US SOCOM

Remembering SP4 Robert D. Law, MOH, February 22, 1969

Robert D. Law was a member of I Company, Rangers, 75th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in the Republic of Vietnam. On February 22, 1969, the LRRP Team ( Long-range reconnaissance patrol) that he was a part of, got into a firefight with elements of the Viet Cong and Law’s selfless, heroic actions on that day would be the cause for him to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Law was born on September 15, 1944, in Ft. Worth, Texas. He joined the Army in October 1967 via Dallas. By early 1969, during the Vietnamese “Tet” holiday, he was a member of the I Company Ranger LRRP Teams near Song Be in South Vietnam. A heavy enemy movement had been reported in the area and the Ranger LRRP teams were assigned to perform reconnaissance and gather as much intelligence as possible.

The Rangers had been making contact with Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas in the area. One patrol had two Rangers get seriously wounded, causing them to be medevaced on February 20.

I Company’s commander asked for volunteers to replace the team that had to be extracted along with the two men who were seriously wounded. The Team Leader (TL) was SGT Danny Wiggins and they put together a composite team consisting of Wiggins, Mike Cannon, Bob Law, Bill Powell, Bob Roossiene and Ray Cervantes. While all of the men had worked with one another on different missions throughout their tour in Vietnam, this was the first time, they’d ever functioned as a complete unit together. But their experience and Ranger SOPs would serve them well on this mission.

After an overflight of the area, the team selected their primary and secondary landing zones and infiltrated back into the area on the afternoon of February 20. After landing in an LZ unopposed, the team moved out with Law on point, Cannon was the next in the formation, followed by the Wiggins and Powell, his RTO, Roossiene was the M-79 gunner and Cervantes was the team’s rear security. After moving about 1000 meters, Law on the point came face-to-face with a VC in the dense jungle.

He immediately fired and the team, conducting an immediate action drill broke contact and moved off 100 meters, receiving only sporadic and light return fire. Wiggins, as was SOP, and having the area, pre-plotted for artillery fire, called in a fire mission and walked the rounds back into the area where they had made contact.

After considering the mission compromised, Wiggins asked for extraction. However, due to the time of day, extraction couldn’t be done until after dark, permission was denied and the team was ordered to find a suitable overnight position (RON) and continue the mission the next day.

After an uneasy night where the team didn’t have any further contact with the Viet Cong, they decided to continue on with their mission.

The next morning the team moved back out to continue their recon of the area. After about two clicks, they came upon a large stream and adjacent trail that showed a lot of recent activity. The team moved adjacent to the stream where they found a log footbridge over the stream. Moving to positions where they could monitor the area and remain undetected.

The team set up a kill zone with Claymore mines and two Rangers Cervantes and Cannon were placed up on the stream banks, hidden in the dense underbrush around the trees while the rest of the team positioned themselves in the stream bed, hidden.

After a short time, the team saw three VC moving to their front. As the VC were moving toward the bridge, one of them stopped and turned to peer down the stream bed. Apparently seeing one of the team, he tried to get his AK-47 into firing position. Both Law and Powell, emptied their magazines into the VC before he could fire.

The Claymores were detonated directly in front of the third VC who was carrying a machine gun across his shoulders. He was killed instantly. Then the other team members fired on the second Viet Cong with M-16s and M-79 grenades. The two remaining VC, badly wounded, tried to lob grenades at the American patrol, but they didn’t reach their position.

Wiggins called for artillery strikes which dropped down extremely close to their positions. Suddenly, another VC grenade came over the stream bed bank and rolled down directly between Wiggins, Powell, and Law. Law was closest and could have leaped out of the stream bed and over the edge to safety. Instead, he leaped on the grenade shielding his teammates from the blast but at the cost of his own life.

Wiggins called for a medevac, but for Law, it was too late. As the team awaited extraction, Cobra gunships raked the area, but no further contact was had with the enemy. The remainder of the team was safely exfiltrated to Lai Khe. It was only then that Wiggins and Powell learned that although Law had saved their lives, both received minor wounds from the shrapnel of the grenade that he had protected them from.

