"Walking Away From The Ledge” The Cut List: Vol. 10. These are the stories that didn’t make the cut to the final edit in my book.
Some of these stories will jump around, but I’ll do my best not to leave you, the reader, guessing when and where they happened. More sleepless, hunger hilarity from Florida phase of Ranger School.
There is an awesome mission in Florida. We got to get inserted by a Blackhawk helicopter for a raid. We had all heard that the pilots, who are flight school students conducting a training mission of their own from Fort Rucker, always provide food for Ranger School students. Everyone was excited to see what we would get out of the deal. The RIs know it’s a thing, obviously, and informed us that whatever “lickies and chewies” they give us must be consumed before we get off the helicopter. Anything found in our possession afterward would be met with some form of punishment. I think at this point, more of us were concerned about incoming fire rather than the minuses as a punishment. We sat down, strapped in, and right after takeoff, the crew chiefs handed us brown paper bags. Sandwiches, candy, beef jerky, Gatorade, I can’t remember what all was in it, but I was five years old, having the best meal of my entire life right there. I don’t remember chewing, and I’m not sure how I didn’t choke! It was the best thing I’d had in months! Afterward, he heard some crews had pizza, others had burgers, and others had tacos. I didn’t care; it wasn’t MRE or DFAC, so it was fantastic. Years later, when I was in flight school, the Chinook guys got the Ranger School mission, so I told my buddy who was flying on it to “brown bag it” for them too. He said it was a huge hit with the guys in the back.
I was the “weasel,” or weapons squad leader for the raid after being dropped off by the helos. Due to having only two M240s, we had the weapons squad split into two parts. After dropping us off, I had to set one gun at one end and run to the other end to set up the other heavy gun. In real life, I would be dead, but with blank ammo, this went off well. The worst part was that we were dropped off on a large concrete area where some buildings had been set up before, but now it was flat and wide open. I went with it since it wasn’t my plan. The helicopter ride, the raid, and the follow-on movement all went well. All I had to do was survive the patrol base, and I would be a GO. Graduation was around the corner, and I could taste the steak dinner.
At the end of day seven, we moved into the patrol base, and everyone was feeling the pressure. We set up the perimeter with our two heavy guns at the most likely avenue of approach, and we used the M249 SAW at the third apex. The gun positions were dug in with three men per site. Everyone was feeling good and relatively rested, despite being two-thirds of the way through and having possibly had a total of 10-12 hours of sleep over the last seven days. All gun sites had a plan to rotate sleep every 30 minutes. No gun was going to get taken tonight, folks! Mark that GO column, bring on graduation, son!
It wasn’t even an hour in, and one gun was gone. An RI comes to inform the leadership, “Hey, you may want to check your gun positions!” What’s the point? We knew what that meant. The first site I walk to, “Sorry, man, we were all good and then everyone just fell asleep.” “FUCK! Well, man your tripod then!” As I have a flashback to mountains and make a mental note of the guys who I will treat like shit later. A couple more hours go by, “Hey, leadership, you may want to check your gun positions.” The other heavy weapon, gone. Man your tripod. My confidence from earlier was gone with our gun positions, so I decided to go to sleep. We were attacked and were fortunate enough to thwart the attack, so we didn’t have to leave the patrol base - one stroke of luck. The sun is rising, and I’m ready to hear about my NO-GO.
The RIs never had 'GO' or 'NO-GO' circled when they gave their AAR afterward. They would tell you what you did right or wrong and how to improve for next time, but you didn’t know what you had. It was probably so people wouldn’t get a big head and relax knowing they were going to graduate, or second-guess every move, thinking they were recycling. All I know is that the RI came up with the paper, said “great job on the raid, especially having a split squad like that,” and held the paper for me to sign, I saw GO circled. I didn’t say a word about the patrol base, as I assumed he hadn’t stayed out all night or didn’t care about the night’s events at all. I had a sinking suspicion that it was a ploy, all fake, or something I didn’t know, but I took it at face value and went with it.
Want to know more about some of these situations? You’ll have to get the book “Walking Away From The Ledge" for more details! If this story hit home—or reminded you of your own service—drop a comment below or share it with someone who might need it.
