What do you remember most about the Q Course/Training Group?
 

Strange the things you remember. I can still feel today, almost 20 years later, the feeling of road crossings gone bad - over and over.

Coming up on the linear danger area, stepping off those high banks, going ass over tea kettle. And my favorite, the frame on the green tick crashing into the back of the head like being hit with a lead pipe, driving my face into that soft sand. Of course getting a mouthful. But being quiet about it the whole time. It happened a lot. LOL. :lifter

I can also remember always being in a hurry for everything. Never having enough time. But I can also remember laughing a lot. At myself, at my buds, at the instructors, at the cold and wet. Felt good to be at home.

I remember leaving the 91B area and walking up to 300F-1. Walking into the SOCAS barracks and smelling the stink of sweaty gear and the sweet smell of gun oil. Seeing rucks and web gear hanging from every bunk. Not laid out, hanging to dry. Well worn kit. Not like the antispetic 91B barracks. Home.

Rocky Farr walking through at 0700 on Saturday mornings gathering up people to assist with an autopsy - looking for the most hung over to make them puke if he could. Pieces/Parts class.

Oral boards, trying to stay awake in class. Former Marine knocking me out of my chair in RS class for dozing after I asked him to "do whatever it takes to keep me awake." Then me doing him the same favor the next day.

Inge Jansen and his British accent, "Sergeant, are you still killing your patients?"
"Roger that Sergeant!"
"Carry on then."

Major Howard walking up to the formation and "asking" the TAC if he could join us for a "little walk". And thinking, "I'm actually rucking with a legend."

Reporting to Colonel Rowe and thinking, "I'm actually saluting a legend."

Mr. Hollingsworth and Jansen letting me think I failed trauma clinic all afternoon long, and then laughing at me and buying the beer.

Meeting The Reaper for the first time and being amazed that all he could worry about was his car. LOL

And finally, Froglegz picking me up at Battalion and his "briefing."

The "Q"
 

That would be Engineer/Demo Class 66-4, "The Best of the Worst."

I look at the Q from a little different perspective. When I took over the Training Group my priority was training and I turned over the day to day operations to my DCO and the group staff. I spent my time in the field or the classroom and during that time I saw great soldiers, some just trying to get thru SFAS and others in the advanced programs like ASOT, O&I, SFARATEC, etc, with drive and commitment that exists no where else in our Army and perhaps in any Army in the world. This approach sort of pissed off the head shed because they could rarely find me but my priorities were where I felt they should be. I think the people that were the most initially shocked were the instuctors not just because they did not expect to see the "old man" but that I acutally had the audacity to get into the on going activities. I also saw a group of committed SF instructors that knew that their committment was to the soldier that they were training knowing full well that they may one day have that soldier working with him or one of his buddies. What I remember is that I had the privelidge of working with and for the best bunch of folks that every wore their country's uniform.

Jack Moroney

Ghosting
 

I presume you mean Training Group since I think I pre-dated "Q".

1. The TAC, Sgt Grogan (RIP), saying I was to answer to the name "Shithead" for the rest of my time in Training Group since he wasn't calling no man "Dahling". He actually referred to us as men rather than some other dispicable creatures.

2. GHOSTING: We were in the old wooden barracks on Smoke Bomb Hill and in between classes or while waiting for classes we pulled details. The art of Ghosting was developed and some excelled at it. If you don't know what ghosting is, it is the art of becoming a ghost and being invisible except for class and pay formation. It was treated almost with humor since it was really just a way of killing time. Walking around with a clip-board in one's hands was a good way to appear "busy". At the time we wore block caps, similar to the French Kepi. Each company had a plastic colored band on the cap designating his company. Co A wore Green. There were "ghost patrols" stationed at the Main PX and other places. We looked upon ghosting as training for clandestine operations. As the saying goes: The only crime was getting caught."

3. An instructor in the commo class sending me to the EM club one evening for a few beers. When I returned I passed the sending test with flying colors.

What do you remember most about the Q?
 

What about Annex 10 in the RTC area on Sunday night??