For a great detailed look at the mission, read Danny Wiggins account here:

Photos: Wikipedia

Medal of Honor Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. SP4 Law distinguished himself while serving with Company I. While on a long-range reconnaissance patrol in Tinh Phuoc Thanh province, SP4 Law and 5 comrades made contact with a small enemy patrol. As the opposing elements exchanged intense fire, he maneuvered to a perilously exposed position flanking his comrades and began placing suppressive fire on the hostile troops.

Although his team was hindered by a low supply of ammunition and suffered from an unidentified irritating gas in the air, SP4 Law’s spirited defense and challenging counterassault rallied his fellow soldiers against the well-equipped hostile troops.

When an enemy grenade landed in his team’s position, SP4 Law, instead of diving into the safety of a stream behind him, threw himself on the grenade to save the lives of his comrades. SP4 Law’s extraordinary courage and profound concern for his fellow soldiers were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 15, Day 6

Back to the gym this Friday morning. It is Chest and Triceps day and then a 5-mile run. Remember to stretch well before and after and to stay hydrated. Mark your progress down in your workout log book.

UBRR Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Bench Press

3 x 10 Dumbbell Flies

3 x 10 Dumbbell Incline Press

3 x 20 Pushups (alternate sets with wide, narrow and shoulder width)

3 x 10 ‘V’ Ups

3 x 20 Sit Ups

3 x 20 Cable Push Downs (rope)

3 x 20 Dips or until muscle failure

5-mile run (40 minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Two Ex-SEALs Among Eight Contractors Arrested in Haitian Flap

In a bizarre case, three Americans and five foreign nationals were arrested in Haiti as they sat in an unmarked and untagged SUV about a block from Haiti’s Central Bank. The arrested included two ex-Navy SEALs and a former Marine as well as five other foreign nationals.

As they were approached by police officers, the police were told that the men were on a security mission. The men refused to further identify themselves and further digging from the police uncovered that the men were heavily armed and that the license plates were removed as well.

When the police discovered that the contractors were heavily armed and unwilling to identify themselves, they were taken into custody. In the vehicles police discovered, “six automatic rifles, six pistols, two professional drones and three satellite phones. They also found a telescope, backpacks, gun vests, professional tapes and documents” to include a list with names on it the Miami Herald reports.

One of the contractors allegedly claimed that they were working for the central bank, but the bank’s governor claims to have had no knowledge of them. Interestingly, their passports were not stamped with entry visas into the country. All eight contractors are currently being detained by Haitian authorities and the US consulate has been made aware of their arrest.

McKinley previously served on SEAL Team 8 before working as a security contractor. He is known for making media appearances to comment on national security issues. In 2014, McKinley took to social media to recount a story about how he had been shot in a parking lot, ostensibly by gang members before trying to chase them down but eventually deciding to seek medical attention. The local police doubted the story which they claimed did not match McKinley’s cell phone records, surveillance camera footage from a nearby fire department, or the recollections of two police officers who were parked about 65 feet away from where the alleged shooting took place.

The police charged McKinley with lying about the attack, alleging that he shot himself and was simply seeking media attention. At trial, McKinley was found not guilty. Soon after, the former SEAL changed his name from Chris Heben to Chris McKinley.

Chris Osman previously served in the Marine Corps and then on SEAL Team 3. Osman founded a tactical gear company called TAG and currently sells motorcycle equipment through his website. In 2017, Osman was sentenced to two days incarceration for an assault that took place during a road rage incident in San Diego.

Regarding the nature of the security contractor’s work in Haiti, the Miami Herald reported that one of the two vehicles they were using was, “was purchased by a former government official and sent to the care of Fritz Jean-Louis, an adviser of President Jovenel Moïse. Jean-Louis has since fled the country.”

