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NousDefionsDoc
11-29-2004, 16:17
Strange the things you remember. I can still feel today, almost 20 years later, the feeling of road crossings gone bad - over and over.

Coming up on the linear danger area, stepping off those high banks, going ass over tea kettle. And my favorite, the frame on the green tick crashing into the back of the head like being hit with a lead pipe, driving my face into that soft sand. Of course getting a mouthful. But being quiet about it the whole time. It happened a lot. LOL. :lifter

I can also remember always being in a hurry for everything. Never having enough time. But I can also remember laughing a lot. At myself, at my buds, at the instructors, at the cold and wet. Felt good to be at home.

I remember leaving the 91B area and walking up to 300F-1. Walking into the SOCAS barracks and smelling the stink of sweaty gear and the sweet smell of gun oil. Seeing rucks and web gear hanging from every bunk. Not laid out, hanging to dry. Well worn kit. Not like the antispetic 91B barracks. Home.

Rocky Farr walking through at 0700 on Saturday mornings gathering up people to assist with an autopsy - looking for the most hung over to make them puke if he could. Pieces/Parts class.

Oral boards, trying to stay awake in class. Former Marine knocking me out of my chair in RS class for dozing after I asked him to "do whatever it takes to keep me awake." Then me doing him the same favor the next day.

Inge Jansen and his British accent, "Sergeant, are you still killing your patients?"
"Roger that Sergeant!"
"Carry on then."

Major Howard walking up to the formation and "asking" the TAC if he could join us for a "little walk". And thinking, "I'm actually rucking with a legend."

Reporting to Colonel Rowe and thinking, "I'm actually saluting a legend."

Mr. Hollingsworth and Jansen letting me think I failed trauma clinic all afternoon long, and then laughing at me and buying the beer.

Meeting The Reaper for the first time and being amazed that all he could worry about was his car. LOL

And finally, Froglegz picking me up at Battalion and his "briefing."

SP5IC
11-29-2004, 17:39
That would be Engineer/Demo Class 66-4, "The Best of the Worst."

Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-30-2004, 07:08
I look at the Q from a little different perspective. When I took over the Training Group my priority was training and I turned over the day to day operations to my DCO and the group staff. I spent my time in the field or the classroom and during that time I saw great soldiers, some just trying to get thru SFAS and others in the advanced programs like ASOT, O&I, SFARATEC, etc, with drive and commitment that exists no where else in our Army and perhaps in any Army in the world. This approach sort of pissed off the head shed because they could rarely find me but my priorities were where I felt they should be. I think the people that were the most initially shocked were the instuctors not just because they did not expect to see the "old man" but that I acutally had the audacity to get into the on going activities. I also saw a group of committed SF instructors that knew that their committment was to the soldier that they were training knowing full well that they may one day have that soldier working with him or one of his buddies. What I remember is that I had the privelidge of working with and for the best bunch of folks that every wore their country's uniform.

Jack Moroney

QRQ 30
11-30-2004, 08:14
I presume you mean Training Group since I think I pre-dated "Q".

1. The TAC, Sgt Grogan (RIP), saying I was to answer to the name "Shithead" for the rest of my time in Training Group since he wasn't calling no man "Dahling". He actually referred to us as men rather than some other dispicable creatures.

2. GHOSTING: We were in the old wooden barracks on Smoke Bomb Hill and in between classes or while waiting for classes we pulled details. The art of Ghosting was developed and some excelled at it. If you don't know what ghosting is, it is the art of becoming a ghost and being invisible except for class and pay formation. It was treated almost with humor since it was really just a way of killing time. Walking around with a clip-board in one's hands was a good way to appear "busy". At the time we wore block caps, similar to the French Kepi. Each company had a plastic colored band on the cap designating his company. Co A wore Green. There were "ghost patrols" stationed at the Main PX and other places. We looked upon ghosting as training for clandestine operations. As the saying goes: The only crime was getting caught."

3. An instructor in the commo class sending me to the EM club one evening for a few beers. When I returned I passed the sending test with flying colors.

BMT (RIP)
11-30-2004, 18:14
What about Annex 10 in the RTC area on Sunday night??

BMT

QRQ 30
11-30-2004, 18:47
What about Annex 10 in the RTC area on Sunday night??

BMT

I'm not sure which was annex 10.

We moved to the RTC area during the Christmas break in 63-64. There was an EM club right across the street from the commo class room. I think it was SFC Graves who sent me to the club to looses up.
:D

BMT (RIP)
11-30-2004, 19:15
Myself and another E-7 were payroll guards. CO. came back with the money threw me the sack and said pay the Co, Sgt. Don't come up SHORT or Over.
Troops were alittle surprised to see 2 E-7's paying.

BMT

QRQ 30
11-30-2004, 19:26
SFC B***: An NCO who had been captured and escaped from the VC. He took it upon himself to be a SERE committee of one during the FTX phase of training. The medics hated him and constantly reported his antics to Group. He did things like packing ears with peanut butter. He received several warnings but was finally relieved from the committee. He was a fine soldier but suffered from PTSD before it had a name. The final straw was when he refused to medevac a student with appendicitis. The student nearly died when they finally got him out. B***'s rationale was that in the "real world" a medevac may not have been possible.

12B4S
12-18-2004, 22:33
I presume you mean Training Group since I think I pre-dated "Q".

1. The TAC, Sgt Grogan (RIP), saying I was to answer to the name "Shithead" for the rest of my time in Training Group since he wasn't calling no man "Dahling". He actually referred to us as men rather than some other dispicable creatures.

2. GHOSTING: We were in the old wooden barracks on Smoke Bomb Hill and in between classes or while waiting for classes we pulled details. The art of Ghosting was developed and some excelled at it. If you don't know what ghosting is, it is the art of becoming a ghost and being invisible except for class and pay formation. It was treated almost with humor since it was really just a way of killing time. Walking around with a clip-board in one's hands was a good way to appear "busy". At the time we wore block caps, similar to the French Kepi. Each company had a plastic colored band on the cap designating his company. Co A wore Green. There were "ghost patrols" stationed at the Main PX and other places. We looked upon ghosting as training for clandestine operations. As the saying goes: The only crime was getting caught."

3. An instructor in the commo class sending me to the EM club one evening for a few beers. When I returned I passed the sending test with flying colors.



I'm an "olderish" type as well SFTG. I started honing the fine art of ghosting at jump school. Never had much time off then, but when I did, NCO's and or Officers could spot a body that was free "detail material". Took one time. The clipboard works, but the one time I got roped into a detail, it was cleaning offices. HMMMM (light bulb). I grabbed a bunch of official manila size folders. After that, when I had some time off, I'd carry them walkiing around. Oh... and always walk with purpose. ;)
I took those folders to Bragg with me.... worked great there too :)

Team Sergeant
12-19-2004, 09:37
Thirty days without a shower.

Being tired,cold and hungry.

Amazed by the "tough" guys that called it quits.

Col Howard (then a Maj) rucking with us, and rucking most of us into the ground....

Survival week and how I actually enjoyed the few days of peace and quiet.

Did I mention tired, cold and constantly hungry?

magician
12-20-2004, 01:49
the land nav course, the first time I went through....I went through with this jarhead named Chris....he was a short guy, pretty squared away....good guy.

I was on some high ground, and happened to look off in the distance, and I saw a truck speeding down some hard ball...and in the cab of the truck....a diminutive head in profile....with a jarhead cover kicked back on his head, while he consulted his map.

I spewed.

A little later on, I came up a fire break, and there was a good old boy out hunting coon with his dog. He had some beers in the back, and offered me one. I told him thanks, I had a course to run, maybe another time. He told me to go ahead and take a six pack with me to drink when I was done.

I weighed it.

Was he a provocateur, testing me for an honor violation?

Nah.

Remember, this was the old days, 1984, long time ago. I graciously accepted a six pack...I think that it was Busch beer....blue cans....they were ice cold...pulled them out of an ice filled cooler....bundled them into my ruck...then went on to finish my course.

I hit my final point, had plenty of time, so I figured that I would wait a bit and see if any of my brothers were coming along behind me. Sure enough, my brother John T, a guy who had spent a lot of time in Hawaii, appeared at the bottom of the hill, and began laboring up it. It was a big hill.

I stood at the top, and I yelled, "John!" He paused, he looked up, and I held up a can of beer. He squinted, and then he broke into sprint. He virtually ran up that hill, hit the clacker for his last point, then grabbed that beer from me.

He said that it was the best beer that he had ever had.

There is something about the illicit....I cannot quantify it. I did not even really drink in those days. I shared the beers around with my brothers as they came into the rally point at the end of the course while we sat around the fire and dried off.

It was funny...it was hard....and we....HAD BEER.

You had to be there, I guess.

In retrospect, I am a little shocked. But it made sense at the time.

What can I say? I was young.

Good times.

:)

Shark Bait
12-20-2004, 09:28
Remember, this was the old days, 1984, long time ago.

Hey, when did you go through the course?? I started in Jan/Feb of 84.

What I remember most was the Survival FTX. My chicken escaped and I had to chase it through the woods til I caught it. I knew I would be out of the course if it got away. Killed him and ate him on the third day.

It rained for three out of the five days and my hooch got so water logged that it collapsed on me in the middle of the night. Slept the rest of the night in the rain. Then I had to fight hypothermia until the instructor showed up on day five.

At the end of the FTX, they picked everyone up from their camps and took us to an assembly point. Some instructors had their POV's there. Four of us were standing by an instructors pick-up truck. It was facing slightly downhill and about 2 or 3 inches of water was toward the front of the bed. We were all eyeing an Egg McMuffin that was completely submerged in the water. The instructor waived his finger at us and said "That's mine, boys!" Any one of us would have gladly eaten that soggy McMuffin.

Guy
12-20-2004, 10:37
The "duffel bag drag" to the camp, following chem-lights.

Making the time limit, then the gates closed.

Those who didn't...caught HOLY HELL!
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Bunk-beds in shacks, with no damn mattresses.
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Some Million $ shower facility, that wasn't worth shit! They should have thrown the MFer in jail in charge of building that!
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The "Gallant" Knot...never even used it.
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Playing electric football during breaks.
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Getting stuck at 13/13 during IMC for a week. The instructor says "drink a few beers during lunch." I come back that afternoon and pass.

NousDefionsDoc
12-20-2004, 10:38
Survival - I remember them picking us up in the 2 1/2 and I looked up to get a hand up and the first thing I saw was the smoked blackened faces and stares of the yankee boys. Seems they were uncomfortable in the woods all alone and spent the entire time huddled over their fires waiting for the boogeyman to come get them. I don't think they slept at all. LOL.

Team Sergeant
12-20-2004, 11:48
Making the time limit, then the gates closed.

Those who didn't...caught HOLY HELL!
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LOL, On one of the "ruck Runs" theY were closing the gate as I approached. There were only about ten guys inside!!!! I was thinking WTF, only 10 inside! (There were about 270 of us!)

The instructor had the gate half closed. I was at a dead sprint with about 100lbs of lightweight gear.... The men inside yelld for me not to stop running. The instructor hearing the yelling turned to watch me. I was about 500 yards and he yelled;

"YOU KEEP RUNNING AND I'LL KEEP THIS GATE OPEN"

And believe me what Guy said is so true. Those that didn't make it inside of that gate before they closed it caught HELL.

TS
(Of course I didn't stop running. :cool: )

sandytroop
12-20-2004, 17:23
I was a patrol leader in 6-80; Reservist with 12th GP, and not about to quit. I had done very little PT prior to my arrival and it was obvious, but I also had about 2 weeks notice to show up or miss my big chance. We formed up the first evening and took a run in fatigues and boots, LBE and rifles, at a pace I had never seen before, much less actually run. I made it in the gate, and they formed us up under the Flag to figure out who was still in. The guy in front of me fell to the ground crying and actualy begged Jesus to kill him. Then, and I swear this is true, for no apparent reason, I sudenly felt this odd sensation in my lower abdomen, and I had a spontaneous orgasm right there in my trousers. That's how screwed up I was after that run. Needless to say, I about freaked, and I leaned over a bit to the fellow next to me, a little red headed Ranger, also from 12th Gp, named Jim Woodall, and I said "Jim, I'm a mess man. I just shot off in my pants!" And he just leand over a bit toward me, never stopped looking forward and said in a quiet whisper, "Lucky bastard...". It was a sterling moment.

QRQ 30
12-20-2004, 17:59
Sandy: I believe every word but it is customary to end any story like that with:

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!:. or

"If I'm lying I'm dying!" :p :D

Kyobanim
12-20-2004, 18:28
I was a patrol leader in 6-80; Reservist with 12th GP, and not about to quit. I had done very little PT prior to my arrival and it was obvious, but I also had about 2 weeks notice to show up or miss my big chance. We formed up the first evening and took a run in fatigues and boots, LBE and rifles, at a pace I had never seen before, much less actually run. I made it in the gate, and they formed us up under the Flag to figure out who was still in. The guy in front of me fell to the ground crying and actualy begged Jesus to kill him. Then, and I swear this is true, for no apparent reason, I sudenly felt this odd sensation in my lower abdomen, and I had a spontaneous orgasm right there in my trousers. That's how screwed up I was after that run. Needless to say, I about freaked, and I leaned over a bit to the fellow next to me, a little red headed Ranger, also from 12th Gp, named Jim Woodall, and I said "Jim, I'm a mess man. I just shot off in my pants!" And he just leand over a bit toward me, never stopped looking forward and said in a quiet whisper, "Lucky bastard...". It was a sterling moment.

ROTFLMFAO!!!!! :D :D

The Reaper
12-20-2004, 19:41
Sandy: I believe every word but it is customary to end any story like that with:

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!:. or

"If I'm lying I'm dying!" :p :D

or:

"That ain't no shit, it really happened."

TR

magician
12-21-2004, 02:36
can't really remember my class date...and all my orders and stuff are in storage, in the states, packed away in boxes.

I think I may have gone through with TR, though, as he remembers an O from my class who became a real good friend of mine, and a couple of the other guys from my class, like Cory F, and Robin M, who later went across the fence, and a couple of young guys (Steve C, and "Mac") who went to 1st Group with me, and later on went to the dark side.

Another funny story.

We were done with the course....just waiting to do some civil affairs work, or something, on the very last day, while we were waiting for extraction....so we were on this...plantation....and we were supposed to clean up this area, straighten up a bunch of deadfall and pine cones and pine straw and stuff....and the owner of the place....he was classic, he came down in a GOLF CART in bright green golf pants and a purple Izod shirt, some crazy country club outfit like that....and he had his lady with him, a real Southern belle, all dressed up in lace and finery with a freakin' PARASOL. We were grouchy, in a rebellious mood, and this guy, he just rubbed us the wrong way. He was treating us worse than hired help. It was like he came down from his mansion, complete with columns and statues and fountains and old mossy trees all over the place, to make sure his "boys" were doing the manual labor correctly.

So anyway, I will never forget this, things came to head when one of the NCOs on my detachment told the guy to get on his golf cart and high-tail it out of there, and while he was kicking up dust leaving the AO, my buddy, a West Point O, threw a pitch fork at the golf cart, bouncing it off the back of it. It was funny as hell. I really felt bad for our detachment commander...he was a great guy, a lot of you guys probably know him, his knickname was "Maddog," he had commands on Okie, and retired out of the Schoolhouse as a light colonel back in the mid-90's. I think he had his first detachment in 5th Group.

My buddy...was amazing, a Ranger-qualified signal officer out of West Point, he later went on to be the C&E officer at 1st Group, and later did a lot of black box work before he got out and went to work for the government doing computer stuff. I have not talked to him in a long while....last I heard, he was down in the Research Triangle. Good guy. I really miss him. He totally changed my opinion about West Pointers. Got to figure....any officer who can hurl a pitch fork at a stuffed shirt in a purple Izod shirt with a snooty girl carrying a parasol is alright with me.

I seem to remember graduating around September, 1984, and signing back into 1st Group around October. My dates may be off here, as it is all from memory, and this was a long time ago. I was one of the first guys to sign into 1st Group, back when there was just a shack with a counter and not much else. I drove from 2/75 to North Fort after extending for the Q-Course, signed in, and drove right out to Bragg. I went to the Q-course TDY from Ft. Lewis. Totally awesome deal. I remember buying a stereo when I got back.

Then I went to ODA 151, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Good times.

:)

NousDefionsDoc
12-21-2004, 06:54
I was a patrol leader in 6-80; Reservist with 12th GP, and not about to quit. I had done very little PT prior to my arrival and it was obvious, but I also had about 2 weeks notice to show up or miss my big chance. We formed up the first evening and took a run in fatigues and boots, LBE and rifles, at a pace I had never seen before, much less actually run. I made it in the gate, and they formed us up under the Flag to figure out who was still in. The guy in front of me fell to the ground crying and actualy begged Jesus to kill him. Then, and I swear this is true, for no apparent reason, I sudenly felt this odd sensation in my lower abdomen, and I had a spontaneous orgasm right there in my trousers. That's how screwed up I was after that run. Needless to say, I about freaked, and I leaned over a bit to the fellow next to me, a little red headed Ranger, also from 12th Gp, named Jim Woodall, and I said "Jim, I'm a mess man. I just shot off in my pants!" And he just leand over a bit toward me, never stopped looking forward and said in a quiet whisper, "Lucky bastard...". It was a sterling moment.


That is not normal. Trust me, I'm a medic, I know things... :)

sandytroop
12-21-2004, 09:10
Well, that's one of the defining traits of this business. You can't make this stuff up. Now the short list of memories...

Old Phase 1, I misplaced my M-60 and carried half a Huey skid on a 60 sling for a couple of days to help my memory. I never made that mistake again.

I remember comming out of survival just about to croak I was so empty. The mess tent had c-rats for us, and I got the spaghetti. It was the perfect combination of carbs, fat, oil, and "water". I still eat canned spaghetti out of the can with a big spoon, and I still smile and remember that moment. It was the best lunch I had ever had to that date.

In Robin Sage we had some G's from Cos Com who were "intransigent" as my team sergeant described them. When they fell asleep, he would collect large blobs of that phosphorescent goo from the Pineland ground cover, put it in his mouth, wake the G's and make sure the first thing they saw was him puking that green stuff out. They thought he was possessed, I am sure.

The best though was after our last raid at Sage. We then occupied the open field where we had set up our air strip, kicked back and waited for the trucks. All the guys had their beenie hats on (it was November), and we all pulled them over to one side, like berets. Ronald Reagan had been elected President 5 days before. We were the new generation of warriors, and the world was ours. Man we were just invincible. You never forget a feeling like that.

magician
12-21-2004, 09:23
I remember...finding this brown paper bag on the side of the road....I had to cross the road to find water, to go to my water source, a stream, where I would sometimes catch a glimpse of another stud in the distance. Of course, we never talked, and we never, ever linked up. The trees had eyes.

Anyway, in this brown paper bag, I found a bunch of ants, and the soggy remnants of some pork rinds. Hell, yes, I ate the hell out of them. They were awesome.

I also scooped underneath the river bank looking for snails, and was elated to actually find some. Carefully lurping back to my hooch with them in my canteen cup, I filled up the canteen cup halfway with water, and put it on my fire to boil.

I was going to have escargot.

Well.

It turns out that those snails were more akin to slugs than...snails.

I ended up scraping the first one off the roof of my mouth with a stick. The broth...was horrifying. I had to pitch it. I was pissed.

