Kibler found himself in a common situation for those joining the service. He had no guaranteed job, which meant the military could place him wherever he was needed, not where he wanted to be. The only way out of this situation was to volunteer for Special Forces, which landed him in Combat Controller School. After training, he was attached to a branch he didn’t join, the Army, as a forward air controller.

As a forward air controller, he attended Ranger School and gained the skills he needed for the military to send him “all over the world, parachuting here and there, and blowing things up.”

On Aug. 14, 1981, at his Ranger School graduation, he won the Iron Mike, a trophy for the top performer, earned by the best of the best and presented to him by a general who was flown in by helicopter onto the parade field.

Now instead of leading teams training other militaries how to guide aircraft to targets, Kibler leads the English Department at Minot State University as its head and is a professor of English and Humanities. He’s settled down somewhat and has a family farm where he enjoys working and keeping bees with his wife.

Robert Kibler was part of the 1st Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment at Hunter Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. This photo was taken in 1982 or 1983.

He raised three children, who are grown now, and his daughter carried the family military legacy into the war in Iraq.

Kibler worked in Central America for a portion of his time in the military, where with the help of a translator, he trained Salvadoran troops how to guide spotter planes onto targets. He said the soldiers were young, 15 or 16, describing them as children but also as “hardened veterans,” who had seen much combat where Kibler had not. He said the officers leading the Salvadoran troops would beat their men when they were considered out of line.

While Kibler was in Central America, he attended Army Jungle Warfare School, where he earned his Jungle Expert certification. According to Kibler, the U.S. troops provided security for the Panama Canal while awaiting training for the Jungle School. This helped ensure the security of the canal through which a large portion of the world’s trade flowed. This was a loophole to the country’s requirement that the United States not establish a permanent base. According to Kibler, the United States could say it didn’t have a permanent presence in Panama because students were merely waiting to go through the long training pipeline.

Kibler was the second enlisted person to go through the officers Forward Air Controller School in the military. He said the military was having a hard time getting officers to work in the ranger battalion due to the danger. He said he was slated to be first, but “the other guy outranked me.” Kibler said the Rangers are the smartest group of people he has worked with as a whole, even with his time in academia, but they’re also a little crazy.

“The things we did were just crazy,” he said.

He described those he worked with in the Ranger Battalion as “your everyday people,” mowing grass and taking care of their families, but when at work, “they were doing things people don’t even imagine get done.”

Kibler described some of his work as parachuting into an area to emit a low level infrared light, which is invisible to humans, onto target areas for the gunships to pummel with artillery from altitude.

“Oh, it’s fun. That’s the beauty of the military. Once you get out, you forget all the (less fun parts) and remember all the interesting, fascinating parts,” he said.

Proud of the 79 parachute jumps he made over a two-year span, Kibler reflected on the pace that special operations keeps.

“You never get thrown in with the variety of people of the world like you do in the military,” he said.

Kibler told of a winter exercise he was part of in Alaska. He was there for two months and said the basis of the exercise was a war game between two teams. It was too cold to parachute so dummies were air dropped instead of people and the troops were trucked in.

Once during the training, his Tactical Operations Center was overrun and only he and the commanding general were extracted because of their strategic value. He said due to his military specialty, he was joint certified across all military branches. As they were on the way to their destination, the general was diverted and Kibler was dropped off in the middle of the night with one other person in the tundra. He said they were about 6 miles from the nearest people. They were left in deep quiet after the helicopter flew away and trekked with snowshoes, guided by the light of the Northern Lights.

As part of the exercise, the base he was walking to was being “attacked” and launched flares when he was nearby, which illuminated his surroundings to a degree. He could see he was surrounded by animals, which previously had gone unnoticed. Memories like this, he said, stand out against the routines, such as “hurry up and wait” and other military cultural staples.

After getting out of the military, which he said he never wanted to make a career of, Kibler earned a degree in English literature from the University of Maryland at College Park. He then went on to a fellowship, later earning his doctorate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He originally wanted to attend an Ivy League school, so he taught English in China after earning his bachelor’s degree. After teaching English in Beijing for a time, he was accepted to every school he applied to upon his return to the U.S.

Kibler said he’s always had a fascination with his family’s history. His family had owned the same farm from the 1640s until they lost it in the 1930s, and members have been involved in every conflict America has been a part of. His family has been traced to the American Revolution. Kibler told of a battle fought on his family’s property, when an ancestor escaped with Gen. Robert E. Lee. Kibler’s father fought in Korea, then Vietnam. He said his family has always been academic-minded, and for hundreds of years, have volunteered for military service.

Each day Kibler said he swims a mile and has recently completed his thousandth. He said this daily ritual is part of a mind-body lifestyle that focuses on mental and physical fitness, in keeping with his family tradition.