21 Oct Tour of Fort Benning
Ranger Vincent Melillo, on the right, was one of the original Merrill’s Mauraders.
Last week I had the opportunity to tour Fort Benning in Columbus, GA with the Roswell Rotary Club. Fort Benning is a training facility for our country’s infantry and armor soldiers, and somewhere around 68,000 are trained each year. Courses taught include airborne, army marksmanship, mountain warfare, sniper, and leadership. My group had come to watch a demonstration of the Airborne & Ranger Training Brigade just prior to their graduation ceremony. These were 89 elite soldiers who had just completed 62 days of intense instruction. The Army’s premier leadership course, these men and, yes, one woman (the third ever to graduate as a Ranger) trained for 20 hours per day. I figure that left about 3 hours for sleep if they ate quickly.
We watched them repel up and down a steep tower, with one soldier carrying another who was “wounded.” A hovering helicopter across the lake dropped four men down to the ground via a rope, then a few minutes later flew away with them hanging onto the rope. It was very James Bond. They demonstrated hand to hand combat (using jujitsu as a base) as well as knife and rifle disarming techniques. We were in awe of these young people (average age 23) who are committed to protecting our country.
In the audience was retired Master Sergeant E-7 Vincent Melillo, 96 years old. He was an original member of the famed Merrill’s Marauders, the special operations unit that fought the Japanese during World War II. Melillo went on to serve in the Korean War. In 2013, he received the Purple Heart and was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame. I dashed over and got his picture. He gave me his email address!
1944 Sherman Jumbo Tank – U.S.
Almost as good as the Ranger exercises was our visit to the Tank Restoration Facility. Not open to the public, but our guide let us talk our way in for a private tour. Here we saw tanks dating back 100 years. There were American, German, British, Russian tanks, and even a Japanese.
If you’re really interested in tank history, here is Tank Talk, a 30-minute overview of American and German WWII tanks narrated by Len Dyer, tank expert extraordinaire at the facility we visited.
We finished our day at the National Infantry Museum. It was an excellent history lesson dating back to the Revolutionary War with artifacts, life-like displays, films and a World War II Company Street.
So in just one day I was able to experience both the history and the future of our nation’s infantry, the oldest branch of our military, the one that does what it takes, up close and personal.
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