BMT

I'm not sure which was annex 10.

We moved to the RTC area during the Christmas break in 63-64. There was an EM club right across the street from the commo class room. I think it was SFC Graves who sent me to the club to looses up.
:D

Pay Day "B" Co. SFTG
 

Myself and another E-7 were payroll guards. CO. came back with the money threw me the sack and said pay the Co, Sgt. Don't come up SHORT or Over.
Troops were alittle surprised to see 2 E-7's paying.

BMT

SFC B***: An NCO who had been captured and escaped from the VC. He took it upon himself to be a SERE committee of one during the FTX phase of training. The medics hated him and constantly reported his antics to Group. He did things like packing ears with peanut butter. He received several warnings but was finally relieved from the committee. He was a fine soldier but suffered from PTSD before it had a name. The final straw was when he refused to medevac a student with appendicitis. The student nearly died when they finally got him out. B***'s rationale was that in the "real world" a medevac may not have been possible.

I'm an "olderish" type as well SFTG. I started honing the fine art of ghosting at jump school. Never had much time off then, but when I did, NCO's and or Officers could spot a body that was free "detail material". Took one time. The clipboard works, but the one time I got roped into a detail, it was cleaning offices. HMMMM (light bulb). I grabbed a bunch of official manila size folders. After that, when I had some time off, I'd carry them walkiing around. Oh... and always walk with purpose. ;)
I took those folders to Bragg with me.... worked great there too :)

What do you remember most about the Q Course?
 

Thirty days without a shower.

Being tired,cold and hungry.

Amazed by the "tough" guys that called it quits.

Col Howard (then a Maj) rucking with us, and rucking most of us into the ground....

Survival week and how I actually enjoyed the few days of peace and quiet.

Did I mention tired, cold and constantly hungry?

the land nav course, the first time I went through....I went through with this jarhead named Chris....he was a short guy, pretty squared away....good guy.

I was on some high ground, and happened to look off in the distance, and I saw a truck speeding down some hard ball...and in the cab of the truck....a diminutive head in profile....with a jarhead cover kicked back on his head, while he consulted his map.

I spewed.

A little later on, I came up a fire break, and there was a good old boy out hunting coon with his dog. He had some beers in the back, and offered me one. I told him thanks, I had a course to run, maybe another time. He told me to go ahead and take a six pack with me to drink when I was done.

I weighed it.

Was he a provocateur, testing me for an honor violation?

Nah.

Remember, this was the old days, 1984, long time ago. I graciously accepted a six pack...I think that it was Busch beer....blue cans....they were ice cold...pulled them out of an ice filled cooler....bundled them into my ruck...then went on to finish my course.

I hit my final point, had plenty of time, so I figured that I would wait a bit and see if any of my brothers were coming along behind me. Sure enough, my brother John T, a guy who had spent a lot of time in Hawaii, appeared at the bottom of the hill, and began laboring up it. It was a big hill.

I stood at the top, and I yelled, "John!" He paused, he looked up, and I held up a can of beer. He squinted, and then he broke into sprint. He virtually ran up that hill, hit the clacker for his last point, then grabbed that beer from me.

He said that it was the best beer that he had ever had.

There is something about the illicit....I cannot quantify it. I did not even really drink in those days. I shared the beers around with my brothers as they came into the rally point at the end of the course while we sat around the fire and dried off.

It was funny...it was hard....and we....HAD BEER.

You had to be there, I guess.

In retrospect, I am a little shocked. But it made sense at the time.

What can I say? I was young.

Good times.

:)

Hey, when did you go through the course?? I started in Jan/Feb of 84.

What I remember most was the Survival FTX. My chicken escaped and I had to chase it through the woods til I caught it. I knew I would be out of the course if it got away. Killed him and ate him on the third day.

It rained for three out of the five days and my hooch got so water logged that it collapsed on me in the middle of the night. Slept the rest of the night in the rain. Then I had to fight hypothermia until the instructor showed up on day five.

