Albany’s Mathis joins Army’s Special Forces

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — As Capt. Henry Mathis III offers the statistics, even the battle-tested soldier can’t help but admit to a bit of awe.

“Less than 2 percent of the American public serves in our country’s armed forces,” Mathis said. “And less than 2 percent of the people who serve in the armed forces attend the Special Forces Qualifying Course. Of the people who take the course, less than 2 percent make it through.”

Capt. Mathis will join that elite group today when he graduates and becomes a member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. After a brief period at Fort Bragg, Mathis will ship out for Stuttgart, Germany, to become the Operation Detachment Alpha Team Leader of the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group.

“It’s almost a surreal feeling; it really hasn’t sunk in yet,” Mathis, an Albany native and Dougherty High School graduate, said on the eve of his Special Forces graduation. “Those statistics are pretty amazing. You definitely have a certain air about you as think about being a part of our country’s Special Forces. It comes with the territory.

“I feel like I’m part of a very special group, part of a very small community that has had an opportunity to go above and beyond what most ever do.”

Mathis was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant on May 4, 2007, when he finished the ROTC program at Georgia Southern University, where he earned a degree in business management. He has trained at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Fort Knox in Kentucky, Fort Benning in Columbus and at Fort Bragg. He served one active duty tour in Iraq from 2009 to 2010.

The newly minted Special Forces captain will celebrate with members of his family today, including his wife, Darian, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Payton; parents Henry and Carolyn Mathis; older brother Damian Mathis, and baby sister Karisha Mathis, who is serving in the U.S. Navy. Older sister Dearica Mathis, who also is in the Army, will remain in north Georgia’s Rockdale County to attend her 14-year-old son Cameron’s football game.

“We’re a military family; we believe in our flag and serving our country,” Henry Mathis Jr., who is also an Army veteran and a former Albany City Commissioner, said. “‘Tiger’ (Mathis III) has made his family proud, and he has made this nation a great soldier. I’m proud he’s from Albany, proud he’s a Dougherty High graduate and proud of his accomplishments in the Army.”

Capt. Mathis said after he completes the three or four years remaining on his contract with the Army, he will use the special skills he’s acquired to pursue a career with the federal government, either in the FBI or the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

“I’ve always liked the adventure-type stuff,” he said. “I was never the type to do a desk job. (Completing the Special Forces course) is one of the most rigorous things I’ve ever been through physically, but I think it was more demanding mentally. You were required to really think outside the box in situations that had no straightforward solution.

“They work you hard, and at any time along the way during the course, if you fail any part you’re out. They’re going to get the best out of you.”

There is, though, that nickname “Tiger,” which Carolyn Mathis said she gave to her son when he was a baby.

“He used to growl a lot as a baby, so we started calling him Tiger,” Henry Mathis laughs. “Of course, it was unbeknownst to us at the time that he would grow up to be a tiger.”

Capt. Mathis laughs sheepishly when asked about the name.

“That’s a family name only,” he said. “I definitely don’t want the guys here to get hold of it.”