Lest We Forget (3 page)

The next two days were filled with constant smoke sessions and a timed 5
-mile run that everyone was required to complete, in formation, in under 40 minutes.  One unfortunate wannabe Ranger lost his shoe somewhere around mile three and ran the remaining two miles with one shoe! When the cadre saw the kid standing in formation with one shoe and one very bloody sock after the run they smoked him for being stupid and not stopping to grab his shoe.  He asked, "Sergeant, I wouldn't have met the standard and been dropped from the course if I had gone back."

The cadre responded, "Oh yeah, you would have been let go, but you're still a fucking idiot!"

              The big gut check during RIP is a three-day field training exercise at Cole Range on Fort Benning.  All that you really know going into it is that you will be doing land navigation at some point and an 8-mile road march at the end.  Neither of these events would be too difficult without the compound stress of being on the move constantly with very little, if any sleep for the days leading up to them.  I learned something about myself over those 72 hours.  A lesson that I still draw from to this day; I like seeing other people quit.  I'm not sure how many people quit that first night - maybe 20? Maybe 30? Maybe more.  It was an enticing notion as we did flutter kicks and push-ups in the ankle deep freezing puddles that accumulated from the constant downpour of sleet and icy rain.  Just quit and you will be warm.  The cadre made this choice much easier for many of the men by standing around a giant campfire cooking hot dogs.  They took turns leaving the warmth of their bonfire to come torture us throughout the evening.  We were out in an open field and I believe that evening was the first time that I ever heard the command, "Hit the woodline!" 

Everyone started running for the woods
, so I followed along.  I don't like being second at anything so I sprinted the 200 meters round trip to ensure that I would be the first one back.  That's not a good idea.  Don't do that.  Don't ever be the first guy back.  I messed up my mentors number one rule, be the grey man.  I just spotlighted myself. 

The cadre asked where his favorite stick was. 

"Pardon Sergeant?" I replied.

"You went all the way to the
woodline and didn't bring me my favorite stick back??  GO GET MY FAVORITE STICK ASSHOLE!!"

"Roger Se
rgeant!" It was a response that I had been programmed to give by this point; it was the only way that I could reply.  So as the rest of the guys were running back to the circle of pain and I was running back to the woodline to find homeboys favorite stick.  Can you guess how many times it took to find his favorite stick?  I'll give you a hint... it wasn't on the first fucking trip!

It sucks
. It all sucks, but that's the point.  Your legs are filled with concrete and your lungs don’t feel like expanding even one more time.  The freezing air has penetrated your joints rendering them crippled. At 20 years old you get a glimpse into the future, you see what it is going to be like to be 80.  You feel frail and broken.  The simple truth is that it is just as miserable for you as it is for every other beaten down guy out there so when he quits and you keep going, you know that you are mentally stronger than he is and that is something that you can't buy.  I welcome this pain beating down on me.  That builds a confidence that you will walk with until your dying day.  That is the difference between being a Ranger or a SEAL or any other member of special operations.  Day in and day out you get to work with a group of guys that didn't quit when things got tough and that is invaluable.

             
Just because you get through Cole Range doesn't mean that you are going to be getting a tan beret handed to you.  There are still two more weeks of events designed to weed candidates out. (Ranger selection is now an 8-week process but I went through it back when it was so hard that they got the job done in less than half the time.)  The 12-mile road march at the time required each man to be within arms reach of the man in front of him.  No running was allowed.  In fact I watched a couple of guys get spear tackled into the woods for running to keep up.  The 12-miler got a lot of people for that reason.  We had tests on Ranger history and combat lifesaving techniques.  Each time that you passed an event you could feel yourself getting closer to achieving the goal.  We kept a mental countdown the way a nine year old does as Christmas draws nearer. 

We were on lock down one Sunday.  The few dozen remaining members of our RIP class were cleaning things that had long ago been made
spotless, waiting for the next round or torture.  As I polished my boots for the 3rd time I remembered that in basic training if we chose to go to church that they had to release us.  I told my good friend Jess about my plan to escape for a few hours by telling the staff duty officer that I wished to attend Sunday services.  Jess and I had first met in basic training.  He was a great athlete who played soccer in college before joining the Army.  Since he had a degree he had automatically been promoted to Specialist, E4.  His shaved head hid the fact that he had very curly dark hair.  His demeanor always reminded me of Matthew McConaughey in the way that everything was cool.  No matter how bad we were getting crushed, Jess just took it with a grin. 

Unbeknownst to me some kid overheard our conversation and asked to tag along.  I knew that if more people found out it wouldn't happen.  There is no way that they are going to let 40 of us leave.  We told him to keep his mouth shut about it and he could come.  We head downstairs to ask permission to leave and who is the staff duty?  Yup, Staff Sergeant
Runza!  Fuck. My.  Life.

He wasn't in uniform.  He was sitting with his feet kicked up on the desk in a wife beater and jeans watching TV.  His fingers were interlaced behind his head exposing the tattoos on the insides of his biceps.  One of which was a Catholic nun, spread eagle with her genitals pierced, of course the jewelry dangling from her lady parts was a gold cross.  What else would it be
?

