Military Experience
My military experience, best wrapped up in a nutshell, would be everything that I needed as a nineteen-year-old guy. And that played a big factor in how I came into the military and also partially a reason as to why I left the military as well. I graduated high school in 99’ and ended up taking a year or so off, lived at the beach with some friends, worked jobs here or there, but I was falling into the trap that is Virginia Beach. And through a series of unfortunate events, it made me take a really hard look at where I was going in life. Having a step-dad that was a Vietnam Veteran in the Air Force, he encouraged me and said “You should consider the military.” And it’s funny that I hadn’t really considered it beforehand, but after that I started to look into all the military had to offer. And there was one fundamental thing that I kept coming back to, and that was I wanted to do something fun, cool, and preferably to go where the best people go. I didn’t want to do it half-assed, I wanted to go all in.
I started to think about the SEALs, because I had an uncle who was a SEAL, and growing up in Virginia Beach is SEAL Headquarters on the East Coast. So I started to consider that route. And after getting some apparently bogus information from a Navy Recruiter, that I would have to wait a number of years before trying out for BUDS, I scrapped that idea of just being regular Navy. I did a little bit of research and found Army Rangers next, and said “Wow, that sounds pretty cool”. And they had an entry level program that you can go through. So I did some more research and went to the Army Recruiter, sat down, and they tried to sell me on something else, like a truck driver, but I left with a five year, Army, Airborne, Ranger contract, or a RIP contract. What’s even better about all of this is that the first day I stepped into the recruiting office was January 26th of 2001, and I was on the plane to basic on February 1st. So it was a decision I made incredibly quickly- much to the dismay of my mother. She wasn’t very happy about that, but she understood what I needed to do. And I knew the reason I needed to do that was because I would try to talk myself out of it if I had any chance to.
The Ranger Creed
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So I did infantry basic starting in February and graduated in May. Did the whole airborne thing. Then I got to RIP in the beginning of August, and that was an experience in itself of just totally pushing the limitation. I had broken many barriers in infantry basic, but it escalated from the first day I stepped foot in regimental headquarters to even begin RIP holdover. It was apparent I was in a different place. We had about three-hundred-people show up the first day, doing the duffle bag drag down from airborne school, and there used to be a memorial outside of regiment (I’m hoping it’s still there), and it was a basketball court that was all sand-bagged off, and the walls had all the battles and places they had been in written on it. And that’s sacred ground there. So they had us all lined up, with all of our crap in front of us, and they basically said “Okay, everyone- start doing pushups.” And this is in August on the blacktop, and were all down with our feet on-top of our bags, and the instructor just walked off and said “We’ll stop in about twenty minutes if you get up and quit.” Well as soon as the word came out of his mouth, like four or five people said “Screw this.” And got out. And it took over 2 hours, but he got the rest of the guys who didn’t want to be there off. But that wasn’t it, we ended up working out for another hour, waiting for the magic number of guys he wanted to continue with. I think we dwindled down to about thirty percent of the original number. And that wasn’t even the start of RIP, that was just getting there.
So then we were in holdover, and I think I waited like a week or so, and then you start. We did our PT test and all that stuff, you go to Cole Range, and you start to do movements, enhancing your skills on land navigation, and your practical’s, and all that stuff. And the whole time the scuttle was going through everyone, like “When is it going to happen, we’ve heard, Cole Range- it’s the devil.” Like would they murder everyone and bring them back to life or something.
Everyone was waiting. We ended up doing all the day and night land navigation, we came back and all of us had all of our gear, and they were practicing walking us through a patrol base. And they set us up to go to bed, and everyone’s pulling out their sleeping bags, and you hear one of the Cadre say “Oh it looks like Ranger So and So, doesn’t have his socks rolled.” Or just something really stupid, and then all hell broke loose. You spend the next eight or so hours in just complete oblivion to what’s going on, because after a while you don’t even comprehend, you just put one foot in front of the other and hope that you don’t wake up to four dudes carrying you off somewhere. And it went all the way till sunrise, and we finished off with a really strenuous eight-mile road march, from Cole Range all around the range complex- and you had to hold on to the guy in front of you to stay up. And I remember this because I made the dumb mistake of wearing brand new jungle boots to Cole Range. So you can imagine what my feet probably looked like.