At the end of the FTX, they picked everyone up from their camps and took us to an assembly point. Some instructors had their POV's there. Four of us were standing by an instructors pick-up truck. It was facing slightly downhill and about 2 or 3 inches of water was toward the front of the bed. We were all eyeing an Egg McMuffin that was completely submerged in the water. The instructor waived his finger at us and said "That's mine, boys!" Any one of us would have gladly eaten that soggy McMuffin.

The "duffel bag drag" to the camp, following chem-lights.

Making the time limit, then the gates closed.

Those who didn't...caught HOLY HELL!
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Bunk-beds in shacks, with no damn mattresses.
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Some Million $ shower facility, that wasn't worth shit! They should have thrown the MFer in jail in charge of building that!
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The "Gallant" Knot...never even used it.
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Playing electric football during breaks.
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Getting stuck at 13/13 during IMC for a week. The instructor says "drink a few beers during lunch." I come back that afternoon and pass.

Survival - I remember them picking us up in the 2 1/2 and I looked up to get a hand up and the first thing I saw was the smoked blackened faces and stares of the yankee boys. Seems they were uncomfortable in the woods all alone and spent the entire time huddled over their fires waiting for the boogeyman to come get them. I don't think they slept at all. LOL.

LOL, On one of the "ruck Runs" theY were closing the gate as I approached. There were only about ten guys inside!!!! I was thinking WTF, only 10 inside! (There were about 270 of us!)

The instructor had the gate half closed. I was at a dead sprint with about 100lbs of lightweight gear.... The men inside yelld for me not to stop running. The instructor hearing the yelling turned to watch me. I was about 500 yards and he yelled;

"YOU KEEP RUNNING AND I'LL KEEP THIS GATE OPEN"

And believe me what Guy said is so true. Those that didn't make it inside of that gate before they closed it caught HELL.

TS
(Of course I didn't stop running. :cool: )

sweet misery
 

I was a patrol leader in 6-80; Reservist with 12th GP, and not about to quit. I had done very little PT prior to my arrival and it was obvious, but I also had about 2 weeks notice to show up or miss my big chance. We formed up the first evening and took a run in fatigues and boots, LBE and rifles, at a pace I had never seen before, much less actually run. I made it in the gate, and they formed us up under the Flag to figure out who was still in. The guy in front of me fell to the ground crying and actualy begged Jesus to kill him. Then, and I swear this is true, for no apparent reason, I sudenly felt this odd sensation in my lower abdomen, and I had a spontaneous orgasm right there in my trousers. That's how screwed up I was after that run. Needless to say, I about freaked, and I leaned over a bit to the fellow next to me, a little red headed Ranger, also from 12th Gp, named Jim Woodall, and I said "Jim, I'm a mess man. I just shot off in my pants!" And he just leand over a bit toward me, never stopped looking forward and said in a quiet whisper, "Lucky bastard...". It was a sterling moment.

Sandy: I believe every word but it is customary to end any story like that with:

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!:. or

"If I'm lying I'm dying!" :p :D

ROTFLMFAO!!!!! :D :D

or:

"That ain't no shit, it really happened."

TR

can't really remember my class date...and all my orders and stuff are in storage, in the states, packed away in boxes.

I think I may have gone through with TR, though, as he remembers an O from my class who became a real good friend of mine, and a couple of the other guys from my class, like Cory F, and Robin M, who later went across the fence, and a couple of young guys (Steve C, and "Mac") who went to 1st Group with me, and later on went to the dark side.

Another funny story.

We were done with the course....just waiting to do some civil affairs work, or something, on the very last day, while we were waiting for extraction....so we were on this...plantation....and we were supposed to clean up this area, straighten up a bunch of deadfall and pine cones and pine straw and stuff....and the owner of the place....he was classic, he came down in a GOLF CART in bright green golf pants and a purple Izod shirt, some crazy country club outfit like that....and he had his lady with him, a real Southern belle, all dressed up in lace and finery with a freakin' PARASOL. We were grouchy, in a rebellious mood, and this guy, he just rubbed us the wrong way. He was treating us worse than hired help. It was like he came down from his mansion, complete with columns and statues and fountains and old mossy trees all over the place, to make sure his "boys" were doing the manual labor correctly.

