Read Part One -- enlisting directly out of high school as a Special Forces Recruit, a new program started following 9/11/2001. Commonly referred to as the "SF Baby Program", since Special Forces soldiers are generally ~24+ years old with a number of years in the Army before trying out.
The cadre assigned to the start point gave us our countdown and told us to begin. No talking once the event began. We weren’t supposed to speak to each other until the event ended completely, so no one would give hints on the trails. I sat down to plot my first point. I pulled out my red headlamp, map, protractor, poncho to maintain light discipline, and my pencil…
Where the fuck is my pencil?!
Oh Lord no… not now. The Fear came back with a vengeance. I felt as if I had started sweating inside my skin. My stomach seized as if I was going to throw up. Pretty damn difficult to plot points and write down point numbers without a damn writing utensil. I couldn’t ask any of my buddies without being slammed as an Honor Code Violator for talking. I could have asked one of the cadre for a pencil… hah! Guaranteed death.
I should back up. I can’t start a story with the climax. The ladies hate that.
Special Operations Preparation and Conditioning (SOPC)
A month prior to this, I had arrived at Fort Bragg with the rest of the fresh batch of Special Forces Candidates. After a short hold-over, SOPC began like a fire hose being cranked open.
In some ways, it was sort of like the physical training during Infantry Basic, if that physical training was a person with a nasty methamphetamine habit on the top of a happy manic episode. Lots of physical training.
Every morning started with a run of indeterminate distance along unknown paths. Sometimes in formation. Sometimes playing follow-the-leader. Always fast. Never while singing cadence. It was definitely a different world. We all instantly recognized the higher standard was being held. We were also always reminded that we were always being assessed.
Each week we had a few timed ruck marches along the roads and trails to the Northwest of Bragg around McKellars Pond. As I look at Google Maps now, the place is completely different with newer buildings, but the memories crashing into my mind from the road names alone are almost overwhelming. Strange how a simple glance at a map can do that.
These ruck marches were a serious test for me. As I said earlier, ruck marches kicked my ass. I blame my short legs, but it was here that I learned how to exaggerate my hip swing with each step to gain momentum, increase speed, and lower the strain on your body that can rip you apart, mentally and physically. We always carried a bit more than the required 45lbs (without water) carried during events at Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS).
Average ruck weight with full water was around 60 pounds at any given moment in the field.
Rough estimate of how these rucks feel after a few hours under them
The best part of SOPC for me was the classroom time. We were being trained by Green Berets on a daily basis in land navigation, field craft, knot tying, and basic soldier skills. We were being polished into more capable infantrymen at a rapid pace.
World-Class Instruction
At the time, I don’t really think I understood the gravity of being trained by the United States Military’s premier instructors of warfare. Looking back, it’s easy to see why I enjoyed the classes so much. It’s also easy to understand why the cadre made such an indelible mark on me.
This contact with the cadre at SOPC was the first time many of us had been in the presence of actual Green Berets.
We had a liaison during Basic Training who spoke to us a few times about the road ahead (which is a good story for another day), but we came to know these men and they came to know us. While we knew (and were often reminded) that we were mere candidates, there was always a sense of empathy, or perhaps pride, coming from the cadre when they worked with us.
They made it clear to us that they were not going to be forgiving or easy on us, but for those of us who
were perceptive, or looking back in hindsight, there was a sense that they wanted us to succeed, and they truly enjoyed training us… for the most part.
One afternoon, we had a class in one of the nearby hooch/huts (old-school one-story building). What the class was, I couldn’t remember… maybe proper foot care and ruck tips. What I do remember is the march away from the class, back to our barracks.
Our class’ lead cadre was a Sergeant Stube, a communications sergeant assigned to be an SOPC instructor. He began leading our formation back to the barracks. “Forward… March! Ya left… ya left.. ya left right….…. Eighty-second…!” He started singing a cadence we all recognized, being fresh out of Infantry Basic and Airborne School. For those who don’t know what this cadence is, go search, or just sit on Ardennes Road in Fort Bragg any weekday morning around 0730, and you’ll hear all you would like to hear about the 82nd Airborne and the ‘patch on their shoulder.’
