On Friday, March 30, 2001, Private First Class Jamal Antonio Walker graduated from the Army Ranger School in Fort Benning, Georgia. Right after the graduation, he was assigned to the 23rd Ranger battalion C Company. This was his first mission as a United States Army Ranger.

Jamal came out of the ranger training school ready for a fight. The running and exercise regiment molded his young body into top condition. He actually enjoyed the intense training that Fort Benning offered. He played middle linebacker on the high school football team; therefore, he quickly adjusted to the daily exercise and cross-country running. The Ranger drill instructors systematically transformed a rough eager recruit into a dangerous lethal weapon. He was skillfully developed into a proficient armed fighter. The U. S. Army ranger’s skills are reserved exclusively for killing the enemy under the dark moonlight.

It took almost six days for his antique furniture and all of his other belongings to arrive from Fort Benning, Georgia. Some of the guys from the airfield helped him load the heavy cardboard moving boxes into the bed of his restore antique pickup truck. Jamal was glad to receive his stuff. He started the loud engine of his 1964 Ford stepside pickup truck and headed for the barracks. The deep bellow of the high performance engine thundered through the dual tailpipes. The thin white metal speed odometer needle quickly shot pass fifty and abruptly stopped on eighty-five.

Jamal glanced at his black Army issued combat watch on his right wrist as he raced down the two-lane state road 27. He was headed back to Company C’s barracks with the back of his Ford truck packed with moving boxes and a small wooden roll top desk. The radio announcer’s smooth voice came from the two 15 inch Pioneer competition woofers behind the seat of the truck.

‘It is 10:37 a.m., Monday, July 9, 2001.’ His deep bass voice flowed out of speakers, ‘It is a steamy 98 degrees and rising this hot summer morning. The National Weather Service said this heat wave should last for at least three more days. By Sunday, we should get some rainfall, folks.’ Jamal quickly slowed the dusty truck down. As he pulled the midnight blue Ford into the barracks parking lot, KRSX call letters were given out over the radio.

A few months before his seventeenth birthday, Jamal and Roosevelt, his father, found a rusted old truck body at Ben Peeve’s Truck savage yard out on Marion Junction Highway. He fell in love with the rusty windowless truck on site. Jamal’s father purchased the old truck body from Mr. Peeve for one hundred dollars. Walker’s Ford dealership’s black and blue wrecker truck towed the rusty brownish wreck to the dealership’s paint and body shop. Since Jamal’s father owned the local Ford dealership in the small rural town, the truck was restored for almost nothing.

Everything was put back just as it was when the original truck was delivered from the factory. The bench seat was redone in the original teal blue tweed fabric and all the windows were replaced. The large bumpers and the original grill were re-chromed and glistened brightly in the sunlight. However, Jamal replaced the useless old six cylinder motor with a completely chromed high performance 351 Cleveland, installed a racing transmission, a Holley four barrel carburetor, upgraded the suspension and put in a new Pioneer sound system. Other than that, his truck was original.

Right before Jamal graduated from the U. S. Army ranger school, Janie, his mother asked Henry Reed, the supervisor of the paint shop at the dealership, to paint the restored Ford midnight blue with a purple pearl clear coat. His oldest brother, Randall, paid good money for some special low profile racing tires and custom twenty-inch rims for the restored Ford truck. They were shipped in from the Burnin’ Rubber speed shop in Long Beach, California. Later, his father and mother drove the freshly painted truck one hundred and seventy seven miles to Fort Benning for his graduation ceremony.

Fifteen members of the Walker family came to the new U. S. Army Ranger’s graduation ceremony. Darnel, Sandra’s husband, and Reginald, Sandra’s oldest son drove Roosevelt’s silver gray 1999 Lincoln Continental. Randall, his sister Sandra, and the rest of the family arrived in Darnel’s eggshell white Expedition and Randall’s royal blue Excursion. After the long traditional military graduation ceremony, Jamal decided to take a thirty-day leave and traveled home to rural Marion, Alabama.

For three enjoyable weeks, his days consisted of meeting old high school friends and chatting with Henry at the dealership’s paint shop. His nights were occupied with wild loud parties, flirtatious attractive ex-girlfriends, and a lot of club hopping. Jamal decided to stay at Sandra’s split level white and brown frame house, because his mother had turned his old bedroom into her home office. Young Reginald unwillingly shared his small bedroom with him. Four days before the end of his leave, Jamal hesitantly hugged and kissed his entire family goodbye. He was about to start his long hard drive to Fort Nabahood and begin his spine tingling journey as an U.S. Army Ranger.