This photo was taken on the Appalachian Trail. We’ll come to that later, but it seemed like the right cover image for the post…better than the next one anyway!
So at the end of basic training, the last big thing we did was what they called FTX. Field Training Exercise. We loaded up our rucks and force marched something like 10k. On arrival, we dug foxholes to live in, and then we did exactly that for three days. Each day we would simulate combat with other platoons out on their exercises, and we would improve our foxholes. That idea of continuous area improvement really stuck with me, and has actually become the backbone of my greatest achievements.
I loved living in that foxhole. There was something really awesome about basic training and how it rekindled my love of the wild side. While I was there I loved screaming at the top of my lungs, always competing to be louder than I had been before, it felt good. I loved living in the dirt to the point where I learned to love living in the dirt (extra points if you didn’t have to read that twice to make sense of it ;). For as much as the army may be said to have held me captive, and certainly the army itself was used to support things we never understood (more on that in a later post), there was something really freeing in the military experience.
In my two years in Iraq, I was involved in missions of all sorts. I spent lots of time engaging with the people who lived there. Most the times it was just casual interactions, meeting people and learning about their way of life. I found the people of Iraq to have a beautiful culture, and even something I felt I wished I could have…it was like they also knew that freedom. I didn’t see all of this at the time of course.
When we would find ourselves staying out in more rural areas, I used to love laying my sleeping bag in a shallow grave each night, my eyes through the opening would watch the stars overhead. I’ve never been comfortable in a tent after all this. For one, I think they make me visible and vulnerable compared to a sleeping bag on the ground, but also I just love the freedom that I feel when I sleep directly under the stars. I’ve had a few animal visitors check me out on occasion, but always it’s been good. But everyone packs their own ruck, and I’m not judgin’.
Anyway, ajusting to getting back to the states was difficult. While I was still in the army, I just drank a lot.
When I got out, I added new things into the mix, until eventually it all got out of hand and I decided to return to the freedom I was really looking for. I hated the idea of working a specific set of hours per day for some other person, getting paid money for my work which I could exchange for food and stuff. Why not just skip the middle man and forage? A few pounds of rice in your bag means you won’t starve to death, and by the time it needed replaced you could have found enough change to get five more pounds.
I decided to go homeless. I began rucking every weekend. I would carry what I thought I would need to survive, and would go out and walk half my weekend one direction, and the other half I’d walk back. I’d swim in the ponds I came across, holding a stick with a fishing line in my teeth. I’d use the worms I found as bait and I’d cook the fish right there by the water while I dried off. On less successful days, I made rice.
I pared down my bag during the week, or I added things I’d wished for last weekend. I made pizzas during the week for a living, I played music and drank, but mainly I wanted to pay down my debts so I could leave without feeling like I did it dishonestly.
Then I met my wife, and I knew I had to take one last chance on society and all its madness. We moved to Maryland, I went to school and became an electrical engineer, we had some kids, and life was great.
One day, we got together with my wife’s work friend and her husband, and he invited me to join him and some friends on the Appalachian Trail. The picture at the start of this post is from that trip. It awakened in me the desire all over again. Not to leave my family and go live out of my rucksack, but to feel that freedom to the best extent I could within the confines of the life I’ve chosen.
Now, I do the same thing I used to do then. I plan my bag for short range survival trips, I pare down and add new things, and I go out and test it. The only difference is that now I do it in the middle of the night while my kids sleep and I don’t get to camp as often. But the freedom I feel carrying that bag and knowing it contains everything I need to live, it sure feels nice :)
There’s a zen to walking. To living under the stars. To catching fish without a permit and eating them right there by the water. To being deeply alive.
If you’ve stayed with me this far and you stuck this one out as well, pilamayaye, and I will hope to see you on the next one!
