ROBERT M. HENSLER

LTC ROBERT McCALL HENSLER

Commanding Officer 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

10th Mountain Division

November 4, 1985 - May 23, 1987

Col Hensler was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1946 and received his commission in the Infantry
from the United States Military Academy in 1968.

Key assignments included:

1967: Basic Airborne Course (undergraduate)

1968: IOBC and Ranger School

1968-69: PL and company CO 2-30 Inf 3^rd Inf Div, Schweinfurt, Germany

1970-71: Small unit infantry adviser RVN

1971-72: Student IOAC, Ft. Benning, GA

1972-74: Company commander and staff officer 1-18^th Inf 1^st Inf Div, Ft. Riley, KS

1974-75: Student, Indiana University, MS Physical Education

1975-78: Instructor, Dept. Phys. Education United States Military Academy

1979: Student CGSC

1980-81: Brigade S3, 193^rd Inf Bde Panama

1981-82: Battalion S3, 3-5 Inf Ft. Kobbe, Panama

1982-84: Battalion XO, 2^nd Ranger Bn Ft. Lewis, WA

1984-85: Brigade XO, 1^st Brigade 9^th Inf Div Ft. Lewis, WA

1985-87: Battalion Commander, 1-22 Inf 10 Mtn Div Ft. Drum, NY

1987-89: Battalion Commander, 3^rd Ranger Battalion, Ft. Benning, GA

1989-90: Student, Army War College

1990-92: Brigade Commander 3^rd Brigade 25^th Inf Div Schofield, Bks, HI

1992-95: Chief Conventional Warplans Div J5, US Pacific Command, Camp HM Smith, HI

Retired May 1995, Colonel

1995-2002: PACOM exercise planner (contractor) at Joint Warfighting Center (absorbed into Joint Forces Command 1999),
Ft. Monroe and Suffolk, VA

2002-2010: Joint Forces Command LNO to US PACOM, Camp HM Smith, HI

2011: Retired

Currently resident of Texas with second dwelling in CO Springs, CO

As of 2015 married 47 years with two sons, 45 and 41.

Miscellaneous:

Ranger tab, master parachutist badge with combat star (Grenada), CIB, and great memories!

e-mail: oldrgr@earthlink.net

Second from right in above photo is Captain Robert M. Hensler, as Team Leader of Mat I-27
Republic of Vietnam 1970

Below is the caption for the above photo:

Christmas 1970, MAT I-27, Quang Ngai,the picture was taken sometime in the latter part of Nov 1970 just after the second of two large typhoons
struck the Quang Ngai City / Chu Lai (Americal Div base camp) areas of Quang Ngai and Quang Tin Provinces.
Our team house was flooded in conjunction with the second typhoon. We awoke to water just an inch or two below our cots.
We initially perched on the rafters in our team house shooting rats with our .45s who were swimming around inside. Our team house
sat on a berm roughly 8-10 sandbags above ground level. By noon the water had receded out of our team house, but it was still waist deep in the streets
of the city. We had just returned from a mission the night before the storm struck. We spent the rest of Nov flying in CH 47s aiding in the delivery of
emergency rations to stranded hamlets on the edge of the high western mountains. We sent this picture off to someplace and had it made into a Christmas card
with "Greetings from our home to yours..."

Kneeling in front, SGT Dep,

Standing left to right, SFC Richard Edgar, SFC James Hollis, SSG Cuu, CPT Robert Hensler, SGT Fitzgibbons.

From the GIA-VUC.COM website

The entry for Robert M. Hensler in the U.S. Military Academy yearbook the Howitzer for 1968

COL (Ret.) Robert M. Hensler
Biographical Sketch

Robert Hensler was born in December 1946 in Des Moines, Iowa. He lived there up through high school, graduating in June 1964.
His youth was typical of a middle class family in the 1950s filled with many activities, especially the emerging youth athletic programs,
Little League and Babe Ruth baseball and later football, wrestling and more baseball in high school.

He received a phone call the morning after his high School graduation that set a course for the next 30 plus years of his life.
He was notified that he had received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. For going on two years
he had been recruited by the football coaches at West Point, and receiving the appointment was the culmination of that effort.

Four years later he graduated and was commissioned a 2LT of Infantry. Three hours after graduation he married a young lady
whom he had briefly dated in high school and who is here with him this evening.

Bob Hensler went on to spend the next 27 years on active duty serving in Germany, Viet Nam, Panama and all over the
United States to include Hawaii. He is quite proud of the fact that he never spent a tour in the Pentagon, and other than
normal military school progression, one instructor tour and his last active duty assignment, all his remaining time in the Army
was in tactical infantry and special operations units from platoon up through brigade level. He served in five different
infantry regiments in addition to his time in VN.

He is most proud of this time with troops; platoon leader, adviser team leader in VN, two infantry company commands,
two tours with the elite 75th Ranger Regiment (during one of which he participated in the dawn parachute assault
initiating the liberation of Grenada from the Communists), command of a conventional infantry battalion,
an Army Ranger battalion and an infantry brigade.

Three straight generations of his family have experienced combat in the U.S. Army. His father rose from buck private in 1941
to command of a tank company in WWII in Europe, and his son served two years in Iraq with conventional infantry and
Army Ranger units and a third year in Afghanistan with the storied 173rd Airborne Brigade. In May 2015 his son took command
of the 6th Ranger Training Bn at Cp James E. Rudder FL.

COL ret Hensler’s most cherished awards include the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Army Ranger Tab,
and Master Parachutist Badge with combat star.

Having retired a second time in 2011 after employment as a defense contractor and Govt. Civ, his passions now are
his Christian faith, spoiling his grandchildren, elk hunting in CO, Cowboy Action Shooting and 19th Century American history.
He and his wife, Randy, now divide their time between Texas, where they are residents, CO Springs and Hawaii.

1-22 Infantry Command Team Fort Drum, New York 1986 - LTC Robert Hensler on left, CSM Ronald Dumka on right.
Note PT (Physical Training) uniforms with "REGULARS by GOD" above the 22nd Infantry crest (DUI).
COL Hensler writes:

CSM Dumka (on right) and I in front of the original Bn HQs that was along the main street of the old post that led to the airfield
on north end of cantonement area. Picture was probably taken in 1986 since our PT uniforms look quite new.
This was before the Army had a standardized PT uniform.

Photo courtesy of COL Robert M. Hensler

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