Lest We Forget Read online

  These torture sessions included movements that would make your CrossFit workout seem like a trip to day camp. Things like “little man in the woods” and “8 count body builders” or my personal favorite the “yes-no-maybe.” As bad as getting screamed at while doing hundreds if not thousands of repetitions of various calisthenics was, the worst was being made to stand in one place without moving for hours at a time. The throbbing that occurs in your joints after an Ironman pales in comparison to standing motionless on concrete all day.

  One Friday while in RIP hold, our cadre partial emerged from a window in front of our formation and called for a private. Five guys from the front row ran over immediately. Of course he didn't ask for five, he asked for one, so we all got smoked. "RECOVER" the cadre shouts and we stand up. "You, you, you and you, get the fuck back in formation. YOU, I will let this entire formation go home if you can sing a Britney Spears song right now!" The guy panics, not wanting the 400+ guys in front of him think that he knows lyrics to a Britney Spears song. "3...2....1. Chance is up, get back in line asshole! Looks like none of you are going home anytime soon,“ shouts the cadre. He shuts the window to return to his nice warm office. Thirty minutes later he emerges once again. This time he singles out one guy, "You! Get up here and sing me a Britney song or so help me God I will leave you all out here all fucking night!"

  "BABY BABY HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW...."

  "HAHA Help him out fuckers!" He yelled from the window. The collective voice of 400 wannabe Army Rangers echoed out the words to that song. By this point the Staff Sergeant in the window was laughing uncontrollably and can hardly get the words out, "Get the fuck out of here, all of you!" We scatter like roaches when the lights come on. NO ONE wants to be stuck in that place a minute longer than they have to. I made the mistake of hanging out in the barracks on my first weekend in Pre-RIP. I ended up spending two days picking up shell casings at a range and setting up targets for a group of guys in Battalion. You want to talk about getting smoked, try being a Pre-RIP student on a weekend detail with a bunch of Rangers. I never made that mistake again. A couple of friends and I would get a hotel room just off post and spend our weekends sleeping and writing the Ranger creed hundreds of times. To be honest most guys failed the PT test on purpose so they wouldn't have to endure RIP after all of this torture. The ironic thing was that the guys who failed intentionally would be there twice as long while they were getting placed with other units.

  By the first day of Ranger Indoc I had been in the Army for about eight months. Falling into a formation was second nature. You have to make sure that you are directly behind the man in front of you and directly between the men to your right and left. Everyone is organized by their last name to make roll call go faster. It has to look pretty or you are going to pay by way of physical abuse. The first morning of RIP everyone made sure to be in place early to ensure that our formation was squared away. We stood in the cold, damp Georgia darkness for what felt like hours awaiting the first day to begin. My fingers are numb from the cold and despite standing still for so long, I could still hear the heartbeats of the men around me pounding out in a collective concern for what was about to happen. We are standing on what feels like sacred ground, the walls around us have the accolades from every major battle that the 75th Ranger Regiment had been involved in and beneath our feet was what had simply come to be known as "the blacktop." This ground has seen more sweat than the floor of a child labor camp in communist China. This blacktop has taken away more men’s dreams than the act of poking a hole in a condom. We stand facing an old white barracks building with chipping paint and cracked walls that used to house the members of 3rd Ranger Battalion before the new compound was built. It now housed all of us Ranger-wannabes.

  The large double doors swing open and as much as we want to look at who is coming out, we know better. From the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of him. The man that emerged was daunting figure who I will call Staff Sergeant Runza. He was easily 215 pounds and stood over six feet tall. It was 5 o'clock in the morning but his entire bottom lip was packed to the gills with chewing tobacco. Runza had a clipboard in his hands with our class roster. He gave us the simple instruction that he would call off our last name and we would sound off with our first name and middle initial. The process was going smoothly until he got to my friend, Lewis. Runza called off, "Lewis!"

  "Lewis" he responded.

