Two, Three, Four Missions a Night: Ranger Regiment at War | Will Hutson

**Will Hudson** (0:00)
We ended up getting into it with an Iraqi artillery battalion. And the mortar platoon, I was in the 60s section at the time at the companies, and we were actually shooting mortars at artillery pieces, and shooting, which I felt like was pretty cool. You know, we were out there doing directly missions with 60s, and hitting vehicles with, you know, Willie P rounds, and I had a 105 round land, like, I don't know, four feet from me.
It didn't go off, it was a dud, probably didn't vaporize, but the pucker factor was up for sure.
That was probably the biggest, you know, I'd say for a contact that I really remember being like, okay, now we're really in combat.

**Jack Murphy** (0:49)
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with today's guest, retired Sergeant Major Will Hudson. Will served in the infantry in 173rd, jumped into Iraq during the invasion, and then he went over to 3rd Ranger Battalion, where he served for many years, becoming a RASP instructor eventually, and then taking a worse company. And going on, as he made Sergeant Major, became the Ops Sergeant Major at Airborne School and finished his career in the 101st. So really, I mean, you kind of had the infantry career, I guess. The only thing you didn't do was be a drill sergeant. You were a RASP instructor. That's the only difference.
But no, that's great. Thank you for joining us, Will.

**Will Hudson** (1:32)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

**Jack Murphy** (1:35)
Yeah, so start at the beginning, Will. Tell us, like, where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like?

**Will Hudson** (1:41)
Okay, so I was born in Kentucky. I was from my dad's side of the family, from outside of Lexington.
We moved from there to Texas when I was about four years old, following my mom's family to Texas.

**Will Hudson** (1:52)
Lived outside of Houston and Pearland for the majority of my life before I joined the Army. Had a pretty rough growing up.

**Will Hudson** (2:00)
We were super poor and had a pretty, I don't know, kind of abusive growing up childhood and went through my stepfather and stuff like that and had a pretty tough go of it initially.

**Will Hudson** (2:13)
And it's kind of, I guess, what drove me to join the military is I was really kind of a lost cause. I was running around in the streets. I was on my own from that early teens.
I got my first apartment when I was about 16 years old with a couple of buddies and we were just, I don't know, what you would expect for somebody with no adult supervision for years and years on end. We were just drinking and partying and getting in trouble constantly. I ended up before I joined the Army, I was working at a bar in Houston and bartending and just drinking nonstop, partying nonstop. And I knew that if I didn't do something, I was going to end up dead or in jail. And so I really was looking to do something different. One of my close friends I grew up with, Josh Gamboa, he was in 2nd Ranger Battalion.

**Will Hudson** (2:57)
He joined the Army about two years before I did and he would come home on leave.

**Will Hudson** (3:01)
And we do the usual, we go burn it down while he was home on leave. And then I just kind of started getting more interested in what he was doing. He would tell me what it was like to be in Ranger Battalion. So I kind of had more of an inside look to what it was actually like to be in Battalion. Cause you know, my best friend growing up was there for a couple of years.

**Will Hudson** (3:19)
And he's the one who actually kind of talked me into joining the military.

**Will Hudson** (3:24)
I joined the Army and my plan was to try to get an option 40 contract to go straight to regiment, but it didn't work out because the slots weren't available. He told me that he was, you know, he was good friends with the liaison that worked at Airborne School, which, you know, is usually you can just volunteer from Airborne School with the liaison back then at the time, and he can set you up. And for me, that didn't work out because he was on TDY when I was in Airborne School. So I ended up going to the 173rd, which I wouldn't change, you know, for that time in my life, I had so much fun, you know, before the GI kicked off being in Europe, you know, I can, you know, in Italy, I was, you know, four hours in any direction on a train, you can be in a different country. I was, you know, snowboarding in the Swiss Alps and doing all kinds of outdoor activities, rock climbing, riding bikes, doing all that stuff. And I really enjoyed my time there. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. And kind of in that time, then there was a lot of guys from Ranger Battalion that were inside the organization. That was before the GI kicked off. A lot of guys would kind of go out there to take a break. And so, you know, we had Squalliers, Platoon Sergeant, Battalion Commanders, our Major, a lot of people from Regiment there. And so I always kind of emulated those guys. And I really wanted to be in Ranger Battalion from the get go, but it just didn't work out. So I had them look up to. And so the first chance I got, I wanted to still try to go out there. So I got to Ranger School and did all that and put in my packet.