When LTC Gary Derby’s name comes up, I always lead with my favorite story about him - was shortly after the first round of my first day of my first gunnery as a company commander, and I was waiting for him to fire one of my NCOs. /1

Literally our first round. Range had been hot for maybe ten seconds. BOOM. I remember watching that bigass concrete training HEAT round arc off into the sky. Up, up, and away. Not good. My MG’s creaky old voice came over the range net. “Cease fire... freeze?” /2

In the chaotic couple of mins afterwards, it became obvious that a new gunner had not properly lazed a target. His TC, also new in the seat, had not verified range. So they’d shot straight into the berm, and from there physics took over. I picked up the phone. /3

“Sir, Chaos 6. No one is hurt, but we had an incident.” As I told the story, the silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. I finished. Range control rolled out to the range with an MP, sirens on. Even from the tower, could see my NCOs faces had turned white. /4

One my platoon sergeants came up, whispered in my ear. Because the round hit the berm, there was no way to tell where it went. None of us knew what was going to happen. If an ND with a tiny 5.56mm round was an article 15, what was this? /5

“What do you think I should do?” rasped the Derb. Years later, I would watch an episode of Chicago PD, and hear an echo of his voice in the guy that plays Hank Voight. I was still getting to know him, and the voice kind of intimidated me. /6

TBH, everything about him intimidated me. Me: a cocky smartass, unsure if I’d made the right decision to stay in. Him: a tanker’s tanker, loved the field, tolerated his staff, lived for Soldiers. Firm on discipline. Didn’t know where he was on CO CDRs w problems on day one. /7

And yeah, we’d screwed up. He wanted to chew my ass, fine. But I wanted to stand up for my guys. They deserved a chance to get it right. “Sir,” I slowly started, “I don’t think this needs anything disciplinary-“ He cut me off. /8

“CHAOS!” he yelled into the phone. “That’s the last thing we want to do! The most important thing is we don’t allow this to break these Soldiers’ confidence!” He continued on w instructions - we’d retrain that night, I needed to get my shit straight, they’d shoot tomorrow. /9

I got off the phone floored. Glowing. With a lot of work ahead of me. Knowing I wanted to work for this guy. /10

This is Memorial Day, so you know how this story ends. Less than a year later, we were in Mosul. He got blown up twice right outside my AO. The first time, I drove over as fast as I could, terrified he was hurt. But he was fine. /11

His truck was down for the count, needed a tow. We set a cordon, called for recovery. Then sat out there for about an hour, just talking, me & him. Recovery arrived, and I told him I’d get back to work. He laughed, said _he_ was getting back to work - he was taking my truck. /12

Was the last time I saw him. A week later, he got hit again.

https://thefallen.militarytimes.com/army-lt-col-garnet-r-derby/3950005 /13

Turned out he was a @NTC_Tarantula OC, and they have a badass PID named for him. (He talked about “Brute Force and Ignorance” a lot, though... and you know whose motto that is, Spider-Team.) /15

There’s also an auditorium named after him at Benning. I knew it was dedicated to him, but I thought I’d have to go find it. Turned a corner while I was at SCP, running to get coffee, and... there it was. /16

His four other line commanders & I still talk a lot. One of us is finishing command. Two of us are taking command this summer. We all agree a large part of why we’re still in is him - the way he led, the obvious joy he took in doing it, the team he made us into. /17

And a sense that we owe him.

Not the only person I remember, & he’d be the first to say he was no more important than the crew that died with him. But he’s inspired me for over a decade, and this year in particular he’s been on my mind. So: Honor and Courage, sir.