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

[Smokin Joe]

Originally Posted by Viking

two things i remember the most:

Sept. 11, 2001. I was waiting for SUT to start. We were on a detail policing up trash around the barracks when someone stuck their head out the window of the dayroom and said a plane had hit one of the WTC. Oh, how the world changed.

The other memory is Robin Sage Infil. What a hump!!!!

Wow, I'll bet that added a whole other element going through during 9/11.

[Viking]

once we started phase II (SUT), the only news we got was small tidbits on headline news when we ate in the messhall. during MOS phase, Anaconda was happening. I think we all payed a little more attention to things knowing we would be over there when done. I know I did.

[TerribleTobyt]

One evening I recall SFC Mo Worley, a TAC at CMK, Ph I, having duty NCO, and pulling a B&W TV the Tacs had in the Orderly Room to a window, so abunchuv us SF Wannabes could watch Neil Amrstrong land on the moon.

'Course, the next day, it was bidness as usual.

"Breaks over, back on yer haids!!!!!"

Toby-humper of the M-60 at CMK!!!!!

I remember the old fence line near the tar paper shack we lived in. Two weeks in Phase I, on a pre-scheduled date and time, (night), a rather large duffle bag flew over the fence full of new socks, smokes, beef jerky and all manner of non authorized items, that, if caught, would have been a removal from the course.

Can anyone speculate the effort it takes to distribute that amount of "stuff" before monring formation and remove the evidence? That in itself was a SF task.

Seems the Phase III officer/students who paid for all the grub remembered who would be on their teams one day.

I've always liked officers who knew when too and not too brake the rules.

[mojaveman]

It was pretty hot that summer 26 years ago when I attended SFQC 4-84 and we had quite a few heat casualities.

Pre-phase - On day one 3 Navy Seals showed up to our first formation wearing Rayban sunglases, Ocean Pacific shorts, and Vans sneakers.

Phase I - We had a Marine and a Soldier who were both about 5'3". They were paired off in the hand to hand pit and we then got to watch midget wrestling. Lost my USAF survival knife at night after walking through a thicket to get water during the 3 day survival exercise and ended up doing all of my tasks with only a folding pocket knife.

Phase II - Getting a bad lot of vintage 60mm mortar ammunition and firing a few short rounds on the range.

Phase III - Hiding in the basement of a church for nearly 72 hours while waiting out a bad summer storm. To prevent from going stir crazy we started to amuse ourselves in somewhat unorthadox ways.

The foreign officers were a lot of fun too.

[1stindoor]

What a fun read.
Brought back some memories as I watched a lot of things change over the years. I did SFAS (SFOT back then...in '88)...got to stay in those new barracks. A couple of months later I started Phase One...in the Tar Paper Shacks.

Having lunch brought out to you in mermites by Dragon Food Service. Nothing beats a salami sandwich that's been caved in by a mushy apple on a hot and humid summer day.

Being told that you had less than 5 minutes to find your duffle bag, be back in formation, and have it dumped out and ready to inspect.

[18C4V]

Some great reading here. For me it was:

1) Giving a planning bay oporder in SUT when 9-11 happened and SFC Tessar, my CTS (KIA OIF RIP) came in and told us that we're under attack. I was like WTF since SFC Tessar was always fucking with me (in a good way) since I was the only short tab NCO, in his squad and I was the class leader for B Co. Things changed for us for the rest of SUT.

2) In MOS portion, hearing Pappy yell at us on day 1, "look at your left and right, some of you guys will get killed in combat" Sure enough, RIP to my classmates and to SFC Synder (18C Instructor).

3) Robin Sage, 1lt Tomeny (RIP) and my Phase 2, and phase 3 classmate S.P. being shot in Robin Sage.

4) Graduation, seeing S.P. get up from his wheel chair and walk across the stage to a standing ovation to get his MOS orders. Also hearing General Boykin look at me and tell me"get ready to go to war", he said that to every guy who graduated that day.

5) Two weeks after SERE, I was doing PMT and went to OEF in 2002 as a senior 18C and my junior showed up two months later and he was in the SFQC class behind me.

[Richard]

Realizing how much more I had learned than I could have ever imagined going through SFTG...and then realizing how little I had learned as soon as I reported in to Group.

Richard

[Mike]

In 1967 we were treated in a relatively civilised manner, though a lot was expected of us. Most of us were babies, though, fresh out of jump school.
Two things stand out.
An early lecture on tattoos. They said some of us might end up in E Europe where a US tat would make a cover story improbable.
Few of us ever got one.

SFC Paul Villarosa, much liked commo instructor with previous VN tours.
He showed some of us his orders for another tour with a big grin on his face.
"Goin' back to SOG" he beamed.
None of us knew what that meant, but that it was somehow related to the dotted line around his neck.

http://www.macvsog.cc/aar_b36-jan_68.htm

[mark46th]

Cold. Hungry.
Beach telling me to let a guy drown, because he said he could swim.

Beach making us dig a 6X6 for a rat we killed in our tent and giving it a funeral.

