Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [57]
“It works like this,” Specialist Tom Kendall says. “We shoot an azimuth and walk a line of bearing, keeping an eye on our compass and noting our pace count. When we get to where the point should be, we stop and see how far off we are.”
Kendall shoulders his pack and slings his weapon. He takes a bearing, so do I, and off we go. Both of us pace the first point a little short, but his line of bearing is better than mine. We both take a new bearing and set off for the second point, trying to walk a better line, given the error on the first point. At the end of four points, Specialist Kendall takes his pace and azimuth errors to Sergeant Cara. He has a conversion chart that takes Kendall’s errors and tells him how far off he would be on a thousand-meter distance.
“Your pace is pretty good, soldier,” Sergeant Cara tells him, “but you seem to drift left when you walk. You’re going to have to be mindful of that on the longer course legs.” This is not a graded evolution, and sections of the class rotate through the course to sharpen their land-nav skills and to try to eliminate their errors. “If you’re having trouble,” Cara tells the candidates, “see me and we’ll give you another set of points. This is for your benefit. Myself and the other cadre sergeants will be out here as long as you need us; we’re here for you.” To me he says, “This is an important skill, one that they will use as well as teach. On deployment, they’ll have a GPS to get around with, but if you’re walking, you still have to plan for how much ground you can cover over various types of terrain and how much ground you can cover under various weight conditions—how much gear they have on. If it’s a quick tactical mission with bullets and radios, that’s one thing. But you have to know what you can do with one hundred and ten pounds of gear strapped on your back. A line of bearing is important, but pace count is everything.”
“Think you have this down?” I ask Specialist Kendall.
“I think so. All of us X-Rays got a lot of this in Pre-SFAS, but it’s good to go over it again. We all know it’ll be more difficult here than back at Fort Bragg, and a lot more important.”
“What were you doing before you joined the Army?”
Tom Kendall is a measured, solid-looking twenty-four-year-old with a serious, direct manner. “I was going to college—graduate school, actually—and working as a firefighter and emergency medical technician. I’m also a professional martial artist.”
“A what?”
“I get that a lot from people,” he says quietly. “I taught kickboxing and jujitsu, and I competed professionally in martial-arts competitions and ultimate-fighting events.”
“Then the physical side of this training must be a breeze for you, right?”
“Yes and no. Even for a kickboxer, this training’s very hard on your feet, and I’m not the best distance runner. It’s a different type of physical conditioning. Still, I’m either at or very close to three hundred on the Army fitness test. But in general, this training has been impressive, and far more comprehensive and professional than I ever imagined. I’m learning a lot.”
“You have more choices in life than most,” I venture, “so why are you here?”
He shakes his head with a smile. “I’ve asked myself that on a few of the night compass courses back at Fort Bragg. This may sound corny, but it has to do with issues of genocide and injustice. Given the suffering in the world, I feel I have to do something. It was Special Forces or the Peace Corps. With