To read the entire article from NEWSREP, click here:

Photo: Wikipedia

OSS Operative Roderick Stephen Hall, Executed by the Nazis Feb. 20, 1945

Roderick Stephen Hall was an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent during World War II and conducted one of the most daring behind-the-lines operations of the war. His mission, which he himself proposed, dropped him and other OSS operatives deep inside Italy where they conducted sabotage missions against the German military in the Brenner Pass region.

They were to attack bridges to disrupt the Nazi’s supply route to their troops farther south in Italy as well as organize and resupply bands of Italian partisans. He lived on his wits and mountain skills for six months. But in late January 1945, Hall was betrayed by a partisan and he was arrested by the German SS (Schutzstaffel). He was sent to a concentration camp at Bolzano where he was tortured and then hanged on Feb. 20, 1945. His murderers were caught after the war, three were executed and one of them was given a life sentence in prison.

Privileged Beginnings:

Hall was born in China in 1915 to an international businessman father and a doctor mother. He attended the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass, graduating in 1934. After graduation, Hall traveled and spent many months in the Brenner Pass area of Italy, hiking, mountain climbing, and skiing. As a result, he was intimately familiar with the area.

Returning to the United States, he enrolled at Yale University but eschewed academics for the war effort once the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He left school and enlisted in the Army as a private.

Military Service:

It didn’t take long for Hall to make an impression on his superiors and before long he was a second lieutenant. While assigned to an Engineer unit, Hall wrote a letter to the OSS in 1943, outlying the importance of the Brenner Pass to the Germans and offering a plan to attack the strategic bridges and volunteering to lead it. CIA has copies of not only this letter but several others he wrote during his wartime service to his family. It provides amazing detail on what was transpiring in Italy.

Hall didn’t believe anyone would read, let alone pay attention to his letter. But the Special Operations Branch of OSS read it and they were sold. He received orders to report to OSS Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

When looking at the kind of eclectic group that General William “Wild Bill” Donovan was putting together for OSS operatives, Hall, known as Steve to his friends fit the bill exactly. Born overseas to well-to-do parents, he was an Ivy Leaguer who traveled the world extensively and was an above-average athlete, who excelled at hiking, skiing, and climbing. And the fact that he was intimately familiar with the proposed target area made him a no-brainer to bring on-board.

After going thru training for hand-to-hand combat, sabotage techniques, demolitions, and guerrilla warfare tactics, he was sent to North Africa to teach demolitions. But soon after, he was pulled from there and reassigned to Caserta, Italy where Company D, 2677th OSS Regiment awaited. His proposed mission was going to be a reality. He returned to Algiers for parachute training and then it was back to Italy for quick language immersion and survival training course.

The Mission of a Lifetime:

Hall and the rest of the team parachuted into at Monte Pala in the foothills of the Alps of northern Italy. However, they were 85 miles from the Brenner Pass, so the men would be walking a long way to their target area.

The 5-man team consisted of Captain Lloyd G. Smith, the commander, 1LT Joseph Lukitsch, Hall, radio operator Stanley Sbeig, a Navy specialist, and Technician third grade Victor Malaspino.

Their first target was the bridge at Tolmezzo, that was unguarded due to how far behind the lines it was. Their explosives didn’t destroy the bridge but damaged it enough so that no heavy loads would be able to cross it. The team kept moving farther north, on the way, targeting several smaller bridges that could be used to ferry supplies and maintain their communications. The team also made contact with local partisan forces and arranged some supply drops and gathering whatever intelligence they could glean about the German troop dispositions.

As the weather turned to winter, the snow and frigid cold hampered their operations. Hall’s feet froze with frostbite and he went into the small town of Todesch di Vallada where Hall had hoped to recover and lay low until the war was over.

After six months, the bodies of the team in the extreme elements of the mountains began to break down. Hall, however, was determined to keep going. On January 25, 1945, he set out in blizzard conditions to attempt to blow the hydroelectric plant at Cortina d’ Ampezzo. It wasn’t long before his feet became so frostbitten and swollen, he couldn’t continue.

