Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [44]
Rule is six foot and two hundred pounds. He has a soft appearance and a shy manner, and he gives the impression of not being particularly fit. But as I was soon to learn, he can ruck with the best of them. He swings on his pack, and we start out. I literally run to keep up with him. He has sixty-five pounds, while I carry only water, a camera, and a few PowerBars. PFC Rule marches straight to the first point and to the next three in rapid succession. In a little more than three hours of the five-hour allotted time, we are at the fourth and final point.
“I use my compass to give me a general heading—to get me pointed in the right direction,” he says of his technique. “From there I follow the terrain features. I generally know where I am on the map, and I try to choose the best route if not the most direct route. I pick way points along the route that keep me off the roads and out of the draws. When I get close to where I need to be, I find a nearby terrain feature and shoot an azimuth to plot my position on the map so I know exactly where I am. Then I plot a course to the nav-course point and walk there on a line of bearing. It seems to work for me.”
“What about at night?” I ask.
“Pretty much the same thing, except that I have to go a little slower.”
When the Pre-SFAS students finish a compass course, they make their way to a base camp area, which is usually within a mile of their final point. They check in with the cadre, get their compass cards validated, and get their rucks weighed. The cadre sergeants inspect each man to see if he has any injuries or foot problems. They also check their water to ensure that their students are drinking enough. Then they’re given an MRE and sent to a holding area to await the completion of the exercise. There’s only one other soldier there ahead of PFC Rule when we get to the base camp. He’s a former ranch hand who’d grown up in Texas, but had worked all over the Southwest.
“I see we’re not the first ones here,” I say conversationally.
“So we’re not,” Rule replies. “Maybe next time.”
I later learned that this was the first time that PFC Rule had not been the first one to finish a nav problem. It must’ve been the distraction of having an overaged Navy SEAL tagging along that held him back. Getting in early means some time to relax and have a leisurely meal. The third man in is a soldier from Seattle. He’s a University of Washington graduate with a master’s in education. The fourth’s a high school graduate from Minneapolis who’d been working as a carpenter when he joined the Army. Of the forty-some men due into this base camp, only twelve make their allotted four points in the time allowed.
For Class 8-04, a total nineteen points on the seven graded navigation courses were the minimum acceptable, and only about half the class were able to make nineteen or better. Only four members of the class went twenty-eight for twenty-eight. PFC David Rule was one of them.
During these day/night compass courses, the three training platoons of Class 8-04 live in the base camp areas. Their toiletries, change of clothes, extra boots, socks, underwear, sleeping bag, rain poncho, and rain shelter all go into or onto their rucksacks. They must carry their rucks with them on the compass courses and live out of them in the base camp areas. Living out of a ruck is a practiced art. There are issues of comfort, because rest and sleep, brief as they may be, are important in the performance of a soldier. Hygiene in the field is also important. Oral hygiene, cleanliness, foot care, hydration, nutrition—all of these require attention to keep a soldier safe and mission capable. In the base camp area, the students set up sentries and roving patrols, just as they would in hostile territory. It’s part of