[The Reaper]

H-Hour

As H-hour approached most of us began to make small adjustments to our gear. We checked for the proper adjustment of our buckles and tie-downs. I began to run down a checklist of items in my mind. Were all my pockets buttoned-up? Was my map secured and waterproofed? Were my extra pencils and my notepad where I could easily reach them? Were my boots tied properly? Did I have all the water I needed? Was my essential gear waterproofed in my rucksack? After checking out all my equipment, I stood up and jumped up and down a few times to make sure nothing was loose, or would make unnecessary noise. It wasn’t like we were going on a tactical patrol. Nevertheless, noisy gear can get on my nerves when I’m on a long, lonely march. Besides, pre-combat checks like this are a good habit to maintain. When I was duly satisfied with my current state, I sat back down and let the minutes melt away in my mind. All fears and anxieties now faded away as I recalled all the training that had led up to this very moment. The hours at the gym, the miles and miles of track work, the constant recording and updating of physical performance, the paperwork involved in the applications, the physicals, etc. Everything I had focused on for the last two years funneled down to these next 48 hours. My whole career path would be decided by how I did on this next event. Strangely, I didn’t feel the pressure of such monumental thoughts. Instead, I felt a need to rely on my training and trust my compass.

As I heard the rustling of leaves all around me, I heard the occasional sounds of plastic buckles and fasteners being adjusted and tightened. The squelch of the point sitter’s radio confirmed that H-hour was upon us. “Execute, execute, execute … “, repeated the disembodied voice over the radio. Instead of rushing to the road, I calmly walked to the middle of the intersection and shot azimuths up both roads. Better to ensure I was where I thought I was before setting out on the long-range movement of my life. My calculations were quickly confirmed and I headed out due 235 degrees, magnetic. My first objective was about a considerable distance away, and the lay of the terrain seemed generally rolling with some pretty nasty draws in the way. I planned a route that would circumvent these draws and ensure that I remained dry for the first few hours of my movement. There is really no need to go head first into a brick wall if one can walk around it, I always say. The only worry concerning conditions was the state of the weather. While a little downpour here and there won’t kill anyone, it does add another bit of adversity to the situation. Rain limits visibility, for one thing. It also slows down route planning during, and after reaching an objective. One has to pull out a poncho and do all the route planning work hunkered down beneath it. If it rains long enough, there’s a small chance that the map might get wet and pretty soon this renders it useless as the creases rub-off and become unreadable. If the rain persists for over a day, low bodies of water rise and, in the dark, what would have been a fairly apparent unimproved road disappears as a reliable frame of reference. Of course, there is also the negative effect rain has on morale.

After about three hours on the march, I found my first point. The weather seemed to clear a bit and there was still some daylight left. Feeling quite confident I handed my score sheet to the point sitter got my new coordinates and began to plot the route to my next objective. The next point was some kilometers further away than my first objective. Again, there were several draws between it and me. I developed a workable, but simple route plan. However, I would have to cross one pretty nasty draw about three hundred meters from my current position in order to execute my plan. The other option would be to go all around the rough terrain, but that would almost double the distance of my movement. I opted to play my luck against the draw. As I always did, I picked up my gear, secured it, made a careful sweep around me to ensure I had not left anything behind, and moved out on a predetermined azimuth. Traveling the three hundred meters to that first draw was fairly uneventful. There was no excessive deadfall, nor thorny vines. When I finally got to the body of water that characterizes most draws, I saw that it was probably about three feet deep of fairly clear water. I really didn’t want to get my feet wet just yet as this could create blisters later on. I took some time to look around the draw for any signs of game trails, as the SF cadre trained me. Animals, by way of their natural instinct, seek out the point of least resistance when traveling from point A to point B. Since animals in the wild cannot surely foretell when their next meal will come, they do everything possible to preserve energy. When we humans are mentally and physically exhausted, we abandon our civilized conditioning and unconsciously begin to follow these same natural lines of drift. Pretty soon a small animal trail has been beaten often enough to be apparent to the trained eye. I found several game trails and chose the widest one. Sure enough, it led to a culvert pipe that could be used as a step over the body of water. I quickly made use of my lucky find and continued on my way to my second objective. Two and a half hours into my movement darkness had overcome the landscape. It wasn’t pitched dark yet, but the surrounding vegetation of the low ground had a curtain effect on the road.

Pretty soon, all I could see was the unpaved, sandy road contrast white against the surrounding darkness. With little outside visual stimulation to entertain my senses, I turned inward. This is the time that causes many to quit. We spend so much time of our lives distracted by the outside, that when our bodies begin to hurt, we could easily shrug it off. But, in this kind of training situation, one has to deal with one’s own internal demons, whatever they might be. Some candidates get to thinking about home, and about family, and about all the things they wish they could have done, but didn’t. Next thing you know, one is feeling sorry for oneself and begins to think about quitting right then and there, returning home and “righting all the wrongs”. Only, these feelings are rarely genuine. They are a game the mind plays to cause one to stop the physical abuse. This is where SF peers into that corner of one’s spirit that one rarely visits. I marvel at the ingenious methods they use to do this.

In order to keep my focus, I began to talk to myself and discussed worldly issues of political interest. Once in a while I would do a map check and relate it to my current pace count and azimuth. I did a comparison with the terrain I had just covered to ensure I was within fifty meters of where I thought I was. When the talking to myself got old, I began to designate rest stops at various intersections along my route. This made it so that I was traveling based on short term goals. This keeps the morale up and forces one to make accurate assertions of one’s current location. It is far easier to correct a navigation error made five hundred meters ago, than three kilometers ago. “Life is all about little victories, …” said one of our instructors. This comment impacted my land navigation in SFAS more than anything else that was said. By setting up short term goals along a route, one maintains a sharper focus than if one just keeps thinking of that objective nine kilometers away. I arrived at my second objective shortly after 2230. I handed my score sheet, got my new coordinates, and planned my next route to about a 50% solution. Next, I went about two hundred meters from the point sitter and picked a suitable location to get some food down my throat and lay down for a few hours. Some people advocate attempting the LRIM on no sleep. “Just get it over with!” they say. There are some people that can consistently pull this off. And, there is no doubt, if the reasons are good enough, any well-trained soldier can pull this off for a period of time. However, operating without adequate sleep can lead to calculation errors. If one plots a grid in the wrong grid square, one can end up making a mistake that can cost just as many hours as one could have slept, had he made the time. My situation was good. I was still feeling healthy. The sky had completely cleared and every star in the sky was out. The moon was providing about seventy percent illumination and I already had two points. I still had a day and a half to get the other four points. Had I been in dire straights, like running desperately out of time, I would have seriously considered going on without the benefit of sleep. But, my situation was good. So, I chose a great spot to lie down, took my time eating, changed from my wet, sweaty BDU top to a dry brown shirt, put on a black knit cap and the quilted BDU jacket liner and put my head down for four hours. Sleep was an uneasy one, but it was sleep nevertheless.

(TBC)