Recollections of the Marne Ranger Course
So recently, I came across some old photos from my days in the army. Prior to the L.A. Sheriff's Department hiring me, I was in the U.S.Army. My first duty station was in the 851st ASA of the 3rd Infantry Division, in, what was then, West Germany. In case you haven't heard, East and West Germany are now just plain old Germany again. On the other hand, maybe you didn't know Germany was once divided? I got to West Germany in mid 1981 and left in mid 1983, for the Presidio San Francisco, where I finished out my time.
Before I get into this story, I think I should add a little pertinent history as background, so you can appreciate our mindset at the time. When I got there the 851st A.S.A. Company (Army Security Agency) was in the process of being combined with the 3rd M.I. Company (Military Intelligence) to form the 103rd M.I. Battalion. When they existed, these units were all part of the 3rd Infantry Division. At the time, President Reagan was our Commander-in-Chief and he was upgrading the military. In October 1980, I was issued the same green fatigues they had issued to soldiers going to Viet Nam in the 60's and 70's. We drove the same jeeps. The army was using the same tank, it had used since 1960. Equipment wise, we were an antiquated army. But President Reagan was facing down a quite aggressive Soviet Union. If he wanted his talk to carry any weight, he was going to have to upgrade the military he was using as a threat. Around 1982, the XM1 tank arrived in the 3rd Armored and 3rd Infantry Divisions. The X stood for experimental, It is now simply the M1 tank.
During this same time that our military was getting an upgrade, Poland was going through some civil unrest. A movement called Solidarity (in English) was organizing worker strikes and making demands on the communist government. The communist Polish government was nothing more than a puppet for the Soviet Union and the Soviets were telling the Polish government that if they didn't solve their internal problems, they (the Soviets) would come in and solve their problems for them. President Reagan countered that with a promise of his own. My interpretation of President Reagan's message to the Soviets in December 1981 was, if the Soviets crossed the Polish border, the U.S. Army would greet them in Warsaw.
Poland's western border was East Germany's eastern border. Poland's southern border was Czechoslovakia's northern border. So for us to get to Poland, we would have to go through East Germany or Poland. In either case, it would have meant the start of WW III. I don't believe the people back home in the United States had, or ever have, as much of an appreciation for how close we are to war during peace time, at any given moment, as the American military personnel do, especially those serving overseas. They are the ones who know when maneuvers are being taken more seriously, when gear is being stockpiled, and when alerts are coming more frequently.
On one such morning, in about Spring 1982, shortly after President Reagan's speech, we had an alert. That means we were woken up unexpectedly at oh dark thirty hours and told to get our asses in gear, we were moving out. Within a few minutes, word spread that the Soviets had crossed the Polish border and we were going to war. Some of us had already written our farewell letters to our families, in anticipation of this. We grabbed them from our lockers and tucked them in our pockets, before running out, gearing up, and rolling out. Unlike usual, there was no complaining, no laughter, no joking around, no bullshitting. We made it out the gate in record time that day. We reached our initial deployment area and were told to assemble in our platoons, because the First Sergeant wanted to address us. I thought, "Well, here comes the official announcement."
First Sgt Kennedy strode out to the center of the field smoking his cigar. He turned, evaluated us silently for a minute and then said,
"First off, I want to say that I'm going to chew the ass off whatever numbnuts butterbar got it in his fuckin' head to spread the rumor that we were going to war! The Soviets have NOT crossed ANY fuckin' border! As far as I know, Ivan is still all tucked up in bed sleeping off last night's vodka dinner and dreaming about the vodka breakfast to come! You did a damn fine job this morning! I'm proud of you! We'll be dicking around here for a few hours, before we head back to the barracks. You got out here so fuckin' fast, we have to wait for the rest of the division to reach their assembly areas!" Instead of being thankful that we weren't going to war, we spent the rest of the morning making up for all the moaning and bitching we had missed out on earlier.
