I was cleaning up a bit today, largely sifting through piles of stuff that I have been meaning to sift through for a long time. Among the items that I found were a stack of 4 x 6 “Storm Saf” notepads full of green, lined paper. Those were the pads filled with paper that could supposedly be written on in the rain, assuming that you had a writing utensil that could write on paper while wet. On almost every page of each notepad were my messy scrawls and drawings. Printed on the covers were “Darby,” “Mountains,” and “Florida.” For the uninitiated, those are the three phases of Ranger School (at least they were several years ago – I’m guessing it hasn’t changed). Like so many before me, I went through the last hard class. I flipped through the notepads and stumbled upon some amusing things (at least I think they’re amusing).

The Mountains notepad was surprisingly short on writing. I am not sure why. One page reflected what I am guessing was a long, painful day. The heading of “mission” is at the top of the page. Below it, the word “ambush” was crossed out. Below that, “raid” was crossed out. Below that, “ambush” was written again and crossed out, and so on, for a total of seven cross-outs. I am not sure what the mission actually was, but I am guessing that the patrol leader was a no-go.

In the Florida notepad, I came across an After Action Review for the mission that I was a patrol leader for. I was pretty sure that I was a go for the mission, but the “3 sustains, 3 improves” format of the AAR should have left no doubt. My three sustains: planning, control, actions on the objective. Basically, if any of the five principles of patrolling (planning, reconnaissance, control, security, and common sense) are in your “sustains” column, or if actions on the objective is there, then you are on the right track. If they end up in your “improves” column, then you are probably a no-go. If they are in both, then it is anyone’s guess. My three improves: keep radio transmissions brief, make sure security elements inform the PL before firing, and do not eat the RI’s pen. Yes, do not eat the Ranger Instructor’s pen. I was hallucinating during the AAR. When the RI handed me his pen for me to sign the after-action counseling, I thought he was handing me a Twix bar. For the five days prior to that mission, I was either a team leader or a machine gunner. The platoon was nearing 72 hours without sleep. Needless to say, my brain was pretty much fried. I still remember him wrestling the pen out of my hand/mouth. That was disorienting, to say the least. At least it did not reflect upon my evaluation.

In the last few pages of the Florida notepad is a long list of food. I remember brainstorming this list while lying in the prone on a sand dune on Santa Rosa Island. We were soaked from head to foot because “artillery” began to fall while we were 50 meters from shore, during our Zodiac movement towards the objective rally point and we all did a Saving Private Ryan over the sides of the boats. I still remember thinking, prior to that, that it was nice to finally get some rest when my squad was tasked as the security element. Once the artillery simulators started whistling, I remember thinking how unfortunate we were. The nice thing about being the assault element is that you move around and warm up. The security element just lies there motionless and freezes. And freeze we did.

Once we took up our position on the left flank, my Ranger buddy and I burrowed ourselves into the sand and were pressed against each other, just trying to stop shivering. That must have been the longest raid in the history of Ranger School. We were out there seemingly for an hour. To take our minds off of the cold, we brainstormed a list of food that we were going to eat upon graduation. Among the items: Peanut Butter M&Ms, chocolate doughnuts, Ho-Ho’s, Peanut Butter Cups, peanut butter (just the jar), Caramellos, and about 50 other items, mostly combinations of chocolate and peanut butter, which your body craves when you are in starvation mode.

Aside from that, I found a lot of surprisingly good, detailed drawings of our SOPs for establishing patrol bases, objective rally points, hasty ambush, raid, reconnaissance, and so on. Lots of detailed checklists and planning guidelines, but also a whole lot of notes where my handwriting slowly begins to turn into scribbles that fall below the line as I fell asleep while writing.

Wow, it has been a long time since I bored someone with Ranger School stories. One of the good things about war is that it gives us war stories to tell, instead of Ranger School stories. I promise to never speak of it again.