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RIP wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy. It was a lot of information being shoved down our throats, and psych evaluations and all these other things. I got to 3/75, on September first, and went through in-processing, and a couple of days later ended up meeting my squad out in the field. And they were getting ready to go to a joint readiness exercise in Honduras- so they were going through live fires. And I got thrown right into it. I started working with the squad and different teams, and getting hazed at night and being initiated. it was a hellacious first week. So we get done with that, we come back in, and me and my squad leader came onto staff duty September eleventh morning. And I remember being in regiment headquarters at the time, seeing the commotion start to move. And I remember saying “something is about to happen.” And we end up alerting eighteen-hours later, and wheels up the next day, and start to make a movement towards the middle east, but it got turned around for some unknown reason. And I just remember that day of seeing the towers fall, and being in formation with Colonel Banach, and him saying “This is what’s happened.” And I remember thinking to myself, this is it. This is what I wanted to do, this is why I came in.
" 15 years apart. Feels like yesterday. It was great to get back to Ft Benning and to 75th. This is hollowed ground and I am honored to be a part of this lineage"
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
It was pretty eye opening, and life changing that moment right there. You pledged to do something and they’re calling that note in right now. It was pretty surreal going over in the time that we did, the prep-up for the Objective Rhino jump, which was the first operation we had done in the Global War on Terrorism. And the crappy part about it is being the private that went through the entire train up and mock up, planning brief and everything- to be told hours before the jump- “Oh, no you’re not going.” That was a tough moment for me. It symbolized the hit the ground running that I did when I got in the military. From the very beginning to the end was just deployments, prep for deployments and schools- everything had a purpose after that. It wasn’t peacetime anymore. So it’s weird that I joined before 9/11, but I didn’t get to experience too much of the military because I was still in Basic Training.
I deployed that time with Third Battalion, for the second time to Bagram Afghanistan, and we operated out of there for a couple of months. And after that I left the Regiment and I went to Korea, to the Joint Security Area at the border of Korea. I like to call that my year off. That was a very “cush” job up there. And then I finished out in Echo Company in Long Range Surveillance in Germany, and that was a great experience, because it was the other side of the mission and mission development. Learning how to gather and brief intelligence was really fun. Although it was fun to kick in doors doing all that kind of stuff, to be able to train and do the surveillance part of it was equally exciting. We did a lot of cool things, not only training in Germany, being able to work on surveillance skills with Germans in different towns and stuff, but to be able to put that into practice and do some real world LRS missions, was pretty awesome. It’s a shame they’re getting rid of the long range surveillance asset in the military.
"Say it loud!!! "
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
When I joined the military I knew that I would not stay in. I did not think of the military as a career. I thought of it basically as a pause button. That I could stop life, if you will, from going in a certain direction, and I could get some time to grow up and get some discipline and actually be paid for it. So I always had that thought in the back of my mind. I ended up getting stop loss-ed, for the deployment I went on in Echo Company, so I ended up doing six years, but looking back, I was so ready, maybe because I was sick of my leadership or something like that, to leave. But it came and went pretty quickly, especially coming off of a deployment, and everyone is breaking down and the unit is actually considering being disbanded anyway. But the tempo goes from being extremely high, to flat-lining. It was an interesting time, just because I knew my unit wasn’t going to be deploying without me, but I think I was jaded from doing it. And it’s funny for me to even say that because I didn’t have a bolstering career or anything of engagements and firefights and things like that. It was very mild for me. So I can’t even begin to fathom what baggage and unraveling guys who have done way more engagements than I have need to go through.
And I separated from the military in April of 2007. And for a little while it was okay, but there definitely grew a rift or gap of missing something. I could see things happening in my life that I knew were directly caused by lack of comradery and fellowship that I had felt with specifically other like-minded guys. It became a large task of mine to create better ways that we can stay connected. And that’s where my Outside Rally Project and now the Darby Project comes into play with doing just that.
