Lest We Forget (2 page)

             
I woke up on my 19th birthday and went for a run before heading off to my academy class.  There was nothing else to eat in my house so I sat down to a tuna fish sandwich for breakfast, turned on the TV as I ate and searched for my boots.  I looked up at the TV just in time to see the second plane strike the World Trade Center.  At the time, the gravity of what happened hadn't sunk in.  It was just another event thousands of miles away being reported on the news.  It didn’t seem to have an immediate impact on what I was doing so I pressed on.  I finished my sandwich and headed off to class.  By the time that I arrived the reports of firefighters being trapped in the buildings were already coming in.  The word somber does nothing to describe the mood at the academy that morning.  It was as if every man in that room lost a brother.  They had.  I remembered years earlier when a news report came on TV about a Phoenix firefighter that had been trapped in a building and lost his life.  Even at a young age I saw how much it impacted my father.  The loss of a single fellow firefighter was devastating, whether you were on the same crew or not.  Now we are getting reports of hundreds being killed.  We were let go for the day to be with our families.  The tone was no less melancholy when I got to my father’s home.

It wasn't until months later that the greatest impact of this event hit me.  I had the job that I dreamed of since I was playing with matchbox cars in the sand box behind my house but it didn't feel right.  I saw video images of American's my age preparing to go overseas every day.  These teenagers were getting ready to go to a foreign land to protect
my American dream and me.  They didn't know my family or me but they were preparing to place themselves in harms way so that I could continue my version of the American dream.  I stood by everything I loved but this was still incredibly unsettling to me.  It is a difficult feeling to put into words but I guess you could say that I felt like a hypocrite.  Why should I get to sit back for the next 20 years wrapped in a cape of freedom and security that has been provided to me by the exertions of better men than myself.  The decision to join the military was an easy one for me at this point.  The difficult part would be telling my father.  I knew how proud he was of me that I was following in his footsteps.  I know that he would be proud of me no matter what but I almost felt as if it was an insult to leave the very profession that had provided a home and food to me for my entire life.  A part of me felt like I was turning my back on those guys that looked out for me on the job. 

When it came time to let my father know what I had decided he responded exactly like I figured that he would.  He was concerned yet supportive.  He has always had my back in everything that I have ever done.  Everything.  I know that he didn't want me to go into the military, especially since our country was going to be fighting a war on two different fronts.  He put that aside and got me in touch with a former Air Force Special Operations
Pararescuemen - PJ.  At the time I was planning on going in as a combat medic.  Bob, the PJ, told me, "there is only one place in the Army for a hard charging swinging dick like (me).... that's the Rangers."  He said, "You can be a medic if you want, that's cool, but do it with the Rangers."

I respected Bob
; hell, I still respect him.  He let me come to his home where he shared pictures and stories from his time in special operations.  It made me incredibly excited for the challenge ahead.  I owe a part of my success to the advice that Bob gave me during that time.  Having a former member of special operations as a mentor was invaluable to my success.  Pieces of advice like, “be the grey man” would echo through my thoughts throughout my training. 

……

Chapter 3
-
FAR

I can't feel my hands.  Why the hell can't we put our hands in our pockets?  What is the point of putting pockets in the uniform if it is against the rules to put your hands in them
?  It's late November 2003, the first day of Ranger Indoctrination Program or RIP for short.  Even the name suggests that we are all in for a near-death experience.  I have already graduated from Army basic training, Army Combat medic school and Airborne school to get here.

There are 150 of us standing in formation waiting for the madness to begin.  There was close to 500 in our RIP-hold group.  There
were simply too many guys coming out of Airborne school and not enough equipment for them to start a class.  Every month the top 150 physical agility scores got spots to the next RIP class, the rest would roll back into a holding pattern that some say is worse than RIP itself. The PT test is nothing special, it consists of 2 minutes of max effort push ups, 2 minutes of max effort sit ups and a 2 mile run.

There really isn't an agenda so while waiting to get into the next class we would get tasked out to anyone on post that needed something done.  We would pull weeds, get smoked, paint curbs, get smoked, move furniture, get smoked, change targets at shooting ranges, get smoked, stand around in formation for hours on end, and then you
guessed it, get smoked.  Getting smoked is an interesting occurrence.  The first time it happens is very confusing.  I recall being in a sort of holding barracks before starting basic training and some guy decided to take a nap.  The drill Sergeant made the entire group do push ups.  As soon as the majority of guys couldn’t do push ups anymore he had us roll to our backs and do flutter kicks until we failed at that.  This went on for about 15 minutes or so.  The entire time I couldn’t help but think, why the fuck am I getting punished because this asshole was on his neck in the middle of the day?   I would come to learn that there were varying degrees of “getting smoked.”  There was the quick, “we got shit to do but you were being dumb so do 25 push ups and get up” smoking.  There was the, “I’m trying to teach you a lesson that will help you survive the rigors of combat” smoking. There was the, “I know I can make this kid quit if I make him do air squats until he pukes on himself” smoking. There was the “Fuck you I just got my Ranger tab or my promotion so I’m going to mess you up because I’ve been getting messed up every day for the last 2 years” smoking.  And my personal favorite the, “I don’t even have a reason, I’m just fucking board and I out-rank you so start doing push ups” smoking. 

These torture sessions included movements that would make your
CrossFit workout seem like a trip to day camp.  Things like “little man in the woods” and “8 count body builders” or my personal favorite the “yes-no-maybe.”  As bad as getting screamed at while doing hundreds if not thousands of repetitions of various calisthenics was, the worst was being made to stand in one place without moving for hours at a time.  The throbbing that occurs in your joints after an Ironman pales in comparison to standing motionless on concrete all day.