I never did catch any freakin' fish, either. Thank God for my bunny. He was a good friend for a while. We kept each other warm. Then I killed him and ate him.

:)

Team Sergeant
12-21-2004, 09:39
Thank God for my bunny. He was a good friend for a while. We kept each other warm. Then I killed him and ate him.

:)


"Then I killed him and ate him."

I've got tears in my eyes I'm laughing so hard.....

I'll never forget my bunny either, he was, delicious, and on completing my bunny meal I fashioned fish hooks from his bones…..

NousDefionsDoc
12-21-2004, 09:48
Thank God for my bunny. He was a good friend for a while. We kept each other warm. Then I killed him and ate him.

LOL :boohoo

Some city kid that was a recycle told everybody "Don't name them, it'll make it easier."

I named mine "Chow". Communist Chinese POW. Had no problems. LOL

Razor
12-21-2004, 09:59
Whew! I guess I'm in good (if not abnormal) company here. I got some funny looks from the Marines and 82d dudes when I held rabbit puppet shows (eviscerated rabbit carcass, head intact, propped on your hand a la sock puppet) in SERE.

magician
12-21-2004, 10:10
Heh.

I remember the instructors telling us a story about how some stud just could not bring himself to kill his bunny, but because we had to bring the feet with us to prove that we had done it, he chopped off his bunny's feet, bandaged him up, and then set him free.

The instructor claimed that they found a bunny with amputated legs hopping around the survival area a couple of classes later.

Probably an apocryphal story, but I laughed at the time.

:)

What was that big basket that we had to weave? You remember...the one to catch fish? I cannot remember what it was called. Mine looked like ass.

:)

sandytroop
12-21-2004, 10:13
ok, 10 minutes later I can finally stop laughing...

My Jr Demo guy, Greg D, was demonstrating to the G's how to send the bunny to sleepy land in Sage, and instead of doing something "official", he did something akin to the Atomic Drop. He just jumped into the air and came down hard right on top of him, crushing the little guy. It horrified the G's and they were afraid of him from that moment on.

magician
12-21-2004, 10:46
I am trying to remember how I killed my bunny....I remember using the "hypnotism" trick to calm chickens, stroking their necks from front to rear, holding the chicken's feet and legs with one hand beneath him, lulling him into a false sense of security, then grabbing his head and pulling it away from his body in one quick motion, ending up with a kicking chicken body in one hand and a bloody dripping head perfect for Santeria purposes in the other.

Bar none, the grossest "survival" chow I ever ate was goat. The lane walkers in Ranger school brought us a goat one day, pretty sure that it was in Florida, and we had a monstrous fire and a bunch of chickens and freshly dug onions.

After we killed the chickens, we put them in ammo cans with the rubber seal removed, along with a bunch of onions, carrots, and potatos, and set them in the fire with a little bit of water in them. After a little while, we put our gloves on, opened them up, and had the best damned chicken stew I had ever tasted. I will make it a point to make chicken stew that way sometime in the future, just to do it again, it was so damned good.

But the goat.....I do not remember how we killed it....I guess one of us cut his neck....and bled him out....then skinned him and cut him up and cooked him up on e-tools or something....but that meat tasted really, really bad. We were so hungry, that we tried, we really tried, to eat it.

I remember after we moved out, we had some goat meat left over, and we wrapped it up and took it with us, thinking that we would chow down in the patrol base later.

Well.

That meat made me gag. I just could not eat it. And I was starving. I had been there for a long, long time.

And that reminds me of another time...I was on ODA 151....and we went to Alaska. Someone had the brilliant idea to have a survival exercise, so we loaded up, got one MRE, and had like a hundred miles to cover in a week. We had some rounds for our M21. So we could kill a mountain goat, or a moose, or a cougar, or something, but of course, that never worked out.

Anytime that we saw mountain goats, they were up high on the mountainsides, and even if we had shot one, it would have been one hell of a hump up some vertical inclines to haul the carcass down.

So, we got pretty hungry, and we were humping some miles. We tried fishing, but had no real success until the last day. And this is where the story gets funny.

All this time, we are slowly starving. I am eating flowers as I walk.

We get to the trailhead, and drop rucks, and one of the guys says that he knows the area, and will go on ahead and recon for the pickup point. The Dai-uy (our team leader) says ok, go ahead, he will stay behind and try to catch some fish. There were these little pan fish in the river.

Well, this guy was our heavy weapons leader, his name was Brad, our team sergeant was deployed on a singleton mission at the time and missed all the fun, and Brad was trying to get me to go along with him and a couple of the other guys to recon for the pick up point. I wanted to go, but no one wanted to stay with the Dai-uy, so I told them, "nah, you go ahead. I'll stay with the captain. Someone has to stay with the poor guy."

They said ok, and off they went.

Me and the Dai-uy fished, and we fished, and lo and behold, we actually caught some fish. Not many. I think we caught three of them. So we decided to wait until the guys came back before we cooked them up and ate them.

Sometime after nightfall, they returned.

We had a huge white man's fire blazing, and man, we were ready to cook up our three little fish.

We put them on e-tools, fried them up, and then passed the e-tools around the circle so that we all could take a little nibble and then pass them on to the next guy.

Well, the fish came around the circle. They were still pretty much intact.

Now, remember, I was freakin' starving here, but here were my team mates, and they were obviously controlling themselves, denying themselves the fish, sacrificing so that their buddies could have more.

That made me want to share more, too, so I took just the tiniest nibbles of the fish, and passed them around again.

Well, the fish kept coming around, and it was killing me, how good and loyal and generous my team mates were, so I was absolutely intent that I would not be a pig and eat more than the rest of them.

The funny thing is, I noticed that they seemed to have a lot of energy, they were laughing a lot, but I did not think anything of it.

Fast forward a few months later to Korea.

We are hiding out in some hills, up in a grave yard, and some of the guys want to go with our counterpart down into this little ville and get some good food. Our counterpart is saying that not only will they get some good chow, they will go to the bath house, and get clean, and then get laid, too.

I think about it, and for some reason, I tell them, nah, go ahead. I am going to stay up here. I told them not to worry. It was not like I was going to rat them out or anything. It was just that the mission was to hide out, and not get caught, we were evading, and I did not want to violate the spirit of the exercise. It is not like I was a goody-goody kind of guy. Far from it. I just wanted to stick to the mission, this time around, for some reason.

So our intel sergeant, his name was Sam, he told me that he would stay with me. I was touched, and I appreciated the company.

He and I holed up in the graveyard, huddled around a little fire, and shot the shit. The rest of the guys went down to the ville.

It was while hanging out with Sam that he told me what really happened that night in Alaska at the trailhead.

Brad had brought his credit card with him, and he had been stationed in Alaska before, so he knew that there was a hunting lodge up near the extraction point. The guys all went to this lodge and sat down to a sumptuous dinner of steaks, wine, brandy, cigars, the works. They actually had to wash in the stream to get the smell off them, and rub dirt all over themselves, as the Dai-uy and I would have smelled the chow and cigars on them in a heartbeat if we had not had that huge fire roaring, waiting for them to get back.

Everytime that the fish came around, they just pretended to nibble at it. They were stuffed, see. They had chowed down on huge steaks. They wanted to let me and the Dai-uy eat the fish. And me and the Dai-uy, we thought that the rest of the team were just being really generous, taking care of each other.

So this time, when the guys went down to the ville, Sam decided to stay with me. We starved together, and man, I busted a gut when I remembered that fucking fish going around the circle, and how I kept trying to take the smallest bites.

Good times.

:)

Guy
12-21-2004, 11:51
Whew! I guess I'm in good (if not abnormal) company here. I got some funny looks from the Marines and 82d dudes when I held rabbit puppet shows (eviscerated rabbit carcass, head intact, propped on your hand a la sock puppet) in SERE.

We got "wrote up" for that escapade as SERE instructors, by one of the students. :eek:

Even had one write about..."Snares were in-humane." Because the animal suffered before dying. :rolleyes:

Go thru the survival portion with Middle Eastern officers..."culture my ass."

Kill that SOB. I'm starving!

LMAO!

casey
12-21-2004, 13:09
79 - Land Nav with SSgt R and his "one and done" Clorox raiders. During Phase 1 Land Nav they would road lurk and snatch those students during crossings. The first TngGrp dude to catch one, got the rest of the day off (we later learned). I still remember setting up on a 10m curve and watching as the jeep approached. All of a sudden the jeep comes to a dead stop, both instructors jump out and run into the woodline 20m to my left screaming "There he is... I got him.... There he goes" in hopes of spooking any hiding, bug eyed student. Both came out of the woods empty handed but belly laughing so hard, they were actually bent over. They fell into jeep - rinse, lather, repeat - 100m down the road they repeated the process complete with belly laughs. I remember it had been raining like hell for days and I was fookin' miserable, but still had to put my head down in my hands cause I was laughing so hard... That turned the switch on for me, I thought - Oh yea, I'm gonna like it here alot.

Shark Bait
12-21-2004, 14:37
That is not normal. Trust me, I'm a medic, I know things... :)
Sandytroop is not normal. Trust me, I know him. You never told me that story JT. Good thing, because I would never want to be in front of you on a ruck march again. LOL

sandytroop
12-21-2004, 14:41
Just don't stop suddenly !

NousDefionsDoc
12-21-2004, 14:43
LOL - "Touch that rucksack!"

"Owww!"

FILO
12-21-2004, 14:45
Very young, just turned 18 with less then 4 months TIS.

Forgot to check the bottom of my ruck prior to arriving at the compound.

Ordered to empty rucks for inspection, I realize I have c-rat cans and hastily through them under the huts.

The senior tac, SSG F....was relieved because of too many med drops. Feb 1983. He was famous for bouncing the gate. As well as his ruck marches. After one episode, they had to air medevac an officer with heat stroke.

Got recyled for failing land nav.

Went through 1 more pre-phase and then phase 1 again. April 1983.

Passed land lav, second student in.

Chicken laid 2 eggs. Learned that you need Pam to prevent the egg from sticking to the canteen cup. Hardboiled the second egg. The last night before getting picked up an instructor drops by and warns about an approaching snow storm. Being from up north, I didn't think it would snow in North Carolina in April. Well it snowed and it was like the 4th of July that night. We probably lost 10 to 12 guys who quit because of the cold.

On the graded ruck march at the end, jumped behind Maj. Howard---what an honor.

Finally, arrived back to Bragg, released after formation and immediately drove over to I-Hop and then Shoney's. Ate HUGE meals at both places and then proceeded to get sick.

Shark Bait
12-21-2004, 14:47
Heh.

I remember the instructors telling us a story about how some stud just could not bring himself to kill his bunny, but because we had to bring the feet with us to prove that we had done it, he chopped off his bunny's feet, bandaged him up, and then set him free.

The instructor claimed that they found a bunny with amputated legs hopping around the survival area a couple of classes later.

Probably an apocryphal story, but I laughed at the time.

:)

What was that big basket that we had to weave? You remember...the one to catch fish? I cannot remember what it was called. Mine looked like ass.

:)
LOL I remember that story, too. They also told us about a guy that simply buried his rabbit, with only the back feet sticking out of the ground. The instructor saw the feet moving and pulled the whole bunny out of the ground like a carrot.

I had a chicken. Not very good for keeping warm. I killed him, ate him and used his guts for bait to try to catch a fox. I would have eaten that damn fox if I caught him, but of course I didn't.

The basket was simply called a "Fish Basket" as I recall.

Shark Bait
12-21-2004, 14:52
I also remember only being able to walk out the gate at Mackall if you were taking trash to the dumpster. The dumpster was the type that was open at the end and you could walk right in. We took turns carrying trash cans to the dumpster so we could rummage for food. We found half bags of cookies, peanut butter, etc. I have often wondered if that wasn't arranged by the staff to see if we would be resourceful.

The Reaper
12-21-2004, 16:56
can't really remember my class date...and all my orders and stuff are in storage, in the states, packed away in boxes.

I think I may have gone through with TR, though, as he remembers an O from my class who became a real good friend of mine, and a couple of the other guys from my class, like Cory F, and Robin M, who later went across the fence, and a couple of young guys (Steve C, and "Mac") who went to 1st Group with me, and later on went to the dark side.

:)

If you were in 3-84, you should have remembered it. "The Last Hard Class".

Graduated August, 1984.

TR

Ambush Master
12-21-2004, 21:50
What do I remember most ?? That is a very difficult question !!!
I’ll start with our arrival at Bragg from Jump School. On a Bus, get on Post and what do we see, E-8s & 9s wearing Berets on-line policing up PINE CONES !!!! We all look at each other and go “WTF are they going to have us doing” ?!?!?!

We unload at the barracks and are invited into the “day room” for a welcome to Training Group speech and then we are told that the sodas and BEER !!!!! in the tubs with ice were ours and welcome aboard !!

The next few weeks we went through all of the testing, swimming, PT, etc and those of us that Passed drew our gear and were sent on to (the then) Phase I. We were “inserted” into Camp Mackall by way of a full equipment jump. Only one problem, we were on a C-123, the weather was for shit and we were flown around for about 2-3 hours waiting for the weather to break. During the leisurely flight one of my friends got airsick and puked in his piss-pot !! He passed it down the stick for the JM to dump into the pisser in the rear and when it was about halfway back the RED LIGHT ILLUMINATED !!! EVERYBODY, STAND UP!!! :eek: The wayward helmet found itself being passed back to it’s owner, without having been DUMPED !!! As the jump commands proceeded, the helmet and owner were reunited and he donned it, puke and all. There was puke running and dripping off of his nose, ears, and chin. He was covered in it, and we were going to find ourselves without bathing facilities for the duration of Phase I. (He ended up having to wear those clothes for close to a week!!) When we finally left the airplane, all that broke the silence was his continued barfing all the way to the ground !!!

Well, that about sums up the first few weeks that commenced around September-October, 1969. We spent Thanksgiving out at Mackall and graduated just in time to go home on X-Mas leave with a Beret/SF Crest (without flash). The SAGA will continue !

Roguish Lawyer
12-21-2004, 21:59
During the leisurely flight one of my friends got airsick and puked in his piss-pot !! He passed it down the stick for the JM to dump into the pisser in the rear and when it was about halfway back the RED LIGHT ILLUMINATED !!! EVERYBODY, STAND UP!!! :eek: The wayward helmet found itself being passed back to it’s owner, without having been DUMPED !!! As the jump commands proceeded, the helmet and owner were reunited and he donned it, puke and all. There was puke running and dripping off of his nose, ears, and chin. He was covered in it, and we were going to find ourselves without bathing facilities for the duration of Phase I. (He ended up having to wear those clothes for close to a week!!) When we finally left the airplane, all that broke the silence was his continued barfing all the way to the ground !!!

ROTFLMAO! And nobody thought you'd ever top NUMBA F'ING ONE! DO IT AGAIN!

Shark Bait
12-22-2004, 09:25
If you were in 3-84, you should have remembered it. "The Last Hard Class".

Graduated August, 1984.

TR
My 1059 shows my class dates as 3-27-84 to 7-26-84. And if I'm reading it right, I was in 3-84. Small world, Bud.

FILO
12-22-2004, 12:17
We got "wrote up" for that escapade as SERE instructors, by one of the students. :eek:

Even had one write about..."Snares were in-humane." Because the animal suffered before dying. :rolleyes:

Go thru the survival portion with Middle Eastern officers..."culture my ass."

Kill that SOB. I'm starving!

LMAO!

Learned bunny baseball. Also remember an encounter between a very large E-5 type jarhead with a K-bar and a goat. Quite a demonstration for impressionable young minds! :D

magician
12-27-2004, 01:52
talking to TR offline, I think that I was in the class behind you guys, 4-84.

one of the officers that started out with TR went down as a heat casualty, and was recycled back into my class.

long time ago.

things sure have changed. Mostly for the better, it seems.

sandytroop
12-27-2004, 10:07
Dave, didn't "Demo" Greg D, Butch S and John C (18D) all go through about that time? WAY small world...

Shark Bait
12-29-2004, 09:34
Dave, didn't "Demo" Greg D, Butch S and John C (18D) all go through about that time? WAY small world...
I don't know when they went through. I didn't know them until I got off active duty went to 12th SFG. It must have been close to that time frame though.

Jo Sul
12-29-2004, 09:43
Dave, didn't "Demo" Greg D, Butch S and John C (18D) all go through about that time? WAY small world...

John - I think Greg, Butch, and John C went through about the same time I did in the '86 to '87 time-frame.

sandytroop
12-29-2004, 14:13
I just remember the guys in 12th talking about "the last easy class", and I was thinking "What? Are we talking about American SF or Saudi SF?" cuz Nothing in that course was easy for me, ever.

12B4S
12-29-2004, 21:25
What do I remember most ?? That is a very difficult question !!!
I’ll start with our arrival at Bragg from Jump School. On a Bus, get on Post and what do we see, E-8s & 9s wearing Berets on-line policing up PINE CONES !!!! We all look at each other and go “WTF are they going to have us doing” ?!?!?!

We unload at the barracks and are invited into the “day room” for a welcome to Training Group speech and then we are told that the sodas and BEER !!!!! in the tubs with ice were ours and welcome aboard !!

The next few weeks we went through all of the testing, swimming, PT, etc and those of us that Passed drew our gear and were sent on to (the then) Phase I. We were “inserted” into Camp Mackall by way of a full equipment jump. Only one problem, we were on a C-123, the weather was for shit and we were flown around for about 2-3 hours waiting for the weather to break. During the leisurely flight one of my friends got airsick and puked in his piss-pot !! He passed it down the stick for the JM to dump into the pisser in the rear and when it was about halfway back the RED LIGHT ILLUMINATED !!! EVERYBODY, STAND UP!!! :eek: The wayward helmet found itself being passed back to it’s owner, without having been DUMPED !!! As the jump commands proceeded, the helmet and owner were reunited and he donned it, puke and all. There was puke running and dripping off of his nose, ears, and chin. He was covered in it, and we were going to find ourselves without bathing facilities for the duration of Phase I. (He ended up having to wear those clothes for close to a week!!) When we finally left the airplane, all that broke the silence was his continued barfing all the way to the ground !!!

Well, that about sums up the first few weeks that commenced around September-October, 1969. We spent Thanksgiving out at Mackall and graduated just in time to go home on X-Mas leave with a Beret/SF Crest (without flash). The SAGA will continue !


I forgot about that AM.

I remember seeing Senior NCO's policing Pine Cones when we pulled in from Benning. Did make a youngin wonder.

We also were inserted into Mackall (Phase 1) late afternoon. The instructors were allllllllllllllll over that DZ ummm (motivating) us to get our "stuff" ;) together and ran us into camp. Lined us up on some old concrete foundation and did .. well... a combination inspection/f**k with you thing, at which they were ohhhhh so proficient.

Well, turns out, one guy's weapon carrier had seperated during the jump. (M-14) then. THIS... was not a good thing!! lol Shortly after assembling, a thunderstorm moved in. So, they ran us all back to the DZ to search for that weapon. Took an hour, was dark, raining like hell. We found it, so we got to run back to that damn foundation. Where they went back through everyone of us with questions.... tons 'O pushups and at attention in between the pushups for hours.
Thing was this storm came with aaalot of lightning. As a result, every few mins lightening would hit and we were standing in puddles.... haha so we'd sorta jump when it hit close enough. Moving in anyway at the position of "Attention" is a nono. The cadre loved it.... just meant more pushups :) Thing was, one gets a bit thirsty doing that stuff. Doing all those 5 million pushups gave you a chance to drink out of a puddle. Was a tad startling however if the lightening hit close with your lips in the puddle however :p

AM have talked to you a bit. Looks like you were the class just after mine. I graduated 11/28/69

QRQ 30
12-29-2004, 21:57
The reason tghat y'all saw NCO's on police call was that that was all there was.

