the Liberian officer had failed the initial swim test, drowned in PH1 on the slide for life, spent a couple days in Womack and they had put him back in the course and never told anyone that he could not swim. On the infil the JM did not put the students in water wings for some reason. The JM then released the students early (VGMR drop)and they landed short of the DZ. We found him submerged about 15-20 mintues later. The Sr NCO who signed off on the initial swim test was then part of the investigation team. To say it was a botched investigation and bigtime coverup later is an understatement. Lutz had just gone thru Katie Wilder. I know too well.

They initially blamed 4 people and mostly on misinformation and wrong jobs. Then when they discovered they had charged the wrong ones, moved the correct offender to Corps (west pointer), dropped charges and tried to cover it up. I had just taken over as the PH3 Ops Off at Maj Howard's request 2 weeks prior. One my Sr NCOs who pulled staff duty practiced his trade craft, opened the Bn Commanders safe and copied all their documents which showed the clear cover up and provided copies to the defense lawyers. Interesting meetings were held with Gen Lutz as how to proceed to not have another Katie Wilder and make it look legit.

I had worked with Howard in PH1 as his Ops Off with SFC Sharp and crew. One of the funniest stories was on a shakedown of the first combined Off/Enlisted class, they had found a map of all the land nav points in a SSG's pants. If you remember, we gave you the points you just had to get there.

I had been watching from about 100 yards. The SSG was Ranger and a Plt Sgt in the 82. When I told him he was going to have to see Maj Howard he started to cry and said, " Request permission for the TACs to take me down in the woods and beat the sXXt out of me. I won't even fight back". That did not happen and he got his one on one with Maj Howard who ate his butt up. Howard stayed on him the whole class but he survived and graduated.

The officers in the first combined class thought they were "exempt" from guard duty for a couple days until we "inspired" them to think differently.

Anyone have the opportunity to watch "HBO" with SFC Sharp in the TAC shack?

hh,

I was in that class, as mentioned I think earlier. I always wondered what came out of that.

I remember him going down the slide for life....and not coming up..

I work with Tim Vogel, who was cadre out there at the time. He says he doesn't exactley remember the slide for life thing, he jumped in so many times for folks it's all the same...LOL

Graduation...........
 

Standing at attention waiting to put on my Green Beret,realizing I had finally made it,I'm one of them now....:) It was such a long time ago (47 years)........ :) De Oppresso Liber.......:lifter

Big Teddy :munchin

Sitting in the bus from Ft Benning as we came to a stop in front of Co D, SFTG at Bragg, and watching 1SG Rocky Lane walk down the sidewalk toward us... wondering 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?'

Like Zonie, standing at attention at company D SFTG after a long bus trip from Ft. Benning. It was early September and the temp was mid 90's about 3 in the afternoon. An SFC who I will never remember at this point in my life calmly told us to drop. As the hot ashpalt burned into our hands and the heel of the jump boots of the fella in front of you smashed into your forehead the SFC began to explain to us what we could expect during the next year of training. He only spoke about 10 minutes but it seemed like 30. About 6 or 7 guys dropped out at that point. If it wasn't for the soldier behind me talking under his breadth how much fun this is and making me laugh I probably would of dropped out then. It was then I knew I found a home.:D

Night Land Nav
 

I must have found every knee deep root hole during night land nav. Probably hyperextended my knees a dozen times. Also remember the night land nav walk with compass in one hand and the other in front of my face to keep from getting a branch in the face.

Worst memory is Hoffman's Triangle and busting the draw to the north. When I got to the stream in the middle of the draw, it looked like it was ankle deep. Took two steps and went in to my chest. That's when I realized that my red lense flashlight was not longer dummy corded to my ruck. Giant suck!

I also remember a lot of Allied officers going through with us. If you couldn't find a point, you just had to wait and at fire team would come by with bright white lights, talking and working together, and see where they went.

More Memories
 

Started looking back through the thread and started remembering more.

- Slave Market: picking up pinecones, police call at Gabriel, cutting grass at HQ

- Bruce Horn: he ran my ass into the ground. hated me. had a VW letter with my name on it in his top desk drawer and called me in every day to sign it. When I wouldn't he would smoke me and put me on a shit detail. He also had us do a night operation that I cannot go into detail on.

- COL Rowe: when I started COL Rowe was in charge. The transition to COL Potter happened during the 12 miler. When they drove in our direction of movement we had COL Rowe shouting encouragement out the window. When they came back the other way, COL Potter was shitting on us.

- Robin Sage brief back to COL Potter. I heard before we started that Potter hated Jr. Medics and of course, that is what I was. The briefback was only going for a minute or so when Potter interrupted and asked, "who's the Jr Medic?" I then got to brief the entire operation starting with him telling me to close my eyes and tell me what the terrain will look like when I leave the aircraft. I then had to walk him through the terrain, without looking, from infil to our first RON. Thankfully, I knew what to expect and was prepared.

snake
 

we caught a cooperhead on one of our small unit tactics trainimg we put it in a aquarium in the company office and once a week we would all pile in around it and watch as we feed it a rat and watched him strike it. One week we put a rat in the aquarium and the rat jumped on the snakes head and was holding on as the snake freaked out. The snake would not mess with the rat and the rat survived. we put it in a aquarium next to the snake and named him ranger.

Glebo,
Say Hi to Tim for me...we sat next to each other in PHII weapons course.
Pat

Our re-supply AC crashed while making a drop to another team killing everyone on board. :(

Drowning creek had ice in it when we did the slide for life.

Vic Allen lost his weapon while crossing a river and got hypothermia looking for it. Biggest tactical fire I've ever seen warming him up and none of us were complaining either.

WILCO, msg passed. He sez "hey", wonderin how you're doin...

Wow, this thread brings back all kinds of memories.

-Dale Wells and Dana Bowman were a laugh-a-minute at every company formation. TACs P. Davis and L. Boudroux had a field day with those two.

-Living in the tar paper shack and using the Million dollar latrine during Phase I.

-Passing the M-60 MG down the line during PT runs. :lifter

-SFC Neptune unsuccessfully demonstrating the Whopper!:D

-Gallant harassing everyone at every opportunity.

-Losing a classmate (only in his 20s) to a heart attack on the 12 mile road march. :(

-Getting confined to the barracks for 7 days (during MOS phase) after going out to party on my Birthday and coming in late/hungover for a road march. :eek:

Glebo,
Tell Tim all is well, glad he's doing fine too. When I get back to Bragg I'll send you an email and I'll vist you guys at work.

Sounds good...or Charley Mikes...we'll do an "off site"...yeah, yeah, that's it...LOL

Good idea....