As I said in the beginning I was in a Military Intelligence unit. But what does that mean exactly? Our unit had a couple of responsibilities. One job was to trace enemy radio transmissions back to their origination spot. One purpose for doing this was so we could advise the higher ups, who could then call in artillery, or air strikes. Another function was communications interception, translation of those communications, and the evaluation of those translations for intelligence information. This information could be used to identify enemy unit types, locations, directions of travel, plans, etc and to issue false commands. Another purpose was to "jam" enemy communications, to make it impossible for them to communicate via radio transmission. In the 1980's, most vehicle and man-packable radio communications had distance limitations. These distances were further cut down by terrain and even weather. This meant that for our 4-6 person teams to be effective we had to be within a few miles, or less, of the enemy. Our only armament consisted of the M-16 and a couple of hand grenades. For the tactically impaired, that meant, if we got into a firefight, we had four to six M-16s, and a few hand grenades, against whatever size force came across us. Hiding was our primary tactic. Running and hiding, while trying to make it back to friendly territory, was our backup plan.
With that historical context and that mindset taken into consideration, in October 1982, our unit was advised that there were a few spots available to us in a two week long training course called, "The Marne Ranger Course". "Marne" comes from a nickname for the 3rd Division, "The Marne Division", which they earned at the Battle of the Marne River in WWI. The course was designed to hone our soldier skills. Seeings how everyone knows Plan A is only good until contact with the enemy and our plan B was to run and hide, I volunteered for one of those slots, in order to improve my and my team's chances for survival when Plan B was inevitably implemented. Along with me Bill Brennan and one or two other soldiers, whose names escape me, also volunteered from our unit.
The course was taught by a cadre of Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group. To begin with, the course was primarily for infantry units and some of them saw that my pals and I were not infantry. I heard some of them remark dismissively, "Those REMF's won't last.", and, "They'll be the first to quit, by Wednesday, they'll all be gone." That kind of pissed me off.
The first week wasn't really that bad. We were woken up in the dark and were kept busy until well after dark. We learned land navigation and completed daytime navigation courses, alone and at night, with another soldier. We learned how to tie Swiss seats and rappelled out of helicopters and down cliffs. We paddled around in Zodiac boats. PT was conducted multiple times a day, alternating between calisthenics and personal defensive tactics (throwing each other onto the ground). We also did an obstacle course where we had to work together as a team. We spent a lot of time learning how to move as a patrol, in single line and in a V formation, crossing danger zones, retreating under fire, and hand signals. We practiced moving to objectives, choosing rally points, objective rally points and using sand models for operations. We learned about splitting into assault teams and intelligence recovery teams. During that first week, I think we got 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night.
The second week sucked. We were choppered into the mountains and marched up and down steep mountains all through the days and through most of the nights. A whole lot of people quit, either from injury, or lack of something else. We had overloaded rucksacks on our backs. On top of that we had our M16 rifles, which weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, empty. If you were unlucky, you also got to carry the M60 machine gun which added another 23.15 pounds of weight, empty. I was unlucky. If you were lucky enough not to haul that pig around, you might be unlucky enough to be the guy who carried the extra barrel and ammo. That probably weighed close to the gun itself. If you were lucky enough not to have something associated with the M60, then you were still going to pack something extra. Claymores, extra M16 ammo, grenades for the grenade launcher. There was no lucky. Except for the guy who got to wear the Starlight night vision goggles. He was the only guy who could see where he was walking at night. Luckily, we took turns taking point with the Starlight scope. The rest of us just followed along in single file, following the guy in front of us. Not that we could see him either. We couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces. What we could see were the two little pieces of yellowish green, luminescent tape that were stuck on the back of everyone's helmet band. That's all you could see at night. Two tiny, faintly luminescent, spots in the dark. Because of the trees, you couldn't even see the moon or the stars. Depending on how many feet away the person in front of you was, and how long you had been focused on those two faint points of light, those two tiny glows could merge into a single faint glow. Coincidentally, there is a tiny luminescent fungus that grows on the trees in the German forests that is the exact color as this tape and grows in patches that are roughly the same size as this glowing tape.
So the first night comes and we are trudging up and down these mountains. Some of them were so steep, that since we were bent over to offset the weight of our loads, we could touch the ground in front of us. Around 2 AM they called a halt to let us get two hours sleep. About 15 minutes into it, I woke up with the worst cramp in one of my calves that I had ever had in my life. I wasn't the only one. In the darkness around me I could hear moans, whimpers and sobbing. The next morning, more people quit.
