A little story for you...

because I am sure you are tired of hearing about my dead relationship...

Here is a story... one of the few things I have done I am proud of.

It was the spring of 1978. I was on a 3 day camp out with the ROTC. It was the second day and they had planned an Orienteering exercise for us. In two person teams we were given a map and a compass and on the map were located the positions of various markers, each marker had a custom hole punch at it, we were to chart our path from one marker to the next and run the miles between them, this is a race.

So I got assigned this one idiot with me. I had never been partnered with this guy before and he wasn't one of the people on the rifle team that I worked with regularly. We started out and hit the first marker or two easily, but things were rough between us, he always felt I had no clue what I was doing and always argued with me about the way to go. So after the second or third (successfully located by me) marker, I gave him the map and compass and told him that I had done two or three, now he could do two or three, rather than constantly berate me for finding the things accurately. he took off and I followed and I knew I was screwed. You see, once you get comfortable with a topographical map, you don't really need the compass anymore. You see the way the land lays and you can compare that to the map and know where you are... and if you have already seen enough of the map to know the major features of the land, you can then look at the lay of the land and know where you are headed without even having the map there!

So I had spent some time routing us to those markers, by studying the map, so I knew when we took off that Gomer was headed in the wrong direction... I let us go for a little while because maybe he wanted to take a route that wasn't one that I would have taken... finally he stopped and said we should have seen the marker by then, so I asked where he thought we were... he told me he didn't 'think' he knew where we were, he 'knew' where we were. And took off at a sprint, telling me that he realized what he had done. So I kept up with him and in so doing I did two things, one, you never leave your buddy in the woods, you two have a better chance of survival together than apart, and 2 lot track of where we were on the map in my mind... We had gone off that part of the map I had been studying. After about two hours he was convinced, he had no idea where we were... So, stinging inside because he knew he had got us lost he handed me the map and compass and said, "Okay bright boy, find a way for us to get back." like it was my fault. I told him to stick the map and compass in his _______ because I had no idea where we were... He started to freak out... I remembered that we were camped on a river, we had taken the trucks west and south, but had not crossed the river, so I knew if we walked east we would find the river. Going north up the river we would find the camp.

So I told my plan to Gomer, who was pretty much in tears thinking we were going to die at this point. I then told him to follow me and using the sun as my guide and my watch I started east. It was about 10 am at this point. We headed east until we hit the river, then we headed north up the river. Hitting the river meant we were going to live, you see, it was in the 80's and we had only one canteen each, so without that river we would have had it rough. We walked up the riverbank until we came to sandstone cliffs the river had cut between... so we could backtrack and try to go around or climb the cliffs. The sandstone cliffs were only about 40 feet tall so I figured we would climb them. We did, loosing skin and tearing clothing in the process, then we continued the march. Spines on tumbleweeds can be 2 inches long. we got hit by some of those. About sundown we pulled into camp.

That surprised the hell out of SF trainers, you see, they had had helicopter patrols out looking for us. So on the one hand we were in a load of trouble, but on the other hand we had rescued ourselves without help...

So we got debriefed separately and each told our version of the tail.... Then we were debriefed together so we could have our stories played out against each other and see how we reacted.... Gomer actually told them that I had given him the map and compass and told him to navigate specifically because I wanted us to get lost!

Anyway, at the end Gomer was told he he needed to spend more time learning to navigate, I was commended for saving our lives, after that episode my SF trainers always treated me with respect. It was awesome the difference in the way they treated me, I had proved something to them.

So, talk to me...