Here is an email I received about my ranger and airborne articles. I have interspersed my comments in [red brackets].

11/3/07
John,

I'm a graduate of Ranger Class 8-71 (Frostbite 8), the dates for which were from the first week in January, 1971 to the first week in March,
1971 (don't remember the exact dates). I came across the military articles that you have on your website and wanted to provide you with
some additional information. I'd prefer that my name not be used in attribution, since I don't want to become ensnared in a web of electronic communication regarding jump school or ranger training.

A student in my ranger class died from hypothermia. I believe that he was an engineer lieutenant and his last name was Strang (not certain on the last name). His death would have occurred sometime in the last couple of weeks of February or the first week of March. Our patrol route on that particular night was supposed to take us to one side of the junction of the Weaver River (not the Yellow River in this case) and Weaver Creek (so that we would only need to cross one of them). As to be expected, our navigation was off and we had to cross both of them. I wasn't in a leadership position on that particular patrol, so my information on the events of that night comes from information that I heard from fellow classmates (probably a decent mix of rumor, supposition, and fact). I pretty much spent most of the night standing in the middle of the swamp, trying to keep most of my body out of the water by standing on the roots of a cypress tree. I don't know what the temperature was that night, but it got pretty cold at night during the course of those 12 days (several nights later, the legs on my uniform trousers started to get frosty after we crossed a knee-deep stream).

My recollection of the details is a bit off after 36(+) years, but I remember that we spent quit a bit of time preparing to cross the first "water obstacle" (don't remember if it was the creek or river). We eventually crossed it, moved a couple of hundred meters and stayed for another long period of time in one position, before crossing the second one. Somewhere during that first or second period of inactivity, one of the students complained of pains in his groin area. Thinking that it might be appendicitis, the instructors called for a boat to evacuate him to a medical facility (turned out that it wasn't appendicitis - many of us experienced the same symptoms - I was told that it was from reduced salt intake in our diet - don't know if that's medically correct or not). Also during that same time (I was told that it was after the first medical evacuation), the student that succumbed to hypothermia collapsed. After some prodding by the instructor(s), it was determined that his heart had stopped. He was resuscitated and also evacuated by boat.

All of this essentially took the entire night to transpire. We eventually moved off and reached dry land somewhere around 7 or 7:30 that morning. We never made it to our objective. We didn't hear anything further that day, but were told the following morning, 24 hours later, that our classmate had died sometime during the previous day.

After returning to the base camp at the conclusion of the 12-day patrol, the camp commander had a meeting with all of us, in which the names of the students who were going to be given an option to recycle through some or all of the course were announced (thankfully, my name wasn't among those unfortunate souls). He also mentioned the death of our classmate. I seem to remember him being pretty callous about the incident, saying something to the effect that this happens both in training and combat and we need to move on. [Ranger cadre and some rangers appear to be using the deaths of ranger students and their callousness to them to further prove their own manhood. This is an outrage and a manifestation of the childlike insecurity about their manhood of these “men.”]

There was also a death in the class that preceded mine. It was class #501 (or something like that) and had many Class of '70 United States Military Academy (West Point) graduates in it. I had heard that the individual was one of the recent WP graduates and had hit his head on the runway at Auxiliary Field #6 during the parachute jump following the flight from Ft. Benning to Eglin AFB. That would have occurred sometime around the beginning of February, 1971.

Just a couple of comments as to what it was like to be a "winter Ranger." The only additional cold weather equipment that we were issued were the Mickey Mouse boots that you had mentioned (we only woolen glove liners. We only wore them when we were in a static position - you couldn't walk long distance in them) and trigger-finger mittens, that were worn over our woolen glove liners. We only had standard field jackets and liners, along with any long underwear that we could stuff in our rucksacks. Of course, Ranger Joe's space blanket was an essential item that we always carried. For sleeping (what little we got when out on patrol), we carried a sleeping bag cover (the cotton case for the bag, not the sleeping bag, itself), a poncho liner, and poncho. [Reed note: We absolutely were not allowed ponchos when I went through Ranger School in 1968.]

I remember one night on patrol in the mountains, when a drizzling rain began to fall. The rain turned to freezing rain and sleet. Everything, the ground, rocks, our canteens, ammo pouches, rucksacks, and weapons became coated in ice - ice so thick that we were unable to open canteens and weapons didn't function. Trying to walk up the mountains and repeatedly slipping on the ice-covered rocks that stuck up through the soil was a painful, frustrating experience. I slipped and fell on my knees so many times that I'm surprised that I didn't crack a kneecap.