Hall was found by a game warden who promised to send help. Hiding out with a local priest, Hall was arrested when the game warden, instead turned him over to the Fascist police. One of the local partisans then identified Hall as a member of OSS.

The Fascist police then turned Hall over to the SS. Soon after that, Hall was sent to the nearby Bolzano concentration camp. Here, Hall was tortured brutally for two weeks and then despite being captured in uniform was hung in Bolzano’s torture chamber on Feb. 20, 1945. The Nazis tried to cover their blatant disregard for their war crime under the Geneva Convention by having the doctor on-hand say that Hall’s death was a suicide.

The doctor was an inmate himself at Bolzano and wasn’t allowed to even examine the body. The doctor knew that if he didn’t sign the death certificate, the Nazis would bury Hall in an unmarked grave. So, this camp physician wrote the cause of death was “paralisi cardiaca” (cardiac paralysis), even though that condition doesn’t exist.

After the war was over, Hall’s burial place was found and he was exhumed and reburied with full military honors in Florence American Cemetery and Memorial in Florence, Italy. He was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit.

War Crime Trial:

Four SS officers were tried for war crimes, relating to Hall’s death. Untersturmführer Heinrich Andergassen, and three others, Sturmbannführer August Schiffer, Oberscharführer Albert Storz, and Gendarmerie officer Hans Butz were all tried in Naples in 1946 for war crimes.

Andergassen admitted his role during interrogation and quickly implicated the others. They were all found guilty and sentenced to death on July, 19,1946. Andergassen, Storz, and Schiffer were hanged. Butz was sentenced to life in prison.

A book was written about the entire operation titled “The Brenner Assignment” by Patrick K. O’Donnell and can be ordered here:

As we mentioned above, CIA has a treasure trove of Hall’s letters, some of which were hidden by Italian citizens to send to Hall’s family after the war. They contain in exquisite detail, what Hall and the team were doing in Italy. Those can be read here:

Photos: OSS/Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 15, Day 5

Chest and Triceps workout in the gym and then hit the trails for a 4-mile run. Remember to stretch well before and after and to stay hydrated. Mark your progress down in your workout log book.

If you’re living in the Northeast, you may want to bundle up a bit, we’ve had a cold snap here where the morning temps have dipped down in the single digits. Snow and freezing rain are the calls for today…Use your best judgment here.

UBRR Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Bench Press

3 x 10 Dumbbell Flies

3 x 10 Dumbbell Incline press

3 x 20 Pushups (alternate sets with wide, narrow and shoulder width)

3 x 10 ‘V’ Ups

3 x 20 Sit-ups

3 x 20 Cable Push Downs (rope)

3 x 20 Dips or until muscle failure

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 15, Day 4

Shoulders and back training day in the gym before heading off to do the SOF (Special Operations Forces) Triathlon. A run, a rucksack march, and a swim with fatigues and boots.

Almost all Special Operations training is based on one of these events. If you can do all three well, you will be in good shape to pass the Selection course.

UBRR Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

3 x 10 Seated Rows

3-mile Run (24 minutes maximum)

3-mile Rucksack march (45-pound minimum, 45 minutes maximum)

100-meter swim in fatigues and boots (no time limit)

Stretch well after completion

US Aid to Venezuela Thru Colombia Now is the Crux of the Crisis

Opinion: The United States is pushing the envelope against the authoritarian regime of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. No one is arguing, except Maduro that the tons of medical supplies are urgently needed. The people of Venezuela are in dire need of food, medicine and an end to the hyper-inflation devastating the once prosperous nation’s economy. Over three million Venezuelans have fled the country and are moving across the border into Colombia.

But there is another side to the U.S. aid being shipped into Colombia, which is why many of the international aid agencies are wanting nothing to do with this. By sending the aid to neighboring Colombia, the United States has upped the ante to encourage military members, especially the junior to mid-level officers to cease their allegiance to Maduro. The aim is to foment regime change by backing the claims of the “interim President” Juan Guaidó who has called for a “humanitarian avalanche” with “caravans” to go to the Colombian borders to get the aid next Saturday.

