Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [64]
While the men in Andersonville don’t have the heavy burden of the men still on the Star course, they are not given a day off. “We take the winners out for an eight- to ten-mile ruck march in the afternoon,” one of the cadre sergeants told me. “They’ve passed the navigation portion of this phase, but they still have the team events. We want them all tired and a little foot-weary going into the team events.”
Yet as I walk around the cluttered, poncho-strung ghetto, I meet nothing but smiles. Each man is told to bring one book with him to Phase I and keep it with him in his ruck. When they aren’t sleeping, eating, talking, or tending their blistered feet, I find many of the Andersonville residents reading. The most popular book is the Bible, followed by books written by Tom Clancy. I note more than one copy of Shadow Warriors and The Teeth of the Tiger. I also see To Kill a Mockingbird, Red Badge of Courage, Gates of Fire, and Black Hawk Down. I even find a candidate with a novel by Dick Couch. There is one candidate sitting by the fire, reading a book with Cyrillic writing on the spine. He’d gone four-for-four on the first Star. When I approach, he scrambles to his feet.
“Good afternoon, sir. You must be the writer.”
“I am. Glad to be here?”
“Yes, sir. A little bit of time to heal up and get ready for the team events.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Alex Lawson, by the way.”
He has a firm grip, and I don’t recognize him as one of the X-Rays. “What were you doing before you came to selection?”
“Well”—he grins self-consciously—“that’s a bit of a story.”
“Hey, that’s what I do. Have a seat.” We both sit by the fire. It is now late September and damp, and most of the poncho groupings have at least one fire.
Alex Lawson is a slender, dark-haired soldier with a shy but confident manner. I learn he was a National Guard officer assigned to the 20th Group with a National Guard unit out of Charleston. Within months of his high school graduation, he had married and joined the Marine Corps. Four years later, he was single and an ex-Marine infantryman. Armed with his GI benefits, he plunged into college. He worked part-time and joined the Army National Guard for the extra money. In another four years, he had a degree in Russian studies from George Washington University and gained admission to Georgetown University’s law school. Along the way, he completed Officer Candidate School. With his law degree, he became a full-time staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and remained a part-time soldier. He had recently moved to Charleston and established a practice that represented contract security firms. He was only recently promoted to captain.
“I guess you know you’re not going to have all that much time to practice law.”
“That’s true,” Lawson replies. “My unit is scheduled for deployment early in 2006. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be able to get back here to complete the Q-Course in time for that deployment.”
I make a quick mental calculation. “So that means you can validate your language requirement?”
“That’s my plan. I’d like to do it in Russian, but my Russian is only fair.” He taps the book. “I read it a lot better than I speak it, but I’m fluent in French.”
“Obviously, you have options, in or out of uniform. Why Special Forces?”
He tilts his head and is silent for a moment, as if he is reviewing a well-worn line of thinking. “I think on balance, it’s the challenge. Special Forces offers the chance to lead men in a very difficult and challenging environment, and to operate independently without the close supervision of the regular Army chain of command. The senior SF sergeants in my National Guard unit are sharp guys, very intelligent and very experienced. I admire them. My goal is to deploy as a detachment leader with these men. It’s a leadership challenge and a cultural challenge. I guess that’s why