THE FORT BENNING PHASE
The basic objective of the Benning phase was to learn the fundamentals of patrolling: the essentials of planning; opcrations orders; selecting primary and alternate routes, assembly areas, rallying points, passage of lines, actions at the objectives; and above all the value of rehearsals. You did it over and over until you got it right.
The first two weeks were focused on heavy-duty physical training — log drills, endurance runs, hand-to-hand combat, the bayonet assault course, and the obstacle course. It was also during this phase that we were introduced to a new form of PT—'rope football.' We played this in a sawdust pit of not more than sixty feet in diameter. The class was divided into two teams of about fifty men, who'd go down in a football stance facing each other about three feet apart. In between the teams was dropped a knotted ball of cable rope that weighed something like fifty pounds. The object of the game was to move the ball to the other side of the pit. Anything went. There were no time-outs, no fouls or penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. You scratched, clawed, climbed over, or did whatever else you had to do to win. The penalty for losing was seventy-five or a hundred push- ups.
We also did a lot of rope work — learning the different knots and how to build different kinds of rope bridges — and we did a lot of rope climbing. There were two objectives here: to learn the different ways to climb a rope, and to build upper-body strength.
Another important element was advanced land navigation. Soldiers have to be expert navigators — to be able to get to where they are going when they are not familiar with the territory — and they have to do it quickly under the worst circumstances. Nowadays we have global positioning systems to make navigating easier, and these do give us an enormous advantage, but there is no substitute for a map in the hands of a good map reader and a compass in the hands of a good navigator. If you have these, and if all the electronic wizardry fails, you still have all you need to find out where you are and to keep you on course.
Also critical to the team is a good pace man, who keeps an accurate count of how much distance you have covered. He has to be able to consistently step a yard or meter with each normal step. Then he keeps count of the pace. One way to do it is by moving a small stone from one pocket to another every time he has gone a hundred paces. Another technique is to tie a knot in a string for each hundred paces. There are any number of techniques, of course, but the point is the same: You have to have a system to ensure that the count is not lost (or forgotten) should the patrol be ambushed.
Finally, we were taught every fundamental about patrolling: the different kinds of patrols (reconnaissance, combat, raids, ambushes, etc.), the organizations of each type of patrol, the patrol order, selecting routes, actions at danger areas, and action upon reaching the objective. During the Benning phase, we rehearsed many times over our patrolling techniques.
THE FLORIDA PHASE
We left Fort Benning early on a Saturday morning in October on buses headed to the Florida Ranger Camp on Eglin Air Force Base. Few of us remembered much about the trip, which took most of the day, because we slept as much as we could.
Near the Florida state line, a member of the Ranger cadre woke us up to put us in the right frame of mind. He read us a 'general situation': 'The United States is at war,' he told us. 'And we have entered a mythical country' — I've forgotten its name—'as a replacement unit.' From here on out, everything was to be a tactical simulation of real war
When we reached our Florida destination, our accommodations were austere — tents that accommodated twenty-four men each, canvas cots, no floors, a World War II-type mess hall, a small arms room, and a small aid station manned by a single medic. This didn't bother me; it was obvious that we wouldn't be spending much time there (and this would be luxury compared with where we were going).
About half an hour after we arrived, we were given an alert order to be prepared to move out within two hours on our first reconnaissance patrol. Our mission: to reconnoiter a possible enemy missile site. When we moved out, we moved directly into the swamps into water up to our waists. We were there for the next three days and nights.
This turned out to be the norm for the entire training — constant patrolling, constant raids, constant ambushes… and always wet and cold. You don't normally think of Florida as cold. But in October, that's what it can get if you are constantly wet, even in Florida.
As a part of the Florida phase, we were given special instructions on 'survival': how to catch and prepare food; what to eat and what not to eat (which wild plants and berries were safe, which weren't): and we were given chickens, rabbits, alligators, opossums, raccoons, and snakes that we had to prepare for some day's 'feast.'
We learned a lot about snakes. They were all over the place, particularly coral snakes and water moccasins. One day the cadre brought out what seemed to be a wagonload of snakes (nonpoisonous!) and passed them among us (we were sitting on logs). They started with one or two at a time, but that soon turned into armloads of six or eight. We got familiarized with snakes in a hurry.
Another challenge was the confidence course — an inverted crawl on ropes hanging forty feet above murky, over-our-heads water, with explosives in the water going off constantly. At some point on the rope, we'd be told to drop into the water and swim to dry land about a hundred feet away — with the explosives still going off.
During the three weeks, we only saw base camp, our tent, and the mess hall about four or five times. At other times we ate food provided by 'partisans' (that is, if we linked up with them at the designated place and time — we didn't always do that); and it was usually live chickens, rabbits, or even a goat.
We didn't get much sleep either. I was one of the designated 'sleep keepers.' That meant I had to keep a record of whatever sleep 1 was able to get that was more than thirty minutes. As I recall, at the end of seventeen days, my records indicated it totalled eight hours and ten minutes.
I've always loved the outdoors. I really enjoy the wilderness and its challenges. So, acute discomforts aside — the constant wet and cold and lack of steep — I really enjoyed the Florida phase. I had never been in a really big swamp, especially one as treacherous and challenging as the Okefenokee. The Yellow River runs right through it — very swift, deep, and dangerous. You can easily blunder into it, especially at night, without knowing it. That is, you can be wading up to your waist in standing swamp water, and then
When the three weeks were over, most of us who'd started were still hanging in and looking forward to the next phase, though some had been eliminated — for attitude, lack of motivation, physical failure, or whatever: the rest of us never really knew why. You knew somebody'd been eliminated when you saw a student standing out at the end of Flight Strip Number 7, which was located near our base camp, with his bag packed, waiting for the plane from Fort Benning, which came about every three days. He stayed there by himself until the plane came. I can't imagine how humiliating this must have been. At least it would have been terrible for me.
THE MOUNTAIN PHASE
We came in from our last patrol in Florida at midafternoon on a Saturday, finished our patrol debriefings, and began to clean and turn in the weapons and equipment that would remain at the campsite. After a big meal in the mess hall we hit the sack somewhere around midnight — dry for a change — for much-needed sleep.
At about 0300 Sunday morning, the Ranger cadre came running through the camp yelling: 'Formation in ten minutes. Fall out with all your gear, prepared to move out.'
We jumped out of the sack (having slept in our fatigues), quickly put on our dry pair of boots, rolled up our sleeping bags (which stayed with the cot), put on our Ranger web gear (harness), and fell in at our appointed place