The hope is that once the supplies, which the U.S. is shipping to the city of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela, reaches the bridge between the two countries, military leaders will defy Maduro and allow the aid to cross.

However, the U.N. and other aid agencies are balking at getting involved. “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or any other objectives,” Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said last week. “The needs of the people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian assistance is used.”

Right now, the border bridge on the Venezuelan side is blocked by a tanker truck and shipping containers. And Maduro is painting himself into a corner. He claims that there is no humanitarian crisis, that the United States is manufacturing a false claim to incite a military invasion.

Calling this false flies in the face of the facts. When three million of your countrymen flee and food stores are empty, hospitals are in dire need of medicine and your only supporters to your claim as President are those known “freedom loving democracies” as Russia, China, Cuba et al, it rings increasingly hollow.

Maduro’s Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez got some advice that rivals that of Baghdad Bob when he alleged that the US aid was contaminated with carcinogens “to poison our population” and described it as a “biological weapon”, as reported by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

The ante is further being raised by the presence of Senator Marco Rubio from Florida who was in Colombia on Sunday. “There comes a time in many people’s lives when they have to make a decision that will define them forever,” Rubio said. “That time has come for the Venezuelan soldiers.” Rubio called Maduro’s rule “a criminal regime willing to starve and kill its own people.”

Also, Richard Branson, the British billionaire, and philanthropist is organizing a benefit concert in Cúcuta this coming Friday. Branson said he hopes to raise $100 million for humanitarian aid.

Guaidó is calling for thousands of supporters dressed in white to march on the border to confront the border guards and allow the aid to pass. Colombians in Cúcuta are uneasy about the entire scene being played out in their midst. It is a city of 750,000 that has been inundated by Venezuelan refugees.

Other humanitarian aid is slated to be coming from the Brazilian border and from the neighboring island of Curaçao.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is continuing to push the Venezuelan military to decide, Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, said earlier this month at a press brief, “Members of the army are Venezuelan citizens. … Our hope is that they will be able to persuade Maduro, or they will simply disobey orders to continue the starvation of the people of Venezuela.”

Kevin Whittaker, the US Ambassador to Colombia, said last week that Maduro “needs to leave so his people’s needs can be attended to, so the Venezuelan economy can be put back on its feet, and so that Venezuela can once again be a normal country.”

Maduro is digging in his heels and last week denied entry to five members of the European Parliament who flew to Caracs to meet with Guaidó at his invitation. They were barred from entry into Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar International Airport and subsequently deported.

This next week will be very interesting to watch. All eyes now are on the Venezuelan military. On one hand, they’ve been very loyal to the Maduro’s regime. But the rank and file members have family members who are starving. They know that someday there will be a reckoning.

Photo: Wikipedia

Watch “Big Mountain Heroes”, Healing Veterans Holistically

We all know or are ourselves in various stages of a love/hate relationship with the Veterans Administration. And most of us know that the vast majority of the VA is staffed with dedicated doctors that truly want to help our veterans. But that like any huge bureaucracy, that help is often caught up in an endless sea of red tape.

And in that, the VA is often just using drugs as therapy rather than a holistic approach to cure rather than just treat the symptoms is…at times, infuriating. We’ve all been there. But there are other ways to treat our veterans.

One alternative method was tried by Hurricane Media’s Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, and best-selling author. His idea was to bring several Special Operations veterans from various services and units together, bond them together in a challenging yet beautiful environment at Chamonix in the French Alps and use extreme sports and the outdoors as a way of healing the entire person and not just by using drug therapy.

Webb, Nick Betts, and Jason Kenitzer from Hurricane Media brought together these veterans and filmed their experiences in the Alps and put together the film, “Big Mountain Heroes”, which is now available on YouTube.

