heighten the danger of already high-risk operations? Did Beckwith unnecessarily endanger future unit members? Or did he inform terrorists worldwide of the phenomenal abilities of the unit and what it can do to protect America?
As an insider, I’m convinced that Beckwith revealed no important secrets and that the Delta operators fighting the ongoing war on terror today, many years after his book was published, are still of the high standards that Beckwith demanded.
In the spring of 1998, I found myself with 121 other officers and sergeants at a remote camp in the steep hills and mountains of the northeastern United States. We had been especially recruited and had already survived numerous pre-tryout physical and psychological tests. For the next month, we would be further assessed mentally, psychologically, and physically for “potential service with Delta.”
I was by then a captain in the Rangers, and had decided before arriving that my definition of success was to make it through the entire month without getting hurt or quitting. If I was not selected, then okay. It would be a blow to my ego, but simply representing the Rangers as best I could and returning with my head held high would be my bottom line. I think most of those around me harbored similar feelings, because the odds of being around at the end of tryouts, and actually being selected for Delta, were extremely slim. We knew it would be difficult. We had no idea.
By the time I reached the final event, after enduring twenty-five days of hell, I was happy that I had not gotten my hopes up too high, for my performance so far had been sketchy.
It had rained all day and showed little sign of letting up. Huddled in the back of the covered truck, unable to see outside, we waited for our assigned code name to be called. Once it was, we scrambled out as gracefully as possible with minds and bodies already at their limits from twenty-five days of hell, and moved toward a nearby area that was faintly lit.
That night, we individually faced what we hoped was the last land navigation event. The lucky ones would cover roughly forty miles of mountain trails, pock-marked asphalt roads, and densely vegetated terrain that covered the hundreds of meters of elevation change. The unlucky would cover more distance as they self-corrected their march after a sleepdeprived wrong turn or two. The really unfortunate would either move too slow or fail to recover from their error in time to finish within the unpublished time frame. I fell into the middle category, the unlucky.
For the past three and a half weeks, our individual assigned code consisted of a color and a number that was changed daily. This night, however, the smooth-talking Delta assault cadre member named Hoov barked at us from the back of the camouflaged truck. “There are only two colors left-Blood and Guts!” he said. I became Blood 36.
I was the fourth of six candidates in our truck, and was called out just past 2200 hours, taken to a small shelter tarp tied to the trees, and given a short, scripted set of instructions. As the officer spoke, my mind seemed incapable of registering what he was saying. I was too pumped up, or too exhausted, and ready for the entire nightmare to be over. When he finished his short brief, he turned me around and pointed me in the initial direction.
It was pitch-dark, no moon yet, and the ground was soaked. Had I not been steered in the right direction, I might easily have walked off the edge of the earth. Armed with a rubber M-16 rifle, eight different map sheets, and a compass, and toting a sixty-pound rucksack, I was away on the first of what would soon seem like a lifetime’s worth of steps.
Trying to jog the trails at night was stupid. After three weeks of assessment, this was not the time to twist an ankle or blow a knee, both easy to do in the blackness on an unknown trail. I maintained my own desired pace for an hour, maintaining a good pace count so as not to miss a turn in the trail. One wrong turn could spell the end.
Incessant pain in my upper back helped keep my mind off the weight of the rucksack digging into my shoulders during the hour that passed before I came into contact with any other humans. Four or five candidates were whispering to each other as they huddled around the white light of a candidate’s flashlight that illuminated a rain- soaked map case. The trail had gone cold because heavy rains had flooded the low areas and deep pools of rainwater hid what I thought was the desired footpath.
The discussion centered on whether to go through the water in hopes of picking up the trail when the terrain rose, or steer around it by taking some other trail that was not seen on the map. I had stopped for a breather close by and tried to listen in to the verbal logic train. Just then, a Ranger candidate stepped from the darkness, breathing heavily. He was soaked up to his chest, and his rucksack still dripped water. His compass dangled from around his neck as he held his map and flashlight in one hand and weapon in the other.
He silently signaled to the huddled group that trying to ford the flooded trail was not an option. The Ranger then approached me and said, “No way, man. It’s too deep.” I recognized him them. Nitro was a seasoned Ranger squad leader from Savannah, Georgia, home of the 1st Ranger Battalion.
We were under strict orders not to talk to anyone during the exercise, but taking risks is what this business is all about anyway. Delta was not looking for choirboys. “How far did you get?” I asked.
“About twenty meters or so. It’s hard to tell.”
I looked at my map again, my hand wiping rainwater off the plastic case, but preventing me from seeing the important fine brown contour lines telling elevation and the blue dotted lines that showed an intermittent stream.
“I’m going for it,” I said quietly. “Can’t afford to go around. It will take twice as long to get back on the right trail.”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t think you can make it.” Nitro’s opinion was not to be underestimated, but time was our enemy.
I glanced over at the group. Some were still debating the issue while others had already taken off to find an alternate route. Their flashlight beams could be seen faintly in the distance.
“You can always go around if you want, or you can come with me,” I offered, “We’ll strike some high ground not too far past where you turned around.”
Nitro looked at me for a second, shifted his heavy rucksack around on his back and shoulders. “Alright, I’m with ya,” he said. Years later in Aghanistan, I saw Nitro’s courage firsthand in the face of enormous odds and ambiguous surroundings.
By now I was completely soaked, except for one area, and a few steps later, the icy water finally reached my groin, too, giving me a frigid reality check. I don’t exactly remember when Nitro and I eventually split up, but once we lost each other, another twenty-nine hours passed before I saw him again.
The rain worsened over the next few hours and my body temperature was dropping fast. I had only eaten a single bite of a chocolate Powerbar. I felt nauseous and lost my appetite, a sure sign that I needed to keep refueling my body, both with water and food. I ignored it. My rucksack was soaking up rain like a giant sponge, adding at least another five pounds to my load and making each step much more labored. To refill my Camelbak water container, I would have to take off the rucksack, but I was too cold and miserable to do so.
I was simply too focused on succeeding, too focused on moving forward one step at a time, and too stupid to stop for a few moments to refuel my body.
When the morning sun finally began to break over the horizon, about six hours into the march, I decided to get rid of the batteries in my flashlight to shed a few ounces of unneeded weight. The two D batteries were part of the load slowing me down, so I threw them into a fast-running creek, hoping I would finish the march before darkness fell again. It made some sort of fuzzy sense at the time.
I was continuing down the waterlogged trail that paralleled the creek when my mind told me I might have made a big mistake. Somewhere along the way I had allowed rain to seep into my clear plastic map case, probably when I had stopped to don my camouflage wet-weather jacket to prevent losing any more warmth in my body. I had waited until after I was thoroughly drenched from the rain to do it.
The map case is used to shield your map from inclement weather, and works well until you have to switch out map sheets as the trail leads you off of one sheet and picks up on a different map. My maps got soaked while I was swapping them, and from then on, with each slight tug inside the map case, the papers disintegrated. Figuring I was about thirty miles into the movement, with an assumed ten miles still to go, I knew I had big problems.
