After completing a 12-mile march on an injured ankle as his final task in Army Ranger school, Charles Deibel knew there was nothing he couldn’t accomplish in life.
And now, as a University of Arizona senior, he says getting through college has been a walk in the park. He is preparing to apply to law schools on the East Coast.
He enlisted in the Army in 2008 as a 19-year-old and served four tours of duty in his four-year stint, one in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, earning a Purple Heart along the way in a firefight he prefers not to talk about.
“I was going to join right after high school, but I needed to do a little growing up,” said Deibel, now 27.
By the end of 2007, he was in a rut. His father told him his options were military or school, so he decided to scratch the public service itch and join the Army.
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He says he didn’t join to gain respect or do something heroic, but that he didn’t like seeing people he didn’t know fighting for him and his family.
Deibel started in the infantry, but wanted to go further.
“I went to them and asked them who’s the best,” he said. “I told them I wanted to do that.”
Ranger School consisted of nine weeks of training, but to join the 75th Ranger Regiment, he had to complete an additional three weeks of pre-Ranger training.
“Ranger training was a different kind of animal,” he said. “It taxes you mentally and physically to no other level.”
Deibel went through 12 weeks of physical training, tests, patrols, 22-hour days and peer evaluations. He was forced to repeat his third phase, which he said was a gut check to either quit or drive on.
The last activity in completing school was the march, but the day before, he’d fallen 45 feet during a rope training, severely injuring his ankle.
“The march was the turning point in my life as to how hard I was able to push myself,” he said. “The military never gets easier as you advance, but you earn more respect, and it just gets better.”
He left the Army in June 2012 and started school in the fall, knowing he needed a degree.
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“I liked government, so I wanted to stay in that line of work,” he said. “It’s another type of public service.”
Deibel is majoring in political science with a minor in Arabic, and is preparing to take the LSAT exam for entrance into law school in December.
He’s undecided between pursuing constitutional, criminal or civil law at this point, but he’s interested in all three, and has time to decide.
Deibel won’t rule out returning to the Army, saying the JAG Corps is an excellent arena in which to practice law.
“The itch is always there, but it’s different now that we’re not in as deep of a war anymore,” he said. “I’d like to take my drive and focus elsewhere to help people in a different capacity.”