It is beautifully filmed with gorgeous shots of the French Alps, but arguably the best shots are the closeups of the vets themselves. Getting lost in the extreme adventure of conquering the difficulties of the mountains, the years of stress and physical pain are melted away, if only for a few days.

“Big Mountain Heroes” was recently awarded the award for Best Action Sports Short at the Mammoth Film Festival recently. We encourage all of our readers to check it out.

Will this kind of therapy work for everyone? Of course not. But it does show there are alternatives out there. As someone who is never truly happy unless he’s doing something worthwhile outdoors, I wish someone had been around to offer myself a chance at something like this when my service was done.

Photo: Big Mountain Heroes, Hurricane Media

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 15, Day 3

Tuesday is one of our Leg Days at the gym followed by a 4-mile run. Begin with pull-ups then Deadlifts before moving on to squats, lunges and the sled followed by a four-mile run

UBRR Training:

Continue to prep for the UBRR

3 x Pullups 10 reps

3 x 10 Deadlifts

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x 10 reps One Leg Body Weight Squats with a stability ball balanced on the wall

4 x Sled Push heavier weight or substitute Fireman’s Carry

3 x 10 reps Dumbbell lunges

3 x 20 Plank Step Ups

4-Mile Run (32 Minutes Maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Australian Special Forces Doctor, “Never, Ever Quit”

Leaving No Rounds in the Chamber

We highlighted an earlier post by Australian Special Forces doctor in NEWSREP recently and he has posted another must-read piece for not only aspiring Special Operations Forces candidates but for everyone.

This fits in perfectly with our own earlier piece today about never quitting in the face of adversity. Pronk reached the limits of his in Selection and found the will and fortitude to keep driving on and putting one foot in front of the other until he met his goal. This is another fantastic post and we recommend that all of our readers check it out.

There are lots of motivational sayings relating to not giving up until you quite literally can’t go any further—”don’t leave any gas in the tank,” for instance. These relate to the idea that you never quite know when success is right around the corner and just hanging in there for a tiny bit more time might get you to your objective. There are sayings for that as well, including, “The night is darkest just before the dawn,” but I like to think of this one in a more military way and use the analogy of not leaving any rounds in the magazine.

This one stems from the concept of leaving a cartridge or two in your magazine in the combat environment in order to give yourself the option to turn the rifle on yourself as an alternative to falling into enemy hands if all has gone to custard. It is the stuff that gets glamorized in war movies for the most part, but something that I actually found myself pondering seriously prior to my first tour of Afghanistan.

It was assumed that any coalition soldier falling into enemy hands in that theater was in for a particularly rough time, and the thought of a swift ending at your own hand might have been a fairly reasonable alternative. I dismissed the idea outright myself for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was always pretty rubbish at counting the number of rounds that I had shot, especially under the heightened state associated with a tactical situation, and I figured that I would have little to no chance of pulling up with one or two rounds left in my final magazine if it came to that. Secondly, you just never know how things are going to play out.

It would be a terrible shame to turn the rifle on yourself only to have a helicopter gunship show up overhead a few seconds later or a support element arrive to save you only to find you with a rifle in your mouth! In my opinion, I might as well keep shooting until my rifle goes click instead of bang, and then cross that bridge when I got there. I had a lot to live for and I was committed to staying alive at all costs and seeing how the chips might fall in the worst-case scenario. Many years later I had the chance to hear a firsthand account from a British SAS soldier from the ill-fated and much-publicized Bravo Two Zero patrol in the first Gulf War who had been captured and tortured by Iraqi forces and then subsequently released. While his vivid recollections of the torture he endured were chilling to say the least, to his credit he had managed to physically and psychologically move past the ordeal and return back to his role as a SAS soldier. Hearing his remarkable story solidified my stance for future deployments that I would leave no rounds in the magazine if it came to it and see how it all played out. Thankfully it was a decision I never had to make for real.

