Fort Smith Museum of History<\/a> is supporting the project by providing photographs, documents and other historical materials from its Darby Collection. The museum is also serving as Struecker\u2019s local support team for the 45-mile run.<\/p>\nCaroline Speir, the museum\u2019s executive director, said organizers hope to debut the documentary in July 2027, coinciding with the 85th anniversary of Darby\u2019s Rangers\u2019 formation.<\/p>\n
Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, will also commemorate the anniversary, where the original Ranger battalion was activated in 1942.<\/p>\n
CONNECTING RANGERS TO FORT SMITH
Beyond raising money for the documentary, Struecker believes Fort Smith can become a destination for modern Army Rangers seeking a deeper understanding of their military heritage. He suggested the city\u2019s existing Darby Challenge could help attract more Rangers to the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m thinking through is, how do we make this value added for Rangers in the military today so that when they come, when they show up, when they leave \u2026 they leave as moved by their experience as I was when I met that original Darby\u2019s Ranger in the first ever Ranger Rendezvous in 1992,\u201d Struecker said.<\/p>\n
He said Fort Smith could create an experience that would benefit soldiers professionally and personally, making their time away from military duties worthwhile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Fort Smith can do that, and maybe only Fort Smith,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Struecker acknowledged that he does not have a specific plan for expanding the Darby Challenge but offered to help community leaders explore the possibilities. His vision includes eventually attracting as many as 1,000 Rangers to Fort Smith annually.<\/p>\n
His belief in the value of connecting modern soldiers with their predecessors comes from personal experience. During previous trips to Italy, Struecker visited the site of the Battle of Cisterna, where the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions suffered devastating losses in January 1944. Only six Rangers escaped the German encirclement, while hundreds of others were killed or captured. Although he had studied the battle extensively as a young Ranger, Struecker said standing on the battlefield and seeing bullet damage still visible on structures from World War II gave him a greater understanding of what Darby\u2019s men experienced.<\/p>\n
He also spent a week with one of the Rangers who was wounded during the battle, taken prisoner by German forces, and survived the war. Those experiences reinforced his belief that understanding military history requires more than reading about battles and studying tactics.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I\u2019m living proof of what happens when you expose a modern Ranger to Darby,\u201d Struecker said. \u201cI\u2019m living proof of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hopes \u201cWith Love, Billy\u201d will introduce Darby\u2019s story to a wider audience while encouraging Rangers to visit Fort Smith and experience the history of the man whose legacy continues to shape their military service.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, that documentary starts to draw Rangers back here, year after year after year, until there are no more Rangers because there\u2019s no more wars to fight,\u201d Struecker said.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During an 18-hour firefight on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, U.S. Army Ranger Jeff Struecker found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":["post-899269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Darby-Wm-O-279x300-1.jpg\"\/)
<\/a>Col. William Darby<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Struecker-277x300.jpeg\"\/)
<\/a>Former U.S. Army Ranger Jeff Struecker discusses plans for a documentary about Fort Smith native Brig. Gen. William O. Darby during a press conference Thursday (Oct. 29) at the Fort Smith Museum of History. Struecker plans to run 45 miles through Fort Smith on Friday (Oct. 30) to help raise $65,000 for the film, \u201cWith Love, Billy,\u201d and strengthen connections between modern Army Rangers and their World War II predecessors.<\/p>\n