  "Your first name asshole!"

  "Lewis, Sergeant" he shouted once again.

  At this time Runza rushed to where Lewis was standing and got in his face. He looked at his nametape, it said 'Lewis'. The entire class could feel how pissed off our new instructor was, the groups collective heart rate elevated as his anger was palpable. He grabbed Lewis by the collar giving him one last chance to follow the instruction. "What is your first name, asshole?" he screamed.

  "Lewis, Sergeant"

  "Your father named you Lewis Lewis?"

  "Roger Sergeant"

  "You have got to be kidding me!! What kind of asshole names his kid the same thing twice? What is your father's name?"

  "Lewis, Sergeant"

  "No fucking way! No Goddamn way! Please tell me you don't have kids Lewis Lewis!"

  "Roger Sergeant, I do"

  "So help me God Lewis Lewis, if you named your poor bastard Lewis I am going to punch you square in the fucking mouth!"

  "Negative Sergeant, I have two girls"

  "Even God knew the insanity had to stop! Now get the fuck down!"

  Lewis began knocking out push-ups as Runza continued through the roll call. This would not be our last encounter with Runza. At one point during RIP he told our class that he would take us out into the woods, every one of us, and end our pathetic lives. I believed with all my heart that he could do it, that he was capable of killing 150 men barehanded.

  The first major event following the PT test in RIP is the Combat Water Survival Test (CWST). It isn't anything too terribly difficult, they just want to make sure that you are not afraid of the water. One of the events has the men blindfolded and walking off of a 10-foot high dive. The cadre would be behind the soldier guiding them to the end. We were instructed to yell "RANGER" and jump. I witnessed one of the poor bastards that hesitated at the moment of truth. Runza had a fist full of the back of his BDU top, standing behind him on that high dive. It was a sort of push, pull maneuver that he used. The push was to force that kid off the diving board, the pull was to ensure that he wasn't going to hit feet first! All I heard was his mangled attempt at calling out "RANGER," which sounded more like "RAMMMFER" as his back impacted the water with the force of a Mac truck hitting a fucking watermelon.

  The next two days were filled with constant smoke sessions and a timed 5-mile run that everyone was required to complete, in formation, in under 40 minutes. One unfortunate wannabe Ranger lost his shoe somewhere around mile three and ran the remaining two miles with one shoe! When the cadre saw the kid standing in formation with one shoe and one very bloody sock after the run they smoked him for being stupid and not stopping to grab his shoe. He asked, "Sergeant, I wouldn't have met the standard and been dropped from the course if I had gone back."

  The cadre responded, "Oh yeah, you would have been let go, but you're still a fucking idiot!"

  The big gut check during RIP is a three-day field training exercise at Cole Range on Fort Benning. All that you really know going into it is that you will be doing land navigation at some point and an 8-mile road march at the end. Neither of these events would be too difficult without the compound stress of being on the move constantly with very little, if any sleep for the days leading up to them. I learned something about myself over those 72 hours. A lesson that I still draw from to this day; I like seeing other people quit. I'm not sure how many people quit that first night - maybe 20? Maybe 30? Maybe more. It was an enticing notion as we did flutter kicks and push-ups in the ankle deep freezing puddles that accumulated from the constant downpour of sleet and icy rain. Just quit and
you will be warm. The cadre made this choice much easier for many of the men by standing around a giant campfire cooking hot dogs. They took turns leaving the warmth of their bonfire to come torture us throughout the evening. We were out in an open field and I believe that evening was the first time that I ever heard the command, "Hit the woodline!"

  Everyone started running for the woods, so I followed along. I don't like being second at anything so I sprinted the 200 meters round trip to ensure that I would be the first one back. That's not a good idea. Don't do that. Don't ever be the first guy back. I messed up my mentors number one rule, be the grey man. I just spotlighted myself.

  The cadre asked where his favorite stick was.

