Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [112]
“We don’t have all that much attrition in this MOS phase. We had three from this class. One guy hurt himself during physical training and will be recycled to the next class. The other two were men who shouldn’t be around guns at all; they simply haven’t the awareness you must have when handling weapons. It seems like every class we have a few men—not many, but a few—who have no weapons sense. Another reason for the low attrition is the work of my cadre. If a guy’s having trouble with a weapons system or does poorly on one of the exams, we work with him at night and drill him until he gets it right. If a man comes in here focused and determined to learn, we’ll get him through.”
I found PFC Tim Baker at the weapons-cleaning table on one of the final days. “Looks like you’re about through here. What did you think of the weapons phase?”
“It was awesome, sir. There was so much to learn—there is still a lot to learn.” He grins. “It was a challenge, but I’ve never had so much fun in my life. What an experience.”
“What was the most important thing you learned?” I ask.
After a thoughtful pause, he says, “It’s the emotion and measured fury that you have to bring to a gunfight. I came here to learn about weapons, but I had never thought about fighting—I mean, what it takes to fight and win. On the combat ranges, that changed. When it comes to a fight, you need all your skill and professionalism, but if you want to win that fight, you have to bring a controlled rage as well. We’re training to be warriors.”
“Good luck on the final exam,” I reply. “And see you in Phase IV.”
“That sounds awfully good, sir. See you in Phase IV.”
THE 18 CHARLIES—THE SPECIAL FORCES ENGINEERING SERGEANTS
I catch up with the 18 Charlies as they are training at Camp Mackall. When I arrive at the base camp training site, it looks a lot different from when I was here only few days ago with the 18 Bravos. The skeletons of three buildings, in various stages of construction, have risen from the floor of the camp. The training facility rings with the sounds of a residential construction site—pounding hammers, the shriek of skill saws, and the steady din of generators. It is late afternoon, but there are portable floodlights in place so the work can continue after dark. Swarming over the three structures like an army of ants are eighty-some members of Engineering Sergeant Class 01-05. The training site looks like a crash project of Habitat for Humanity. All that is missing is Jimmy Carter hammering nails on the roof.
It’s a sunny, cloudless January day with the temperature creeping into the high fifties. Most of the students have shed their blouses and work in T-shirts. All of them wear leather carpenter’s belts, looking like extras on the set of the TV series Home Improvement. Two cadre sergeants and a civilian contractor sit on a stack of plywood watching the students work. I join them, and we watch the progress of the work. After a while, it becomes apparent that the three construction crews are in a race. One group is pulling up plywood sheets for the subroof and nailing them in place. They’re clearly in the lead. The other two crews are still setting their roof joists.
“What do the winners get?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Master Sergeant Ron Wyman replies. “And it’s not really a race. Whichever crew is in the lead gets the first crack at the materials as they’re delivered to the site. The guys who finish first just get to brag while they help the other crews finish.”
The buildings are post-and-pier, single-story plywood huts built three feet off the ground, with stairs to a single door, and a window framed into each of the other three sides. These structures are exactly like those that housed my SEAL platoon in Vietnam and the ones that Special Forces ODAs now occupy in Afghanistan today. The camp itself, the same one the 18 Bravos sandbagged and fortified, is a triangular compound bordered by rolls of concertina wire. This, too, is familiar. It seems the triangular-shaped Special Forces compounds that once dotted the highlands