I remember in 69 the 7th SFG went on an exercise to Puerto Rico. We went by ship "USNS Upshore" I believe. The Navy demanded strict rank protocol and wouldn't allow co-mingling of the ranks in the messes. As a result we deluged the Chief's Mess and they had to relent or starve. :D

Sorry to hijack this but. . . .

on the same trip we were getting a briefing from the CCO. One of our NCO's asked if he could open the door as it was hot. We got a ten minute lecture on Navy terminology, hatches not doors, ports not windows, ladders not steps, bulkheads not walls, etc. ect. When he finished the same NCO asked if it was alright if we openrd the door and windows now. :(

12B4S
01-01-2005, 01:39
[QUOTE=QRQ 30]The reason tghat y'all saw NCO's on police call was that that was all there was.


Yup, learned that QrQ, was just comming in young and having never seen E-8's and E-9"s policing up pine cones or anything else, as AM stated. Only had been through Basic, AIT and Jump School... never witnessed that kind of thing to that point. As an E-5 in Tolz, every morning ( when we were around) we policed the football field. All of us :)
BTW.... checked out your website, especially the Tolz pics. Great site and great pics of Flint. Interesting thing...... The Quad was never flooded for ice skating when I was there. Too bad that was abandoned somewhere along the line.

NousDefionsDoc
01-01-2005, 09:18
First detail I ever did in Group was policing the officer's housing area with an E7 (P) just back from El Salvador where he was in it. Just the two of us. He told me stories while we picked up trash for two days. Nice and quiet and a good way to learn.

12B4S
01-01-2005, 21:29
First detail I ever did in Group was policing the officer's housing area with an E7 (P) just back from El Salvador where he was in it. Just the two of us. He told me stories while we picked up trash for two days. Nice and quiet and a good way to learn.

No doubt about it..... NDD

When I was assigned to my Team. Myself and another E5 I'd trained with were of course newbies along with our Team Capt. But, between the other 9 guys, there was a total of somewhere around 40 years of combat experience. Living and working as an A Team does, there was a never ending supply of real world experience to soak up.

brownapple
01-11-2005, 10:18
Myself and another E5 I'd trained with were of course newbies along with our Team Capt. But, between the other 9 guys, there was a total of somewhere around 40 years of combat experience. Living and working as an A Team does, there was a never ending supply of real world experience to soak up.

Imagine what it was like as a 1LT to go to a team as an XO, and the rest of the team had been together at least two years (and some had been together for 10).

Talk about being the newbie.... and the acknowledged expendible man...

QRQ 30
01-11-2005, 10:27
Imagine what it was like as a 1LT to go to a team as an XO, and the rest of the team had been together at least two years (and some had been together for 10).

Talk about being the newbie.... and the acknowledged expendible man...

Dayem!! So much rank? 2Lt xo's were common in the 10th in the early sixties and we had some team leaders. By the time ossifers made CPT> they had punched their tickets and were off to their Branch assignments. I remember once we were all sitting around bad mouthing our dumb ass CO when the Team Sergent came along. He said something that has stuck through all of these ages:

"Lt Fuzz may be a dumb, ignorant Lt. but he is the only team leader we have so we had better take care of him!!"

sandytroop
01-12-2005, 09:57
A very dear friend, curreently SGM with a Company at Bragg, had a great line about a Det Commander. This friend was a Team Sergeant with many years of experience; he and I actually met when we were kids in the Berlin Brigade, in 75 (the Cotton and Wool Army...). He went on to great things on active duty. His Team received a new CO, Captain, and this chap questioned my friend's policy of constantly over-riding his decisions. The captain says we're going to do X, Pappy says Y, and everyone does Y. So during a Team meeting of all places, the captain decides to clear the air. He just comes out and asks my pal what gives him the authority to over-ride a captain's decisions. Pappy says "sir, when were you born?" and the Captain gives a date. Pappy ponders this for a second, and smiles at the Captain and says "well sir, I was an E-4 when you WERE 4. That's what gives me the "authority".

Needless to say, everyone laughed, the captain put his hands up and capitulated. He and Pappy ended up getting along fameously, and remain good friends to this day as far as I know. That's how you build a Team, eh?

12B4S
01-14-2005, 22:49
Imagine what it was like as a 1LT to go to a team as an XO, and the rest of the team had been together at least two years (and some had been together for 10).

Talk about being the newbie.... and the acknowledged expendible man...

Ohhhhhh I think I can Greenhat, not exactly in your boots however. Our Capt. was one of us newbies
;)
Our XO (a 1 LT) had spent 6 to 8 years as an enlisted man before getting his commission.
Relating to sandytroop's post, our Capt listened to our Team Daddy and the others that had the experience, yet knew the final decisions and responsibilities were his. Good CO.......

TerribleTobyt
01-17-2005, 22:52
The day of infil to Cp Makall for PH I, we drew weapons, M-14s. This was July 69. When they got to the T's, the four of us (Tillman, Todd, Trask, CRS the other poor soT) got M-60s.

Went to Green Ramp, chuted up, flew in C-123, jumped into CM. 'Cuz the weather was CAT4, we dint road march, but trucked in. We ate c's for the evening meal, and I took the chiclets gum from the lil pack and stuck it in my mouth.

We formed up in Platoon formation; I was the 2nd squad leader. Chaos was all around, folks were dropped for push-ups, 1 guy was in the front leaning rest and talking to his buddy, who was in the dying cockroach-"Please lilcockroach, please don't die!"

But so far I'm relatively unscathed. Then Ranger Donald Melvin stood in front of me and said, real softly,"Son what're you doing chewing gum in my formation??" I started to swallow, and he reached up and grabbed me by the throat, still talking softly,"Son, donchu dare swallow that gum. Now I'm gonna let go of your throat, jes don't swallow that gum, unnerstand??" I nodded, and he let go of my throat.

"Ok, son', sez he"I wanchu to take that piece of gum outta yer mouth and put it on your nose. Then I wanchu ta pick up your 'chine gun, lift it over your head, and run around this formation, yelling as loud as you can'I love to chew chewing gum in formation', unnerstan??"

So I ran and ran yelling at the top of my lungs. Every so often, 'n=uther GB NCO would stop me to axt what I was doin, I'd tell em, and get dropped for pushups, the continue running.

At some point, those of us that hadn't quit were reformed and herded intoa class room, and thus began my Special Forces Odessey. Donald Melvin became on of my dearest freinds in CCC.

Thats my story,and I'm stickin tuit!!!!!!! ;)

sandytroop
01-18-2005, 11:08
I think I'll be chuckling about that comment for the rest of the week. Brilliant!

TerribleTobyt
01-19-2005, 20:07
I think I'll be chuckling about that comment for the rest of the week. Brilliant!

Every oncet inawhile, we could see the Berets walk off in small groups, have a great belly laugh over the chaos they had wrought, then returen to the fray.

'Course, we dint say anything about it!!! ;)

lksteve
01-25-2005, 14:08
most memorable part of the Q course? little johnnie jokes as told by Bucky Burress...that, and Charlie Beckwith's intro to Phase I...

CPTAUSRET
01-25-2005, 14:14
most memorable part of the Q course? little johnnie jokes as told by Bucky Burress...that, and Charlie Beckwith's intro to Phase I...

That sounds pretty memorable to me!

Terry

lksteve
01-25-2005, 14:15
That sounds pretty memorable to me!

Terry

just don't ask me what i remember about Ranger School...hallucinations, mostly...

QRQ 30
01-25-2005, 15:35
most memorable part of the Q course? little johnnie jokes as told by Bucky Burress...that, and Charlie Beckwith's intro to Phase I...

We must be contemporaries. Remember the one where Johnny says to Lucy: "I was just kidding about being three qualified."? :D

Razor
01-25-2005, 15:35
...and Charlie Beckwith's intro to Phase I...

Which would have been...

lksteve
01-25-2005, 15:36
We must be contemporaries. Remember the one where Johnny says to Lucy: "I was just kidding about being three qualified."? :D

NFW...you're waaaaaaay older than i am...Bucky was Phase III OIC in '76 when i went through... :p

lksteve
01-25-2005, 15:41
Which would have been...

a motivational talk...in so many words explaining to us that whether we made it or not was up to us, no one was going to try to run us out of the course, that we would quit on our own...and of course, while i barely remember specific, but he had some rather unique expressions, some of which i remember, although not in the context of that particular discourse...

several of us 'older' guys (from the 82nd and other places) looked at each other as if to ask 'what have i gotten myself into?'

QRQ 30
01-25-2005, 15:42
They must have passed them down the line. I remember we had at least one "Johnny" joke at the beginning of each class in MOI and Phase I. :D

My math is bad, I was thinking 94 - 20 was 64. Blush.

lksteve
01-25-2005, 15:43
My math is bad, I was thinking 94 - 20 was 64. Blush.

it is, for very small values of 94 or very large values of 20...

Pete
02-07-2005, 09:27
several of us 'older' guys (from the 82nd and other places) looked at each other as if to ask 'what have i gotten myself into?'


I was in Jump School in July of 74 with orders to go straight to Bragg for SF training. All told there was 6 of us going SF in the class.

The last jump was delayed 1 day due to weather so we got out of Benning one day late. There was about 30 guys on the bus and all but us 6 were going to the 82nd. We drove all night and got to the 82nd Repo Depot about 0600.

A sergeant came out of the building and took charge of the other guys and marched them off. He told the 6 of us to stand right there and somebody would come and pick us up. About 30 minutes later a short fat sergeant "Ranger Sledge" came by in a stake bed truck, said that we were late and took us to the training HQ. We were feed, inproccessed and issued field gear, given a packing list, told to pack by it and be out front at someting like 1400.

At the appointed time a 2 1/2 ton drove up and the driver said we were late and to get in the back of the truck. Everybody so far had said we were late when we thought we we early. The trucks back bow was broken and the canvas was flapping so it was hard to see out the back. All we could see were miles and miles of pine trees anyway. Man, we were in the middle of nowhere.

After a long trip the truck stopped and the driver told us to get out. We got out and he drove off. We found ourselves in the middle of a compound surounded by more pine trees. The habitations were mostly GP meddium tents, two large tar paper shacks and a few smaller shacks. Nobody else was in sight.

We were wondering just what we had gotten into when we heard shouting off in the distance that was getting louder. A large group of soldiers came running into the compound and over to the sawdust pit. There was a lot of shouting and then it got real quiet. The TACs had noticed us.

Within about 2 seconds the TACs pounced on us and tried their very best to make up for the 24 hours we had missed. We found out that the class had got out there the day before and that's why everybody had been saying "You're late".

For about the next 1 1/2 hours the TACs gave us their undivided attention while the rest of the class stood at ease in the sawdust pit. That night we were told that everybody in the class was damn glad to see us because they needed the break.

Of the 6 on the bus only 3 would make it to the end. That was better than the 118 total in the class that started. Only 34 would make it to the end.

rickmco
02-24-2005, 20:44
Before survival hiding smokes in the bumper of the field ambulance, then finding them when we were done, only a little soggy. They worked though. Watching an industrious troop bring out an ammo can of smokes to patrolling, and minimal food, thinking he was crazy, but then him trading 1 pack of smokes for 2 mre's after two days. BTW the rabbit story is true. The double amputation was performed by a member of my class. And of course the chemlites!!!

mcdude
03-14-2005, 23:00
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

I was an 18 y/o buck private, March 1982. Just graduated jump school about 2 weeks before.

We got off the cattle trucks at Mackall (80-pax, they were called-shoulda been called 120-pax!). I was scared outta my mind, as I should have been.

SSG Laydon yelling at me "Hey Wildman, were do you think you're going?!! Do pushups!"

The instructors told us to dump EVERYTHING, in 30 seconds, to do a shakedown. Of course, I had packed everything into plastic baggies, to waterproof, etc. I did 10 pushups for every bag unopened. SSG Clayburn (older black guy, had been an R.I. at Dahlonaga with MAJ Howard, I was told) found about 25 unopened bags. I was quaking in 10 minutes, and in muscle failure in 20, before we even did PT.

"Hit it!-touch that ruck".

The gates swinging open, and swinging closed as we went around for a "mind-fuck lap".

MAJ Howard smoking all of our asses at morning P.T., then going out on a run at noon. He came back, and smoked us in the hand-to-hand pits around 1900.

Being on the land nav course was great. They gave us three C-rats a day, We did our land nav, and the TACs left us alone.

I was the first to finish the day phase, along with J.C. Dxxxxx. I came cruising in, thinking that I had failed. I looked around, and saw J.C. sitting about 50 meters from the last point, doing the rucksack flop. I thought, "Oh great--I boloed". Turns out that I had did it in 4 hrs, and we had 5. I read the timer dial on my watch wrong. SGT J-ski, a former 1/75 Ranger, was my grader on Land-nav. He handed me my packet, and says "Good job, killer. Go over there, and wait for the night phase."

I remember the first time I heard the term 'illustrious'. It was how our senior TAC, SFC Sharp described SFC Miller. We were doing pre-jump for the jump into the survival FTX. Two of the best NCOs I have ever been trained by.

During the 12 miler, I stayed right eside our XO, CPT Kelly. I knew if I stayed with him, I would finish on time. 2:40, as I recall.

Our team sergeant (then-SSG Ballogg) had to go to a meeting, so SSG Barron was making jokes, in formation. Just as he finished telling a lewd joke, MAJ Howard appeared out of nowhere, (as he often did!), and chewed our asses about profanity.

And the worst fear....worrying about the duffle bag drag back to Bragg. "Attention in the compound...the bus to Ft. Bragg leaves in 5 minutes. All recycles and dropped personnel need to report to the TACs office ASAP." Fortunately, I didn't have to answer that call.

(edited for first names--PERSEC concerns)

12B4S
03-17-2005, 03:15
Have several, posted one or two. Some are not from my time in Phase 1, but as an "aggressor" for another class after Engineer training. Three weeks or so after "arriving" into/at Mackall, we were on patrol exercises. After being ambushed on a previous patrol one of the guys figured out that by peeling back the tape on the bottom of a smoke grenade, there is a small hollow chamber extending almost the length of the cannister, thickness of perhaps a Havana and 3 to 4 inches deep or so. Been a long time, anyway he took the blanks we were issued, popped the tops and filled the chamber in the smoke grenades with black powder and resealed the tape. Innovative,nicht wahr? Saw him do it. Thing was......... next patrol we were ambushed. He started hurling these things at the aggressors
:eek: Damn! A whole lot of color mixed with black smoke. however there was a tad of concussion mixed in. Some of the guys were deafish for awhile, a few scrapes/scratches. They didn't produce any shrapnel per se, other than the stuff on the ground. I did the aggressor thing later, was always prepared for that. I just know those guys wished to hell they had live rounds at that time. :) Did put a nice rip along the side of the cannister though. After a short, very short investigation by the instructors the guy was terminated.

The Reaper
03-17-2005, 08:24
I have heard that it was a good place for CS powder as well, back when it was still readily available.

One thing to remember about the smoke grenades is that there is zero delay on the fuze.

TR

QRQ 30
03-17-2005, 10:21
The details waiting fpr class. :rolleyes:

The smoke grenade stories remind me of one. IIRC the old NCO academy at Ft. Bragg had a night defensive position problem. It may have been someone else but we were assigned to probe the positions. I noticed a machine gun position. When the gun fired I couldn't see any muzzle flash so I determined that it was improperly placed behind the military crest. Note: I don't think I would do this with real live pop-up shoot back targets with live ammo. Determining that I could safely crawl to within grenade range of the gun I did so and launched a smoke grenade in the direction of the gun. Dayem!! I hit one of the crew right in the chest with the grenade and singed and scared the shit out of the crew!!. I stealthily withdrew just in case some one in authority didn't think it was the proper thing to do. :lifter

Viking
03-17-2005, 13:13
two things i remember the most:

Sept. 11, 2001. I was waiting for SUT to start. We were on a detail policing up trash around the barracks when someone stuck their head out the window of the dayroom and said a plane had hit one of the WTC. Oh, how the world changed.

The other memory is Robin Sage Infil. What a hump!!!!

Smokin Joe
03-17-2005, 13:21
two things i remember the most:

Sept. 11, 2001. I was waiting for SUT to start. We were on a detail policing up trash around the barracks when someone stuck their head out the window of the dayroom and said a plane had hit one of the WTC. Oh, how the world changed.

The other memory is Robin Sage Infil. What a hump!!!!

Wow, I'll bet that added a whole other element going through during 9/11.

Viking
03-17-2005, 13:28
once we started phase II (SUT), the only news we got was small tidbits on headline news when we ate in the messhall. during MOS phase, Anaconda was happening. I think we all payed a little more attention to things knowing we would be over there when done. I know I did.

TerribleTobyt
03-22-2005, 12:30
One evening I recall SFC Mo Worley, a TAC at CMK, Ph I, having duty NCO, and pulling a B&W TV the Tacs had in the Orderly Room to a window, so abunchuv us SF Wannabes could watch Neil Amrstrong land on the moon.

'Course, the next day, it was bidness as usual.

"Breaks over, back on yer haids!!!!!" :D

Toby-humper of the M-60 at CMK!!!!!

:lifter

wet dog
07-22-2010, 09:36
I remember the old fence line near the tar paper shack we lived in. Two weeks in Phase I, on a pre-scheduled date and time, (night), a rather large duffle bag flew over the fence full of new socks, smokes, beef jerky and all manner of non authorized items, that, if caught, would have been a removal from the course.

Can anyone speculate the effort it takes to distribute that amount of "stuff" before monring formation and remove the evidence? That in itself was a SF task.

Seems the Phase III officer/students who paid for all the grub remembered who would be on their teams one day.

I've always liked officers who knew when too and not too brake the rules.

mojaveman
07-22-2010, 10:55
It was pretty hot that summer 26 years ago when I attended SFQC 4-84 and we had quite a few heat casualities.

Pre-phase - On day one 3 Navy Seals showed up to our first formation wearing Rayban sunglases, Ocean Pacific shorts, and Vans sneakers.

Phase I - We had a Marine and a Soldier who were both about 5'3". They were paired off in the hand to hand pit and we then got to watch midget wrestling. Lost my USAF survival knife at night after walking through a thicket to get water during the 3 day survival exercise and ended up doing all of my tasks with only a folding pocket knife.

Phase II - Getting a bad lot of vintage 60mm mortar ammunition and firing a few short rounds on the range.

Phase III - Hiding in the basement of a church for nearly 72 hours while waiting out a bad summer storm. To prevent from going stir crazy we started to amuse ourselves in somewhat unorthadox ways.

The foreign officers were a lot of fun too.

1stindoor
07-22-2010, 11:03
What a fun read.
Brought back some memories as I watched a lot of things change over the years. I did SFAS (SFOT back then...in '88)...got to stay in those new barracks. A couple of months later I started Phase One...in the Tar Paper Shacks.

Having lunch brought out to you in mermites by Dragon Food Service. Nothing beats a salami sandwich that's been caved in by a mushy apple on a hot and humid summer day.