Having to break up the ice in the creek so we could do the slide for life.

That night in the swamp, frozen to a tree watching 60 or 70 guys quit.

Realizing how goddam glad I was to be there.

[Last hard class]

Day 1:

We just arrive off the cattle cars and immediately are put in the front leaning rest position. We are told that we will not get up until 4 people quit.

And I’ll be gosh darned. Within 10 minutes there were 4 people lined up at the chapel doing the duffel bag drag. I think they actually left on the same cattle cars we arrived in. WTF? These people spent months preparing for this and quit within 10 minutes. 10 minutes! That set a tone.


Survival:

A hunter mistakenly shoots a doe who then runs up to a student and dies in front of his hooch. Instead of cutting off a hind quarter and passing it down the line he decides to bury the deer. Back at base camp he then tells the cadre. In front of the entire class, explaining Special Forces expectations, the cadre send him packing for being an idiot.

LHC

[Richard]

Mark and I were in the same Phase 1.

Beach telling me to let a guy drown, because he said he could swim.

IIRC - the guy was also toting the A6 at that time.

That night in the swamp, frozen to a tree watching 60 or 70 guys quit.

After over a week of cold, damp weather, it began to drizzle for a day or so and then sleet on us - I spent the night seated under a poncho atop my ruck to keep my a$$ out of the 6 or so inches of water we were in and try to keep my torso and weapon dry - my feet were in the water and numb - I was so cold I could barely speak while the TACs (Beach, Big O, Bear, Nails, Running Deer, Parker) came around all night long asking us if we wanted to go in - all we had to do was tell them we wanted to go in and they would take us back to our tent area for dry clothes and hot food - over 50% of the class took them up on it - I would've DIPed (Died In Place) before giving in - one of the coldest times of my entire life.

Realizing how goddam glad I was to be there.

Ditto!

And so it goes...

Richard

[mark46th]

Rich- The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...

[Richard]

Rich - The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...

The lot of being a BIG guy - they almost always got the A6/M60/MG1/PKM/MAG58/whatever to hump.

I used to carry the A6 for our team on the runs around the airfield - the guy who humped it wasn't a very good runner and I hated humping it but it didn't bother me as much as it did him to run with the damn thing - didn't seem like there was all that much difference between carrying the A6 and the M14s to me...but that's probably just the folly of youth clouding a now fuzzy memory talking.

Richard

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Rich- The pisser about the A6 was I had to carry it when they booted that guy! Nothing like carrying an A6 with parachute cord for a strap...

Phase I Stories from a FOG, cont'd
1) I volunteered to carry the A-6! (Someone told me you got to go to the front of the chow line - at the screened-in 'dining facility' where you got your C-rat from the immersion heater warmed water-filled trash can and then stood to eat it.). Cadre to me: "Where the F#%k do you think you're going. Get to the back of the line!). I rigged a sling for it out of an LBE shoulder harness and some parachute cord. (PS - I was far from a big guy: 5'9" and 150.)

2) Having all 300 rounds for said A-6 fired by the cadre who sneaked up on my watch partner on the first night of the field exercise. (I had to carry the A-6 and go 'bang, bang' from then on.)

3) Trying to sleep while sitting ON said ammo-less A-6 during an August downpour at 1 a.m. - leaning against a tree, covered by my poncho. You aren't wet until water streams down the crack of your ass!

4) Watching the class following ours arrive and conduct their rucksack shakedown inspection. (Name deleted upon request) was found to have a large pink flowered ladies hand mirror in his ruck. Mirrored glass was removed, parachute cord was tied to the handle, it was hung around his neck, and there it remained.

5) Witnessing SSG Jackie S. (the oldest, highest ranking guy in our class - by far) fail to follow instructions during the 'slide for life' by riding it to the end, having it jerk him up, and finishing with a half-gainer into Drowning Creek. We were all impressed. SSG Beach was not (at least not outwardly).

6) Coming back from the field problem on the last day and going to 'shower' (the nasty, rank 'shower point' had become inoperative on day 3 - we 'showered' at a water 'buffalo' using our steel pots). Four of us went to use the 'latrine' first (a wooden four-holer privy utilizing halved oil drums with diesel fuel). We returned to find the buffalo unoccupied, and began to 'shower' in our skivvies. The 1SG comes storming over screaming, "What'd I tell you! My wife could drive down that road!". His punishment for possibly exposing ourselves to passersby? We had to run back and forth over the cantonment in our skivvies, helmets (sans liner) on our heads, M-14's over our heads, barefoot - shouting, "I will not take a shower in the public" over and over "until he got tired"!

6) During Phase II, IMC training in Commo, upon finally attaining 12/10 only to have SFC Mayerle <sp> tell me that if I didn't reach 15/15 by the end of the week that he was going to "shove this hook (the prosthesis on his right arm, with which he could still send code waaaay fast) up your ass, and twist!" I didn't and neither did he, but he did recommend that I be recyled into Weapons.

Good times with good men - students and cadre (except the 1SG)!