The next day was more of the same. Periodically we took a break to eat C-rats, or take a little rest. But they weren't really rests, they were more of an opportunity for the Green Berets to go over some training with us, like how to use a map and compass in the dark. The second night, one thing happened that stands out in my memory.
I was following the guy in front of me, again, by keeping a close eye on his helmet's luminescent tape. As we climbed a steep mountainside, at an angle to the right, I saw the glow go vertical for several inches and then come back down a few inches. I realized he had stepped up on a rock, or log. I stepped up on it with one foot and, as my trailing foot left the ground, but before it had completely reached what I was standing on, I got whacked hard in the face by an unseen branch that the guy in front of me had moved and let go of. That whack, snapped my head back and caused me to stand straight up. Remember the heavy backpack that we were leaning forward to compensate for? Well the weight from that backpack caused me to fall backwards and hit the ground several feet below me on the slope. I landed on the base of my backpack. I must have barely missed the fellow behind me. My momentum, coupled with the steepness of the hill, caused me to continue rolling backward, over my backpack, and about the time the back of my helmet touched the ground, I went airborne again into a back somersault. Except, instead of leaving the ground backward from my feet, I was leaving the ground backward from my head. I flew through the air in a tumble and, miraculously, landed on my feet. My legs bent to absorb the impact, like one of those tiny girl gymnasts coming off the uneven parallel bars. My rearward momentum was slowing down as I fought to regain my balance. Just as I was about to stop all backward motion and come to a complete stop, I thought, "Wow! That was an impressive bit of athleticism, even if I say so myself. Especially considering I remembered to keep the M60 away from my face, so I wouldn't get my teeth knocked ...."
At that moment gravity grabbed my backpack again and sent me for another tumble backward. "Oh Shit!", I thought, as my feet left the ground again. Once again, I was airborne and landed several feet downhill, on the lower part of my backpack, rolled backward over my backpack, was launched, backward, into the air AGAIN. Once again, I landed on my feet, bent forward at the waist, with knees slightly bent. Once again, the thought about how lucky I was briefly crossed my mind, as I slowed my backward momentum almost to the stopping point. A sense of relief washed over me again, just before gravity grabbed hold of my backpack again. All told, I think I made ten to twelve of these downhill, flying back flip/roll/tumbles. Every single time I thought I had caught myself and it was over, gravity and a very slight rearward momentum would send me off on another revolution.
It finally came to an end, when I landed with my right foot on the ground and my left foot in mud and I fell to my left side. I started to roll fast downhill, but I think I only made four, or five rotations, before I was, fortunately, stopped by a downed tree. Lucky me. Unfortunately, a branch of that tree caught me nicely in the cojones. Unlucky me. I started dry heaving in the darkness. When I stopped, I heard the leaves on the ground rustling as someone slid to a stop next to me. I looked up and saw the green glow of a Starlight scope lens staring unblinkingly down at me. Then I heard the completely unconcerned voice of one of the Green Beret cadre;
"Ranger Farrell...", he said, "... are you feeling sorry for yourself?"
"Yes, Sir, ... I am....", I replied, before dry heaving again. "...you fucking dick!", I thought to myself.
I obviously couldn't see his face, but I know damn well that fucker was grinning from ear to ear. I had to climb about 300 feet of mountain to get back to my squad.
The third day came, it was hump day for this week long field march. About halfway through the day, one of my friends came up to me and pulled me aside. He said,
"I think, I'm going to quit. This just isn't worth it."
I looked at him and I could see he was beat, but we were all beat. I thought back to that first day, a week and a half before and remembered the infantry guys who had scoffed at our being able to hang. I knew that many of them had already quit. This was Wednesday. We were halfway through this field test, and the thought of one of us not making it through, did not set well with me, but I understood. I said,
"Look man, this is Wednesday. We have two days behind us and two days in front of us. You've already put up with more than two days of this shit. Just stick it out today and decide tomorrow."
He looked at me in silence for a few seconds and then said, "Okay."
I was about 80% sure he wouldn't quit when he agreed to that. After all, if he stuck it out until the next day, then he would only have to stick it out for one more day and he would graduate. I was right. Everyone of us graduated. I was really proud of all of us, especially him.
