Robin Sage - Any Special Memories
 

My son begins Robin Sage this weekend. He's a 20 year-old 18 X candidate who has successfully completed the other SFQC training modules. He's under the "older" training schedule so will not learn his language school until (and if)he succesfully completes Robin Sage. I've read most anything I can on the Robin Sage training exercise. Just wondering if any of QP's on board would share any non-classified stories or memories of Robin Sage. Again, thanks to all of you have served or are serving our country. I'm hopeful that one day my son may too bear title: Quiet Professional. God Bless!

I remember running through the woods a lot with a horde of those damn CAPs from the 82nd Airplane Gang hot on heels.

Flushed like Quail
 

As a student our G band had a fairly even mix of SF guys and coscomites. We got flushed out of our base camp by a platoon + from the 82nd. As all the confusion started a couple of the Gs (team guys) grabed about four of us students and yelled "follow us". The six of us twisted and turned through the woods and after a while we stopped and sat down. The two SF guys informed us students that "This was the place". Within a few hours most of the students and SF Gs showed up. The coscomites got bagged almost to a man.

I was able to return the favor years later when our team was detailed to be Gs, all in the same band. Almost in the same way.

Students are so focused on the school solution and passing that they lose a bit of the feeling of whats going on around them. That old SA thing again.

Extended Remarks
 

Blanks don't kill anybody.

In the 70s and 80s it was quite common for a number of troopers in the 82nd to drop weapons at the first contact with students and Gs during Robin Sage and give chase. It would develope into a foot race and many arguments.

Site selection is very important when all you have is blanks. Working wire fences, ditches and streams into your plans can greatly improve the "kill zone" and impede the bad guys. A squad of Infantry who drops their weapons and charges into your force looks real funny hung up on a three strand barbed wire fence. And after that one they were real slow in chasing us anywhere at night.:cool:

If you know where they are at, fences are your friends.

I remember the food poisoning I acquired from the communal pot of mystery goulash in the G-base. :(

Jumping in at midnight from a 141 and all of us in the trees. Some all night !!

Launching a Star Cluster horizontally, skipping it down the road and onto the Bridge that the 82nd was defending, where it did it's Star Cluster Thing !!!:D

Also sleeping up in the rafters of the tobacco drying barns.

An exercise where I was involved, we are doing a very close recce of an enemy location. One guard was slumped & and not paying much attention, behind a tree to my left sector and I had initially missed him going forward.

Once we were retreating from the particular direction, he popped up, with his jacked hood covering his head.

His rifle was against the tree and the sight of three camoed and armed men training their weapons on him, I think he was startled a bit.

He looked at his weapon, at us, back at his weapon....and went for it. After a few bursts of blanks, we were well away before they got anyone mobilized.

Pardon me if I am intruding, but what is a "coscomite"?

Respectfully,
Aric

Cosmonite (cos-mo-nit) n. - 1. Dirty leg soldier assigned to 1st COSCOM. Frequently assigned to role play as G's during Robin Sage. 2. Any REMF. (see Pogue).

TR

Nice. :D

Thanks TR.

--Aric

That would be a member of Corps Support Commant (COSCOM) of which there was none in '63. In fact there was no "Robin Sage" for the EM. It was the FTX for the Officers in the SFOC, not SFQC. There was no SFQC as such. I believe our FTX's were named Cherokee Trail and Gobbler's Woods (Knob) I'm a big help aren't I.:D

We enlisted commo swine generally got to go on two or three FTX's. We had our own commo FTX, the Branch final FYX and we "got" to support the Officers in their FTX.

LOL. Nice work TR.

Actually yes. It's fascinating to see the progression that the training pipeline has made over the years. Thanks for the response.

--Aric

Robin Sage compared to SERE
 

Thanks to all the QP's who have responded - it's some great information. I remember picking up my 18 X son from the airport four days after SERE and he was thin, his face was a mess and he had the "deer in the headlights" look which lasted for about a week. Does Robin Sage produce a similar reaction? Just curious. It's going to be a hard couple more weeks waiting to hear from him and find out if he passed Robin Sage. Thanks for all the responses. This is a great site.

It's hardly the same emotional and humbling experience as SERE. Take him to Texas Roadhouse, buy him a beer, and enjoy his stories!