Translating that metaphor into a far less dramatic application, I had an experience on my Special Forces selection course where my overwhelming desire was to quit but, largely thanks to the motivation provided by another candidate, I managed to push on and fire the last few rounds in my magazine. The event occurred on a section of the course involving a five-day individual navigation exercise comprising long-distance hikes in a national park between checkpoints at the tops of mountains while carrying a very heavy pack. The real challenge of the exercise was a psychological one in that we were provided no indication as to how much distance we needed to cover or how many checkpoints we needed to reach to pass the activity. We were left completely to our own devices and needed to pace ourselves to cover as much or as little ground as we felt reasonable, all the while keeping in mind the fact that there were an additional five days of the selection course to go afterward.

We were under strict instructions not to interact with other candidates during the activity and, for the most part, the individual routes between checkpoints we had all been assigned meant that full days could pass without seeing other candidates, anyway. I had crossed paths with a few others over the first couple of days and we had played by the rules and given one another nothing more than a nod of acknowledgment before going our separate ways. On the morning of the final day of the activity I bumped into another candidate in a deep creek line I was moving along. Figuring that the chance of getting caught was slim, we took the chance of having a quick chat. The topic of that discussion centered on how much distance we had both covered and how many checkpoints we had hit. During the conversation the other candidate told me with a decent degree of conviction that a minimum of five checkpoints were required to pass the activity. Without really questioning the authenticity of his information, I took it as gospel.

We wrapped up our conversation and parted ways, leaving me to ponder my situation. I had hit four checkpoints by that point and my fifth was at the very top of a mountain some 20km away. We were under instruction not to move after dark, which left me with about seven hours to get to it. By that stage, we were a couple of weeks into the selection course and my body was starting to show some wear and tear. I had strained one of my quadriceps muscles quite badly and it was giving me hell with every step. I had started to lose a considerable amount of weight from the intense physical exertion of the course and the limited food provided. My physical deterioration was starting to take a toll on my psychological state. For the first time on the course, I was having moments of mental weakness and doubt. I trudged along throughout the rest of the final day of the activity and was approaching the base of the mountain that my fifth checkpoint sat atop as the sun started to get low on the horizon. By that time I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t make it to the checkpoint before dark and I had decided to set up camp at the base of the mountain for the night and radio in my location for the scheduled pick-up the following morning. In the final few hundred meters of stomping toward the base of the mountain another candidate came charging up from behind without me noticing and drew level with me, scaring the life out of me as he did so.

It turned out that his next checkpoint was the same one as mine, but unlike me his attitude was positive and despite acknowledging that he wasn’t going to make the checkpoint before dark he was going for it anyway. He urged me to do the climb with him, but I was mentally defeated at the time. When we hit the start of the track leading up the mountain I wished him the best of luck and then found a place to camp for the night and dropped my pack. Although I had made my decision to quit, something inside of me didn’t allow me to unpack my kit to set up camp. As I sat there dejected, I turned my gaze to the other candidate in the distance making his way up the climb to the checkpoint as the sun began to set. I ran all the years of training that had led up to that point through my mind. As I did so it occurred to me that they had all led to that moment and I was in the very process of giving up on my dream. I had the sickening realization that everything that I had worked so hard for and all the sacrifices I had made may have been all for nothing if I didn’t at least give that final climb a crack.

My fifth checkpoint was less than a kilometer away, albeit all uphill, and I wouldn’t get there before dark, but I’d rather take a beating from an angry SAS soldier at the checkpoint for moving after dark than live the rest of my days knowing that I’d let myself down by quitting on my dream. I slung my pack back onto my aching shoulders, and with my lungs and legs burning, I made the best pace I was capable of up the mountain track as the light faded. As it got darker and darker I got more and more frantic, stumbling on the rocky track underfoot as I
raced toward the summit, the close foliage surrounding the track grabbing at my shoulders and pack as I plowed on.

To Read the entire piece, click here:

Photo: Courtesy of Dan Pronk, Australian SF