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4A | THEPRESS.NET COMMUNITY MAY 9, 2008
Liberty grad is best of the Rangers
by Rick Lemyre
Staff Writer
In 2001, Michael Broussard was a
skinny kid who scrambled for playing time
on the football team, went to the wrong
parties and barely passed enough classes to
graduate from Liberty High School.
That Michael Broussard, however,
might have a tough time recognizing the
man who returned to the campus this week.
Clad in the forest green dress uniform of
the Army Rangers, Staff Sgt. Broussard
stood before students as a veteran of two
deployments to Iraq, two more to Afghanistan,
and the newly crowned winner of the
Army’s Best Ranger Competition.
The competition, which wound up on
April 21, pitted 29 two-man teams against
each other in events designed to test toughness,
combat skill, competence and commitment.
Broussard’s partner was Staff Sgt.
Shayne Cherry of Tennessee. The grueling
three-day event provided no scheduled rest
for the Rangers, and required them to don
combat fatigues and 60 pounds of gear,
climb a 60-foot-high rope net and crawl
through a watery pit along a 3.8-mile obstacle
course – in near-freezing temperatures.
They also parachuted out of a Black
Hawk helicopter to hit a target on the
Staff Sgt.
Michael
Broussard, the
winner of the
Army’s 2008 Best
Ranger competition,
shows
Liberty students
the margin by
which he graduated
from the
school in 2001.
Photo by Richard Wisdom
ground, competed in various marksmanship
and casualty evacuation events, and
made the dreaded “foot march,” a nighttime
trek of unknown distance that lasts until
the early morning and has been known to
eliminate many from the competition.
And that’s just the fi rst day.
“The competition is recognized as a
world-class event,” Sgt. Jonathon Adams
told the students as he introduced Broussard.
“This man is one of the most elite soldiers
in the U.S. military.”
The soft-spoken Broussard, 25, talked
briefl y about his life at Liberty and the
profound changes he underwent after joining
the Army. He described the rigorous
training all Rangers go through, a regimen
designed “to get you to quit,” he said. It’s
Darwinian theory at its fi nest, he said, adding,
“If you’re not performing up to par, we
don’t need you.” Less than 30 percent of the
people who try to become Rangers actually
make it.
Students then peppered Broussard
with questions, one of the fi rst of which was
“Who was the teacher who helped you the
most while you were here?”
His unhesitating response, “Mrs.
(Rhonda) Snover,” was roundly cheered,
and a messenger was sent to fetch the stillactive
Snover from her classroom for a tearand-smile-fi
lled reunion.
In answer to other questions, Broussard
told students not to worry about
popularity because “all that disappears the
second you graduate.” He said he thinks it’s
harder on a soldier’s family – such as his
wife, Jessica – than on soldiers when they’re
away, and that training (which one person
had referred to as “brainwashing”) was in
reality just the “active adoption of a chosen
lifestyle. You learn what being a man is
all about, you get to see different leadership
styles, and pick what you want.”
Between classes, as he walked to the
PE coach’s room for a break, Broussard
said he thinks his life at Liberty, including
trying to get playing time as a 6-foot, 1-inch,
see Best page 25A