So anyway, I will never forget this, things came to head when one of the NCOs on my detachment told the guy to get on his golf cart and high-tail it out of there, and while he was kicking up dust leaving the AO, my buddy, a West Point O, threw a pitch fork at the golf cart, bouncing it off the back of it. It was funny as hell. I really felt bad for our detachment commander...he was a great guy, a lot of you guys probably know him, his knickname was "Maddog," he had commands on Okie, and retired out of the Schoolhouse as a light colonel back in the mid-90's. I think he had his first detachment in 5th Group.

My buddy...was amazing, a Ranger-qualified signal officer out of West Point, he later went on to be the C&E officer at 1st Group, and later did a lot of black box work before he got out and went to work for the government doing computer stuff. I have not talked to him in a long while....last I heard, he was down in the Research Triangle. Good guy. I really miss him. He totally changed my opinion about West Pointers. Got to figure....any officer who can hurl a pitch fork at a stuffed shirt in a purple Izod shirt with a snooty girl carrying a parasol is alright with me.

I seem to remember graduating around September, 1984, and signing back into 1st Group around October. My dates may be off here, as it is all from memory, and this was a long time ago. I was one of the first guys to sign into 1st Group, back when there was just a shack with a counter and not much else. I drove from 2/75 to North Fort after extending for the Q-Course, signed in, and drove right out to Bragg. I went to the Q-course TDY from Ft. Lewis. Totally awesome deal. I remember buying a stereo when I got back.

Then I went to ODA 151, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Good times.

:)

That is not normal. Trust me, I'm a medic, I know things... :)

Well, that's one of the defining traits of this business. You can't make this stuff up. Now the short list of memories...

Old Phase 1, I misplaced my M-60 and carried half a Huey skid on a 60 sling for a couple of days to help my memory. I never made that mistake again.

I remember comming out of survival just about to croak I was so empty. The mess tent had c-rats for us, and I got the spaghetti. It was the perfect combination of carbs, fat, oil, and "water". I still eat canned spaghetti out of the can with a big spoon, and I still smile and remember that moment. It was the best lunch I had ever had to that date.

In Robin Sage we had some G's from Cos Com who were "intransigent" as my team sergeant described them. When they fell asleep, he would collect large blobs of that phosphorescent goo from the Pineland ground cover, put it in his mouth, wake the G's and make sure the first thing they saw was him puking that green stuff out. They thought he was possessed, I am sure.

The best though was after our last raid at Sage. We then occupied the open field where we had set up our air strip, kicked back and waited for the trucks. All the guys had their beenie hats on (it was November), and we all pulled them over to one side, like berets. Ronald Reagan had been elected President 5 days before. We were the new generation of warriors, and the world was ours. Man we were just invincible. You never forget a feeling like that.

I remember...finding this brown paper bag on the side of the road....I had to cross the road to find water, to go to my water source, a stream, where I would sometimes catch a glimpse of another stud in the distance. Of course, we never talked, and we never, ever linked up. The trees had eyes.

Anyway, in this brown paper bag, I found a bunch of ants, and the soggy remnants of some pork rinds. Hell, yes, I ate the hell out of them. They were awesome.

I also scooped underneath the river bank looking for snails, and was elated to actually find some. Carefully lurping back to my hooch with them in my canteen cup, I filled up the canteen cup halfway with water, and put it on my fire to boil.

I was going to have escargot.

Well.

It turns out that those snails were more akin to slugs than...snails.

I ended up scraping the first one off the roof of my mouth with a stick. The broth...was horrifying. I had to pitch it. I was pissed.

I never did catch any freakin' fish, either. Thank God for my bunny. He was a good friend for a while. We kept each other warm. Then I killed him and ate him.

:)

"Then I killed him and ate him."

I've got tears in my eyes I'm laughing so hard.....

I'll never forget my bunny either, he was, delicious, and on completing my bunny meal I fashioned fish hooks from his bones…..