We weren't allowed to have fires when we were in a static position. [I stand corrected.] The only concession to this rule was made on two separate nights. We were taken to warming tents that had stoves/heaters in them to wait out snowstorms overnight that dumped 12-18" of snow on each occasion. Our green fatigue uniforms provided great camouflage in the freshly fallen snow.

Also, Gary Littrell was back as an instructor at the Florida Ranger Camp during my time there. [Reed note: He was at the mountain camp when I went through Ranger School.] I think that we only had him for one class, on the types of wild creatures that we might encounter in the surrounding swamps. He might have been one of the graders sometime during the 12-day patrol, but I didn't have any contact with him. Of course the buzz circulated about the Medal of Honor, but he impressed me as a rather unassuming type, unlike many of the hard-charging, buzz-headed instructors that seemed to populate the cadre.

[Airborne School]
As for jump school, I would have to agree with you that it wasn't a very demanding physical challenge. I went to jump school following ranger school because ranger school was a scheduling priority in terms of my initial military schools following my commissioning (at the time that I was commissioned, ranger school was mandatory for all new combat and combat support arms officers). I graduated from ranger school on a Thursday and had to report for the jump school PT test on Monday morning. I felt that I could run forever and hump a rucksack equally as far, but my emaciated upper body, as you had mentioned, just couldn't hack the pull-ups. There were a number of my ranger school classmates with me in jump school who were in the same condition. At the beginning of ranger school I was routinely doing 8-12 pull-ups at a time (8 for being in class #8, one for the "Big Ranger", etc.), but could barely squeeze out 2 at the PT test. I was given a week to "get in shape" and reported back the following Monday for another shot at it. [Reed note: One of my West Point classmates who was a starting offensive lineman on the Army football team flunked out of our airborne class in December of 1968 because he could not do any chin ups. You had to do six. Attending Ranger school had nothing to do with his problem. He was just fat. I doubt he was ever able to do a chin up in his adult life.]

I was able to crank out 4 pull-ups this time. The "Black Hat" NCO who was grading me happened to be wearing a ranger tab. He asked me if I had just graduated from ranger school. When I told him that I had, he passed me with no further questions asked. I went on to pin on my wings 3 weeks later. [Reed note: Being emaciated and weak after Ranger School is absolutely unavoidable. One of my Harvard MBA classmates told me his son was about to go to Army Ranger School and had some very tiny percent body fat. I said, “Tell him not to go. If he insists, tell him to pack on at least 15% body fat before he gets there to avoid literally freezing to death.” He, too, was going in winter like the writer of this email. If you go to Ranger School in winter, you should try to arrive looking like an Eskimo for the same reasons Eskimos look like Eskimos: to stay warm.]

I'm sure that you've received much feedback, both positive and negative, regarding your assessments of jump school and ranger school, so I won't add any more to those discussions. [Reed note: Not really. And almost all of it has been like this email.] I would like to add, however, that having a ranger tab and, eventually, master parachutist wings, gave me an initial degree of credibility as a military intelligence officer with the infantry types that I might not have otherwise had or would have worked harder to earn. Right or wrong, I think that some first judgments were always made as eyes scanned my uniform to see what was sewn on over the pockets or on the shoulders. [I agree that the ranger tab and airborne wings impress many who do not have them. But they typically are more impressed than they should be. Letting them, or encouraging them to, be thus over impressed makes you a bullshit artist. I did not wear the tab and corrected anyone who ever made an inaccurate statement about the school or its graduates. My article at this Web site on it is my ultimate attempt to not be a bullshitter about Ranger and Airborne nor to sin by silence while others exaggerate or embellish either accomplishment. Embellishing ranger is not harmless tall tale telling. People are dying at Ranger School and after they graduate because of bullshit about what supermen its graduates are] As a regular army officer in a combat support branch, I was "detailed" to a combat arms branch (infantry) for a year. In addition to ranger school and jump school, I attended the infantry officers basic course (MI didn't have one at that time) and served an assignment as a mortar and rifle platoon leader in the 25th Infantry Division for a year. When I left that assignment, the battalion commander said that he wasn't aware that I was not an infantry officer until the orders came down assigning me to the Division's MI company. I'm not sure whether or not to have taken that as a compliment!

Well, I think that's enough for now. I hope that you find some of this information to be of value, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

[Name not disclosed at his request]

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions.

John T. Reed