the rendezvous point, set up security, and waited for an hour; but no partisans came, and of course there was no food.
At that point, the lane grader decided that since we were so deep in the enemy's rear and the weather was so bad, it might be safe enough to begin moving on roads. The road he brought us to was a welcome sight, and it was obvious that no one had traveled it since the snow had begun. So we were able to move more rapidly, to make up for lost time.
Around midnight 1 began to have problems of my own. I didn't exactly lose it, because I kept moving ahead — I kept walking and walking. But as I trudged along, I had no idea who I was or where I was going. I just knew I had to keep going, and stay with the other guys. I guess I was in this delirious state for three to four hours.
Come daylight, we left the road and continued moving about 500 yards into the woods and parallel to the road. But when night fell, we were back on the road again. Though the snow had stopped, what was on the ground was knee deep; and it was cold — I'd guess it was near zero. We hadn't eaten since we'd launched a couple of days back, and people were getting pretty hungry.
About 2200 hours, we came upon a farmhouse and heard some hogs. The word came back asking if anyone knew how to kill and dress a pig. 'I can,' I said, and went forward. But when I saw that the 'pig' weighed about two hundred pounds, 1 knew I would have to have some help — three more men. One guy had to grab him by the snout to keep him from squealing. One guy had to grab him by the ears to steady his head. And one guy had to grab him by the tail and hold on, to keep him from swishing his body around and throwing the rest of us all over the hog lot.
Though no one else in the patrol had any experience with hogs, everyone was so hungry it didn't take long to scare up the three volunteers. I appointed each to his duties (snout man, cars man, and tail man), gave them a quick briefing about what to do (we all had to act simultaneously), and we entered the hog lot. This was going to be a challenge, I knew, but we had to accomplish the mission if we wanted to eat.
Meanwhile, the patrol leader went about establishing a security perimeter around the farmhouse.
We climbed over the fence into the hog lot, skirted another hog house, which contained a pair of hogs that were bigger than the one we'd picked, and jumped on our hog. At that point, the ears man did his part right and hung on; but the snout and tail men didn't do so well, and the hog started squealing and thrashing about. The only thing I could do was jump on him myself and stick him in the throat. He and I rolled around in the hog manure (which was not all frozen) for a couple of minutes, but after a time the hog went limp. Then I quickly gutted and quartered him so we could carry our dinner more easily.
Meanwhile, all this commotion had brought the farmer running out onto his snow-covered porch, but a machine gun opened up (not to hurt him, but to catch his attention), and he dropped flat on his back and did a 'crab walk' back inside the house. I felt kind of bad taking his hog, but learned later that the Army had an agreement with the farmers to reimburse them for anything the Ranger students took for food.
Once I had the hog quartered, we grabbed our food and headed deep into the woods, then built a fire and had roasted pig. A welcome least!
We continued on the rest of the night and the next day.
At about 2200 hours that night, we arrived at our attack position, about a mile from the Toccoa Dam. A reconnaissance patrol sent out to scout for enemy positions returned around midnight and reported that an enemy position with a campfire was about 100 meters north of the dam and close to our planned route. For that reason, the patrol leader decided to change our route and send out a six-man patrol to neutralize the enemy position (I was on that team). We would do that when the rest of the patrol was in place to attack the dam.
II-hour was to be 0500 hours. After the attack, we were supposed to make it to a clearing about a mile away, and at 0600 hours, helicopters would extract us from there.
The entire patrol set out from the attack position at about 0300 hours — moving very cautiously. An hour later, my team split off and headed for the enemy position north of the dam. As we approached it, we could see the fire and at least two aggressor guards near the ditch line on the far side of the road. They were in a cut, and the bank behind them was about ten feet high. We crossed the road and circled behind them, using the bank as cover, then crawled the last couple hundred yards until we were directly above them.
At 0555 hours, the message came over the radio that the rest of the patrol was in position to launch the attack. Moments later, four of us jumped off the bank, right on top of the bad guys, and slammed them to the ground. Before they knew what happened, we had them bound and gagged.
About that time, we heard the rest of the patrol launch the attack on the dam — although there wasn't much shooting, maybe ten rounds or less. This sounded a little strange (we normally put out a great volume of fire), but we had been using our weapons as pikes in order to climb the steep, ice-frozen slopes, and the end of most of our rifle barrels had been too plugged with ice to fire.
Meanwhile I took advantage of the fire the bad guys had built and turned my back to it. I stood that way for what couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes — but that was long enough for me to doze off and fall over backwards into the fire, igniting my field jacket. Thank goodness for the snow. Needless to say, I woke up in a hurry, and managed to roll over and put it out — though the entire back of my jacket was burned out.
I didn't have much time to reflect on that. It would soon be daylight, and we had to get over to our pickup zone before dawn.
We began to run.
By then the weather had begun to clear, and although the weather had delayed the completion of our mission a couple of days, the helicopters were coming for us. And as we approached the clearing, we could hear the roar as they approached. Then snow was blowing everywhere as they set down — the most beautiful sight I had seen in seven weeks.
We flew back to the Ranger Base Camp at Dahlonega, where we were met by quite a reception. The Ranger department commander, a colonel, was there, along with a team of doctors and a chaplain. The docs checked us all, but found nothing major (there was a little frostbite — ears, fingers, and toes). Next came a hot meal-all we could cat. Then we were put on the buses and sent back to Fort Benning.
On the way back, I learned from one of the Ranger instructors that the two men we had pounced on by the fire had actually been civilian members of the waterworks fixing a busted water main. They had not been 'bad guys' at all.
The next morning we had a company formation to find out who had earned the Ranger Tab. No guests were invited. When your name was called, you stepped forward. When the calling was done, approximately twenty men were left behind who'd gone all the way through the training, but for some reason had failed to earn the tab. 1 felt sorry for them, but that's the way it is. The standard has to be met.
TRAINING
Early in my career, I realized that military training offers a unique opportunity — not only for preparing men for combat, but for preparing them for the most important of life's values: personal attributes, principles, ethics, motivation for the right reasons, love of country, and seff-respect — in other words, the values that should be manifested in every citizen of our great nation. No other institution in our society can possibly provide the same kind of environment, together with the caring and dedicated leadership, for molding and shaping the young men and women who elect to serve their country. Not every soldier will turn out as we hope, but the great majority certainly will, and they will always be grateful for the opportunity and the caring that gave them a greater perspective on life.
In my judgment, training is the essential element for the readiness of any unit in any service. The very best equipment is great to have, and I'll never turn any down, but well-trained