Being told that you had less than 5 minutes to find your duffle bag, be back in formation, and have it dumped out and ready to inspect.

18C4V
07-22-2010, 11:40
Some great reading here. For me it was:

1) Giving a planning bay oporder in SUT when 9-11 happened and SFC Tessar, my CTS (KIA OIF RIP) came in and told us that we're under attack. I was like WTF since SFC Tessar was always fucking with me (in a good way) since I was the only short tab NCO, in his squad and I was the class leader for B Co. Things changed for us for the rest of SUT.

2) In MOS portion, hearing Pappy yell at us on day 1, "look at your left and right, some of you guys will get killed in combat" Sure enough, RIP to my classmates and to SFC Synder (18C Instructor).

3) Robin Sage, 1lt Tomeny (RIP) and my Phase 2, and phase 3 classmate S.P. being shot in Robin Sage.

4) Graduation, seeing S.P. get up from his wheel chair and walk across the stage to a standing ovation to get his MOS orders. Also hearing General Boykin look at me and tell me"get ready to go to war", he said that to every guy who graduated that day.

5) Two weeks after SERE, I was doing PMT and went to OEF in 2002 as a senior 18C and my junior showed up two months later and he was in the SFQC class behind me.

Richard
07-22-2010, 12:46
Realizing how much more I had learned than I could have ever imagined going through SFTG...and then realizing how little I had learned as soon as I reported in to Group.

Richard

Mike
07-22-2010, 13:05
In 1967 we were treated in a relatively civilised manner, though a lot was expected of us. Most of us were babies, though, fresh out of jump school.
Two things stand out.
An early lecture on tattoos. They said some of us might end up in E Europe where a US tat would make a cover story improbable.
Few of us ever got one.

SFC Paul Villarosa, much liked commo instructor with previous VN tours.
He showed some of us his orders for another tour with a big grin on his face.
"Goin' back to SOG" he beamed.
None of us knew what that meant, but that it was somehow related to the dotted line around his neck.

http://www.macvsog.cc/aar_b36-jan_68.htm

mark46th
07-23-2010, 09:04
Cold. Hungry.
Beach telling me to let a guy drown, because he said he could swim.

Beach making us dig a 6X6 for a rat we killed in our tent and giving it a funeral.

Having to break up the ice in the creek so we could do the slide for life.

That night in the swamp, frozen to a tree watching 60 or 70 guys quit.

Realizing how goddam glad I was to be there.

Last hard class
07-23-2010, 10:37
Day 1:

We just arrive off the cattle cars and immediately are put in the front leaning rest position. We are told that we will not get up until 4 people quit.

And I’ll be gosh darned. Within 10 minutes there were 4 people lined up at the chapel doing the duffel bag drag. I think they actually left on the same cattle cars we arrived in. WTF? These people spent months preparing for this and quit within 10 minutes. 10 minutes! That set a tone.


Survival:

A hunter mistakenly shoots a doe who then runs up to a student and dies in front of his hooch. Instead of cutting off a hind quarter and passing it down the line he decides to bury the deer. Back at base camp he then tells the cadre. In front of the entire class, explaining Special Forces expectations, the cadre send him packing for being an idiot.

LHC

Richard
07-23-2010, 12:56
Mark and I were in the same Phase 1.

Beach telling me to let a guy drown, because he said he could swim.

IIRC - the guy was also toting the A6 at that time.

That night in the swamp, frozen to a tree watching 60 or 70 guys quit.

After over a week of cold, damp weather, it began to drizzle for a day or so and then sleet on us - I spent the night seated under a poncho atop my ruck to keep my a$$ out of the 6 or so inches of water we were in and try to keep my torso and weapon dry - my feet were in the water and numb - I was so cold I could barely speak while the TACs (Beach, Big O, Bear, Nails, Running Deer, Parker) came around all night long asking us if we wanted to go in - all we had to do was tell them we wanted to go in and they would take us back to our tent area for dry clothes and hot food - over 50% of the class took them up on it - I would've DIPed (Died In Place) before giving in - one of the coldest times of my entire life.

Realizing how goddam glad I was to be there.

Ditto!

And so it goes...;)

Richard :munchin

mark46th
07-23-2010, 22:35
Rich- The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...

Richard
07-24-2010, 09:29
Rich - The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...

The lot of being a BIG guy - they almost always got the A6/M60/MG1/PKM/MAG58/whatever to hump. ;)

I used to carry the A6 for our team on the runs around the airfield - the guy who humped it wasn't a very good runner and I hated humping it but it didn't bother me as much as it did him to run with the damn thing - didn't seem like there was all that much difference between carrying the A6 and the M14s to me...but that's probably just the folly of youth clouding a now fuzzy memory talking. :D

Richard

ZonieDiver
07-24-2010, 10:32
Rich- The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...
Phase I Stories from a FOG, cont'd
1) I volunteered to carry the A-6! (Someone told me you got to go to the front of the chow line - at the screened-in 'dining facility' where you got your C-rat from the immersion heater warmed water-filled trash can and then stood to eat it.). Cadre to me: "Where the F#%k do you think you're going. Get to the back of the line!). I rigged a sling for it out of an LBE shoulder harness and some parachute cord. (PS - I was far from a big guy: 5'9" and 150.)

2) Having all 300 rounds for said A-6 fired by the cadre who sneaked up on my watch partner on the first night of the field exercise. (I had to carry the A-6 and go 'bang, bang' from then on.)

3) Trying to sleep while sitting ON said ammo-less A-6 during an August downpour at 1 a.m. - leaning against a tree, covered by my poncho. You aren't wet until water streams down the crack of your ass!

4) Watching the class following ours arrive and conduct their rucksack shakedown inspection. (Name deleted upon request) was found to have a large pink flowered ladies hand mirror in his ruck. Mirrored glass was removed, parachute cord was tied to the handle, it was hung around his neck, and there it remained.

5) Witnessing SSG Jackie S. (the oldest, highest ranking guy in our class - by far) fail to follow instructions during the 'slide for life' by riding it to the end, having it jerk him up, and finishing with a half-gainer into Drowning Creek. We were all impressed. SSG Beach was not (at least not outwardly).

6) Coming back from the field problem on the last day and going to 'shower' (the nasty, rank 'shower point' had become inoperative on day 3 - we 'showered' at a water 'buffalo' using our steel pots). Four of us went to use the 'latrine' first (a wooden four-holer privy utilizing halved oil drums with diesel fuel). We returned to find the buffalo unoccupied, and began to 'shower' in our skivvies. The 1SG comes storming over screaming, "What'd I tell you! My wife could drive down that road!". His punishment for possibly exposing ourselves to passersby? We had to run back and forth over the cantonment in our skivvies, helmets (sans liner) on our heads, M-14's over our heads, barefoot - shouting, "I will not take a shower in the public" over and over "until he got tired"!

6) During Phase II, IMC training in Commo, upon finally attaining 12/10 only to have SFC Mayerle <sp> tell me that if I didn't reach 15/15 by the end of the week that he was going to "shove this hook (the prosthesis on his right arm, with which he could still send code waaaay fast) up your ass, and twist!" I didn't and neither did he, but he did recommend that I be recyled into Weapons.

Good times with good men - students and cadre (except the 1SG)!

tom kelly
07-25-2010, 02:30
On the day we finished what is Robin Sage, than it was the FTX of Branch Training we arrived back at Smoke Bomb Hill,Ft.Bragg @ 1:45PM and told to get into formation by Sgt. Bryan E. Grogan later 2ndLt. Grogan who was KIA on 07/05/1965 in Vietnam; Sgt Grogan told us the Good News, We had all earned the Green Beret and that approx. 1 hr. ago Pres. John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas, TX. The date was 11/22/1963...tom kelly

Richard
07-25-2010, 12:23
On the day we finished what is Robin Sage,...

Earlier versions of Robin Sage were called Water Moccasin, Cherokee Trail, and Gobblers Woods.

Richard :munchin

mark46th
07-25-2010, 21:35
At Robin Sage, do the instructors still rat you out to the bad guys so you get caught?

ZonieDiver
07-25-2010, 21:42
At the price of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? They were in a 'Honey Bee' offering to go get food from our 'safe house' - to which they had just 'shown up'!

mark46th
07-26-2010, 11:51
We had a Road Watch mission during Pase III- So my buddy and I set up in a cornfield to watch the intersection. The old farmer came out his back door with a double barreled shotgun, walking towards us. We put our hands up and told him what we were doing. He said no problem and invited us up to his front porch, which we politely declined. About 30 minutes later, his wife came out with hot home-made biscuits and Spam. The best meal I had ever eaten out in the field, the Spam tasted like Prime Rib....

x SF med
07-26-2010, 13:12
Phase 1 at MackKall, August 2003... Falling asleep at parade rest in a steaming hot Quonset... getting a minus 5 for falling asleep and a plus 10 for not breaking parade rest. A couple of days later, getting into a discussion with the "Bounced Czech" about Soviet political theory and the history of the Communist progression ... it baffled most of the class, even a majority of the officers...

finding out my bunny had a diseased liver.... and only getting a hand puppet, no food out of him.

Phase 3, second time around (don't ask, just think SF baby in a Ranger Team), Gator nicknaming me "piano" and another member of the board getting the ORP security detail while the other 3 of the 4 man team got chased by reinforced Scout Companies from the 82nd... and finally ran through the fire at an AF camp as the horn went off...

The Reaper
07-26-2010, 13:30
Phase 1 at MackKall, August 2003... Falling asleep at parade rest in a steaming hot Quonset... getting a minus 5 for falling asleep and a plus 10 for not breaking parade rest. A couple of days later, getting into a discussion with the "Bounced Czech" about Soviet political theory and the history of the Communist progression ... it baffled most of the class, even a majority of the officers...

finding out my bunny had a diseased liver.... and only getting a hand puppet, no food out of him.

Phase 3, second time around (don't ask, just think SF baby in a Ranger Team), Gator nicknaming me "piano" and another member of the board getting the ORP security detail while the other 3 of the 4 man team got chased by reinforced Scout Companies from the 82nd... and finally ran through the fire at an AF camp as the horn went off...

You went through Phase I in 2003?

Damn, what happened to you?

TR

Team Sergeant
07-26-2010, 20:17
Phase 1 at MackKall, August 2003... Falling asleep at parade rest in a steaming hot Quonset... getting a minus 5 for falling asleep and a plus 10 for not breaking parade rest. A couple of days later, getting into a discussion with the "Bounced Czech" about Soviet political theory and the history of the Communist progression ... it baffled most of the class, even a majority of the officers...

finding out my bunny had a diseased liver.... and only getting a hand puppet, no food out of him.
Phase 3, second time around (don't ask, just think SF baby in a Ranger Team), Gator nicknaming me "piano" and another member of the board getting the ORP security detail while the other 3 of the 4 man team got chased by reinforced Scout Companies from the 82nd... and finally ran through the fire at an AF camp as the horn went off...

At that point in training I would have eaten his liver with some fava beans......:munchin

Dozer523
07-26-2010, 20:34
Phase 3, for me, started on 1 NOV 1986.
My first favorite memory was my hooch-mate who was VERY EYE-talian. Looked just like Mario . . . only in BDU's. we called him Papa. We were snugged in our bags watching our breath by the light of a very bright moon when he hands me his earphones and Walkman. I listened to my first opera that night.

Second favorite memory was all of us sweating blood on the last mission because one of us students had to get a "go" on it to Tab. It was great to be part of that effort, because we all did it for our 'brother'.

Then there was the "Civil Affairs" project after ENDEX. We got trucked way farther out into the middle of nowhere to a little farm. we got to roof a pole barn. I found out what a pole barn was. I learned that when nailing corrugated metal you drive the nail through the top ridge, not the valley, or it leaks. I learned that it is really, really hard to drive a nail through the ridge of corrugated metal. I confirmed what I had already suspected -- pain is an exponential factor when unsuccessfully trying to hit a nail balanced on the ridge of corrugated metal. But, a sense of humor can survive even a black and blue thumb . . . now what is really funny is when the guy sitting next to you drops his hammer and it slides off the roof . . . . and then he tips over and follows it to the ground because he fell asleep in mid-swing.

(We finished just before Thanksgiving) After we finished the roof these people's extended family and neighbors showed up, pushed picnic tables together and laid out a Thanksgiving feast for us with everything. It was delicious. To this day, that sort of stands out as my standard for the "can it get better then this?" test.

alelks
07-26-2010, 20:39
Several things at Camp McKall.

1. The smell of the "Tincture of Benzoin" we used to put on our feet on a daily basis.

2. The tar paper shacks that were EXTREMELY cold in the winter.

3. Two wood fired heaters in each classroom and one in the latrine/shower.

4. The first few people got warm showers, everyone else got cold showers (in the winter).

Did I mention that it was so cold that we NEVER hit the obstacle course because it was always iced over and we broke ice to get into drowning creek for the slide for life and poncho raft exercise. We had quite a few voluntary withdrawals that day. It also snowed at night during our survival phase.

I got minor frostbite on my fingers and toes and all the way through Phase II of Weapons Training I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers.

Irish_Army01
07-27-2010, 03:56
Gentlemen..Many thanks for sharing your excellent stories with the rest of us!

greenberetTFS
07-27-2010, 05:51
deleted

Nick710
07-27-2010, 06:08
MAJ Howard ruck runs;

The wind howling through the tar paper hooches;

Breaking ice on Big Muddy for the slide for life and poncho rafting;

SFC Sharp screaming "This ain't Burger King, you're not getting it your way";

Saying Aye-Aye to LTjg Lauria (ya, a Navy SEAL, in the Q-course);

No showers;

These are a few memories, I went through Class 4-82, so it's been a while.

glebo
07-27-2010, 06:30
Hey Nick,

was that the class the African officer drowned on infil of PHIII??? That was my class, but I can't remember my class number....I think I may have been in 5-82, not sure. We graduated in Nov.

So many folks failed land nav they had to hold another class after ours, I got lucky and had land nav first, so my feet healed up pretty good before the patrolling block....lucky me.

Yup, tarpaper shacks, MAJ Howard death run/rucks, tincture of benzoine(sp?), blisters, blisters, and blisters.....did I mention blisters???:D

Chow wagon full of mermited chow once a day or so....

aahhhh, the good times. I'd do it all over again if I had to....

Richard
07-27-2010, 07:23
Was that the class the African officer drowned on infil of PHIII???

I was a Det Cdr in the 7th at that time and we had just returned from a trip to the SOUTHCOM AOR when we heard of that incident.

According to friends at SWCS, he was Liberian and landed fairly close (10-15') to the bank of a very small reservoir and drowned - they found him floating in his gear and the indications were he did nothing to try and get out of his equipment or try to get to shore. There were a couple of Liberians attending SFOC at the time and, according to the investigation, they were discovered to be animists and - in their case - fearful of water, believing there were spirits who would either take your soul or allow you to survive if you were in their world (water) - that it was of no value to struggle with them.

It sure caused Joe Lutz (JFKCMA CDR) and Gary Griggs and crew at SWCS to take a serious re-look at the foreign student program for attending SFOC/SFQC and was something we now took seriously as we were then undergoing a continuous rotation to/from Liberia.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

Nick710
07-27-2010, 07:55
Glebo.

My class graduated in July of 1982. The incident you mention was in the next class.

You mentioned the mermites, how could I forget those damn things, and what passed for food coming out of them.:mad:

glebo
07-27-2010, 09:22
That is absolutley correct Richard, I do remember he was a Liberian, he was also the guy that they had to pull out of drowning creek during the slide for life......shoulda been an "indicator" I guess.

I/we were told it was a bad spot by the JM on the PHIII infil which ended him up in the water. My buddy was one of the first ones to him to drag him out.

glebo
07-27-2010, 09:25
Nick, I guess you were the class just prior to mine. Richard explained the Liberian guy......

I guess it's pretty bad when ya look forward to LRPPS for chow....good 'ol iodined CMK water....mmmm...mmmm

I actually liked those meals, were pretty good actually.

Chili con carne, iodine water...mmmm... makes for some really good "gas"...if ya know what I mean:D:lifter

Nick710
07-27-2010, 10:16
Who could forget the LRPPS rations. I think I still might have one of those somewhere. I'll see if I can find it tonight when I go home.

CMK water? Did I miss something?

Richard
07-27-2010, 10:20
CMK water? Did I miss something?

Think about where Ph1 takes place. ;)

Richard :munchin

Richard
07-27-2010, 10:24
I/we were told it was a bad spot by the JM on the PHIII infil which ended him up in the water.

Yeah - bad spot...by the jumper - witnesses said the guy did nothing to control his canopy and ran with the wind straight into the water.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

glebo
07-27-2010, 10:33
CMK=Camp Mackall, new army abbreviation lingo:cool:

Nick710
07-27-2010, 14:23
CMK=Camp Mackall, new army abbreviation lingo:cool:


New-Fangled abbreviations. I guess you can easily tell the old-timers around here:confused::confused:

greenberetTFS
07-27-2010, 15:54
Realizing how much more I had learned than I could have ever imagined going through SFTG...and then realizing how little I had learned as soon as I reported in to Group.

Richard

How very true these words are...........:)

Big Teddy

alelks
07-27-2010, 17:59
I almost forgot.

1. In phase III one of the Small Planes resupplying one of the other teams going through our class crashed killing all aboard.

2. Also in Phase III Vick Allen dropped his weapon while crossing a river and had to dive for it for a period of time. Luckily he found it but he also got hypothermia and we had to build a HUGE fire. We felt sorry for Vick but we were VERY HAPPY with the fire. The flames on that fire were over 15 ft tall.

3. Our Guerrillas for phase III were all from C O S C O M and they didn't have rucks so they carried all their gear in duffel bags on their backs. With all the C-rations they sounded like they were a bunch of Gypsies going down the road with all their cookware hanging off the side of the wagon.

x SF med
07-29-2010, 09:26
Ah... the guy in my Ph I class (can't remember his name) who was 'ambushed' and had his compass, rifle, and magazines 'stolen' by the 'KKK Paramilitary', his story was on his 3rd point during day Land Nav some hunters waved him down for help then attacked him, tied him up (badly) and took the above items of military issue.... There were a few holes in his story... he still had his Randall, his Rolex and all his web gear, no bruises, no rope marks... CID got involved, the guy broke (he had hidden his gear to go back later to recover and sell it, even though his dad made Croessus look poor). He ended up in Leavenworth IIRC.

BMT (RIP)
07-29-2010, 14:50
Branch FTX we didn't have any aggressor forces.
The class was split between UW and CI, 1 UW "B" Tm and X number of "A" Tms and the same for the CI force.
The whole exercise was UW Tm against CI Tm.
Pisgah in Jan. was no cake walk!! ;-)

BMT

Richard
07-29-2010, 15:08
Pisgah in Jan. was no cake walk!!

I found Pisgah to be 'no cake walk' no matter what time of the year you were humpin' those effin' 'mole hills'!!! ;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

ZonieDiver
07-29-2010, 15:47
Phase I @ Mackall:
Eating our delicious C-Rations while standing in the lovely screened-in messhall as Mail Call began. Hearing my last name called, walking forward to collect my much desired letter, seeing some "newbie" from the class behind ours by two weeks grab it, and accosting him with "Give me my letter, As...ole!" After an "Oh, yeah - sez who" moment, seeing that the first name on the letter is Robert instead of Thomas, and meeting for the first time my "brother" Bob, with whom I'd go through most of the rest of the course.

