe” or rear area from which to direct the battle. Great paratroop leaders had leveraged these realities to earn reputations for leadership by personal example. Over Normandy on D-Day, Division Commander Major General Matt Ridgway, and his assistant, Brigadier General Jim Gavin, were famously the first out of their planes’ doors. Later, after taking over the 82nd from Ridgway, Gavin broke two discs in his back jumping into Holland for Operation Market Garden, and yet he continued to command. Generals who commanded from the rear often sported ornamental pistols. In contrast, Gavin carried a rifle, which he meant to use.

                The division that I joined bore little resemblance to its storied predecessors or my expectations. But like all lieutenants, I watched and hoped to learn. Some of what I saw inspired me. Much did not. The legacy of Ridgway and Gavin had grown threadbare: I remember bitter comments from my paratroopers during a twenty-five-mile foot march when a commander drove by the column in a jeep, only dismounting in order to correct troopers for perceived shortcomings.

                I spent the next twenty months in the battalion as a mortar and then a rifle platoon leader, then finally as company executive officer. During that time our battalion commander and I exchanged few words, and I recall nothing resembling encouragement. He would talk about keeping a notebook in which he categorized people as good guys or “peckerwoods.” I felt his connection with the battalion was weak.