Moon grad wins Best Ranger Competition

For young Colin Boley, the possibility of joining the military was just a way to get out of class at Moon High School.

For the older, more mature Colin Boley, who has been to Afghanistan and back, risking death for his country, military service is a way of life.

It was during Boley's senior year at Moon when a U.S. Army recruiter showed up at the high school one day and set up interviews with prospective recruits in the library.

Boley told his teacher he was thinking of enlisting, but he actually had no such intentions. He never made it to the library, leaving school and blowing off the rest of the afternoon.

Truth be told, Boley didn't want to join the Army, or anything else.

"I don't even know that I had any aspirations, to tell you the truth," he said. "I wasn't that great of a kid. I didn't have that much discipline."

Almost a decade later, Boley has discipline, enough to have joined the Army, volunteered for the Army Rangers, ascended to the rank of staff sergeant and served four separate stints in Afghanistan at three and four months at a time.

"We basically go and get the job done and leave," he said.

Nearly as impressive, Boley is the new champion of the David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition, the Olympics of the Army that tests a soldier's physical, mental and technical abilities.

Boley, 28, and his partner, Staff Sgt. Adam Nash of Boston of the 75th Ranger Regiment, won the three-day, 60-hour competition that concluded at Fort Benning, Ga., on April 25. Boley and Nash defeated 18 other two-man teams. The teams are comprised of U.S. Armed Services personnel stationed throughout the world.

Boley almost decided not to join the contest.

"I got the call (two weeks before) to see if I was interested, and I wasn't," he said. "But then I thought, 'What the heck• I'll see what I can do.' "

The 22-year-old competition, which was suspended in 1991and 2003 because too many Rangers were deployed in the Middle East, consists of what Boley calls one of the toughest obstacle courses in the military.

"There are 26 obstacles in it," he said.

Staff Sgt. Jeff Vazzana of the 75th Regiment's public affairs office said the Best Ranger Competition has been called the "second-hardest competition in the world." Only the annual Eco-Challenge race, in which contestants must navigate 300 miles over rough, wildlife-strewn terrain, is considered more difficult.

Vazzana said Ranger contestants occasionally suffer minor injuries during the competition, such as a broken nose and torn-up feet.

Other events include parachute jumps, distance running while carrying 75 pounds of gear, canoe racing, log climbing, knot-tying, rappelling, weapons assembly and marksmanship competition.

Boley and Nash excelled in the litter carry, an event that demands the team carry two 60-pound sacks and other gear about 3 miles on a canvas litter after jumping 1,500 feet from a helicopter.

There are also some basic recognitions that Rangers often encounter in war.

"Things you are going to need to know to survive," Boley said.

Asked what motivates Rangers to enter the grueling contest, Vazzana said, "To be the best of the best, I guess."

Boley said he had little discipline when he left high school, but "I guess you had to develop it."

"You develop discipline or get in trouble. That's the biggest worry my mom had -- that I would say something wrong and get a dishonorable discharge."

Boley is enjoying some time off now, but he expects to return to Afghanistan.

"We'll go back until everything is set straight," he said. "Whatever my Commander in Chief tells me to do, that's what I'm going to do."