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Old 03-14-2011, 22:08   #166
mojaveman
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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.

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Old 03-15-2011, 06:33   #167
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By Phase

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.
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Old 04-24-2011, 21:20   #168
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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.
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Old 04-30-2011, 11:01   #169
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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.


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Old 04-30-2011, 13:30   #170
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Originally Posted by Last hard class View Post
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.


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I'd rather eat chicken tumors than turkey loaf C-rations.
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Old 05-05-2011, 23:35   #171
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Took me about the entire night to read this thread. Great stories, thank you for sharing.
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Old 05-07-2011, 02:33   #172
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Field Phase SUT

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.....
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Old 05-07-2011, 04:42   #173
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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..
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Old 05-07-2011, 06:15   #174
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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.
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Old 05-07-2011, 07:54   #175
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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 damn horny goats..

Have a great Colorado day..
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Old 05-07-2011, 14:56   #176
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Thanks Brother Glebo! I'm still working an E and E to get your way for brew! Take care.

Cheers,
Thomas
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Old 06-28-2011, 20:35   #177
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Camp Mackall

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/thread...-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
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Old 08-13-2011, 19:27   #178
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1975 class

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
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Old 08-14-2011, 05:35   #179
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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
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Old 08-14-2011, 13:12   #180
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That I passed it............

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