Phase II - Weapons:
Having one of the TAC's come through H Company's barracks after evening chow on a Thursday night, asking if anyone knew how to play basketball and wanted to form a pick-up team that night to scrimmage against the JFK Center's "Gold" team (or maybe it was "Blue" - at any rate, the "2nd" team). H Company's CO, Captain Fox, was the coach.

Several of us volunteered. We barely had time to get our stuff and get to the gym, let alone practice. A pick-up squad of one TAC (SSG Holmes) and 7 trainees came within 3 points of beating them - humiliating Cpt Fox, whom no one liked anyway. (Of course he was better than the 1SG, whose name I cannot recall, who liked to gather us around the steps outside his office to talk to us - breaking us out of formation. When he talked, he sprayed spittle, and after the first one, everyone struggled NOT to be in front.)

Great times with great men!

mojaveman
07-29-2010, 17:17
A Cadre member in A Co. 1st Bn SWTG was found to be a poser. The students nicknamed him "JJ" because he bore a strong resemblance to a television sitcom character. He was originally from Division and somehow conned his way into SWC.

The entire experience of the SFQC was interesting but I'll have to say that the Phase II 11B range exercise was the most fun.

Hearing the operations order for the Son Tay raid by original members during Phase III was also a highlight of the Q Course.

Mr_PreScuba
07-30-2010, 03:46
Since I'd already spent 7 to 8 years of my life in the 'regular' army, submitting several applicatons for SFQC... only to get sidetracked by military bureaucrats, regulations, and/or procedures just to get to this point; I thought I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Boy, was I in for a wild ride...

Everytime that I applied for Special Forces, taken the APFT, Physical, etc... etc... etc... something would come up to prevent my getting a class date. The final straw was when I'd done my part and gone to the First Sergeant for the final go-a-head when he 'kindly' informed me that I was on levy for Germany... which nullified all the work that I had done up to that point. Three years later, since I knew when I was to RTB-CONUS so I reapplied and got accepted. When I checked on my class date, I found out that my new duty station was going to be Fort Knox. With all the prep and intel that I had gathered about Special Forces and the requisite training... I could not figure out what type of Special Forces training was done at Fort Knox. Thank the Lord for Mrs. Palmer because when I got authorization to call the SF Branch at DC and talked to her about the situation; she found out that my SFQC assignment had 'been buried' and new orders recut to send me to PSNCO school at Fort Knox... on the premise that it would be too late for me to change anything once I arrived there. Thanks to her, I was back on track for the SFQC.

Initial exposure to Phase I; Upon arrival at CMK... 30 seconds to go grab personal ruck from the pile, return to marked position in the formation area, proceed to transition from the position of attention to the front-leaning-rest; knock out pushups, and then return to position of attention... repeat as instructed by Cadre... However, while conducting this repetitious exercise, while waiting for the rest of my classmates to sort, find, and return with their respective duffle bags (mine just happened to be conspicuously marked for easy identification)... I pulled the lateral muscles in my lower back that run alongside the backbone... I remember tears in my eyes and gritting my teeth, as the pain rippled up and down my spine muscles... and this was within the first 15 minutes of arrival at CMK. I just remember thinking to myself that although I had ample justification for a medical recycle... there was no way in hell that I was going to go through this again. I asked one of the cadre for permission to go to the latrine, without informing him of the actual reason that I wanted to be alone for a few minutes, and tried to massage the pain running down my back to a bearable level... until one of them came to check up on me. To this day... I think he had his suspicions about my back pains, but he didn't say anything... for which I'm greatful.

Major Howard and his famous ruck/run evolutions. As long as you started (and stayed) within the first three to four rows... everything was usually OK. But I could never figure out why the middle and end rows couldn't keep up in a tight formation (accordian effect)... hence the 'hit it' command ringing out by the cadre. If I happened to start in the middle/rear of the pack, I found myself constantly running to keep up...

The other item was Major Howard's uncanny ability to single out individuals (by name in most cases) to get back into formation... without even looking back from his position as the pace guide.

The infamous 'puke run'... Beware of cadre bearing wonderful edible gifts of lots and lots of mermite containers of Chili-Mac, Corn, Salad, Bread and Butter, Cake, Milk, and Honey Buns. They brought so much that they announced that we could eat all that we wanted for dinner that evening... and that we were through for the day. Since we were very hungry... most of the students gladly accepted the offer of this magnificent feast. I guess I was more suspicious than most, because I held off stuffing myself but did stuff my cargo pockets with Honey Buns. When I went to the barracks for a short nap after that wonderful meal, and hiding my Honey Buns... I had just barely had time to close my eyes... when the cadre announced over the PA to form up outside in formation immediately. Then they proceeded to run us around CMK for the next hour until most of us puked our guts out... and I hadn't had as much as most of the other students. Then, to add to our misery, they ran us back into the compound through the front gate... past our barracks and formation area... and out the back gate... twice... Talk about psychological warfare. I think we lost six to eight students at that point because they just gave up. The cadre ran us around the compound back through the front gate the second time and finally stopped and dismissed us. I have loved Honey Buns ever since...

Hearing the song 'Another One Bites the Dust' by Queen... after Taps over the PA almost every night.

Land Nav Course - worried that I would bolo the course because I found the day course points with no problems... only to get cocky and blow the night course because the point that I had to find was one that I had run across during the day... only to spend all my time trying to locate it knowing that I was missing the stake by a few meters. NOTE: I was trying to follow instructions and find the point without using my flashlight... silly me. I had to re-test the next day by finding all the day points and the night point... I was one tired puppy that night... after running the course twice... but I passed.

We did have one notable 'incident' during the Land Nav Phase though. After we'd completed the day phase and were waiting for it to get dark to start the night test phase, several of us practiced knife throwing. There was a student named Byrd (I think) that was constantly sharpening his USAF survival knife every chance he got... almost to the point of obsession. He watched us for awhile, but declined to participate, as he continued to sharpen his knife. Well, we stopped and settled down to wait for dark and didn't notice that he'd gone into the bush. Next thing we know... there is a ruckus at the Cadre Hooch... and we hear a voice cry out "Oh, my God..." really loud. Seems as though Byrd had gone off into the brush to try his hand at knife throwing by himself... and the thrown knife had 'bounced' back and the sharpened edge had struck the bridge of his nose and almost cut his nose off. The voice was the on-site medic's positive verbal reinforcement upon seeing his new patient... or so the story goes. We never did see Byrd afterwards.

Graduating 150 students out of 306 at the end of Phase I.

More to follow...

Warrior-Mentor
07-30-2010, 04:04
Trek. Grandfather Mountain.

Sand Babies. (SFAS) extra special because our were watered down.

2018commo
08-01-2010, 06:20
Pre-Phase: PT: Long slow morning runs, always getting longer. Running through COSCOM 200 strong listening to the sound of boots and asphalt echo across the WWII Barracks. Later running across Ft Bragg to the pool, learning to swim. Receiving a class from a 5th Gp Medic on how to buy running shoes, the Army was changing, no more PT in leather boots. Classes during the day from 5th and 7th Groups, from land navigation to algebra. The ruck marches in the afternoon, the amazing motivation from SFC Weddell and SFC Warrem.
Phase I: Hearing that the TAC Craig M had left for other duty, he had previously recycled half of our class, most thought it was PSYOPS. Later hearing on the PA that the US had beat the USSR in hockey, more PSYOPS. 22 inches of snow during the FTX, extending our stay at CMK a few days.
Phase II: The code room ZZZZZZ, the legends’ teaching us the right way to do everything.
Pisgah, beautiful weather, and being visited by a bear. Later getting our first “No chit” briefing about the demise of Che.
Phase III The desertion of several G’s, recruited from CCF. Steve A, getting struck by lightning, and later graduating. Being handed my Beret by another legend.
Thirty years later I still identify the seasons as to where I was that year.

ODA CDR (RET)
12-04-2010, 07:43
we sleep in caves and ditch's, we wipe our ass with broken glass we're mean sons of bitch's. That was a good class motto. How about getting your low crawl pace count in Phase 1. I can't have been the only one that had fried chicken gizzards and beer watching the go-go girls for lunch at the Yntema Club during the weapons course.

Dusty
12-04-2010, 07:46
First ruck run with Bad Bob.

Many aspirants bounced the gate that evening. :boohoo

Snaquebite
12-04-2010, 07:51
First impressions are everything....

Reporting to the old headshed for night compound guard duty...(Phase I)

Knocking on the door and hearing a voice in the back somewhere saying "ENTER"

Walking in and seeing a wooden leg with a boot on it sitting on the SGM's desk.

SGM Parker hopping out of the back room on one leg saying "What the F*(& do you want?"

After reporting, being handed a baseball bat and told to get out....

UNFORGETABLE.

Dusty
12-04-2010, 07:58
First impressions are everything....

Reporting to the old headshed for night compound guard duty...(Phase I)

Knocking on the door and hearing a voice in the back somewhere saying "ENTER"

Walking in and seeing a wooden leg with a boot on it sitting on the SGM's desk.

SGM Parker hopping out of the back room on one leg saying "What the F*(& do you want?"

After reporting, being handed a baseball bat and told to get out....

UNFORGETABLE.

lol Carlos!

Remember the prank he pulled on the medic on the DZ with the leg and ketchup?

PRB
12-04-2010, 11:07
Col Howard...then Maj...rucking us to death and telling us hooah stories to pump us up, or down, depending lol

Combat Diver
12-04-2010, 12:42
84 time frame
Phase I- last of the C rats and beginning of the MREs
Phase II- during the Engineer FTX, reached down into the "inert" box of training aids, reassemble a M607 fuse to the M21 AT mine. T. Riccio was standing next to me and it detonitated in his hands. 3 of us got evac from MKC to Wolmack (driver got lost).
Phase III- MSG W. Adams "My sister is so ugly jokes", breaking my leg on the infil jump. Did the ruck to link up with Gs and 48 hrs later back at Wolmack thru the underground and xrays showed fractured tibula and getting medically recycled.

22 yrs later would be a Robin Sage instructor, used my 12 yo son as a G and decided to retire after the torch was passed to my 22 yo son (now a 18B3W7W3) My best moment then was during his teams infil, he was the number 1 jumper and I was his jumping jumpmaster on a night C-130 ramp Combat Equipment jump. Follow me........

CD

Dusty
12-04-2010, 12:51
84 time frame
Phase I- last of the C rats and beginning of the MREs
Phase II- during the Engineer FTX, reached down into the "inert" box of training aids, reassemble a M607 fuse to the M21 AT mine. T. Riccio was standing next to me and it detonitated in his hands. 3 of us got evac from MKC to Wolmack (driver got lost).
Phase III- MSG W. Adams "My sister is so ugly jokes", breaking my leg on the infil jump. Did the ruck to link up with Gs and 48 hrs later back at Wolmack thru the underground and xrays showed fractured tibula and getting medically recycled.

22 yrs later would be a Robin Sage instructor, used my 12 yo son as a G and decided to retire after the torch was passed to my 22 yo son (now a 18B3W7W3) My best moment then was during his teams infil, he was the number 1 jumper and I was his jumping jumpmaster on a night C-130 ramp Combat Equipment jump. Follow me........

CD

Now, that is priceless. :cool:

Combat Diver
12-04-2010, 14:05
Youngest son playing OPFOR this time and me.
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/Steven_and_Dad.JPG

On his brother, I don't have any pictures of actions in the aircraft, but here we are together with me rigging him up at Green Ramp!
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/925_Airborne_Op_014_resized.jpg

CD

ZonieDiver
12-04-2010, 20:54
CD,

That truly IS priceless! SF should be a 'family affair'! My son-in-law and I bandy about thoughts of his son, my grandson, being SF... but you have seen something close to that! Congrats! Here's to 'inter-generational' SF!

ZonieDiver
12-04-2010, 21:00
Today, I have gone through this thread from start to finish. To me, this thread exemplifies what SF is all about - one generation passing the torch to another. Some things have changed over the years, but one thing has not: the pursuit of excellence, or perhaps - the pursuit of those who pursue excellence.

wet dog
12-05-2010, 15:27
LTC Rowe, and Maj Howard in the dining facility, standing in line like everyone else, allowing students to "Go ahead, you eat first."

Sharing the barracks with only 6 other students in the whole building because, well, that's all that was left. We moved all un-needed bunks into another building, and making mini houses/caves/rooms out of wall lockers, lumber, ponch-liners, etc. Frig., for batteries and stuff.

ISG having the 6 report to his house to pour concrete and build a patio while he and his wife grilled streaks. Second home for laundry services.

Walking across the stage from right to left shaking hands, only to have the SGM ask me to stop by his office for a 'simple assignment'.

uplink5
12-05-2010, 16:57
When I was in AIMC classes, I was in what I think was the first BODY NAZI class. I don't remember all the cadre names but we had a medic named SFC Jordan. He was a huge Black fella who scared the hell out of me one morning when I started falling back during a ruck-run. Capt. Charters was running us up a sugar sand hill by the fairgrounds, I thought I was dying. All the sudden, “something" picked me up from behind and carried me to the top, ruck and all. When he set me down, he said, "fall back again and I'll stick this boot up your ass, and it won't be as fun a ride as you just got". I never fell back again. I realized later that Jordan was one of the nicest guys in the world but, I always refused to test him.

In PH1, we had an instructor named SFC Neptune; he was trying to demonstrate the proper techniques to accomplish "the Whopper", but couldn't climb the rope. Then out of nowhere, SFC Gallant jumps out from the wood line, and while calling Neptune everything but a child-of-god, demonstrates the Whopper for us, making it look quite easy. Of course, Neptune never did recover from this and another Cadre soon became our primary instructor. Perhaps the best teaching point was Neptune himself though because I knew, from then on, that I never wanted to be "THAT GUY". Years later when Gallant worked for me as a communications guy in one of the safe houses, he had quite the laugh over this.

In PH2, I had a family emergency and when I went to the CQ, (a SSG on admin. hold from the Q course) I told him that I needed to talk to the NCOIC, SFC Davis. The CQ refused to give me the number unless I told him what was going on. I told him it was none of his business then, one thing led to another, and I hit the SOB. 30 minutes later, while I was sulking on a pick-nick bench by the code room, I hear, "hey Wildman", it was Davis. I told him my issue and he informed me that it wasn't the end of the world but, the issue over me hitting the CQ might be. When we made it back to the CQ, Davis asked him what happened. The bonehead pretty much verified my version of things, and then Perry told him that he could press charges against me but he'd never graduate the course if he did. He never did. Since Davis went out to 1st GRP, I never did see him again but, to this day, I owe CSM (Ret) Davis a bottle of his choosing.

Finally, one of the proudest moments in my life was when I finished SFQC. Of the 310 studs who started, 68 ultimately finished I think, and though we still had a long ways to go once we got to our Groups, I knew I was ready. Of course, subsequent life and death events in 5th and 3rd GRPs, health concerns with cancer and other realities made my experiences from the SFQF seem so long ago. That said, I’d never have made it to where I am today, without having made it through the Q course first. It’s been one hell of a ride....jd

wet dog
12-05-2010, 17:16
When I was in AIMC classes, I was in what I think was the first BODY NAZI class. I don't remember all the cadre names but we had a medic named SFC Jordan. He was a huge Black fella who scared the hell out of me one morning when I started falling back during a ruck-run. Capt. Charters was running us up a sugar sand hill by the fairgrounds, I thought I was dying. All the sudden, “something" picked me up from behind and carried me to the top, ruck and all. When he set me down, he said, "fall back again and I'll stick this boot up your ass, and it won't be as fun a ride as you just got". I never fell back again. I realized later that Jordan was one of the nicest guys in the world but, I always refused to test him.

In PH1, we had an instructor named SFC Neptune; he was trying to demonstrate the proper techniques to accomplish "the Whopper", but couldn't climb the rope. Then out of nowhere, SFC Gallant jumps out from the wood line, and while calling Neptune everything but a child-of-god, demonstrates the Whopper for us, making it look quite easy. Of course, Neptune never did recover from this and another Cadre soon became our primary instructor. Perhaps the best teaching point was Neptune himself though because I knew, from then on, that I never wanted to be "THAT GUY". Years later when Gallant worked for me as a communications guy in one of the safe houses, he had quite the laugh over this.

In PH2, I had a family emergency and when I went to the CQ, (a SSG on admin. hold from the Q course) I told him that I needed to talk to the NCOIC, SFC Davis. The CQ refused to give me the number unless I told him what was going on. I told him it was none of his business then, one thing led to another, and I hit the SOB. 30 minutes later, while I was sulking on a pick-nick bench by the code room, I hear, "hey Wildman", it was Davis. I told him my issue and he informed me that it wasn't the end of the world but, the issue over me hitting the CQ might be. When we made it back to the CQ, Davis asked him what happened. The bonehead pretty much verified my version of things, and then Perry told him that he could press charges against me but he'd never graduate the course if he did. He never did. Since Davis went out to 1st GRP, I never did see him again but, to this day, I owe CSM (Ret) Davis a bottle of his choosing.

Finally, one of the proudest moments in my life was when I finished SFQC. Of the 310 studs who started, 68 ultimately finished I think, and though we still had a long ways to go once we got to our Groups, I knew I was ready. Of course, subsequent life and death events in 5th and 3rd GRPs, health concerns with cancer and other realities made my experiences from the SFQF seem so long ago. That said, I’d never have made it to where I am today, without having made it through the Q course first. It’s been one hell of a ride....jd

Davis was the Sr. TAC. Jordan, as I remember was an SSG, who had recently finished CDQC, his nick name was "The Lung". He was also known for doing endless flutter kicks. One morning, while in PT formation, he exceeded 200 flutter-kicks in a four count exercise. Davis, who also in PT formation, breaks rank, walks up to Jordan lying on the ground singing, "One, Two, Three,...", (count). Davis slaps him on his head and shouts, "Wake up!!!".

JD - PM in bound.

mac21
12-06-2010, 13:42
The gunfight in the middle of a highly travelled road at mid-day in sage. Pouring down rain and freezing, all from the back of a manure spreading truck.

Buffalobob
12-06-2010, 16:58
It would probably have been January – March of 1970. During SFOC FTX, it was discovered by my classmates that I actually knew how to travel through the woods at night without getting lost. So it seemed every night I was being asked to run point on the patrols and ambushes. After four or five nights of little to no sleep, we were moving from one TAC location to another at night. It was important to the designated candidate CO that we get there on time and without incident so I was asked to volunteer to run point yet again. As is often the case at Bragg, it was cloudy and pitch dark and all I could see was the needle of my compass. The guy running slack was also keeping the 100s count on my pace as I would call it out. Well about midnight or a little later, I woke up flat on my back. I had gone to sleep while walking and walked right into a big oak tree and gotten knocked out (or down). Fortunately, the compass was tied to my shirt so I didn’t lose it and the pace guy had an idea of about how much time had elapsed since the last 100. So, I got back up and headed out again and we hit the road about 50 yards off course and went downhill to the bridge and crossed it, entered the woods and 200 meters later were at our destination.

So that’s what I remember -going to sleep while walking and waking up flat on my back with scrapes on my forehead.

ZonieDiver
12-07-2010, 23:48
Today, I have gone through this thread from start to finish. To me, this thread exemplifies what SF is all about - one generation passing the torch to another. Some things have changed over the years, but one thing has not: the pursuit of excellence, or perhaps - the pursuit of those who pursue excellence.