On the fourth night, I was marching along behind the guy in front of me, watching the little glow on his helmet, he suddenly stopped. I bumped into him, the guy behind me bumped into me. When you can't see anything except one or two tiny glows the size of your pinkie nail, your depth perception is lost. So, I saw the glows move a few inches left and disappear for a second, then they moved back into view and to the right, before they disappeared for a second. I could tell the guy was looking around. Then the tiny glows moved quickly to the left and disappeared as, their owner turned to face me. He whispered,
"I walked into a tree."
"What?", I whispered back.
"I must have lost track of the guy in front of me and I followed the glow of some of that glowing tree fungus, until I walked into it.", he whispered.
"Swell.", I replied.
I looked around, pointlessly, since I might as well have had my eyes closed. The guy behind me whispered,
"Why are we stopped?"
"The guy in front of me walked into a tree.", I whispered.
"What?", The guy behind me whispered back.
"He lost track of the guy in front of him and followed the glow of some of that glowing tree fungus, until he walked into it.", I whispered.
"Fuuuuck.", he whispered
Luckily there was only one more guy in the line. You can guess how that conversation spun out.
We circled up and discussed the situation. One guy wanted to go look for the rest of our unit. We shot that stupid idea down.
"We don't have a fuckin' Starlight! How the fuck are we going to see where we're going! We could walk off a fuckin' cliff!", I whispered.
"We could walk off in the complete opposite direction of where we want to go!", another whispered.
"We don't know how far the border is! You want to see the sunrise from the EAST side of the Iron Fuckin' Curtain?", The third guy whispered.
"Besides,...", I added, "... we can't see each other! How in the fuck are we going to find anybody? We'll circle up and sit tight 'til morning."
We stayed put. About 5 minutes later, one of the Green Berets spooked up next to us and snarkily semi-whispered, "Are you three fucktwats done sightseeing? The rest of us would like to get on with the mission!"
At the end of the fifth day we graduated. The cadre awarded us a small patch to be worn on the right shirt pocket and a certificate of completion. I was pretty proud of the fact that none of the guys from my unit had quit.
So recently, I came across some old photos from my days in the army. Prior to the L.A. Sheriff's Department hiring me, I was in the U.S.Army. My first duty station was in the 851st ASA of the 3rd Infantry Division, in, what was then, West Germany. In case you haven't heard, East and West Germany are now just plain old Germany again. On the other hand, maybe you didn't know Germany was once divided? I got to West Germany in mid 1981 and left in mid 1983, for the Presidio San Francisco, where I finished out my time.
Before I get into this story, I think I should add a little pertinent history as background, so you can appreciate our mindset at the time. When I got there the 851st A.S.A. Company (Army Security Agency) was in the process of being combined with the 3rd M.I. Company (Military Intelligence) to form the 103rd M.I. Battalion. When they existed, these units were all part of the 3rd Infantry Division. At the time, President Reagan was our Commander-in-Chief and he was upgrading the military. In October 1980, I was issued the same green fatigues they had issued to soldiers going to Viet Nam in the 60's and 70's. We drove the same jeeps. The army was using the same tank, it had used since 1960. Equipment wise, we were an antiquated army. But President Reagan was facing down a quite aggressive Soviet Union. If he wanted his talk to carry any weight, he was going to have to upgrade the military he was using as a threat. Around 1982, the XM1 tank arrived in the 3rd Armored and 3rd Infantry Divisions. The X stood for experimental, It is now simply the M1 tank.
During this same time that our military was getting an upgrade, Poland was going through some civil unrest. A movement called Solidarity (in English) was organizing worker strikes and making demands on the communist government. The communist Polish government was nothing more than a puppet for the Soviet Union and the Soviets were telling the Polish government that if they didn't solve their internal problems, they (the Soviets) would come in and solve their problems for them. President Reagan countered that with a promise of his own. My interpretation of President Reagan's message to the Soviets in December 1981 was, if the Soviets crossed the Polish border, the U.S. Army would greet them in Warsaw.