I
attempted to muster up as much courage as I had to ask permission to go to religious services.  He barely glanced at us and replied, "I don't give a fuck."

             
As we turn to leave the kid does something I couldn't believe.  He stops and asks Runza, "Sergeant, what service should we be going to?"

I can only compare that feeling to that moment when you see the red and blue lights spinning behind you after you ran a red light and you know you are fucked!  Except this guy wasn't going to issue us a ticket, he was going to put our skulls through the brick wall. 
Runza's attention is taken from the TV for the first time as he leans forward, spits a wad of tobacco into the trashcan and says, "Do I look like someone who knows when church starts?  Do I look like a mother fucker that believes in GOD?"

How do you answer that question?  Fuck no he doesn't
; but I'm not going to say that to him.  Luckily he was staring at homeboy that asked the question but we knew that we were just as much on the hook just for being with him.  The kid began to shake a little and replied, "I don't think so Sergeant."  Now, that’s the wrong answer.  Thinking and being in RIP are two diametrically opposed things.  Tell him, no, negative, roger, hell tell him to go fuck himself but don't say some dumb shit like "I don't THINK so."

To be honest I'm not sure how we made it out of there alive.  I'll tell you one thing, that kid did
not graduate!  We ditched him the moment we left the barracks.  The closest church was only a quarter mile away and we didn’t have any desire to walk a step further than necessary.  Never in all my days did I think that I would have attended a full on choir singing Baptist ceremony where my friend and myself were the only two white people in attendance.  It was like a scene from a movie.  We rolled into that place in our tattered grey Army PT uniform with tan lines around our shaved heads marking where our patrol caps sat even with the marching surface (in accordance with AR 670-1 of course) to be greeted by some of the sharpest dressed, singing, clapping group of people you have ever come across.  We were so out of place that we couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves.  It was a much-needed comedic relief before returning to the harsh world of special operations selection.

             
We had made it through the jump training and fast roping, the sleepless nights and the constant physical abuse.  We endured the gut wrenching torture that comes from being told that today is “all you can eat day” in the chow hall after being in the field for days without a hot meal only to be given two minutes to consume all of the food on our plates.  The run back to the company area following that trap had to have been at least a 6-minute mile pace.  Jess survived scoring the only goal on our cadre during “combat soccer” although he paid a terrible price for juking Runza. 

All of that was over now
; we were graduating.  We would be receiving our Ranger scroll and tan beret on a freezing cold December morning.  As we recited the 242-word Ranger creed in unison on graduation the collective breath of around 40 brand new Rangers filled the air like smoke clouds leaving a wild fire.  We were about to become the most elite soldiers in the U.S. Army, or so we thought.

From Left to right; Jess, me, Adam, Chris
. On the day that we graduated RIP.

….

Chapter 4 -
The Running Free

Typically being in a holdover status in the military is the absolute worst place to be, it’s purgatory.  Since you don’t have an official job you get tasked to do all the tedious remedial bullshit that no one else will.  There was a small group of medics that had recently graduated from Ranger Indoc that were now ‘Real Rangers’ Instead of a job we had an open ended wait ahead of us for our next school.  Unlike Medic and Airborne school, there were very limited spaces for Rangers in the Special Operations Medic Course (SOMC).  I recognized several of the guys who I was reporting to the Regiment with but a few were strangers.

I first met Matt in basic training but
didn’t really get to know him until our first day reporting to the 75th Ranger Regiment.  We were the final RIP class of 2003 and had a couple of weeks leave for Christmas immediately after graduating.  There were apparently nine medics in our RIP class that graduated. 

On the morning that we were to report there
were only eight of us there.  Again, I didn't know Matt that well at the time so the fact that he just signed his own death warrant didn't bother me beyond the fact that the rest of us would no doubt be getting scuffed up until he returned.  To my utter shock, Specialist Fabra, who was immediately in charge of the nine of us, wasn't pissed.  He didn't drop any of us, even when I made the nervous error of calling him Sergeant.  Over the past ten months of our training it was very uncommon to have someone other than a Sergeant in charge so referring to him as such came very naturally.  The other seven guys in the room looked at me with contempt, as I'm sure they all believed that my error would soon become their burden.  That's how it works in the military, if you fuck up EVERYONE pays for it.  It is a good analogy for combat, and an effective way of weeding out those that cannot effectively work as a team. 

This time was different
though; Matt showed up to Georgia two days later and was never reprimanded.  I would find out later that he was stuck in Chicago due to a massive snowstorm and I would find out even later that this guy could get away with shit that no other person I have ever known could get away with.  He is currently in medical school and has threatened to sue me if I tell any of these stories about him. But fuck him; these stories need to be told. 

To my surprise
, our time waiting for a slot to SOMC was actually pretty fun.  We had an early formation, did PT, helped organize medical supplies and lifted weights.  More often than not we were released by 14:00 and given long weekends because command didn’t know what to do with us.  With the exception of one or two guys acting stupid and getting their brand new scrolls cut off, the time we spent at Regiment was actually quite enjoyable.  We took full advantage of the long weekends and traveled as much as our budgets would allow.  I was one of two in the group who had recently purchased a vehicle so I was almost always at the center of the debauchery.