yearly long-distance march honoring the Army Rangers\u2019 first commander<\/a> may have seen its final steps taken Thursday, as the founder of the Col. Darby 40-miler says he\u2019s dropping his pack. <\/p>\nSince 2010, participants have hiked up the eastern shores of Lake Garda, Italy\u2019s largest lake, from Peschiera del Garda at its southern end to a memorial to U.S. soldiers in a piazza here at its northern tip, near where a German artillery shell killed then-Col. William O. Darby on April 30, 1945.<\/p>\n
Darby, who was posthumously promoted to brigadier general, was serving with the 10th Mountain Division at the time of his death but is the founding commander of the Army\u2019s 1st Ranger Battalion, a predecessor to the modern elite special operations units. He was killed alongside Sgt. Maj. John \u201cTim\u201d Evans.<\/p>\n
The event honoring him was the brainchild of Rick Tscherne, known as \u201cRanger Rick,\u201d who said his long haul running the march is ending after 17 years because of a sharp drop in but turnout and diminished presence from supporters at nearby U.S. Army bases.<\/p>\n
In 2023, some 1,300 people marched, but this year fewer than half of the 330 registered participants showed up at the starting line, he said. <\/p>\n
The 40-mile trek, which begins before 6 a.m., can take the whole day, but a trio of soldiers \u2014 part of a group of 11 from the Washington-based 75th Ranger Regiment\u2019s 2nd Battalion \u2014 hoofed it in under five hours this year to earn top finisher trophies. <\/p>\n
Though soldiers from the Ranger regiment, 10th Mountain Division, and other units have traveled to the event for years, the military does not officially sanction or sponsor it.
<\/p>\n
Army representatives mulled taking it over a few years ago but ultimately passed, in part for cost reasons. Though Tscherne said he runs it on a shoestring budget, others say it would be far more expensive to do officially, given liability issues and other concerns. <\/p>\n
Tscherne attributed the high number of no-shows this year to a lack of day passes for paratroopers of the 173rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), headquartered about 90 miles away. <\/p>\n
But officials there say that while passes may have been approved for similar events in the past, they are not an entitlement. Unit leaders approve them only as missions and readiness allow. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur paratroopers were not denied opportunity to participate,\u201d said Col. Mark E. Bush, commander of the brigade, which is a rapid response force that supports U.S. commands in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. <\/p>\n
Some local soldiers still did take part or came to cheer on their colleagues, including at least five service members who traveled from a base near Pisa that bears Darby\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an awesome experience,\u201d said Capt. Jesus \u201cJesse\u201d De La Torre, provost marshal at Camp Darby, who did the march with four colleagues from the base and one from Vicenza. \u201cI think it would be a great thing if it were to continue.\u201d <\/p>\n
De La Torre, who finished in nine hours, was greeted near the finish line by Col. Vaughn Strong, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Italy in Vicenza, who came to take part in events marking the 81st anniversary of the deaths of Darby, Evans and a group of 25 other soldiers. <\/p>\n
Strong, the garrison chaplain and a couple of dozen others gathered after the march to view a documentary.<\/p>\n
It portrayed successful Italian efforts to find an amphibious truck that sank to the bottom of the icy lake with two-dozen 10th Mountain Division soldiers and a driver from another unit aboard on the day Darby and Evans died. Their bodies were never recovered.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a sunset ceremony at the memorial where two stone obelisks commemorate the 27 soldiers\u2019 deaths, Strong said the garrison is \u201ccommitted to returning each year to honor the legacy of those who sacrificed their lives here.\u201d
<\/p>\n
The march could continue to be part of the yearly memorial if private organizations or military groups step up, said Ben Appleby, president and one of the founders of a local historical research association called Benach, which produced the documentary and has long assisted with the march.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t need to be something as big as 1,300 people to keep going, said Appleby, who has seen it grow since he first marched alongside Tscherne in 2013, just the two of them. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t intend to let it die,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s not a big event, I will be doing it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Col. Vaughn Strong, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Italy, speaks with Rick Tscherne, founder of the Col. Darby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8662,8658,8663,8659,5,8660,4449,8661,8664,8657,8656],"class_list":{"0":"post-11680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-camp-darby","9":"tag-col-darby-10-miler","10":"tag-col-darby-40-mile-trek","11":"tag-colonel-darby-10-miler","12":"tag-italy","13":"tag-john-tim-evans","14":"tag-lake-garda","15":"tag-rick-tscherne","16":"tag-ruck-march-william-darby","17":"tag-william-darby","18":"tag-william-o-darby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/040526DARBYphoto01.JPG\")
<\/p>\n