As a result of this thread, I contacted my "Brother" Bob! I had tried it before, unsucessfullly. Facebook made it easy. The years faded quickly. Thanks to PS.com, I re-established comms with a part of my life that had been pushed aside. Thanks...

hodgecc
03-05-2011, 17:00
Whoever wrote Item #4 about SSG Chris Hodge and the bogus "mirror story" apparently has a faulty memory or somewhat less than a true Professional to have writen this. I am "that" (Chris Hodge Retired CSM). I was the class leader for my class and never had a mirror nor had one around my neck. So whomever wrote this little bit of garbage needs to retract it and apologize to me.
CSM Chris Hodge (retired) Camp McCall Sep-Oct 1971

hodgecc
03-05-2011, 17:12
If your are still out there and read this stuff I have a FLASH for you!

I am CSM Chris Hodge Retired and I don't appreciate the made-up story about Phase I and the mirror. You obviously have a bad memory and need to get your facts straight before you slander another SF professional if you truly are a professional. You need to remove ite#4 from your so-called memories and you owe me an apoligy now.

CSM Chris Hodge (Ret)

Ambush Master
03-05-2011, 18:08
Whoever wrote Item #4 about SSG Chris Hodge and the bogus "mirror story" apparently has a faulty memory or somewhat less than a true Professional to have writen this. I am "that" (Chris Hodge Retired CSM). I was the class leader for my class and never had a mirror nor had one around my neck. So whomever wrote this little bit of garbage needs to retract it and apologize to me.
CSM Chris Hodge (retired) Camp McCall Sep-Oct 1971

HEY!!

This Thead has OVER 100 posts on it!! Exactly what Post # are you referring to?!?!

Some of us other FOGS really don't feel like going on Easter Egg hunts a couple of months early!!

Later
Martin

Richard
03-05-2011, 18:17
Martin,

He's referring to Post #90 - the rucksack shakedown mentioned in item #4.

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=340459&postcount=90

Richard

The Reaper
03-05-2011, 19:04
If your are still out there and read this stuff I have a FLASH for you!

I am CSM Chris Hodge Retired and I don't appreciate the made-up story about Phase I and the mirror. You obviously have a bad memory and need to get your facts straight before you slander another SF professional if you truly are a professional. You need to remove ite#4 from your so-called memories and you owe me an apoligy now.

CSM Chris Hodge (Ret)

CSM Hodge:

Welcome to PS.com.

No need to post the same challenge twice in 12 minutes. After all the story has been up this long, it isn't going anywhere, nor is ZD.

In the interim, you might want to review the stickies and board rules and introduce yourself while you are waiting.

Incidentally, everyone here with Quiet Professional after their name has been vetted as SF. If you want to be vetted as well, just follow the instructions.

Enjoy your visit.

TR

Pete
03-05-2011, 19:46
Glad to see somebody who spent a long time in SF never did anything stupid that others could poke fun at him about.

Hmmm, no intro, no bio and a slap at another the first and second post out of the gate.

CSM don't you think you could have handled things here with a little more tact?

Doc Diego
03-06-2011, 00:13
Phase 1 Jan 84 0200 hrs breaking the rubber knives in the saw dust pit doing hand to hand. Our half of the class crossing Drowning Creek with poncho rafts after the instructors broke through the ice.

Team Sergeant
03-06-2011, 12:45
Glad to see somebody who spent a long time in SF never did anything stupid that others could poke fun at him about.

Hmmm, no intro, no bio and a slap at another the first and second post out of the gate.

CSM don't you think you could have handled things here with a little more tact?

And no sense of humor......

Having now read that it's hard to believe it was "made up"...:D

SF_BHT
03-06-2011, 16:50
And no sense of humor......

Having now read that it's hard to believe it was "made up"...:D

TS

Sounds funny - it might have hit a nerve?

ZD has a pretty good memory...... Who cares and who does not have a funny story about them hiding in their past.

Hell it was in the 70's, time to laugh and drink a cold one eithor way.....:munchin

Pete

Is there not a sticky that sayes CSM's go to the front of the line and do not have to follow board procedures..... :D;)

bigsunbum
03-06-2011, 20:43
Strange the things you remember. I can still feel today, almost 20 years later, the feeling of road crossings gone bad - over and over.

Coming up on the linear danger area, stepping off those high banks, going ass over tea kettle. And my favorite, the frame on the green tick crashing into the back of the head like being hit with a lead pipe, driving my face into that soft sand. Of course getting a mouthful. But being quiet about it the whole time. It happened a lot. LOL. :lifter

I can also remember always being in a hurry for everything. Never having enough time. But I can also remember laughing a lot. At myself, at my buds, at the instructors, at the cold and wet. Felt good to be at home.

I remember leaving the 91B area and walking up to 300F-1. Walking into the SOCAS barracks and smelling the stink of sweaty gear and the sweet smell of gun oil. Seeing rucks and web gear hanging from every bunk. Not laid out, hanging to dry. Well worn kit. Not like the antispetic 91B barracks. Home.

Rocky Farr walking through at 0700 on Saturday mornings gathering up people to assist with an autopsy - looking for the most hung over to make them puke if he could. Pieces/Parts class.

Oral boards, trying to stay awake in class. Former Marine knocking me out of my chair in RS class for dozing after I asked him to "do whatever it takes to keep me awake." Then me doing him the same favor the next day.

Inge Jansen and his British accent, "Sergeant, are you still killing your patients?"
"Roger that Sergeant!"
"Carry on then."

Major Howard walking up to the formation and "asking" the TAC if he could join us for a "little walk". And thinking, "I'm actually rucking with a legend."

Reporting to Colonel Rowe and thinking, "I'm actually saluting a legend."

Mr. Hollingsworth and Jansen letting me think I failed trauma clinic all afternoon long, and then laughing at me and buying the beer.

Meeting The Reaper for the first time and being amazed that all he could worry about was his car. LOL

And finally, Froglegz picking me up at Battalion and his "briefing."

slide for life in Dec will always be in my memory and its been over 40 years ago!! Damn I'm OLD! :(

ZonieDiver
03-07-2011, 20:12
Glad to see somebody who spent a long time in SF never did anything stupid that others could poke fun at him about.

Hmmm, no intro, no bio and a slap at another the first and second post out of the gate.

CSM don't you think you could have handled things here with a little more tact?

PS.com Brothers,

Nothing ruins a good story like facts! I am sure if the story (which I assure you did happen) had happened to CSM Hodge, he would remember. At the time, I didn't know then SSG Hodge, but he was the one that someone ID'ed as the unlucky individual.

I have PM'ed CSM Hodge and apologized for the misinformation, as well as deleting his name from that part of the post. I would not want that story to color his membership in our website, as I am sure he will have a lot to add.

Thanks...

CSB
03-08-2011, 00:12
What do you remember most about the Q Course/Training Group?

1 - Major Budge Williams as our Class Tac Officer. He and us student officers would be drinking beer in Moon Hall until closing, then he would lead us out on long runs the next day. I didn't know his history then, he was smart, very SF, and made Major after his return from the incident, so was surprised that he never made Lieutenant Colonel and had to leave the Army. It probably didn't help that he groused on occasion that his silenced pistol was now residing in the MP museum at Ft. McClellen.

2 - The gratuitous distribution of demolition materials, including a ruck full of 1/4 lb blocks of TNT for "noisemakers" during Robin Sage. No signature, no accountability, we just passed them around, rigged them with blasting caps and "made noise." Had one go off about five feet away from my left ear, which made it about three feet from my G's left ear. He was bleeding from the ear. Hope he got some disability from it.

3 - The obstacle course at Camp Mackall. It didn't have a name then. It did have concertina wire under the obstacles. You really didn't want to fall.

4 - The delicious goat.

5 - Our first jump from Combat Talon, wondering what exactly was behind the curtains.

6 - "Chargin' Charlie Beckwith" popping up at any time during the course to tell a story about "ma' patchy-pants guerillas ... in Laos ... in White Star ...".

7 - The overall "if you break your leg, don't come running to me" attitude about training and operations. Other than the minimums needed to pass a standard JMPI, you rigged your ruck the way you wanted to rig your ruck. Same on the range, where about the only rules were you shoot it, you clean it, and you shoot it, you load the damn thumb busting magazines. Exception: the demo range, where they were super strict over electric systems, we weren't even allowed to have electric wristwatches on the range. Still a lot of bad memories of the ring main that went off in the hands of a team.

Bait
03-13-2011, 12:07
- While waiting for Phase I we were sent to the 82d Recondo School area for fun and games; in December. We had to do the 40 foot rope drop.. after they chopped a hole in the ice. We were told "Don't yell anything before you fall". Of course that meant I had to yell "Airborne" as soon as I received permission to drop. Unfortunately, I had my hands turned wrong and did a 40 foot belly slap onto the water and busted my lips and nose. The blood had frozen to my face and my clothes were frozen by the time I made it to the Senior Tac for my a-chewing and was immediately sent back up to do it again.. correctly.

- Falling asleep in class during Phase I and the TACs making me run laps around the building and doing a rope climb after each lap during every break for the rest of the course.

- Having tincture of benzoin injected into my blisters.

- Daily ruck marches around the Camp McCall Airfield.

- "Pilot Course" Phase I and being alone in Uwharrie for several days doing timed cross country night movements from Point A to Point B (I was 19) humping a full ruck, LBE, and weapon, and the entire time more worried to death I was going to fail than anything else. The TAC checked with you at the end point of each leg, annotated your time, checked your ruck contents, and then came back that evening and gave you your next leg and time hack for that coming night.

The Reaper
03-13-2011, 12:50
- Having tincture of benzoin injected into my blisters.



Yeah, that will tighten your ass up, won't it?:D

TR

Dusty
03-13-2011, 13:46
Burning down my hooch with 1 day of Survival left.:mad:

Losing my map (dummy cord pulled out) on Land Nav, going back and finding it, and running so fast to the next checkpoint my ruck messed up my kidneys so bad I pissed blood and had to go to the TMC for a needless finger wave.:mad:

Getting a "No-Go" on my first mission in Patrolling because I set up a dangerous support field of fire, then basically having to do nothing on my subsequent Recon mission because my buddies did it all for me. :cool:

Gaining weight during Patrolling and getting the nickname "Earth Pig".:cool:

Stras
03-13-2011, 15:07
swimming bones fork creek enroute to my last point.. realizing that I didn't have my map after my swim, and being less than 200m from my last point.

Yep, "N" is for Nowledge, I did the Ranger thang with the shortest distance between 2 points.. Got me a 2nd chance at Star....

2nd time. couldn't figure out why I kept drifting to one side on my last couple of points. Finally at the end, with my boots and socks off airing my feet. Someone asked when I lost my boot heel. I was walking fine until then, but then felt like a cripple when I tried to walk to the truck for exfil.

If I remember nothing else, its the Cadre saying "Don't Swim Bones Fork"!!!! But what did they know??

kgoerz
03-13-2011, 15:23
The Weapons Instructor having an AD with the guard weapon in the Classroom. Only a couple of us were in the room. Round went right thru a desk where someone was sitting. We were told to keep our mouths shut.

Dusty
03-13-2011, 15:56
The Weapons Instructor having an AD with the guard weapon in the Classroom. Only a couple of us were in the room. Round went right thru a desk where someone was sitting. We were told to keep our mouths shut.

Is that the one where the guy got a cement fragment in his eye?
'Cause I was told later the same instructor put three bullets in his foot with an MP5K.

kgoerz
03-13-2011, 16:14
I not sure I remember someone getting hurt. But we were taken out of there pretty quick. I don't want to name anyone if I haven't already.

Team Sergeant
03-13-2011, 19:48
Burning down my hooch with 1 day of Survival left.

Losing my map (dummy cord pulled out) on Land Nav, going back and finding it, and running so fast to the next checkpoint my ruck messed up my kidneys so bad I pissed blood and had to go to the TMC for a needless finger wave.

Getting a "No-Go" on my first mission in Patrolling because I set up a dangerous support field of fire, then basically having to do nothing on my subsequent Recon mission because my buddies did it all for me.

Gaining weight during Patrolling and getting the nickname "Earth Pig".:cool:

Burning down my hooch with 1 day of Survival left.:mad:

LOL, were you in my class?

We had a CPT burn more than his hooch, he also burned his sleeping bag and a few other things and it was January......;)

The Reaper
03-13-2011, 19:53
A guy in my class did the same thing.

Funny thing was, he tried to blame it on the Klan. :D

TR

Stras
03-13-2011, 21:43
Watching a M1919A6 cook off, and take out one of the students.

Kinda weird, he was trying to put the flash suppressor back on the weapon, after another student had cleared the weapon.

At one point the barrel was in his chest area, but had moved off to an angle while trying to put it back on.

As soon as the cadre asked of the gun was cleared, it cooked off.

Really Bad Day. Luckily Rob is still with us.

Dusty
03-14-2011, 04:35
Burning down my hooch with 1 day of Survival left.:mad:

LOL, were you in my class?

We had a CPT burn more than his hooch, he also burned his sleeping bag and a few other things and it was January......;)

I used up so much pine straw my A.O. looked like the moon. :D

1stindoor
03-14-2011, 09:35
Since we're now telling on ourselves...

Falling asleep during Phase III and having my rifle taken from my hands while I layed in my defensive position, then being woken up and told to report to the TAC with my rifle...which had been replaced with a stick!:(

BTW...I still had a good prone firing position complete with cheek weld.

Richard
03-14-2011, 09:55
Falling asleep during Phase III and having my rifle taken from my hands while I layed in my defensive position, then being woken up and told to report to the TAC with my rifle...which had been replaced with a stick!

With the M14s, the TACs would simply unlock and take the trigger housing group so that the trainee would awake - often due to a grenade or artillery simulator going off and your patrol having to employ their IAD - and find himself stuck smack dab in the middle of a simulated firefight with a rifle which could not be fired.

Having to go ask a TAC like Bear Martin or the Big O or George Beach for your trigger housing group was a fearful task and, if you were lucky enough to not be dropped from the course, a painful one to boot.

Richard :munchin

1stindoor
03-14-2011, 10:40
... if you were lucky enough to not be dropped from the course, a painful one to boot.

Richard :munchin

I got the opportunity to dig my own grave...six foot deep no less, had to be wide enough and long enough to fit a normal coffin. The "second offense" ...if there was one...was to dig them for your entire patrol.:eek:

mojaveman
03-14-2011, 22:08
During the patrolling portion of Phase I I was so tired after walking all night that when we halted at about noon to eat I leaned back against my ruck, pulled a light weight poncho over my head and slept like a log in a driving rain. Woke up about an hour later and was completely soaked.

Mosby Raider
03-15-2011, 06:33
I started in April, and graduated in September 1973.

Phase I:
Tony Edgerton throwing grenade simulators at us because we were too slow getting off the objective.
Having dysentary and being so tired I shit my pants in my sleep during the patrolling phase.
Carlos Parker for getting around pretty good on his prosthesis, Dutch Wirenga for running us til our tongues were hanging and he was barely breaking a sweat, and Richmond Nail for well, being Richmond Nail.

Phase II:
Weekday evening and Saturday morning remedial code sessions.
Being recycled for not being 15/15.
Starting Phase II commo again, the commo committee realizing we didn't have enough students, and going on to Phase III and going back to Phase II upon completion of Phase III.
Making 18/18 in the recycled Phase II.
Going to Pisgah for the commo FTX with a three man team and carrying an AN/GRC-109 complete with hand crank generator G-76/G, AN/PRC-77, and AN/PRC-74.
Not being able to decrypt a BTB and recover our cache, which contained our c-ratons for the next couple of days.
Linville Gorge
SFC Squires who was hard but fair.

Phase III:
Being chased out of an old shed by two copperheads with serious territory issues.
Cigarettes still being in C-rations and feeling real lucky by getting Marlboros instead of Chesterfield Kings or Bel Airs.
Having to go back to Phase II commo.

Not attending graduation because I was National Guard and my orders ran out two days before the ceremony.

Tress
04-24-2011, 21:20
These are just the things that immediately come to mind:

Phase 1:
The incident with 20 or so guys leaving the team survival area at night and going to the nearest town to pan-handle for food and then getting caught by Maj. Howard.

At Drowning Creek just after finishing the Slide-for-Life, freezing our butts off and then being told that President Reagan had just been shot. We warmed up real fast.

Escaping from Camp McKall, walking to the railroad tracks, hanging a left and following said tracks until they met with civilization and, low and behold, the first building that we come to is a bar. I think one of the guys with me, Tom G., knew about the bar in advance. We entered and it was like the road trip scene from Animal House. It was pure kismet that the juke box had just ended its last song, nothing but silence, we were the only white guys in the place and everyone was staring at us. We asked for a six-pack to go and they told us that they only sold to-go beer in cases. Who were we to argue? It was a damned good thing that we had lots of money and were smart enough to bring an empty rucksack. Hoofed it on back to camp, made sure we were not missed and then grabbed the rest of the team and went behind the shower point and drank. Damn good tasting beer, whatever brand it was.

Portions of the Land-Nav area having recently suffered from a brush fire. It was a little difficult trying to tell if that thing ahead of you in the woods was the Land-Nav stake that I was looking for or a burned up scrub oak. Sometimes you could be right next to the damned stake and not see it for 10 to 15 minutes.
On my back to camp during Night Land-Nav after finding my last point and walking into some guy sitting in the brush, crying, because he could not find his first point. Luckily for him it was a point that I had during the day portion and he was about 50 meters away from it. Pointed him in the right direction, but as it turns out that was the only point he ever found during night Land-Nav.

Jim K., the nearest guy to me during individual survival, got a chicken. I got a rabbit. Woke the next morning to find chicken feathers all around my camp site. It seems that Jim K. plucked his chicken instead of skinning it. The wind blew just right from Jim’s campsite into mine. I kept that rabbit skin as proof that I had a rabbit and not a chicken.

Phase 2
Going out drinking with one of the Barracks TACs one evening, SFC Dave S. down at Hay Street. Hooked up with some willing young lady that he knew. We went to her place, wandered up to her bedroom, and she told me that she would be back in a moment as she walked into the bathroom. Me, being an eager young SF wannabe, shucked off my clothes, climbed into bed and waited. A moment or two later the bathroom door opens and there she stands backlit by the bathroom light. I could tell that she was not naked yet but from what I could see, what she did have on looked weird in silhouette. Just then her arm reared back and then forward quickly and I heard the crack of a whip. Needless to say, my heart just was not in it anymore and I bolted. I grabbed my clothes hit the stairs tripped over her cat and flew down the stairs head first. I twisted the snot out of my left ankle which immediately swelled up like a balloon. It was so bad she had to drive my car back to the barracks as I could not step down on the clutch. Some of the medics-in-trainign took care of my ankle for the night. The next morning I limped downstairs for formation and Capt. Jon Bon. asked what had happened to me. I told him that I had to go to the TMC and that his TAC SGT would be explaining this one to him. Took a while to live that one down.

IMC, run by SFC Phil B. The little short black guy that looked like he was also half Chinese. One day he got in front of the formation and started ranting about something. After some moans and groans he said something like, “You can call me a son of a bitch if you want, but you better not call me a Chink or N@$#%$#, the “N” word. “ So as I stood in the back of the formation in my mind I combined “Chink” and “the N word” and asked him if we could call him a “Chigger”. Half the class wet their pants laughing and I got extra tri-graph homework that evening.