LOL :boohoo

Some city kid that was a recycle told everybody "Don't name them, it'll make it easier."

I named mine "Chow". Communist Chinese POW. Had no problems. LOL

Whew! I guess I'm in good (if not abnormal) company here. I got some funny looks from the Marines and 82d dudes when I held rabbit puppet shows (eviscerated rabbit carcass, head intact, propped on your hand a la sock puppet) in SERE.

Heh.

I remember the instructors telling us a story about how some stud just could not bring himself to kill his bunny, but because we had to bring the feet with us to prove that we had done it, he chopped off his bunny's feet, bandaged him up, and then set him free.

The instructor claimed that they found a bunny with amputated legs hopping around the survival area a couple of classes later.

Probably an apocryphal story, but I laughed at the time.

:)

What was that big basket that we had to weave? You remember...the one to catch fish? I cannot remember what it was called. Mine looked like ass.

:)

ah the bunny...
 

ok, 10 minutes later I can finally stop laughing...

My Jr Demo guy, Greg D, was demonstrating to the G's how to send the bunny to sleepy land in Sage, and instead of doing something "official", he did something akin to the Atomic Drop. He just jumped into the air and came down hard right on top of him, crushing the little guy. It horrified the G's and they were afraid of him from that moment on.

I am trying to remember how I killed my bunny....I remember using the "hypnotism" trick to calm chickens, stroking their necks from front to rear, holding the chicken's feet and legs with one hand beneath him, lulling him into a false sense of security, then grabbing his head and pulling it away from his body in one quick motion, ending up with a kicking chicken body in one hand and a bloody dripping head perfect for Santeria purposes in the other.

Bar none, the grossest "survival" chow I ever ate was goat. The lane walkers in Ranger school brought us a goat one day, pretty sure that it was in Florida, and we had a monstrous fire and a bunch of chickens and freshly dug onions.

After we killed the chickens, we put them in ammo cans with the rubber seal removed, along with a bunch of onions, carrots, and potatos, and set them in the fire with a little bit of water in them. After a little while, we put our gloves on, opened them up, and had the best damned chicken stew I had ever tasted. I will make it a point to make chicken stew that way sometime in the future, just to do it again, it was so damned good.

But the goat.....I do not remember how we killed it....I guess one of us cut his neck....and bled him out....then skinned him and cut him up and cooked him up on e-tools or something....but that meat tasted really, really bad. We were so hungry, that we tried, we really tried, to eat it.

I remember after we moved out, we had some goat meat left over, and we wrapped it up and took it with us, thinking that we would chow down in the patrol base later.

Well.

That meat made me gag. I just could not eat it. And I was starving. I had been there for a long, long time.

And that reminds me of another time...I was on ODA 151....and we went to Alaska. Someone had the brilliant idea to have a survival exercise, so we loaded up, got one MRE, and had like a hundred miles to cover in a week. We had some rounds for our M21. So we could kill a mountain goat, or a moose, or a cougar, or something, but of course, that never worked out.

Anytime that we saw mountain goats, they were up high on the mountainsides, and even if we had shot one, it would have been one hell of a hump up some vertical inclines to haul the carcass down.

So, we got pretty hungry, and we were humping some miles. We tried fishing, but had no real success until the last day. And this is where the story gets funny.

All this time, we are slowly starving. I am eating flowers as I walk.

We get to the trailhead, and drop rucks, and one of the guys says that he knows the area, and will go on ahead and recon for the pickup point. The Dai-uy (our team leader) says ok, go ahead, he will stay behind and try to catch some fish. There were these little pan fish in the river.

Well, this guy was our heavy weapons leader, his name was Brad, our team sergeant was deployed on a singleton mission at the time and missed all the fun, and Brad was trying to get me to go along with him and a couple of the other guys to recon for the pick up point. I wanted to go, but no one wanted to stay with the Dai-uy, so I told them, "nah, you go ahead. I'll stay with the captain. Someone has to stay with the poor guy."

They said ok, and off they went.