"Throwback to my hard charging, door kicking, long RANGE watching baseball cap wearing operating operator days. Just kidding, we just put these on for the photo. This was 12 days in on a border mission we were doing. We ran incredibly low on food and water having to ration it per man. Then on the way back we had two trucks break down forcing us to become 5 star Diesel mechanics on the fly. But we did get to play "the boys are back in town" over the base net when we were coming back to Al Asad, thus announcing our glorious return, so there's that. Fun times."
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
Story from Service
I guess it is kind of an outlook on how guys handle certain things and get by when you’re in the middle of nowhere Iraq, and there’s nothing around you. It’s so funny how much we look at fire as this central gathering place, we call it “Ranger T.V.”, and things like that. It was always so funny to me, on all the missions we would go on all over Iraq, especially on Long Range Surveillance, we would do movements of Three-Hundred-Kilometers a day out into the middle of nowhere. And whenever we circled our vehicles up, we would always dig a hole and build a fire. And although we were all serving, and all knew each other, when you’re in your trucks for hours at a time, you don’t really get to associate with the other people. And it’s funny because, it’s also the time where Privates or lower enlisted can give shit to the NCOs and Officers and stuff.
There’s key moments, especially now that I’m out, where times are tough for me, and I’m struggling with connecting or understanding something, we all tend to put on what I call the “rose colored lenses.” And I think of those good times, we don’t think of the bad times. Everyone, when they think about it, says “Oh, I wish I was jumping, or I wish I was doing stuff.” All of those cool things we used to do took up like three or four percent of our time in the military. The rest of the ninety-six percent was waiting around until seventeen-hundred for no reason, everyone being in mismatched PT uniforms, the dumb asinine things. You don’t recall those when times are tough. You recall the fun memories. But that’s always one of the memories that comes to my head, is all of us standing around in the burn pit, because it was half of the MRE trash that needed to be discarded. I remember it being this pause, this break time from having to be on this razor sharp edge. It helps me out in a lot of the tough times on the outside here when I’m struggling.
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
As an avid outdoorsman, is there a particular outdoor activity that you prefer over all others?
So I have been a surfer since I was five years old, my Dad used to take me all the time. So I will say surfing is the number one activity that I will do over anything. I honestly tell people that I would chose a day of surfing over hanging out with my own children. So I love to surf, surfing is the number one healer for me, it’s the number one activity where I can forget everything, I can be the most joyous I’ve ever been, and I’m a kook in the water, I’m “hootin and hollerin” after waves, and I don’t care- it’s so much fun to me. So surfing would take top spot. I’d say that at the moment, as far as outdoor stuff, climbing would take number two. That’s become a fun new hobby of mine.
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
What drives you to take on these immense physical challenges?
Again, it’s testing some pretty awesome boundaries that I didn’t think existed. And it’s in a physical and a mental sense. I led the most difficult route that I have yet last Saturday when I went to Stone Mountain. And I’ve developed some cool relationships out of hiking and doing all of this stuff. And that’s honestly what drives me to do it. The connection that I am getting with other people, but also for me, nature is the greatest therapy. That is the greatest place that I can heal myself and just separate from everything. And what’s even better is I use those times to push myself as well. Like me and my buddy a couple of weeks ago did thirty-five miles in Rhode Island, and that broke me off. But it was so worth it. There were beautiful views, but it’s more of a part of that “suck factor”. That’s a huge part of what I miss about the military, is testing myself in a certain way to see if I can do these activities. It’s not necessarily the strength thing, like going to the gym and lifting heavy weights doesn’t serve the same purpose to me. It’s more of just getting back to nature, and being as minimal as possible.
"Did I have a good weekend? Hell yeah I had a good weekend"
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
Are there any specific stories from any of these experiences that you could share?