Normally, cadence is common, everyday Army stuff, though in our little corner of Fort Bragg, we hadn’t called any cadence or heard much of it in weeks at this point. You could almost sense the silent hesitation spread through the marching formation. All of us were trying to remember how to respond to the cadence. Just as little murmurs of the appropriate cadence response started to sound out. Quickly, Sergeant Stube shouted to correct us,
“AS YOU WERE, ASSHOLES! We don’t sing that shit around here.”
He was making a point. We did things differently in Special Forces for a reason. We have to think and act differently from the normal Army behavior because the job demands it. Anything less could get you and those around you killed.
Sergeant Stube had a way with words, and even when he was smoking the hell out of us, the odds were high that he would provide some off-the-wall profundity that would have us all laughing even while pushing. Sergeant Stube was later injured in Afghanistan and nearly lost his life, but for the heroics of his teammates. After a long recovery, he started speaking at a variety of events on behalf of the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC).
The man can tell a hell of a story, and he definitely knows how to teach. You could sense the genuine passion in everything he did as an instructor. Of all the cadre I experienced through the Q-Course, Sergeant Stube always stuck out in my mind as a team guy I wanted to emulate.
Land Navigation - The Great Equalize
When we weren’t having our asses rucked or ran into the dirt, we were receiving some of the best land navigation training available in the United States Military. We were being prepared for the Star Course at SFAS, which required (during 2003) finding a minimum of 11 of 16 points over four days. To find all points in one day, you would likely travel over 25km cross country, through some evil terrain. More than one cadre referred to it as the ‘Dagobah System,’ for any of you Star Wars enthusiasts out there. There were also rumors of velociraptor nests in some of the thicker draws.
One of our final tests before going to SFAS was close to the same distance and standard: four points, 12 hours, start at 0100 from a known point with map, compass, protractor, pencil, rubber M16, 55lb rucksack, and 4 quarts of water. This was our life for the past month. Nothing new.
Back to that original story teaser that I so rudely interrupted... now where the fuck was my pencil?!
I remember this night distinctly. It was a very cold night, with full illumination from the moon shining off freshly fallen snow (a relative rarity in North Carolina). We piled out of the 2.5 ton truck and got our point sheets which provided us with our first point and also served as our score sheet to prove that we made it to our points.
The 'points' were three-foot tall metal stakes hammered in the ground with a green chemlight tied to the top and a card punch. Each point had a distinctive card punch shape so no one could cheat through a point. The points were usually in draws, so finding them was always fun. It’s surprisingly hard to see a chemlight with velociraptors and Yoda in the way.
So there I was, no shit… starting GO/NO-GO land navigation event to determine if I could move on to Selection.
And true to form, I forgot my damn pencil back at the barracks. My one and only pencil, apparently.
My MacGuyver brain went into overdrive. I found a pine tree twig, of which there is absolutely no shortage of around Fort Bragg. I pulled out my knife, shaved a point to a tip, and lit the end on fire with my lighter. Once the flame died away, I jammed the ember into the snow next to me. Viola. Instant pencil. After I dried the tip off on my shirt, I made a test mark on my sheet. Bam. Worked like a charm.
This is the actual pencil. I saved it to this day.
I plotted my point and moved out, with a bit more confidence in my step and the feeling that I had just dodged a fat kid speeding around on a moped. I don't remember the rest of the night, but I obviously found my necessary points to move on.
This little victory was something that I remembered all throughout the Q-Course, and even once I got to my team. Even though I’m basically an idiot who loses things (or simply forgets) on the regular, I have the capacity to make up solutions as I go.
I slowly realized that each of us had problems or issues that we struggled with through this course, some more serious than others. I thought my problem of forgetting things would ruin me, but I kept hustling and kept up with the rest of the class. Eventually, that day finally came.
Up Next: Lovely Camp Mackall and Special Forces Assessment and Selection.
Originally written at SOFREP by me