2 Arkansans honored as top Army Rangers

Inductee calls it ‘apex of achievement’

Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - 07/23/2014 -  Army Ranger Hall of Fame inductees - Herbert Lloyd of Hope.
Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - 07/23/2014 - Army Ranger Hall of Fame inductees - Herbert Lloyd of Hope.

Retired Brig. Gen. Herbert Lloyd, a Hope native, served in the United States Army for 35 years. He was awarded two Silver Stars, six Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts, and he's traveled all over the world -- serving throughout the United States and in Germany, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and South Korea.

However, at 78, Lloyd said he's just reached his biggest accomplishment: being part of the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

"It's the apex of achievement," Lloyd said Wednesday. "It's the toughest thing there is to be awarded, because it means that you had to be the best of the best in the warrior community. When the committee called me and told me, it made my heart jump."

The Army recently inducted Lloyd and one other Arkansas resident -- retired Staff Sgt. Calvin Rollins, 67, of Cabot -- into the Ranger Hall of Fame, which honors retired or deceased servicemen who exemplified the elite special-operations force during and after their service.

Lloyd and Rollins, along with eight others, were inducted during a ceremony July 16 at Fort Benning in Georgia, headquarters of the 75th Ranger Regiment. The new inductees will join the approximately 350 Rangers who have been accepted into the Ranger Hall of Fame since its beginning in 1992.

Each year, the Hall of Fame selection committee goes through about 300 nominees to choose a handful who have made "extraordinary contributions" to the Ranger community. Before the formal ceremony last week, the inductees' names were engraved on the National Ranger Memorial at Fort Benning, and their photos were hung in the Ranger Hall of Honor at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Ga.

"It's life-changing for me, because now I have a tremendous amount of responsibility to the Ranger creed, to the Rangers who are active duty today and to all my Ranger brothers that came after me and before me," Rollins said.

Rollins served as a Ranger for five years -- three in Vietnam -- until 1970, when he was medically retired after being wounded by mortar rounds in Laos. After retirement, Rollins earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and worked as an engineer until 1999. Then, he went to work for the military, teaching special-operations forces in Louisiana, Washington state and Virginia. Rollins continues to serve in leadership roles for the Special Operations Association and Worldwide Army Rangers Inc.

Lloyd worked his way up to a senior rank of brigadier general after graduating from more than 10 military courses and schools, including Ranger School, the U.S. Army War College and the British Royal College of Defense Studies, and earning bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from Auburn University in Alabama.

Since retiring from active duty in the early 1990s, Lloyd has continued to work as part of undisclosed military operations in the Middle East, returning to Hope periodically.

At the ceremony, Rollins and Lloyd took turns standing on stage as their past accomplishments were recited to an audience of veterans, active-duty servicemen and their families. Wearing the bronze medallions that marked them as two of the best U.S. Army Rangers in history, they each briefly addressed the crowd.

"I said that the recognition is more humbling to me than really any event in my life, other than my children being born," Rollins said Wednesday. "I still haven't wrapped my head around it."

Metro on 07/24/2014

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