The real passion for it started in 2008. When I got out the military I was living in Wilmington, North Carolina, and me and my dad were partners in a construction company, and we were building a house. And I had a friend John come and live with me, for a couple of months and help me build this house. And we went on a hike in the Smokey Mountains, and one of the trails ended up being closed, so we had to detour like ten miles out of the way to go around. So it ended up being a thirty-seven-mile hike over two and a half days. And I remember getting three-quarters of the way done, and I don’t know how it came about, but we started talking about Waffle House. So for the rest of the trip we were just talking about it. And we finished the trip and went to Waffle House, and that became a tradition of ours. Even after he moved away, we would link up a couple of times a year and we would go hiking. And over time, I just realized that this is what I needed to be doing. I needed to be doing this more often. And then climbing got involved with it, and then surfing, just whatever activities that I can do, and I can do to hang out with other veterans as well.
I see a need for us to continually stay connected. I feel that if we can stay connected with each other, on a regular, re-occurring, physical basis- not Facebook or social media, we will affect the outcome of a lot of people in a positive way. And one of the major goals of the Darby Project is just that. Creating a network where people are linking up re-occurringly through shooting and going to the range, doing a workout, meeting for coffee- whatever. If I can get Rangers to meet every week, somewhere in the country- that will help that group of Rangers on the outside. I know that for a fact.
"Always good seeing old friends from out of town!! Tank is a beast!! "
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
What was it that got you into, and compels you to do Jiu-jitsu?
I did the combative thing, I did the Ranger combatives through RIP and into Regiment. And at that point I just wasn’t interested in it- I was a young private that would rather party or do whatever instead. We would have squad on squad fights in the team bays and would wrestle each other, but I didn’t have an affinity for it yet. It wasn’t until I got to Korea where there was at the time, in 2003, a Major that was a purple belt. And at that time a purple belt was a huge deal. And one of my buddies there talked me into going to the class and this dude just tuned me up, and he was the most calm and collected person he could ever possibly be while he was doing it. And at that point I started to get the itch, and I finally got the bug where over a couple of weeks I really started to like it. I started training pretty regularly there and living in Germany I would train whenever I could when we weren’t deployed or in schools. And when I came back here to North Carolina, that’s when I really got into it. We had a local gym in Wilmington that I would go train at, I had guys that would come over to my house and train- it was something fun to do, and it was something I couldn’t master right away, and it kept me hooked. I’ve realized since that it’s a lifelong endeavor. And in 2010 I moved up to Raleigh and got into a gym here, and I’ve really grown in it, and just continue to see how humbling it is for me. And honestly, when I can’t surf, Jiu Jitsu is that component for me on a regular basis. Hiking or climbing or something like that could be, but I can’t do that every day like I can Jiu Jitsu.
Jiu Jitsu has become that time, where when I get to class I’m not thinking about anything else, I’m immersed in class and what’s going on in there. And it also keeps me humble and I never know how good someone is really going to be. Belts just hold your pants up. People have colors on their belts, but some can be very deceiving, and early on I took them too much for face value.
I’ve seen what it can do for other people as well, as far as finding others with purpose. People that do Jiu Jitsu on a regular basis- they’re committed. Especially purple belts, brown belts and black belts- they’ve committed a good portion of their life to doing this already and they’re going to continue to do it. You’ve got good camaraderie and accountability there, it’s a good workout, and we actually get to beat each other up- which is real great.
"Winner winner!!! We have practicing guard passing and guard recovery in 6am class, and I was able to do both in competition today without hesitation, securing me a victory!! Thank you to all that help me train to get better at this sport. I'm nowhere near the top, but I always climbing. If you're not training regularly, you are slowing your chances of getting any better."
Photo Credit: Bryce's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mahoneymoproblems/)
Have you ever considered studying other fighting disciplines?
This is going to sound corny, but Jiu Jitsu teaches me how to be more aware of my “one-foot space”, and leverage. I don’t take Jiu Jitsu for self-defense. I do the self-defense aspect of jiu-jitsu because it makes me better and more aware. The other martial art that I practice is “there’s something under my shirt you would prefer not to see.” Because it comes down to a lifestyle choice too. I’m not going to put myself in a position where I’m going to be fighting other people. I’m not going to bars to make an idiot of myself, I’m not going to do those things anymore. So if I’m ever in an altercation it’s probably because of something involving a life threatening issue. So I’d rather be well equipped with something I’m very proficient with and stick to the one martial art. I think the best martial art that I practice is self-disciple, and not being an asshole.