Poland's western border was East Germany's eastern border. Poland's southern border was Czechoslovakia's northern border. So for us to get to Poland, we would have to go through East Germany or Poland. In either case, it would have meant the start of WW III. I don't believe the people back home in the United States had, or ever have, as much of an appreciation for how close we are to war during peace time, at any given moment, as the American military personnel do, especially those serving overseas. They are the ones who know when maneuvers are being taken more seriously, when gear is being stockpiled, and when alerts are coming more frequently.
On one such morning, in about Spring 1982, shortly after President Reagan's speech, we had an alert. That means we were woken up unexpectedly at oh dark thirty hours and told to get our asses in gear, we were moving out. Within a few minutes, word spread that the Soviets had crossed the Polish border and we were going to war. Some of us had already written our farewell letters to our families, in anticipation of this. We grabbed them from our lockers and tucked them in our pockets, before running out, gearing up, and rolling out. Unlike usual, there was no complaining, no laughter, no joking around, no bullshitting. We made it out the gate in record time that day. We reached our initial deployment area and were told to assemble in our platoons, because the First Sergeant wanted to address us. I thought, "Well, here comes the official announcement."
First Sgt Kennedy strode out to the center of the field smoking his cigar. He turned, evaluated us silently for a minute and then said,
"First off, I want to say that I'm going to chew the ass off whatever numbnuts butterbar got it in his fuckin' head to spread the rumor that we were going to war! The Soviets have NOT crossed ANY fuckin' border! As far as I know, Ivan is still all tucked up in bed sleeping off last night's vodka dinner and dreaming about the vodka breakfast to come! You did a damn fine job this morning! I'm proud of you! We'll be dicking around here for a few hours, before we head back to the barracks. You got out here so fuckin' fast, we have to wait for the rest of the division to reach their assembly areas!" Instead of being thankful that we weren't going to war, we spent the rest of the morning making up for all the moaning and bitching we had missed out on earlier.
As I said in the beginning I was in a Military Intelligence unit. But what does that mean exactly? Our unit had a couple of responsibilities. One job was to trace enemy radio transmissions back to their origination spot. One purpose for doing this was so we could advise the higher ups, who could then call in artillery, or air strikes. Another function was communications interception, translation of those communications, and the evaluation of those translations for intelligence information. This information could be used to identify enemy unit types, locations, directions of travel, plans, etc and to issue false commands. Another purpose was to "jam" enemy communications, to make it impossible for them to communicate via radio transmission. In the 1980's, most vehicle and man-packable radio communications had distance limitations. These distances were further cut down by terrain and even weather. This meant that for our 4-6 person teams to be effective we had to be within a few miles, or less, of the enemy. Our only armament consisted of the M-16 and a couple of hand grenades. For the tactically impaired, that meant, if we got into a firefight, we had four to six M-16s, and a few hand grenades, against whatever size force came across us. Hiding was our primary tactic. Running and hiding, while trying to make it back to friendly territory, was our backup plan.
With that historical context and that mindset taken into consideration, in October 1982, our unit was advised that there were a few spots available to us in a two week long training course called, "The Marne Ranger Course". "Marne" comes from a nickname for the 3rd Division, "The Marne Division", which they earned at the Battle of the Marne River in WWI. The course was designed to hone our soldier skills. Seeings how everyone knows Plan A is only good until contact with the enemy and our plan B was to run and hide, I volunteered for one of those slots, in order to improve my and my team's chances for survival when Plan B was inevitably implemented. Along with me Bill Brennan and one or two other soldiers, whose names escape me, also volunteered from our unit.
The course was taught by a cadre of Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group. To begin with, the course was primarily for infantry units and some of them saw that my pals and I were not infantry. I heard some of them remark dismissively, "Those REMF's won't last.", and, "They'll be the first to quit, by Wednesday, they'll all be gone." That kind of pissed me off.
The first week wasn't really that bad. We were woken up in the dark and were kept busy until well after dark. We learned land navigation and completed daytime navigation courses, alone and at night, with another soldier. We learned how to tie Swiss seats and rappelled out of helicopters and down cliffs. We paddled around in Zodiac boats. PT was conducted multiple times a day, alternating between calisthenics and personal defensive tactics (throwing each other onto the ground). We also did an obstacle course where we had to work together as a team. We spent a lot of time learning how to move as a patrol, in single line and in a V formation, crossing danger zones, retreating under fire, and hand signals. We practiced moving to objectives, choosing rally points, objective rally points and using sand models for operations. We learned about splitting into assault teams and intelligence recovery teams. During that first week, I think we got 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night.
