SOPC though it was nearly a decade ago, at the end we were told two versions of the invasion of A-Stan and a certian former 5th GRP 18E told us his version of his story like Star Wars.

18E course, an instructor who was... and i swear to this day, a ninja. Along with moving a tough book CF-18 completely out of the way only to have a set of lead weights go right through the screen and be sitting on the keys.

Standing in front of the Bull Simons statue and putting on what i had worked for.


"But with the willingness to die for family and country, something insides us longs for someone to die next too, someone to lock step with, another with a heart like our own."

Something to look forward to
 

Thank you for sharing your stories. I got a lot of laughs out of some of them. :D

Been said before but - thank you for this thread, maybe some will have some of the same memories, or I'll reacquaint with old friends.

Class clown Nolan, thank you.

SFC Maxim & the enormous wad of chewing tobacco - could his short legs put a hurting on us in the daily ruck!
The snivel cord & using it between myself, Jamie, Nolan & others.
Bouncing the gates - thankfully not much.
Passing the M60 on the rucks.

Waiting for phase I, given scuba PT by a 5th group ODA - learned about 'hello Dolly's' & flutter kicks.

Bunny baseball.

Doc G at 300F1.

Jake - my patient at goat lab.
Our theme song "Another one bites the dust".

Katie Wilder, wish I still had the T-shirt.
m&c

1SG Asa Ballard was actually my dad. He passed away in 1983.

I had a lot of respect for your dad. I only knew him when he was 1SGT of A Co, IMA (75-76). As a medic in training, I spent a long time there. He was probably my first "mentor" in SF. It took me a long time to figure out how much I learned from him.

Waiting for hours at Pope, chuted up to jump into Mackall. Humping our way in after landing and getting ambushed, no sleep, no food and harassed all night. I think 1/3 of the class DOR'd that night (mostly the "tough guys"). Got real familiar with the obstacle course that night.

Chow time with Cs in a garbage can of boiling water. Mostly Ham and MFers or Ham and SOBs. I was lucky - I loved 'em. Easy trading!

Land Nav at night. Lost a few guys then too. (I think one guy was really lost!).

Running up and down the airstrip with all our gear plus our cots to celebrate the lovely July day that Neal Armstrong landed on the moon.

E&E with a couple of buds one Sunday to sneak off to a local store along some highway near Mackall and grab an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. WE MADE IT! HA HA HA :D

Ghosting back at Bragg between training sessions. This was essential training for later on ;)

300F1 at Ft Sam. Picking a fight with a leg at the PX. Falling in lust with a woman that worked at the PX. She looked like Anette Funicello. You youngsters won't have a clue who that was :p

Jim Scurry (best medic I ever new) as my OR instructor at Med Lab. Met up with Jim again when he was at the 7th SFG ('73-'74). MSG Ferguson as the NCOIC.

Duke Snider as the G-chief and our tasty pit roasted goat.

Civic action during Phase III at an older ladies run-down home painting and repairing her porch. She put out one hell of a spread for us. She must have been in her 70's and she walked about 3 mi every Sunday to get to church. She was one of our best guerrilla assets.

Capturing two bridge "guards" from the 82nd. They were pissed!

Humping it back to Bragg from Phase III at Mackall. Even lost a couple of guys then too.

Aaaah, the good ol' days :D

But saddest of all was the tragic loss of some of our Brothers in a Demo accident. Rest in Peace, Brothers, you are not forgotten!

Cold wet, and Hungry. I'll go with survival too. I had a rabbit, built my shelter, and did all that was required. Time to rest....snowing.....Right about day two, I got pretty hungry. The rabbit that had become my friend, and conversation partner, quickly became my meal. Nothing better then a rabbit cooked on a spit over an open fire.........

Brings back a lot of memories
 

I came back from Germany with TDY enroute to Vietnam, and attended SFOC in the spring of 1970. Lots of the stories in this thread ring a bell about stuff that has disappeared down the memory hole. Getting promoted to CPT while in isolation for Gobbler Woods. Low altitude night jump into the FTX, and landing in poison ivy - swelling up and itching bad. Made the training extra fun. Lots more, too.

Robert Howard was what I remember most impactfully.:lifter

1st Phase: breaking the ice on Drowning Creek and swamps in land nav.