What is the Darby Project?
So GallantFew is our parent company, and at the very beginning we served the same purpose and that is to facilitate successful transition. What the Darby Project does is take that a step further and focus on a specific group of individuals- Rangers, tabbed or scrolled. And it highlights a fact that typically, Rangers talk to Rangers and Rangers trust Rangers, and we want to capitalize on, and utilize that fact to the best of our advantage. And what the Darby Project is, in a sense, is a hub and spoke organization that links the professional organizations and resources together so that when we have a Ranger ready to transition, we can facilitate that successfully by getting him enrolled in the right after care programs if he needs it, and putting him in place with a mentor preferably in his own community or at least in his state that he can connect with personally. But to start the process as early as possible of ensuring that they are properly looked at for jobs, and that their records are up to date, that they’ve located housing for themselves and their family, that they have a solid financial plan- these are steps that we want to focus internally with vetted organizations so that when we talk to a Ranger, they can trust that we are not just picking these organizations from a hat. These are organizations that have proven themselves specifically to the 75th Ranger Regiment. So we want to work very closely with the Regiment to make this transition as smooth as possible.
One common problem that I see is that the transition process happens pretty quickly and abruptly, and a Ranger gets disconnected from his community of brothers, and he takes the mentality of “I’ll fix it, I’ll be fine, I’ll be alright.” He Rangers up. And over time, it becomes a burden. And this doesn’t include everyone across the board, but some have trouble in certain areas, and others don’t. And we think that by creating a network that we can keep guys connected, and give them the best tools possible to make that transition smooth- we will set them up for success to forego a lot of the issues that many of us have gone through. And that’s another element of the mentorship process with the Darby Project. Our hope is to have as many mentors as we possibly can of guys who have gone through some issues and can be the one to say “Hey, that happened to me, this is what I did.” And that’s more of our pro-active side, and what we can do for Rangers. But we’re going to call on them as well, because they have to be a part of this network- and to make the network work, there has to be motivated individuals that are willing to plan and schedule these events.
Photo Credit: http://www.rangerroad.org/
And there are already tons of Rangers doing that around the globe- with all the Ranger breakfasts, Mikhail Venikov has Ranger Road- there are already guys who are doing a lot of great things. So we want to put the Rangers that are out there flapping, with them- we want to connect them together. And then we want to give them the credit that they deserve, we want to highlight that these guys are leading the way. And all of this comes down to one ultimate cause- and that is to provide purpose. We will be much better off if we can provide each other with purpose. And it is a way for us to lead by example by giving back to our communities because we need to start bridging the gap between civilians and veterans as well. And what better way to do it than with Rangers. And there’s an aspect of involving veterans and civilians together, so they can start to integrate. And this isn’t new. We’re not inventing anything. We’re just trying to create some form of a network that can connect us.
Col. William O. Darby
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What goals do you have for The Darby Project in the future?
One of my big goals is to create that network for the purpose of empowerment. I want leaders in each of the states, in each of the communities that we can have, to feel that they have a voice, and that they have the ability to schedule a plan like a getaway for a group of Rangers to go on a trip. One of our regional representatives proposed the idea of creating a couples counseling retreat up in New England for Rangers and their wives. Bam- absolutely, give me when and where, and how much it’s going to be and we’ll make that happen. That wasn’t me going “Hey- I want you to plan this.” They are going to understand that they have the creative ability and the expectation, because I am going to expect them to come up with these ideas. When they start showing the initiative that they are putting these ideas together, then I’ll assist where I can of course, but ultimately the network is going to empower itself to do these things.
And my hope is that we have something reoccurring going on in every Ranger community around the country every week. It can be something as simple as a coffee, it doesn’t have to be elaborate. You don’t have to wait for the all-expense paid trip to get people together. You can literally get on Facebook, and say “Rangers in this area, let’s meet up here and play hopscotch.” We need to create the idea that it is very simple for us to connect. And there are more of us in certain areas than we know, and that’s a big part of it. So that’s my goal- continually build the network.