The second week sucked. We were choppered into the mountains and marched up and down steep mountains all through the days and through most of the nights. A whole lot of people quit, either from injury, or lack of something else. We had overloaded rucksacks on our backs. On top of that we had our M16 rifles, which weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, empty. If you were unlucky, you also got to carry the M60 machine gun which added another 23.15 pounds of weight, empty. I was unlucky. If you were lucky enough not to haul that pig around, you might be unlucky enough to be the guy who carried the extra barrel and ammo. That probably weighed close to the gun itself. If you were lucky enough not to have something associated with the M60, then you were still going to pack something extra. Claymores, extra M16 ammo, grenades for the grenade launcher. There was no lucky. Except for the guy who got to wear the Starlight night vision goggles. He was the only guy who could see where he was walking at night. Luckily, we took turns taking point with the Starlight scope. The rest of us just followed along in single file, following the guy in front of us. Not that we could see him either. We couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces. What we could see were the two little pieces of yellowish green, luminescent tape that were stuck on the back of everyone's helmet band. That's all you could see at night. Two tiny, faintly luminescent, spots in the dark. Because of the trees, you couldn't even see the moon or the stars. Depending on how many feet away the person in front of you was, and how long you had been focused on those two faint points of light, those two tiny glows could merge into a single faint glow. Coincidentally, there is a tiny luminescent fungus that grows on the trees in the German forests that is the exact color as this tape and grows in patches that are roughly the same size as this glowing tape.
So the first night comes and we are trudging up and down these mountains. Some of them were so steep, that since we were bent over to offset the weight of our loads, we could touch the ground in front of us. Around 2 AM they called a halt to let us get two hours sleep. About 15 minutes into it, I woke up with the worst cramp in one of my calves that I had ever had in my life. I wasn't the only one. In the darkness around me I could hear moans, whimpers and sobbing. The next morning, more people quit.
The next day was more of the same. Periodically we took a break to eat C-rats, or take a little rest. But they weren't really rests, they were more of an opportunity for the Green Berets to go over some training with us, like how to use a map and compass in the dark. The second night, one thing happened that stands out in my memory.
I was following the guy in front of me, again, by keeping a close eye on his helmet's luminescent tape. As we climbed a steep mountainside, at an angle to the right, I saw the glow go vertical for several inches and then come back down a few inches. I realized he had stepped up on a rock, or log. I stepped up on it with one foot and, as my trailing foot left the ground, but before it had completely reached what I was standing on, I got whacked hard in the face by an unseen branch that the guy in front of me had moved and let go of. That whack, snapped my head back and caused me to stand straight up. Remember the heavy backpack that we were leaning forward to compensate for? Well the weight from that backpack caused me to fall backwards and hit the ground several feet below me on the slope. I landed on the base of my backpack. I must have barely missed the fellow behind me. My momentum, coupled with the steepness of the hill, caused me to continue rolling backward, over my backpack, and about the time the back of my helmet touched the ground, I went airborne again into a back somersault. Except, instead of leaving the ground backward from my feet, I was leaving the ground backward from my head. I flew through the air in a tumble and, miraculously, landed on my feet. My legs bent to absorb the impact, like one of those tiny girl gymnasts coming off the uneven parallel bars. My rearward momentum was slowing down as I fought to regain my balance. Just as I was about to stop all backward motion and come to a complete stop, I thought, "Wow! That was an impressive bit of athleticism, even if I say so myself. Especially considering I remembered to keep the M60 away from my face, so I wouldn't get my teeth knocked ...."
At that moment gravity grabbed my backpack again and sent me for another tumble backward. "Oh Shit!", I thought, as my feet left the ground again. Once again, I was airborne and landed several feet downhill, on the lower part of my backpack, rolled backward over my backpack, was launched, backward, into the air AGAIN. Once again, I landed on my feet, bent forward at the waist, with knees slightly bent. Once again, the thought about how lucky I was briefly crossed my mind, as I slowed my backward momentum almost to the stopping point. A sense of relief washed over me again, just before gravity grabbed hold of my backpack again. All told, I think I made ten to twelve of these downhill, flying back flip/roll/tumbles. Every single time I thought I had caught myself and it was over, gravity and a very slight rearward momentum would send me off on another revolution.