Watching Gerry H. (a reservist from Florida) experience snow for the first time in his life atop Bee Mountain. He was pretty happy about it for awhile, but when the snow reached 10 inches or so the happiness disappeared and he just wanted, “ this shit to stop!” I read a long time ago that Gerry eventually was bitten by an alligator during an alligator wrestling show. He may have even lost an arm or some other appendage from the incident, IIRC.

Myself, Ron H. (a 5th GP guy cross-training, who I heard later died in a diving accident) and Hoot (Yes, the real, the one and only Hoot) breaking through the ice covering the creek at the base of Bee Mountain so that we could take some kind of bath. Man, that water was cold. Hoot even cracked about maybe tying a piece of parachute cord to his crank so that when he got done bathing and needed to pee he just needed to pull on the cord to see his crank again.


Phase 3
Being told by the instructor, Rambo, that we would always be at 50% security so we only needed to bring half of our sleeping bags for the field portion of the exercise and that we should buddy up with someone to share. I was an 18E, there were not enough Demo guys to go around and my team was left without one, so I was made the honorary Demo man. I was handed this freaking 25 lb. anti-tank mine and told that we needed it. I packed it and just before we loaded onto the A/C Rambo asked me why my ruck was so small. I told him that I was carrying the mine and no sleeping bag because I was going to share with Jim Van C. He then asked me what I would be sleeping in during admin time. I asked him what in the hell admin time was and how often we would be experiencing that. I froze my ass off in February, out in Uwharrie with nothing more than a poncho liner. On one really cold night I was just chattering away and Jim Van C. could not stand it anymore. He unzipped his bag and told me to get in. We crawled in back to back, zipped it up as far as we could and then used the poncho liner to cover up what would not close to keep the cold out as best we could. It was a damn good thing that he was skinny. That was the only full night of sleep that I got in the field during Phase 3. Thanks for sharing Jim. I owe you my life.

Ranger Ziggy popping a parachute flare from under a tree. The flare hit a big branch and bounced back nearly hitting everyone in the support element. Also started a small fire that had to be put out by the instructors. That cost Ziggy some points.

Last hard class
04-30-2011, 11:01
Came back from survival on Thanksgiving. Not having eaten my chicken because it had a black tumor the size of a small orange, I was a tad hungry. Received a turkey loaf C-rat. Ate it in two minutes, puked it back about two minutes later.

Gotta love the holidays.


LHC

Dusty
04-30-2011, 13:30
Came back from survival on Thanksgiving. Not having eaten my chicken because it had a black tumor the size of a small orange, I was a tad hungry. Received a turkey loaf C-rat. Ate it in two minutes, puked it back about two minutes later.

Gotta love the holidays.


LHC

I'd rather eat chicken tumors than turkey loaf C-rations. :D

naccout
05-05-2011, 23:35
Took me about the entire night to read this thread. Great stories, thank you for sharing.

S1X
05-07-2011, 02:33
I remember our SUT platoon ops getting canked because we had to search for the missing SERE instructor. We did find the body with a bullet hole in him.....

glebo
05-07-2011, 04:42
Mornin' S1X, when did this happen?? I don't recall that....'course...was probably "on the road again" as usual.

Lotsa creepy stuff happens out around them parts..

S1X
05-07-2011, 06:15
It was late 1992 or early 1993. I just remember humping the back 40-4-ever. If I recall , the RUMINT was he was shot by a jealous husband/boyfriend. Apparently he was rucking for PT on his own, found in a shallow body of water with rocks in his ruck.

glebo
05-07-2011, 07:54
It was late 1992 or early 1993. I just remember humping the back 40-4-ever. If I recall , the RUMINT was he was shot by a jealous husband/boyfriend. Apparently he was rucking for PT on his own, found in a shallow body of water with rocks in his ruck.


AAhhh, I do remember now that you mentioned it. Yeah, gotta watch out for them husbands....and sneaky SF guys:eek: damn horny goats..

Have a great Colorado day..:D

S1X
05-07-2011, 14:56
Thanks Brother Glebo! I'm still working an E and E to get your way for brew! Take care.

Cheers,
Thomas

wet dog
06-28-2011, 20:35
I was looking for more information on CM, but not wanting to start another thread, thought this one would do.

From a internet search, a 2007 posting,...

maybe others can add to the details.

--------BT-----------

http://www.shadowspear.com/vb/threads/uncovering-the-history-of-camp-mackall.1689/

The story of Camp Mackall is one of parachutists before the Army used airborne soldiers, of German prisoners of war and of Special Forces soldiers training for secretive missions.

It’s a story not easy to uncover, because old buildings at Camp Mackall have been razed, records have been destroyed and the veterans who served there are scattered around the country.
Still, the Army Special Operations Command history office is trying.

Since September, historian Gene Piasecki, of the USASOC history office, has been collecting documents, photographs and maps and interviewing veterans who passed through the land that is Camp Mackall.
He is planning to write a book about his findings, a comprehensive history of Camp Mackall, where he believes the Special Forces got its start.

Here is part of what he’s found so far:

Construction on Camp Mackall — originally named “Camp Hoffman,” for the Hoffman area around which it was built — started in 1942 and finished in 1943. In the beginning, it covered about 97,000 acres. When construction was completed, it included 1,750 buildings, 65 miles of paved roads and 874,559 feet of electric lines. It also included six drill fields, 16 post exchanges, six open-air beer gardens and five movie theaters.
Foundations for the post finance vault and the vault for a civilian bank still exist on Camp Mackall today.
Camp Hoffman became Camp Mackall in 1943, in honor of Pvt. John T. Mackall, the first U.S. paratrooper killed in action in North Africa. The camp started with more than 32,000 soldiers from the 11th, 13th and 17th Airborne Divisions, the Airborne Training Center, 542nd Parachute Infantry Regiment and the Airborne Command Headquarters.

Piasecki said it was the first, and he believes only, time all the Army’s airborne divisions were at the same place.

In December of 1944, 249 German prisoners of war were housed in barracks at Camp Mackall. Piasecki said he hasn’t been able to find records about those POWs.
Inactivated in 1945

In 1945, the Army inactivated Camp Mackall, and in 1948, the Army returned a large portion of the land that had been part of the camp to the federal Department of the Interior. The Department of Defense still controlled about 65,000 acres.

Since 1953, the camp has been used mainly by special operations forces. During Vietnam, Piasecki said, the camp built a model Vietnamese village to help soldiers train for the Vietnam War.
Since then, soldiers from the 82nd, 101st and 11th Airborne divisions have trained at Camp Mackall.
Piasecki said he has heard from several veterans who trained there over the years but is especially interested in talking to veterans who ran the Special Forces Qualification Course there during the Vietnam War.

“They know things that guys like me could look through every book and magazine and never be able to find,” he said.

It is those vignettes and stories from men who were there who will make the history book more true-to-life, he said.

“Veterans give you a perspective on life and a perspective of training and a perspective of what’s important and what’s not important,” Piasecki said. “That’s what we’re trying to capture.”
Piasecki is still looking for veterans — especially Vietnam-era Special Forces veterans — who trained or worked at Camp Mackall. Contact him at eugene.g.piasecki@soc.mil or at (910) 432-4320.
Staff writer Laura Arenschield can be reached at arenschieldl@fayobserver.com or 486-3572.

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=281168

723
08-13-2011, 19:27
Does anyone remember SFC Gumm or Asa Ballard from pre-phase training group?
There was another SFC who had his eyes altered while in Nam to fit in more with the indigenous but I can't recall his name.

Pre-phase training, endless gorilla drills, pushups, rucksack runs with that cadence of "R***, Kill, Pillage and Burn". The cadre got reamed for allowing that. More pushups and pt all the while someone screaming at us to quit and placing SFQC release forms in front of us through it all. I think it only strenghten our resolve. I don't remember anyone giving up although alot wanted to. We were the last class to start SFQC with Chargin Charlie at the helm before he moved to Delta.

Ph 1 Land Nav. "How the hell are you supposed to find this stick in the middle of nowhere". Appreciating just how BIG the outside perimeter of the airfield at Mackall when you had to run around it. You know, it REALLY IS dark out in Uwarrie at night. Going from point to point throught the night. Finding out other teammates got electrocuted when they touched the electrified fences (Ha, dam city boys). Others getting chased by the bulls in the dark or shot at by farmers thinking we were poaching on their land. All we wanted was to cross the property. Slide for life. 2nd time around in the winter, George Royster (RIP TmSgt) seem to find some strange pleasure in having me go down the slide 3x in a row in the ice water. Can't remember which was colder, the air or water.

Ph 2 Booms BIG BOOMS. I studied but not as hard as others. It just seemed like it was preprogrammed in me. It all came very easy, enjoyed every bit of it. We had some Force Recons in our Demo class. One was named Sully, can't remember his partner and they were accompanied with a Sgt Strevel. We called him Evil Strevel. Short guy maybe around 5' (I'm 5'6" and I towered over him) but he was built like a pit bull and had about the same temperment. Improvised munitions. Everyone checking out Radio Shack for ideas. hhehehehheh.

Ph 3 Having to train admin from 18th Abn Corps as indig. Leading patrols and getting lost ( Yes i got lost). Going 2 days of patrols and hard humping without sleep and passing out falling into a stream. Damn that water wakes you up fast. Note to self, train indig to fish your ass of of water if you fall in asleep. Don't let them look at you from the shore GRRRRRR !!!! SERE More freezing. Why do they always stick me with the guys with thin blood !!!!!!

Getting the Beret with Full Flash. Best day of my life up to that point.
Side note : Back in the day everyone had the beret but you were either a candy striper or a full flash. We didn't have SF tabs then.

Oh what fond memories

Richard
08-14-2011, 05:35
Side note : Back in the day everyone had the beret but you were either a candy striper or a full flash.

I remember it this way:

SF qualified and assigned to Group = full flash w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)
Airborne qualified and assigned to Group = Recognition Bar ("Candy Stripe") w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)
Non-Airborne qualified and assigned to Group = OD baseball cap w/rank and DUI (EM or Ofcr)
SFTG = baseball cap until completion of Ph1 - beret w/DUI (no recognition bar or flash) Ph2 and 3 - beret w/full flash upon graduation
But the policies changed many times throughout the years.

Richard :munchin

greenberetTFS
08-14-2011, 13:12
That I passed it............:D;):D

Big Teddy :munchin

VVVV
08-14-2011, 16:29
I remember it this way:

SF qualified and assigned to Group = full flash w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)
Airborne qualified and assigned to Group = Recognition Bar ("Candy Stripe") w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)
Non-Airborne qualified and assigned to Group = OD baseball cap w/rank and DUI (EM or Ofcr)
SFTG = baseball cap until completion of Ph1 - beret w/DUI (no recognition bar or flash) Ph2 and 3 - beret w/full flash upon graduation
But the policies changed many times throughout the years.

Richard :munchin

66-67 I remember this way:

Everyone wore the beanie.



SF qualified and assigned to Group = full flash w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)

Non SF qualified ,Airborne qualified and legs assigned to Group = Recognition Bar ("Candy Stripe") w/DUI (EM) or rank (Ofcr)

SFTG = Patrol cap(?) until completion of Ph1 - beret w/DUI (no recognition bar or flash) Ph2 and 3 - beret w/full flash upon graduation.

Radioman
09-20-2011, 18:36
Phase 1
Wait-A-Mintue vines on Nav course:boohoo
Team member getting M-60 stuck on his web gear and could not pass it off.....:p
Phase 2
In Piska on top of a mountian ready to recieve msg and here comes a bow hunter and his wife, the dude had one leg on crutches funny how all the bitching stop.....:o
Phase 3
Burr so many thing going on.....:confused:

mark46th
09-21-2011, 08:44
Radio man- He may have had one leg, but was he carrying the generator?

Dusty
09-21-2011, 08:49
Radio man- He may have had one leg, but was he carrying the generator?

:D

Radioman
09-21-2011, 15:31
lol no generator or 2 cases of c-rations........but still got our respect
Thought about it maybe since we had two who could not copy code without a headset on seem a bigger feat for some of them.......lol

bigsunbum
09-23-2011, 20:59
Nov/Dec 1970 and Freezing my ASS !! I'm a desert rat and could never stand the cold!! Still hate it and consequently live in AZ-Dry heat!!

SKIPH
09-25-2011, 12:14
This is spooky! Just finished reading the entire thread. Talk about flashbacks! I was either a student, or instructor when a lot of the above mentioned events occurred. BIGSUNBUM didn't mention that the Son Tay Raid went down during his/our class. Everyone was in formation getting ready for the run (M14s & A6s), when it was announced. We cheered, then got the "Right Face" and moved out. It was also the coldest Nov-Dec time frame still on record. There are a bunch of other events I recalled from the thread. WOW! SKIP

Tress
09-25-2011, 12:24
SKIPH,

Before the dog pile starts you would well advised to fill out your profile and quickly post in the Introduction thread.

Tress

Dusty
09-25-2011, 13:36
To repeat myself in ligt of the other ruck thread-Bad Bob going around the 12-miler twice.

With 55 pounds... In June...And it was hot.

18B30
10-30-2011, 16:33
Mr. Sully sling firing the 60mm with charge zero.

Baht Dog
10-31-2011, 13:07
1. SFC G_____t. Rhymes with Gallant. There will be those who remember him. Everyone was worried about drawing him as Cadre member / PL. And so I did, just my luck. Nice fella :D He told us that it takes a good five years after the Q-Course until you really begin to understand what all is going on, what SF is about and become seasoned. That stuck with me. Do they still teach the "Gallant Knot"?


2. Going days without sleep and physical push to the point of hallucination. Seeing "dead bodies" along a patrol route was one especially good hallucination I remember during night patrolling. Awesome dude. But I never tried to put coins into a tree for a coke :D


3. Standing in formation at O'dark thirty out at Mackall with the tar-paper shacks in the background. Separate from the formation in another formation were those who had been cut for the day. Then the Ballad of The Green Beret would blare out from the speakers and those cut would file by in front of the standing formation - doing the "Duffle Bag Drag" and load onto the trucks for the trip back to Bragg. Man the cadre had it down!


There is a lot of other stuff, from every phase of training that we all can recall. Can still recall some of it 24 years later.

Baht Dog
10-31-2011, 13:30
Glad to see somebody who spent a long time in SF never did anything stupid that others could poke fun at him about.



And if I may add a comment to Pete's sage advice in that "sub-thread":

Hell, if I could but do it all over again... Looking back I did my share of stupid things :o and things I could have done better. And things I still get poked fun about :D

Baht Dog
10-31-2011, 13:55
The "duffel bag drag" to the camp, following chem-lights.

Making the time limit, then the gates closed.

Those who didn't...caught HOLY HELL!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



:D I forgot about that. Now I remember that was freakin awesome! At least it was for those who made it before the gates closed. The cadre were creative and really had a flair for the PSYOP aspect. Made it all the more "fun" to be there :D

MR2
11-19-2011, 18:45
Does anyone remember SFC Gumm or Asa Ballard from pre-phase training group?
There was another SFC who had his eyes altered while in Nam to fit in more with the indigenous but I can't recall his name.

Pre-phase training, endless gorilla drills, pushups, rucksack runs with that cadence of "R***, Kill, Pillage and Burn". The cadre got reamed for allowing that. More pushups and pt all the while someone screaming at us to quit and placing SFQC release forms in front of us through it all. I think it only strenghten our resolve. I don't remember anyone giving up although alot wanted to. We were the last class to start SFQC with Chargin Charlie at the helm before he moved to Delta.

Ph 1 Land Nav. "How the hell are you supposed to find this stick in the middle of nowhere". Appreciating just how BIG the outside perimeter of the airfield at Mackall when you had to run around it. You know, it REALLY IS dark out in Uwarrie at night. Going from point to point throught the night. Finding out other teammates got electrocuted when they touched the electrified fences (Ha, dam city boys). Others getting chased by the bulls in the dark or shot at by farmers thinking we were poaching on their land. All we wanted was to cross the property. Slide for life. 2nd time around in the winter, George Royster (RIP TmSgt) seem to find some strange pleasure in having me go down the slide 3x in a row in the ice water. Can't remember which was colder, the air or water.

Ph 2 Booms BIG BOOMS. I studied but not as hard as others. It just seemed like it was preprogrammed in me. It all came very easy, enjoyed every bit of it. We had some Force Recons in our Demo class. One was named Sully, can't remember his partner and they were accompanied with a Sgt Strevel. We called him Evil Strevel. Short guy maybe around 5' (I'm 5'6" and I towered over him) but he was built like a pit bull and had about the same temperment. Improvised munitions. Everyone checking out Radio Shack for ideas. hhehehehheh.

Ph 3 Having to train admin from 18th Abn Corps as indig. Leading patrols and getting lost ( Yes i got lost). Going 2 days of patrols and hard humping without sleep and passing out falling into a stream. Damn that water wakes you up fast. Note to self, train indig to fish your ass of of water if you fall in asleep. Don't let them look at you from the shore GRRRRRR !!!! SERE More freezing. Why do they always stick me with the guys with thin blood !!!!!!

Getting the Beret with Full Flash. Best day of my life up to that point.
Side note : Back in the day everyone had the beret but you were either a candy striper or a full flash. We didn't have SF tabs then.

Oh what fond memories

I remember 1SG Asa Ballard "What's ought times ought" and I too cannot remember the name of the Training NCO. He was a good guy. I was in that "first" all Demo class. There were three Force Recons in the class. The young one was smart and made honor grad. Strevel was a pitbull - all act in my opinion. The Demo class had a field trip to SC where we visited the docks and a working nuke plant.

I was that medic taking the class while waiting on Goat Lab.

hharke
12-22-2011, 22:30
I was a Det Cdr in the 7th at that time and we had just returned from a trip to the SOUTHCOM AOR when we heard of that incident.

According to friends at SWCS, he was Liberian and landed fairly close (10-15') to the bank of a very small reservoir and drowned - they found him floating in his gear and the indications were he did nothing to try and get out of his equipment or try to get to shore. There were a couple of Liberians attending SFOC at the time and, according to the investigation, they were discovered to be animists and - in their case - fearful of water, believing there were spirits who would either take your soul or allow you to survive if you were in their world (water) - that it was of no value to struggle with them.

It sure caused Joe Lutz (JFKCMA CDR) and Gary Griggs and crew at SWCS to take a serious re-look at the foreign student program for attending SFOC/SFQC and was something we now took seriously as we were then undergoing a continuous rotation to/from Liberia.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

the Liberian officer had failed the initial swim test, drowned in PH1 on the slide for life, spent a couple days in Womack and they had put him back in the course and never told anyone that he could not swim. On the infil the JM did not put the students in water wings for some reason. The JM then released the students early (VGMR drop)and they landed short of the DZ. We found him submerged about 15-20 mintues later. The Sr NCO who signed off on the initial swim test was then part of the investigation team. To say it was a botched investigation and bigtime coverup later is an understatement. Lutz had just gone thru Katie Wilder. I know too well.

They initially blamed 4 people and mostly on misinformation and wrong jobs. Then when they discovered they had charged the wrong ones, moved the correct offender to Corps (west pointer), dropped charges and tried to cover it up. I had just taken over as the PH3 Ops Off at Maj Howard's request 2 weeks prior. One my Sr NCOs who pulled staff duty practiced his trade craft, opened the Bn Commanders safe and copied all their documents which showed the clear cover up and provided copies to the defense lawyers. Interesting meetings were held with Gen Lutz as how to proceed to not have another Katie Wilder and make it look legit.