One Friday while in RIP hold, our cadre partial emerged from a window in front of our formation and called for a private.  Five guys from the front row ran over immediately.  Of course he didn't ask for five
, he asked for one, so we all got smoked.  "RECOVER" the cadre shouts and we stand up.  "You, you, you and you, get the fuck back in formation.  YOU, I will let this entire formation go home if you can sing a Britney Spears song right now!"  The guy panics, not wanting the 400+ guys in front of him think that he knows lyrics to a Britney Spears song.  "3...2....1.  Chance is up, get back in line asshole!  Looks like none of you are going home anytime soon,“ shouts the cadre.  He shuts the window to return to his nice warm office.  Thirty minutes later he emerges once again.  This time he singles out one guy, "You!  Get up here and sing me a Britney song or so help me God I will leave you all out here all fucking night!"

"BABY
BABY HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW...."

"HAHA   Help him out fuckers!"  He yelled from the window.  The collective voice of 400 wannabe Army Rangers echoed out the words to
that song.  By this point the Staff Sergeant in the window was laughing uncontrollably and can hardly get the words out, "Get the fuck out of here, all of you!"  We scatter like roaches when the lights come on.  NO ONE wants to be stuck in that place a minute longer than they have to. I made the mistake of hanging out in the barracks on my first weekend in Pre-RIP.  I ended up spending two days picking up shell casings at a range and setting up targets for a group of guys in Battalion. You want to talk about getting smoked, try being a Pre-RIP student on a weekend detail with a bunch of Rangers.  I never made that mistake again.  A couple of friends and I would get a hotel room just off post and spend our weekends sleeping and writing the Ranger creed hundreds of times. To be honest most guys failed the PT test on purpose so they wouldn't have to endure RIP after all of this torture.  The ironic thing was that the guys who failed intentionally would be there twice as long while they were getting placed with other units.

By the first day of Ranger
Indoc I had been in the Army for about eight months.  Falling into a formation was second nature.  You have to make sure that you are directly behind the man in front of you and directly between the men to your right and left.  Everyone is organized by their last name to make roll call go faster.  It has to look pretty or you are going to pay by way of physical abuse.  The first morning of RIP everyone made sure to be in place early to ensure that our formation was squared away.  We stood in the cold, damp Georgia darkness for what felt like hours awaiting the first day to begin.  My fingers are numb from the cold and despite standing still for so long, I could still hear the heartbeats of the men around me pounding out in a collective concern for what was about to happen.  We are standing on what feels like sacred ground, the walls around us have the accolades from every major battle that the 75th Ranger Regiment had been involved in and beneath our feet was what had simply come to be known as "the blacktop." This ground has seen more sweat than the floor of a child labor camp in communist China.  This blacktop has taken away more men’s dreams than the act of poking a hole in a condom.  We stand facing an old white barracks building with chipping paint and cracked walls that used to house the members of 3rd Ranger Battalion before the new compound was built.  It now housed all of us Ranger-wannabes.

The large double doors swing open and as much as we want to look at who is coming out, we know better.  From the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of him.  The man that emerged was daunting figure who I will call Staff Sergeant
Runza.  He was easily 215 pounds and stood over six feet tall.  It was 5 o'clock in the morning but his entire bottom lip was packed to the gills with chewing tobacco.  Runza had a clipboard in his hands with our class roster.  He gave us the simple instruction that he would call off our last name and we would sound off with our first name and middle initial.  The process was going smoothly until he got to my friend, Lewis.  Runza called off, "Lewis!"

"Lewis" he responded.

"Your first name asshole!"

"Lewis, Sergeant" he shouted once again.

At this time Runza rushed to where Lewis was standing and got in his face.  He looked at his nametape, it said 'Lewis'.  The entire class could feel how pissed off our new instructor was, the groups collective heart rate elevated as his anger was palpable.  He grabbed Lewis by the collar giving him one last chance to follow the instruction.  "What is your first name, asshole?" he screamed.

"Lewis, Se
rgeant"

"Your father named you Lewis
Lewis?"

"Roger Se
rgeant"

"You have got to be kidding me!!  What kind of asshole names his kid the same thing twice
?  What is your father's name?"

"Lewis, Se
rgeant"

"No fucking way!  No Goddamn way!  Please tell me you don't have kids Lewis
Lewis!"

"Roger Sergeant, I do"

"So help me God Lewis Lewis, if you named your poor bastard Lewis I am going to punch you square in the fucking mouth!"

"Negative Se
rgeant, I have two girls"

"Even God knew the insanity had to stop!
Now get the fuck down!"

Lewis began knocking out
push-ups as Runza continued through the roll call.  This would not be our last encounter with Runza.  At one point during RIP he told our class that he would take us out into the woods, every one of us, and end our pathetic lives.  I believed with all my heart that he could do it, that he was capable of killing 150 men barehanded. 

The first major event following the PT test in RIP is the Combat Water Survival Test (CWST)
. It isn't anything too terribly difficult, they just want to make sure that you are not afraid of the water.  One of the events has the men blindfolded and walking off of a 10-foot high dive.  The cadre would be behind the soldier guiding them to the end.  We were instructed to yell "RANGER" and jump.  I witnessed one of the poor bastards that hesitated at the moment of truth.  Runza had a fist full of the back of his BDU top, standing behind him on that high dive.  It was a sort of push, pull maneuver that he used.  The push was to force that kid off the diving board, the pull was to ensure that he wasn't going to hit feet first!  All I heard was his mangled attempt at calling out "RANGER," which sounded more like "RAMMMFER" as his back impacted the water with the force of a Mac truck hitting a fucking watermelon.