  "Pardon Sergeant?" I replied.

  "You went all the way to the woodline and didn't bring me my favorite stick back?? GO GET MY FAVORITE STICK ASSHOLE!!"

  "Roger Sergeant!" It was a response that I had been programmed to give by this point; it was the only way that I could reply. So as the rest of the guys were running back to the circle of pain and I was running back to the woodline to find homeboys favorite stick. Can you guess how many times it took to find his favorite stick? I'll give you a hint... it wasn't on the first fucking trip!

  It sucks. It all sucks, but that's the point. Your legs are filled with concrete and your lungs don’t feel like expanding even one more time. The freezing air has penetrated your joints rendering them crippled. At 20 years old you get a glimpse into the future, you see what it is going to be like to be 80. You feel frail and broken. The simple truth is that it is just as miserable for you as it is for every other beaten down guy out there so when he quits and you keep going, you know that you are mentally stronger than he is and that is something that you can't buy. I welcome this pain beating down on me. That builds a confidence that you will walk with until your dying day. That is the difference between being a Ranger or a SEAL or any other member of special operations. Day in and day out you get to work with a group of guys that didn't quit when things got tough and that is invaluable.

  Just because you get through Cole Range doesn't mean that you are going to be getting a tan beret handed to you. There are still two more weeks of events designed to weed candidates out. (Ranger selection is now an 8-week process but I went through it back when it was so hard that they got the job done in less than half the time.) The 12-mile road march at the time required each man to be within arms reach of the man in front of him. No running was allowed. In fact I watched a couple of guys get spear tackled into the woods for running to keep up. The 12-miler got a lot of people for that reason. We had tests on Ranger history and combat lifesaving techniques. Each time that you passed an event you could feel yourself getting closer to achieving the goal. We kept a mental countdown the way a nine year old does as Christmas draws nearer.

  We were on lock down one Sunday. The few dozen remaining members of our RIP class were cleaning things that had long ago been made spotless, waiting for the next round or torture. As I polished my boots for the 3rd time I remembered that in basic training if we chose to go to church that they had to release us. I told my good friend Jess about my plan to escape for a few hours by telling the staff duty officer that I wished to attend Sunday services. Jess and I had first met in basic training. He was a great athlete who played soccer in college before joining the Army. Since he had a degree he had automatically been promoted to Specialist, E4. His shaved head hid the fact that he had very curly dark hair. His demeanor always reminded me of Matthew McConaughey in the way that everything was cool. No matter how bad we were getting crushed, Jess just took it with a grin.

  Unbeknownst to me some kid overheard our conversation and asked to tag along. I knew that if more people found out it wouldn't happen. There is no way that they are going to let 40 of us leave. We told him to keep his mouth shut about it and he could come. We head downstairs to ask permission to leave and who is the staff duty? Yup, Staff Sergeant Runza! Fuck. My. Life.

  He wasn't in uniform. He was sitting with his feet kicked up on the desk in a wife beater and jeans watching TV. His fingers were interlaced behind his head exposing the tattoos on the insides of his biceps. One of which was a Catholic nun, spread eagle with her genitals pierced, of course the jewelry dangling from her lady parts was a gold cross. What else would it be?

  I attempted to muster up as much courage as I had to ask permission to go to religious services. He barely glanced at us and replied, "I don't give a fuck."

  As we turn to leave the kid does something I couldn't believe. He stops and asks Runza, "Sergeant, what service should we be going to?"

  I can only compare that feeling to that moment when you see the red and blue lights spinning behind you after you ran a red light and you know you are fucked! Except this guy wasn't going to issue us a ticket, he was going to put our skulls through the brick wall. Runza's attention is taken from the TV for the first time as he leans forward, spits a wad of tobacco into the trashcan and says, "Do I look like someone who knows when church starts? Do I look like a mother fucker that believes in GOD?"

