Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [58]
“So what does your family think about your decision?” I ask.
“My family?” He pauses a moment before continuing. “Well, without my family, I couldn’t be here. I’m from California and my parents are liberal—very liberal. We talked at length about what I wanted to do and what I was getting into. They have some serious issues with the current administration and our nation’s foreign policy. But they’ve been there for me. You see, I’m a single parent with a two-year-old daughter. She’s with them while I complete this training. I can do this because my daughter has a structured and stable home life. I miss her terribly. Right now, I’m living for the times I can get back and see her. When I think about it, I’m forced to admit that any sacrifice on my part is small compared to that of my parents. I’m blessed with wonderful parents, and my daughter’s blessed to have such loving grandparents.”
The attrition of SFAS Phase I Class 8-04 has already begun. A few of the candidates, mostly soldiers coming to Camp Mackall from other Army units, have voluntarily withdrawn. Their reasons for choosing to leave range from the medical to the physical. Some men have foot problems and the pace of training simply does not allow them time to heal. Men take to pain differently. Some candidates can soldier through it and others can’t, or won’t. Some of them understand that they are unready for this kind of extended physical ordeal, and plan to return when they’re better prepared. Each day, a few more leave their barracks and take up residence in the voluntary-withdrawal quarters, where they will await the paperwork that will return them to their units. That may take a week or more. While they wait, they’ll become a part of a labor pool for the upkeep of the Rowe Training Facility. While their former classmates continue with SF selection, these men will cut grass, repair obstacles on Nasty Nick, and work on maintaining the dated facilities in the compound. There are only a few men in the barracks now, but there’s room for a great many more. I spoke with several of these men who decided early on to leave selection. Most said they’d be back for another try.
“I didn’t understand how physical it would be. I’ll be better prepared next time.”
“My feet are shot,” another told me. “I need to heal up and get my feet toughened up before I come back.”
And a few expressed regret. “I quit on the six-mile ruck march. I shouldn’t have, but I did. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but I’ll have to live with it. The straps were cutting into my shoulders and I got to feeling queasy. I knew I wouldn’t make the time. Still, I shouldn’t have quit. I’m going to give up cigarettes, get healthy, and come back for another try.”
Beginning on day nine, after a before-dawn rucksack march, the class begins the first of their land-navigation practical exercises. These are very much in scope and duration of the initial practical exercises the X-Ray soldiers negotiated during Pre-SFAS at Fort Bragg. Each one has four points, with each leg of the course between two and four miles. Each student has a different lane, meaning that his four points and his route to them are unique. The navigation courses are laid out on Camp Mackall and stretch into the state game lands that border the camp. The terrain is similar to that at Fort Bragg, but here there are more streams to ford and more marshlands to deal with. “There’s some bogs out there that will swallow you up,” First Sergeant Sarno told me. “The meat missiles, the guys who walk a straight line of bearing no matter what, are going to have some long and frustrating hours out there.”
For the X-Rays, the most striking change on these nav exercises are the point sitters. During their nav problems at Fort Bragg, they were given four sets of eight-digit coordinates. They plotted their four points—one, two, three, four—and set out to find them. At each nav-course point, there was a punch tool to document that they successfully reached the