It finally came to an end, when I landed with my right foot on the ground and my left foot in mud and I fell to my left side. I started to roll fast downhill, but I think I only made four, or five rotations, before I was, fortunately, stopped by a downed tree. Lucky me. Unfortunately, a branch of that tree caught me nicely in the cojones. Unlucky me. I started dry heaving in the darkness. When I stopped, I heard the leaves on the ground rustling as someone slid to a stop next to me. I looked up and saw the green glow of a Starlight scope lens staring unblinkingly down at me. Then I heard the completely unconcerned voice of one of the Green Beret cadre;
"Ranger Farrell...", he said, "... are you feeling sorry for yourself?"
"Yes, Sir, ... I am....", I replied, before dry heaving again. "...you fucking dick!", I thought to myself.
I obviously couldn't see his face, but I know damn well that fucker was grinning from ear to ear. I had to climb about 300 feet of mountain to get back to my squad.
The third day came, it was hump day for this week long field march. About halfway through the day, one of my friends came up to me and pulled me aside. He said,
"I think, I'm going to quit. This just isn't worth it."
I looked at him and I could see he was beat, but we were all beat. I thought back to that first day, a week and a half before and remembered the infantry guys who had scoffed at our being able to hang. I knew that many of them had already quit. This was Wednesday. We were halfway through this field test, and the thought of one of us not making it through, did not set well with me, but I understood. I said,
"Look man, this is Wednesday. We have two days behind us and two days in front of us. You've already put up with more than two days of this shit. Just stick it out today and decide tomorrow."
He looked at me in silence for a few seconds and then said, "Okay."
I was about 80% sure he wouldn't quit when he agreed to that. After all, if he stuck it out until the next day, then he would only have to stick it out for one more day and he would graduate. I was right. Everyone of us graduated. I was really proud of all of us, especially him.
On the fourth night, I was marching along behind the guy in front of me, watching the little glow on his helmet, he suddenly stopped. I bumped into him, the guy behind me bumped into me. When you can't see anything except one or two tiny glows the size of your pinkie nail, your depth perception is lost. So, I saw the glows move a few inches left and disappear for a second, then they moved back into view and to the right, before they disappeared for a second. I could tell the guy was looking around. Then the tiny glows moved quickly to the left and disappeared as, their owner turned to face me. He whispered,
"I walked into a tree."
"What?", I whispered back.
"I must have lost track of the guy in front of me and I followed the glow of some of that glowing tree fungus, until I walked into it.", he whispered.
"Swell.", I replied.
I looked around, pointlessly, since I might as well have had my eyes closed. The guy behind me whispered,
"Why are we stopped?"
"The guy in front of me walked into a tree.", I whispered.
"What?", The guy behind me whispered back.
"He lost track of the guy in front of him and followed the glow of some of that glowing tree fungus, until he walked into it.", I whispered.
"Fuuuuck.", he whispered
Luckily there was only one more guy in the line. You can guess how that conversation spun out.
We circled up and discussed the situation. One guy wanted to go look for the rest of our unit. We shot that stupid idea down.
"We don't have a fuckin' Starlight! How the fuck are we going to see where we're going! We could walk off a fuckin' cliff!", I whispered.
"We could walk off in the complete opposite direction of where we want to go!", another whispered.
"We don't know how far the border is! You want to see the sunrise from the EAST side of the Iron Fuckin' Curtain?", The third guy whispered.
"Besides,...", I added, "... we can't see each other! How in the fuck are we going to find anybody? We'll circle up and sit tight 'til morning."
We stayed put. About 5 minutes later, one of the Green Berets spooked up next to us and snarkily semi-whispered, "Are you three fucktwats done sightseeing? The rest of us would like to get on with the mission!"
At the end of the fifth day we graduated. The cadre awarded us a small patch to be worn on the right shirt pocket and a certificate of completion. I was pretty proud of the fact that none of the guys from my unit had quit.
Photos courtesy of Bill Brennan
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