3rd Phase (March): 9+ inches of snow on the last night and the unprepared, unwitting and mutinous “Gs”. Three of them decided that their suit case and sneakers weren’t cutting it and broke away from the formation on our exfil movement. Some of the SF students back-tracked then followed the tracks (12” of snow made this easy) to an isolated house in the woods where they found these three yahoos on the porch fixing to break-in. They pulled rank and ordered them back to the formation, but they weren’t having it. A little old white lady (70-year-old?) opened the door and had a shot-gun in her hand pointing at the three ne’er-do-wells of not the same race decided to rejoin the team, a few shades lighter.

DOL

I think his name was Becker and Foreman was the ncoic. Ballard was mean as snake piss.
That was spring/summer 1977

Standing by the fence one evening with some guys that were smoking (I don't)...
a car pulled over and this Grit got out and ambled over...
"What you boys in for?"....he thought it was a confinement facility......

One other thing I remember, is being damn glad to be leaving Camp Mackall all in one piece and moving on to the next phase.

Actually, as I remember it and as was reported by a later (non-vetted) poster, I remember my version was called "Gobbler (no s) Woods".

Memories ... the year was 1970 ....

Having just completed the Airborne course right after OCS, I reported in to Hardy Hall at Fort Bragg. I would soon see ...

E-7 and E-8s doing police call outside the Center (IMA at that time). MG Flanagan was in charge of the Center.

In 1970, while going through SFOC we wore 'candy stripes' representing the colors of our future assigned Groups ... I didn't wear the beret until I got to Fort Bragg, i.e. during airborne training, even though I had assignment orders to 8th Special Forces Group. In hindsight, it probably saved me a lot of extra pushups; a Ranger from the Ranger school cadre went through the airborne course in my class and the cadre delighted in adding to his training experience. Later on, when I went through the Ranger course while assigned to 10th SFGA, one of the cadre in the "city phase" (Harmony Church) spent extra time focusing on SF personnel because "they wore the wrong color beret."

My classes were conducted in the center, but we spent some time in the wooden WWII-era buildings. I remember a crusty, old Major who was our class adviser. To this day I remember him saying that you don't have to be on top of a target to be able to surveil it. I also remember the NOFORN classes that were a part of the course ....

When it was time for Gobbler Woods, I remember drawing an M-14 with another LT and driving from the arms room back to Hardy Hall to pick up our rucks with the top down on my convertible and both M-14s wedged behind our seats in an upright position like we were going on safari.

I hated the ANGRC-109. Not because the radio was heavy. It was because I was assigned to carry the hand crank generator frame. The legs were no problem, it was the blasted seat (I'm thinking of a few choicer words) that was a literal pain in the ass. It didn't fit at all well in the style rucksacks (that was before the Alice rucks) of the time. It was a pain to jump and it was a pain to lug on the ground. I would have gladly traded it for the generator, receiver or the transmitter.

We used the MC-1 to insert into the problem, the increased maneuverability coming from removing the forks that kept the risers even and which allowed better, but not great, steering of the canopy. The increased maneuverability wasn't enough to keep the entire student ODA from missing the postage stamp DZ and landing in the trees. The officer who was filling the medic slot on my training detachment (and who was, incidentally, one of my TAC officers while I was going through OCS) landed in the top of a tree, but only long enough to allow his chute to deflate before breaking free and sending him falling fifty feet to the ground, breaking one of his legs.

Later on, during the exercise after going into town in a vehicle one of the Gs had produced to set up an intel net, we (me, the asst ops/intel and another officer filling the light weapons slot) as well as a couple of Gs ran into a CI patrol of 82d Abn troopers. Long story short, we were 'apprehended' and removed to a POW site. Even though I was going to DLIWC after SFOC I still was pretty fluent in Spanish. I stuck to a story I developed on the spot and spoke only Spanish during my 'encounters' with interrogators (luckily they didn't have anyone at the detention site that spoke Spanish) and refused to understand any statements made in English. They basically gave up on me after only one day and I was re-inserted into the problem, only to find that the G (who was probably an ops/intel sgt instructor) had been given a bunch of grief from the G chief who was pissed off that we went by vehicle in the first place.

I also remember the demonstration put on by, if I remember correctly, reps from Frankfort Arsenal, specifically a demonstration by a national champion marksman. He fired an M-16 using the iron sights and hit a man-sized target center mass 1600 yards or meters (I can't remember which) away, off-hand. Yes, I said, off-hand. I later learned the secret to his trick; he used the bayonet lug, as well as the front sight, as the means to range the target, so it was only good for that distance.

Anyway, that my recollection of events more than forty years ago ... and I'm sticking to it!!!!

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Nice story UWOA, thx for sharing :)