[Tress]

These are just the things that immediately come to mind:

Phase 1:
The incident with 20 or so guys leaving the team survival area at night and going to the nearest town to pan-handle for food and then getting caught by Maj. Howard.

At Drowning Creek just after finishing the Slide-for-Life, freezing our butts off and then being told that President Reagan had just been shot. We warmed up real fast.

Escaping from Camp McKall, walking to the railroad tracks, hanging a left and following said tracks until they met with civilization and, low and behold, the first building that we come to is a bar. I think one of the guys with me, Tom G., knew about the bar in advance. We entered and it was like the road trip scene from Animal House. It was pure kismet that the juke box had just ended its last song, nothing but silence, we were the only white guys in the place and everyone was staring at us. We asked for a six-pack to go and they told us that they only sold to-go beer in cases. Who were we to argue? It was a damned good thing that we had lots of money and were smart enough to bring an empty rucksack. Hoofed it on back to camp, made sure we were not missed and then grabbed the rest of the team and went behind the shower point and drank. Damn good tasting beer, whatever brand it was.

Portions of the Land-Nav area having recently suffered from a brush fire. It was a little difficult trying to tell if that thing ahead of you in the woods was the Land-Nav stake that I was looking for or a burned up scrub oak. Sometimes you could be right next to the damned stake and not see it for 10 to 15 minutes.
On my back to camp during Night Land-Nav after finding my last point and walking into some guy sitting in the brush, crying, because he could not find his first point. Luckily for him it was a point that I had during the day portion and he was about 50 meters away from it. Pointed him in the right direction, but as it turns out that was the only point he ever found during night Land-Nav.

Jim K., the nearest guy to me during individual survival, got a chicken. I got a rabbit. Woke the next morning to find chicken feathers all around my camp site. It seems that Jim K. plucked his chicken instead of skinning it. The wind blew just right from Jim’s campsite into mine. I kept that rabbit skin as proof that I had a rabbit and not a chicken.

Phase 2
Going out drinking with one of the Barracks TACs one evening, SFC Dave S. down at Hay Street. Hooked up with some willing young lady that he knew. We went to her place, wandered up to her bedroom, and she told me that she would be back in a moment as she walked into the bathroom. Me, being an eager young SF wannabe, shucked off my clothes, climbed into bed and waited. A moment or two later the bathroom door opens and there she stands backlit by the bathroom light. I could tell that she was not naked yet but from what I could see, what she did have on looked weird in silhouette. Just then her arm reared back and then forward quickly and I heard the crack of a whip. Needless to say, my heart just was not in it anymore and I bolted. I grabbed my clothes hit the stairs tripped over her cat and flew down the stairs head first. I twisted the snot out of my left ankle which immediately swelled up like a balloon. It was so bad she had to drive my car back to the barracks as I could not step down on the clutch. Some of the medics-in-trainign took care of my ankle for the night. The next morning I limped downstairs for formation and Capt. Jon Bon. asked what had happened to me. I told him that I had to go to the TMC and that his TAC SGT would be explaining this one to him. Took a while to live that one down.

IMC, run by SFC Phil B. The little short black guy that looked like he was also half Chinese. One day he got in front of the formation and started ranting about something. After some moans and groans he said something like, “You can call me a son of a bitch if you want, but you better not call me a Chink or N@$#%$#, the “N” word. “ So as I stood in the back of the formation in my mind I combined “Chink” and “the N word” and asked him if we could call him a “Chigger”. Half the class wet their pants laughing and I got extra tri-graph homework that evening.

Watching Gerry H. (a reservist from Florida) experience snow for the first time in his life atop Bee Mountain. He was pretty happy about it for awhile, but when the snow reached 10 inches or so the happiness disappeared and he just wanted, “ this shit to stop!” I read a long time ago that Gerry eventually was bitten by an alligator during an alligator wrestling show. He may have even lost an arm or some other appendage from the incident, IIRC.

Myself, Ron H. (a 5th GP guy cross-training, who I heard later died in a diving accident) and Hoot (Yes, the real, the one and only Hoot) breaking through the ice covering the creek at the base of Bee Mountain so that we could take some kind of bath. Man, that water was cold. Hoot even cracked about maybe tying a piece of parachute cord to his crank so that when he got done bathing and needed to pee he just needed to pull on the cord to see his crank again.


Phase 3
Being told by the instructor, Rambo, that we would always be at 50% security so we only needed to bring half of our sleeping bags for the field portion of the exercise and that we should buddy up with someone to share. I was an 18E, there were not enough Demo guys to go around and my team was left without one, so I was made the honorary Demo man. I was handed this freaking 25 lb. anti-tank mine and told that we needed it. I packed it and just before we loaded onto the A/C Rambo asked me why my ruck was so small. I told him that I was carrying the mine and no sleeping bag because I was going to share with Jim Van C. He then asked me what I would be sleeping in during admin time. I asked him what in the hell admin time was and how often we would be experiencing that. I froze my ass off in February, out in Uwharrie with nothing more than a poncho liner. On one really cold night I was just chattering away and Jim Van C. could not stand it anymore. He unzipped his bag and told me to get in. We crawled in back to back, zipped it up as far as we could and then used the poncho liner to cover up what would not close to keep the cold out as best we could. It was a damn good thing that he was skinny. That was the only full night of sleep that I got in the field during Phase 3. Thanks for sharing Jim. I owe you my life.

Ranger Ziggy popping a parachute flare from under a tree. The flare hit a big branch and bounced back nearly hitting everyone in the support element. Also started a small fire that had to be put out by the instructors. That cost Ziggy some points.