I had worked with Howard in PH1 as his Ops Off with SFC Sharp and crew. One of the funniest stories was on a shakedown of the first combined Off/Enlisted class, they had found a map of all the land nav points in a SSG's pants. If you remember, we gave you the points you just had to get there.

I had been watching from about 100 yards. The SSG was Ranger and a Plt Sgt in the 82. When I told him he was going to have to see Maj Howard he started to cry and said, " Request permission for the TACs to take me down in the woods and beat the sXXt out of me. I won't even fight back". That did not happen and he got his one on one with Maj Howard who ate his butt up. Howard stayed on him the whole class but he survived and graduated.

The officers in the first combined class thought they were "exempt" from guard duty for a couple days until we "inspired" them to think differently.

Anyone have the opportunity to watch "HBO" with SFC Sharp in the TAC shack?

glebo
12-23-2011, 05:29
hh,

I was in that class, as mentioned I think earlier. I always wondered what came out of that.

I remember him going down the slide for life....and not coming up..

I work with Tim Vogel, who was cadre out there at the time. He says he doesn't exactley remember the slide for life thing, he jumped in so many times for folks it's all the same...LOL

greenberetTFS
12-24-2011, 16:42
Standing at attention waiting to put on my Green Beret,realizing I had finally made it,I'm one of them now....:) It was such a long time ago (47 years)........ :) De Oppresso Liber.......:lifter

Big Teddy :munchin

ZonieDiver
12-25-2011, 14:54
Sitting in the bus from Ft Benning as we came to a stop in front of Co D, SFTG at Bragg, and watching 1SG Rocky Lane walk down the sidewalk toward us... wondering 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?'

Cobwebs
09-11-2012, 14:30
Like Zonie, standing at attention at company D SFTG after a long bus trip from Ft. Benning. It was early September and the temp was mid 90's about 3 in the afternoon. An SFC who I will never remember at this point in my life calmly told us to drop. As the hot ashpalt burned into our hands and the heel of the jump boots of the fella in front of you smashed into your forehead the SFC began to explain to us what we could expect during the next year of training. He only spoke about 10 minutes but it seemed like 30. About 6 or 7 guys dropped out at that point. If it wasn't for the soldier behind me talking under his breadth how much fun this is and making me laugh I probably would of dropped out then. It was then I knew I found a home.:D

Cool Breeze
09-12-2012, 08:39
I must have found every knee deep root hole during night land nav. Probably hyperextended my knees a dozen times. Also remember the night land nav walk with compass in one hand and the other in front of my face to keep from getting a branch in the face.

Worst memory is Hoffman's Triangle and busting the draw to the north. When I got to the stream in the middle of the draw, it looked like it was ankle deep. Took two steps and went in to my chest. That's when I realized that my red lense flashlight was not longer dummy corded to my ruck. Giant suck!

I also remember a lot of Allied officers going through with us. If you couldn't find a point, you just had to wait and at fire team would come by with bright white lights, talking and working together, and see where they went.

Cool Breeze
09-12-2012, 08:56
Started looking back through the thread and started remembering more.

- Slave Market: picking up pinecones, police call at Gabriel, cutting grass at HQ

- Bruce Horn: he ran my ass into the ground. hated me. had a VW letter with my name on it in his top desk drawer and called me in every day to sign it. When I wouldn't he would smoke me and put me on a shit detail. He also had us do a night operation that I cannot go into detail on.

- COL Rowe: when I started COL Rowe was in charge. The transition to COL Potter happened during the 12 miler. When they drove in our direction of movement we had COL Rowe shouting encouragement out the window. When they came back the other way, COL Potter was shitting on us.

- Robin Sage brief back to COL Potter. I heard before we started that Potter hated Jr. Medics and of course, that is what I was. The briefback was only going for a minute or so when Potter interrupted and asked, "who's the Jr Medic?" I then got to brief the entire operation starting with him telling me to close my eyes and tell me what the terrain will look like when I leave the aircraft. I then had to walk him through the terrain, without looking, from infil to our first RON. Thankfully, I knew what to expect and was prepared.

viper.51
09-12-2012, 10:00
we caught a cooperhead on one of our small unit tactics trainimg we put it in a aquarium in the company office and once a week we would all pile in around it and watch as we feed it a rat and watched him strike it. One week we put a rat in the aquarium and the rat jumped on the snakes head and was holding on as the snake freaked out. The snake would not mess with the rat and the rat survived. we put it in a aquarium next to the snake and named him ranger.

PRB
09-12-2012, 21:04
hh,

I was in that class, as mentioned I think earlier. I always wondered what came out of that.

I remember him going down the slide for life....and not coming up..

I work with Tim Vogel, who was cadre out there at the time. He says he doesn't exactley remember the slide for life thing, he jumped in so many times for folks it's all the same...LOL

Glebo,
Say Hi to Tim for me...we sat next to each other in PHII weapons course.
Pat

alelks
09-12-2012, 21:33
Our re-supply AC crashed while making a drop to another team killing everyone on board. :(

Drowning creek had ice in it when we did the slide for life.

Vic Allen lost his weapon while crossing a river and got hypothermia looking for it. Biggest tactical fire I've ever seen warming him up and none of us were complaining either.

glebo
09-13-2012, 06:13
Glebo,
Say Hi to Tim for me...we sat next to each other in PHII weapons course.
Pat

WILCO, msg passed. He sez "hey", wonderin how you're doin...

CW3SF
09-13-2012, 06:33
Wow, this thread brings back all kinds of memories.

-Dale Wells and Dana Bowman were a laugh-a-minute at every company formation. TACs P. Davis and L. Boudroux had a field day with those two.

-Living in the tar paper shack and using the Million dollar latrine during Phase I.

-Passing the M-60 MG down the line during PT runs. :lifter

-SFC Neptune unsuccessfully demonstrating the Whopper!:D

-Gallant harassing everyone at every opportunity.

-Losing a classmate (only in his 20s) to a heart attack on the 12 mile road march. :(

-Getting confined to the barracks for 7 days (during MOS phase) after going out to party on my Birthday and coming in late/hungover for a road march. :eek:

PRB
09-13-2012, 13:00
Glebo,
Tell Tim all is well, glad he's doing fine too. When I get back to Bragg I'll send you an email and I'll vist you guys at work.

glebo
09-13-2012, 13:18
Glebo,
Tell Tim all is well, glad he's doing fine too. When I get back to Bragg I'll send you an email and I'll vist you guys at work.

Sounds good...or Charley Mikes...we'll do an "off site"...yeah, yeah, that's it...LOL

PRB
09-13-2012, 14:17
Sounds good...or Charley Mikes...we'll do an "off site"...yeah, yeah, that's it...LOL

Good idea....

Fox583
09-13-2012, 21:17
SOPC though it was nearly a decade ago, at the end we were told two versions of the invasion of A-Stan and a certian former 5th GRP 18E told us his version of his story like Star Wars.

18E course, an instructor who was... and i swear to this day, a ninja. Along with moving a tough book CF-18 completely out of the way only to have a set of lead weights go right through the screen and be sitting on the keys.

Standing in front of the Bull Simons statue and putting on what i had worked for.


"But with the willingness to die for family and country, something insides us longs for someone to die next too, someone to lock step with, another with a heart like our own."

Ruger
10-09-2012, 13:28
Thank you for sharing your stories. I got a lot of laughs out of some of them. :D

medic&commo
10-10-2012, 07:17
Been said before but - thank you for this thread, maybe some will have some of the same memories, or I'll reacquaint with old friends.

Class clown Nolan, thank you.

SFC Maxim & the enormous wad of chewing tobacco - could his short legs put a hurting on us in the daily ruck!
The snivel cord & using it between myself, Jamie, Nolan & others.
Bouncing the gates - thankfully not much.
Passing the M60 on the rucks.

Waiting for phase I, given scuba PT by a 5th group ODA - learned about 'hello Dolly's' & flutter kicks.

Bunny baseball.

Doc G at 300F1.

Jake - my patient at goat lab.
Our theme song "Another one bites the dust".

Katie Wilder, wish I still had the T-shirt.
m&c

dalcowboysaik8
12-25-2012, 17:53
I remember 1SG Asa Ballard "What's ought times ought" and I too cannot remember the name of the Training NCO. He was a good guy. I was in that "first" all Demo class. There were three Force Recons in the class. The young one was smart and made honor grad. Strevel was a pitbull - all act in my opinion. The Demo class had a field trip to SC where we visited the docks and a working nuke plant.

I was that medic taking the class while waiting on Goat Lab.



1SG Asa Ballard was actually my dad. He passed away in 1983.

MR2
12-26-2012, 22:49
I had a lot of respect for your dad. I only knew him when he was 1SGT of A Co, IMA (75-76). As a medic in training, I spent a long time there. He was probably my first "mentor" in SF. It took me a long time to figure out how much I learned from him.

Trapper John
12-28-2012, 13:59
Waiting for hours at Pope, chuted up to jump into Mackall. Humping our way in after landing and getting ambushed, no sleep, no food and harassed all night. I think 1/3 of the class DOR'd that night (mostly the "tough guys"). Got real familiar with the obstacle course that night.

Chow time with Cs in a garbage can of boiling water. Mostly Ham and MFers or Ham and SOBs. I was lucky - I loved 'em. Easy trading!

Land Nav at night. Lost a few guys then too. (I think one guy was really lost!).

Running up and down the airstrip with all our gear plus our cots to celebrate the lovely July day that Neal Armstrong landed on the moon.

E&E with a couple of buds one Sunday to sneak off to a local store along some highway near Mackall and grab an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. WE MADE IT! HA HA HA :D

Ghosting back at Bragg between training sessions. This was essential training for later on ;)

300F1 at Ft Sam. Picking a fight with a leg at the PX. Falling in lust with a woman that worked at the PX. She looked like Anette Funicello. You youngsters won't have a clue who that was :p

Jim Scurry (best medic I ever new) as my OR instructor at Med Lab. Met up with Jim again when he was at the 7th SFG ('73-'74). MSG Ferguson as the NCOIC.

Duke Snider as the G-chief and our tasty pit roasted goat.

Civic action during Phase III at an older ladies run-down home painting and repairing her porch. She put out one hell of a spread for us. She must have been in her 70's and she walked about 3 mi every Sunday to get to church. She was one of our best guerrilla assets.

Capturing two bridge "guards" from the 82nd. They were pissed!

Humping it back to Bragg from Phase III at Mackall. Even lost a couple of guys then too.

Aaaah, the good ol' days :D

But saddest of all was the tragic loss of some of our Brothers in a Demo accident. Rest in Peace, Brothers, you are not forgotten!

Jethro113
02-02-2013, 11:01
Cold wet, and Hungry. I'll go with survival too. I had a rabbit, built my shelter, and did all that was required. Time to rest....snowing.....Right about day two, I got pretty hungry. The rabbit that had become my friend, and conversation partner, quickly became my meal. Nothing better then a rabbit cooked on a spit over an open fire.........

gwbarnes
02-04-2013, 08:35
I came back from Germany with TDY enroute to Vietnam, and attended SFOC in the spring of 1970. Lots of the stories in this thread ring a bell about stuff that has disappeared down the memory hole. Getting promoted to CPT while in isolation for Gobbler Woods. Low altitude night jump into the FTX, and landing in poison ivy - swelling up and itching bad. Made the training extra fun. Lots more, too.

Joker
02-09-2013, 22:07
Robert Howard was what I remember most impactfully.:lifter

1st Phase: breaking the ice on Drowning Creek and swamps in land nav.

3rd Phase (March): 9+ inches of snow on the last night and the unprepared, unwitting and mutinous “Gs”. Three of them decided that their suit case and sneakers weren’t cutting it and broke away from the formation on our exfil movement. Some of the SF students back-tracked then followed the tracks (12” of snow made this easy) to an isolated house in the woods where they found these three yahoos on the porch fixing to break-in. They pulled rank and ordered them back to the formation, but they weren’t having it. A little old white lady (70-year-old?) opened the door and had a shot-gun in her hand pointing at the three ne’er-do-wells of not the same race decided to rejoin the team, a few shades lighter.

DOL

Spiker18f
09-26-2013, 02:47
I remember 1SG Asa Ballard "What's ought times ought" and I too cannot remember the name of the Training NCO. He was a good guy. I was in that "first" all Demo class. There were three Force Recons in the class. The young one was smart and made honor grad. Strevel was a pitbull - all act in my opinion. The Demo class had a field trip to SC where we visited the docks and a working nuke plant.

I was that medic taking the class while waiting on Goat Lab.

I think his name was Becker and Foreman was the ncoic. Ballard was mean as snake piss.
That was spring/summer 1977

PRB
09-26-2013, 17:53
Standing by the fence one evening with some guys that were smoking (I don't)...
a car pulled over and this Grit got out and ambled over...
"What you boys in for?"....he thought it was a confinement facility......

Joker
09-27-2013, 14:12
Standing by the fence one evening with some guys that were smoking (I don't)...
a car pulled over and this Grit got out and ambled over...
"What you boys in for?"....he thought it was a confinement facility......

Damn, so did I.:D

TrapperFrank
09-27-2013, 15:55
One other thing I remember, is being damn glad to be leaving Camp Mackall all in one piece and moving on to the next phase.

UWOA (RIP)
09-28-2013, 23:57
Earlier versions of Robin Sage were called Water Moccasin, Cherokee Trail, and Gobblers Woods.

Richard :munchin

Actually, as I remember it and as was reported by a later (non-vetted) poster, I remember my version was called "Gobbler (no s) Woods".

Memories ... the year was 1970 ....

Having just completed the Airborne course right after OCS, I reported in to Hardy Hall at Fort Bragg. I would soon see ...

E-7 and E-8s doing police call outside the Center (IMA at that time). MG Flanagan was in charge of the Center.

In 1970, while going through SFOC we wore 'candy stripes' representing the colors of our future assigned Groups ... I didn't wear the beret until I got to Fort Bragg, i.e. during airborne training, even though I had assignment orders to 8th Special Forces Group. In hindsight, it probably saved me a lot of extra pushups; a Ranger from the Ranger school cadre went through the airborne course in my class and the cadre delighted in adding to his training experience. Later on, when I went through the Ranger course while assigned to 10th SFGA, one of the cadre in the "city phase" (Harmony Church) spent extra time focusing on SF personnel because "they wore the wrong color beret."

My classes were conducted in the center, but we spent some time in the wooden WWII-era buildings. I remember a crusty, old Major who was our class adviser. To this day I remember him saying that you don't have to be on top of a target to be able to surveil it. I also remember the NOFORN classes that were a part of the course ....

When it was time for Gobbler Woods, I remember drawing an M-14 with another LT and driving from the arms room back to Hardy Hall to pick up our rucks with the top down on my convertible and both M-14s wedged behind our seats in an upright position like we were going on safari.

I hated the ANGRC-109. Not because the radio was heavy. It was because I was assigned to carry the hand crank generator frame. The legs were no problem, it was the blasted seat (I'm thinking of a few choicer words) that was a literal pain in the ass. It didn't fit at all well in the style rucksacks (that was before the Alice rucks) of the time. It was a pain to jump and it was a pain to lug on the ground. I would have gladly traded it for the generator, receiver or the transmitter.

We used the MC-1 to insert into the problem, the increased maneuverability coming from removing the forks that kept the risers even and which allowed better, but not great, steering of the canopy. The increased maneuverability wasn't enough to keep the entire student ODA from missing the postage stamp DZ and landing in the trees. The officer who was filling the medic slot on my training detachment (and who was, incidentally, one of my TAC officers while I was going through OCS) landed in the top of a tree, but only long enough to allow his chute to deflate before breaking free and sending him falling fifty feet to the ground, breaking one of his legs.

Later on, during the exercise after going into town in a vehicle one of the Gs had produced to set up an intel net, we (me, the asst ops/intel and another officer filling the light weapons slot) as well as a couple of Gs ran into a CI patrol of 82d Abn troopers. Long story short, we were 'apprehended' and removed to a POW site. Even though I was going to DLIWC after SFOC I still was pretty fluent in Spanish. I stuck to a story I developed on the spot and spoke only Spanish during my 'encounters' with interrogators (luckily they didn't have anyone at the detention site that spoke Spanish) and refused to understand any statements made in English. They basically gave up on me after only one day and I was re-inserted into the problem, only to find that the G (who was probably an ops/intel sgt instructor) had been given a bunch of grief from the G chief who was pissed off that we went by vehicle in the first place.

I also remember the demonstration put on by, if I remember correctly, reps from Frankfort Arsenal, specifically a demonstration by a national champion marksman. He fired an M-16 using the iron sights and hit a man-sized target center mass 1600 yards or meters (I can't remember which) away, off-hand. Yes, I said, off-hand. I later learned the secret to his trick; he used the bayonet lug, as well as the front sight, as the means to range the target, so it was only good for that distance.

Anyway, that my recollection of events more than forty years ago ... and I'm sticking to it!!!!

.

glebo
09-29-2013, 05:15
Nice story UWOA, thx for sharing :)

spottedmedic111
10-23-2013, 06:58
I was 36 when I finally got to SERE, and my evasion team and I found ourselves in a field in the pitch black. We were worried about being in a pasture with a bull, so when we heard some loud grunting/huffing noises from a nearby hill we sprinted to the fenceline. It was a horse who hadn't moved.

A second amusing event happened during that course that I'll never forget. Of course, we all stuffed our faces the moring of infil to top off the day before when we prepared our stomachs for doing without. We get dropped off and one genius sees a half-eaten Snickers bar on the side of the road. He proved his dedication to survival by leaping on it like he hadn't eaten in days. All I can say is I wasn't that hungry at the end of the course much less the beginning.

TylerBethea34
02-17-2014, 09:56
Thank you for sharing your stories. It took me several days to read through the entire thread, but it was like a book that I couldn't put down. I have greatly enjoyed reading all of your stories and memories!

ZonieDiver
02-18-2014, 13:51
<snip>
Memories ... the year was 1970 ....

Having just completed the Airborne course right after OCS, I reported in to Hardy Hall at Fort Bragg. I would soon see ...

E-7 and E-8s doing police call outside the Center (IMA at that time). MG Flanagan was in charge of the Center.
<snip>

.

I was in Training Group then. Our first "Pass In Review" under the command of MG Flanagan resulted in us having to learn a new addition to FM 22-5. MG Flanagan thought SF troops incapable of executing a "Column Left" during the Pass in Review, so he had us do a "Left Flank" instead - which resulted in its own set of problems.

I was told by a TAC that they called it "22-Flanagan"!

BMT (RIP)
02-18-2014, 14:06
Back then Group wasn't noted for DD.

BMT

Kasik
04-29-2014, 09:55
Spending nearly an hour slipping Jeff King's M60 out from his grip and out of his dummy cord while in perimeter one night, Phase 1:)

Jeff and I were always doing stuff like that to each other.

When he woke up and found the 60 missing he figured the "Gs" had come in during the night and taken it from him:eek:

He was one happy camper when he got it back!

But for the life of him couldn't figure out how I'd managed to pull it off without waking him up:lifter

If he had there's no doubt he would have beat my a** but good:munchin

We both went to the 10th at Devens after the "Q". Jeff went on to become a Warrant. A great guy, good friend and one tough operator.

Stras
05-01-2014, 11:09
Mr. Sully sling firing the 60mm with charge zero.

While slung around his neck, no less.....