Me and the Dai-uy fished, and we fished, and lo and behold, we actually caught some fish. Not many. I think we caught three of them. So we decided to wait until the guys came back before we cooked them up and ate them.

Sometime after nightfall, they returned.

We had a huge white man's fire blazing, and man, we were ready to cook up our three little fish.

We put them on e-tools, fried them up, and then passed the e-tools around the circle so that we all could take a little nibble and then pass them on to the next guy.

Well, the fish came around the circle. They were still pretty much intact.

Now, remember, I was freakin' starving here, but here were my team mates, and they were obviously controlling themselves, denying themselves the fish, sacrificing so that their buddies could have more.

That made me want to share more, too, so I took just the tiniest nibbles of the fish, and passed them around again.

Well, the fish kept coming around, and it was killing me, how good and loyal and generous my team mates were, so I was absolutely intent that I would not be a pig and eat more than the rest of them.

The funny thing is, I noticed that they seemed to have a lot of energy, they were laughing a lot, but I did not think anything of it.

Fast forward a few months later to Korea.

We are hiding out in some hills, up in a grave yard, and some of the guys want to go with our counterpart down into this little ville and get some good food. Our counterpart is saying that not only will they get some good chow, they will go to the bath house, and get clean, and then get laid, too.

I think about it, and for some reason, I tell them, nah, go ahead. I am going to stay up here. I told them not to worry. It was not like I was going to rat them out or anything. It was just that the mission was to hide out, and not get caught, we were evading, and I did not want to violate the spirit of the exercise. It is not like I was a goody-goody kind of guy. Far from it. I just wanted to stick to the mission, this time around, for some reason.

So our intel sergeant, his name was Sam, he told me that he would stay with me. I was touched, and I appreciated the company.

He and I holed up in the graveyard, huddled around a little fire, and shot the shit. The rest of the guys went down to the ville.

It was while hanging out with Sam that he told me what really happened that night in Alaska at the trailhead.

Brad had brought his credit card with him, and he had been stationed in Alaska before, so he knew that there was a hunting lodge up near the extraction point. The guys all went to this lodge and sat down to a sumptuous dinner of steaks, wine, brandy, cigars, the works. They actually had to wash in the stream to get the smell off them, and rub dirt all over themselves, as the Dai-uy and I would have smelled the chow and cigars on them in a heartbeat if we had not had that huge fire roaring, waiting for them to get back.

Everytime that the fish came around, they just pretended to nibble at it. They were stuffed, see. They had chowed down on huge steaks. They wanted to let me and the Dai-uy eat the fish. And me and the Dai-uy, we thought that the rest of the team were just being really generous, taking care of each other.

So this time, when the guys went down to the ville, Sam decided to stay with me. We starved together, and man, I busted a gut when I remembered that fucking fish going around the circle, and how I kept trying to take the smallest bites.

Good times.

:)

Lmmfao!
 

We got "wrote up" for that escapade as SERE instructors, by one of the students. :eek:

Even had one write about..."Snares were in-humane." Because the animal suffered before dying. :rolleyes:

Go thru the survival portion with Middle Eastern officers..."culture my ass."

Kill that SOB. I'm starving!

LMAO!

79 - Land Nav with SSgt R and his "one and done" Clorox raiders. During Phase 1 Land Nav they would road lurk and snatch those students during crossings. The first TngGrp dude to catch one, got the rest of the day off (we later learned). I still remember setting up on a 10m curve and watching as the jeep approached. All of a sudden the jeep comes to a dead stop, both instructors jump out and run into the woodline 20m to my left screaming "There he is... I got him.... There he goes" in hopes of spooking any hiding, bug eyed student. Both came out of the woods empty handed but belly laughing so hard, they were actually bent over. They fell into jeep - rinse, lather, repeat - 100m down the road they repeated the process complete with belly laughs. I remember it had been raining like hell for days and I was fookin' miserable, but still had to put my head down in my hands cause I was laughing so hard... That turned the switch on for me, I thought - Oh yea, I'm gonna like it here alot.

