What do you remember most about the Q Course/Training Group?

Originally Posted by Richard

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

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]

Phase 1
Wait-A-Mintue vines on Nav course
Team member getting M-60 stuck on his web gear and could not pass it off.....
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.....
Phase 3
Burr so many thing going on.....

[mark46th]

Radio man- He may have had one leg, but was he carrying the generator?

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Radio man- He may have had one leg, but was he carrying the generator?

[Radioman]

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]

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]

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]

SKIPH,

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

Tress

[Dusty]

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]

Mr. Sully sling firing the 60mm with charge zero.

[Baht Dog]

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 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


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]

Originally Posted by Pete

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 and things I could have done better. And things I still get poked fun about

[Baht Dog]

Originally Posted by Guy

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!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

[MR2]

Originally Posted by 723

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]

Originally Posted by Richard

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

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?