Lakeville Ranger joins another elite group

Anyone familiar with retired Army Ranger Steve Murphy of Lakeville wouldn't be surprised to hear of the mission he completed in September.

His daughter, Brenna, requested that he wear his dress blues at her wedding at Fort Snelling. Murphy hadn't worn the uniform since he left the Army in 1996 after 26-plus years, but with the proper training, the few extra pounds came off in due time.

Up against someone so skilled in the art of fighting, those extra pounds never had a chance.

Murphy, 58, who long ago earned the tag as one of the Army's elite, recently took his place among the elite of the elite.

On Aug. 5, in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga., Murphy joined 10 others in becoming one of 281 former Rangers to be inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame.

Through all the training he underwent after his enlistment upon graduating from Kennedy High School in Bloomington, through the jungles of Vietnam and the sands of Iran, Murphy's courage and leadership led him to what he calls the proudest moment of his life.

Murphy was attending a World War II Ranger reunion in Iowa as a guest May 13 when he received news of his induction.

Along with his wife, Karen, daughter, Brenna, 29, and son, Craig, 27, Murphy shares the honor with his father and his four brothers -- all of whom served in the military -- and his stepfather, H. Robert Petersen, an original First Ranger Battalion member in the early 1940s.

"I don't know what other award you could get" that would be more meaningful, he said. "When your peers and superiors think that much of you to nominate you, then the nominating committee -- people who don't know you, look at what you've done and then decide. It's just the top of the profession for a military guy."

Murphy called serving in the military "a foregone conclusion," given his family background. Attempting to become a Ranger proved an equally clear path.

"There wasn't anything I didn't think I could do," he said.

The months of training that followed, designed to try a soldier in every way possible, left those who remained steeled for anything that might come their way.

Murphy's stint in Vietnam included 12 months of combat. The Rangers are known as those who "engage the enemy in close combat and direct-fire battles," according to the Ranger manual.

Murphy also had two three-month stints in El Salvador in 1986 during the insurgency there. Danger was the one constant.

"When you get into tough situations, you're always going to have some fear," he said. "It's all about taking care of each other. If you focus on that, you pretty much are going to be focused on taking care of business."

Murphy's highest-profile mission proved to be Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to rescue 52 American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran on April 24, 1980. He led a platoon of more than 40 men whose assignment was to secure an airstrip to allow the rescued hostages to leave Tehran.

But a series of catastrophic events, including a sandstorm and the fiery explosion of a fuel-smuggling tanker truck during the first stage of the plan, led President Jimmy Carter to abort the mission.

"The constant training we did, the minute planning we did for our portion of the mission," he said. "Our mission was well in hand had we gotten to our portion of it. It just wasn't meant to be."

The majority of the details of Murphy's career will remain unspoken.

"You don't hear much, and that's the way it's supposed to be," he said. "What [Rangers] do and how they do it is kind of a secret. I signed a statement when I retired that said there were certain things I was not going to talk about."

Today, Murphy works for the U.S. Postal Service as a supervisor at the Twin Cities Airmail Center. He also is a volunteer firefighter in Lakeville.

Come Sept. 11, Murphy will be among those to reflect on the events that took place in the U.S. eight years ago on that date. It also mark the 40th anniversary of the day he enlisted in the Army, the first step in becoming all that he could be.