Sandytroop is not normal. Trust me, I know him. You never told me that story JT. Good thing, because I would never want to be in front of you on a ruck march again. LOL

It's ok to be in front
 

Just don't stop suddenly !

LOL - "Touch that rucksack!"

"Owww!"

Very young, just turned 18 with less then 4 months TIS.

Forgot to check the bottom of my ruck prior to arriving at the compound.

Ordered to empty rucks for inspection, I realize I have c-rat cans and hastily through them under the huts.

The senior tac, SSG F....was relieved because of too many med drops. Feb 1983. He was famous for bouncing the gate. As well as his ruck marches. After one episode, they had to air medevac an officer with heat stroke.

Got recyled for failing land nav.

Went through 1 more pre-phase and then phase 1 again. April 1983.

Passed land lav, second student in.

Chicken laid 2 eggs. Learned that you need Pam to prevent the egg from sticking to the canteen cup. Hardboiled the second egg. The last night before getting picked up an instructor drops by and warns about an approaching snow storm. Being from up north, I didn't think it would snow in North Carolina in April. Well it snowed and it was like the 4th of July that night. We probably lost 10 to 12 guys who quit because of the cold.

On the graded ruck march at the end, jumped behind Maj. Howard---what an honor.

Finally, arrived back to Bragg, released after formation and immediately drove over to I-Hop and then Shoney's. Ate HUGE meals at both places and then proceeded to get sick.

LOL I remember that story, too. They also told us about a guy that simply buried his rabbit, with only the back feet sticking out of the ground. The instructor saw the feet moving and pulled the whole bunny out of the ground like a carrot.

I had a chicken. Not very good for keeping warm. I killed him, ate him and used his guts for bait to try to catch a fox. I would have eaten that damn fox if I caught him, but of course I didn't.

The basket was simply called a "Fish Basket" as I recall.

I also remember only being able to walk out the gate at Mackall if you were taking trash to the dumpster. The dumpster was the type that was open at the end and you could walk right in. We took turns carrying trash cans to the dumpster so we could rummage for food. We found half bags of cookies, peanut butter, etc. I have often wondered if that wasn't arranged by the staff to see if we would be resourceful.

If you were in 3-84, you should have remembered it. "The Last Hard Class".

Graduated August, 1984.

TR

What do I remember most ?? That is a very difficult question !!!
I’ll start with our arrival at Bragg from Jump School. On a Bus, get on Post and what do we see, E-8s & 9s wearing Berets on-line policing up PINE CONES !!!! We all look at each other and go “WTF are they going to have us doing” ?!?!?!

We unload at the barracks and are invited into the “day room” for a welcome to Training Group speech and then we are told that the sodas and BEER !!!!! in the tubs with ice were ours and welcome aboard !!

The next few weeks we went through all of the testing, swimming, PT, etc and those of us that Passed drew our gear and were sent on to (the then) Phase I. We were “inserted” into Camp Mackall by way of a full equipment jump. Only one problem, we were on a C-123, the weather was for shit and we were flown around for about 2-3 hours waiting for the weather to break. During the leisurely flight one of my friends got airsick and puked in his piss-pot !! He passed it down the stick for the JM to dump into the pisser in the rear and when it was about halfway back the RED LIGHT ILLUMINATED !!! EVERYBODY, STAND UP!!! :eek: The wayward helmet found itself being passed back to it’s owner, without having been DUMPED !!! As the jump commands proceeded, the helmet and owner were reunited and he donned it, puke and all. There was puke running and dripping off of his nose, ears, and chin. He was covered in it, and we were going to find ourselves without bathing facilities for the duration of Phase I. (He ended up having to wear those clothes for close to a week!!) When we finally left the airplane, all that broke the silence was his continued barfing all the way to the ground !!!

Well, that about sums up the first few weeks that commenced around September-October, 1969. We spent Thanksgiving out at Mackall and graduated just in time to go home on X-Mas leave with a Beret/SF Crest (without flash). The SAGA will continue !

ROTFLMAO! And nobody thought you'd ever top NUMBA F'ING ONE! DO IT AGAIN!