  How do you answer that question? Fuck no he doesn't; but I'm not going to say that to him. Luckily he was staring at homeboy that asked the question but we knew that we were just as much on the hook just for being with him. The kid began to shake a little and replied, "I don't think so Sergeant." Now, that’s the wrong answer. Thinking and being in RIP are two diametrically opposed things. Tell him, no, negative, roger, hell tell him to go fuck himself but don't say some dumb shit like "I don't THINK so."

  To be honest I'm not sure how we made it out of there alive. I'll tell you one thing, that kid did not graduate! We ditched him the moment we left the barracks. The closest church was only a quarter mile away and we didn’t have any desire to walk a step further than necessary. Never in all my days did I think that I would have attended a full on choir singing Baptist ceremony where my friend and myself were the only two white people in attendance. It was like a scene from a movie. We rolled into that place in our tattered grey Army PT uniform with tan lines around our shaved heads marking where our patrol caps sat even with the marching surface (in accordance with AR 670-1 of course) to be greeted by some of the sharpest dressed, singing, clapping group of people you have ever come across. We were so out of place that we couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves. It was a much-needed comedic relief before returning to the harsh world of special operations selection.

  We had made it through the jump training and fast roping, the sleepless nights and the constant physical abuse. We endured the gut wrenching torture that comes from being told that today is “all you can eat day” in the chow hall after being in the field for days without a hot meal only to be given two minutes to consume all of the food on our plates. The run back to the company area following that trap had to have been at least a 6-minute mile pace. Jess survived scoring the only goal on our cadre during “combat soccer” although he paid a terrible price for juking Runza.

  All of that was over now; we were graduating. We would be receiving our Ranger scroll and tan beret on a freezing cold December morning. As we recited the 242-word Ranger creed in unison on graduation the collective breath of around 40 brand new Rangers filled the air like smoke clouds leaving a wild fire. We were about to become the most elite soldiers in the U.S. Army, or so we thought.

  From Left to right; Jess, me, Adam, Chris. On the day that we graduated RIP.

  ….

  Chapter 4 - The Running Free

  Typically being in a holdover status in the military is the absolute worst place to be, it’s purgatory. Since you don’t have an official job you get tasked to do all the tedious remedial bullshit that no one else will. There was a small group of medics that had recently graduated from Ranger Indoc that were now ‘Real Rangers’ Instead of a job we had an open ended wait ahead of us for our next school. Unlike Medic and Airborne school, there were very limited spaces for Rangers in the Special Operations Medic Course (SOMC). I recognized several of the
guys who I was reporting to the Regiment with but a few were strangers.

  I first met Matt in basic training but didn’t really get to know him until our first day reporting to the 75th Ranger Regiment. We were the final RIP class of 2003 and had a couple of weeks leave for Christmas immediately after graduating. There were apparently nine medics in our RIP class that graduated.

  On the morning that we were to report there were only eight of us there. Again, I didn't know Matt that well at the time so the fact that he just signed his own death warrant didn't bother me beyond the fact that the rest of us would no doubt be getting scuffed up until he returned. To my utter shock, Specialist Fabra, who was immediately in charge of the nine of us, wasn't pissed. He didn't drop any of us, even when I made the nervous error of calling him Sergeant. Over the past ten months of our training it was very uncommon to have someone other than a Sergeant in charge so referring to him as such came very naturally. The other seven guys in the room looked at me with contempt, as I'm sure they all believed that my error would soon become their burden. That's how it works in the military, if you fuck up EVERYONE pays for it. It is a good analogy for combat, and an effective way of weeding out those that cannot effectively work as a team.

  This time was different though; Matt showed up to Georgia two days later and was never reprimanded. I would find out later that he was stuck in Chicago due to a massive snowstorm and I would find out even later that this guy could get away with shit that no other person I have ever known could get away with. He is currently in medical school and has threatened to sue me if I tell any of these stories about him. But fuck him; these stories need to be told.