[NoVa-Corvairs] more stuff

[Howard Ghee]

Daniel,
   
  Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.  I am glad you are finding this to be a rewarding experience for you and you are noticing personal growth.  Keep at it and good luck!!
   
  -Howard

Daniel Goldberg <goldie at danielgoldberg.net> wrote:
  Hey gang.

It's been a while since I've written about JAG, but the Army doesn't give me three minutes to scratch myself, much less write prose for your amusement. However, now that graduation is upon us and I’m about to commence my own personal trail of tears to Oklahoma, I thought that I could spend a little time knocking out a few paragraphs.

The academics here aren't at all difficult, and you're not required to work very hard. At a happy hour a month ago, the JAG school commandant (a brigadier general) told me to begin studying for that Monday's exam on "Sunday night, around nine." Needless to say, I drank up. 

The academics aren’t terribly interesting either – contracts, criminal law, family law, fiscal law, administrative law, etc. Everything you’d expect. However, the operational and international law courses are worth discussing. The instruction is remarkable because the professors (all of whom are field-grade JAGs) are quite candid about how the administration bollixed up detainee treatment policy and based the legal rationale for going to war in Iraq on what amounts to a thin reed. Whether or not you agree with the administration, it’s astonishing that our operations instructors aren’t government hacks. Rather, they’re thoughtful people (even the one Marine lieutenant colonel) who speak from real, in-theater experience and always refrain from shrill criticism. 

Maybe the best part of operations was the outdoor scenarios, in which we applied the rules of engagement to mock situations involving detainees and checkpoints. Personally, I found these training exercises to be particularly stressful – your brain is saying “adhere strictly to the rules of engagement” while your gut is screaming “Kill! Kill!” It’s remarkable, I think, that we don’t hear more stories about war crimes and human rights abuses: the Soldiers downfield are only human, and it’s natural to put self-preservation above the law of war. Hell, I felt that way and I’m running around bourgeois Charlottesville with a Smurf-blue rubber facsimile of an M-16.

The physical aspect of JAG school has been rewarding as well. When I reported for duty in October, I felt like young Danny Russo from "The Karate Kid." That is to say, I had been training diligently on my own – lifting weights and running – but I had no idea how I would do in actual competition.

While at Ft. Lee, the new JAG class was shown two films: one on Airborne training and one on Air Assault. We were told that this JAG class was allotted five slots for Airborne school and four for Air Assault. Competition for one of the precious few slots was voluntary, but it was impressed upon us (especially those with no military experience) that passing Airborne or Air Assault school would give an Army lawyer that much more credibility when addressing non-JAG Soldiers. 

The Airborne film was everything you'd expect: cheesy studio-musician electric guitar music played over montages of Soldiers falling out of planes. However, despite the use of the same anonymous studio hacks, the Air Assault film grabbed me -- Soldiers rappelling from helicopters a hundred feet in the air, ferrying a Humvee from one point to another by slinging it from a helicopter, and, of course, clevis pins. Clevis pins! Apparently, if one was to sling a Humvee from a helicopter, one would attach clevis pins tied to long ropes secured to the chopper to hooks on the Humvee's hood and rear. More important, anyone who has owned four Corvairs in twelve years knows that the damn things are held together with rust and clevis pins. Hell, there's not a page in the Corvair factory shop manual on which the words "clevis pin" isn't printed.

"This could be fun," I thought.

The line to sign up to compete for one of the Airborne slots was about 30 deep. However, only about 12 people signed up to compete for Air Assault school. Initially, I thought it was because Air Assault was less sexy than Airborne, but perhaps it was because the competition for Air Assault is more grueling. The order of merit for Air Assault would be based upon a series of rucksack marches: competitors would have to traipse four, then six, then eight, then finally 12 miles up and down the hills of Charlottesville, dressed in full combat gear (helmet, boots, etc.), also carrying a 25lb rucksack (and, as I would later find out, the Smurf-blue rubber facsimile of an M-16). The 12-mile finale would have to be completed in less than three hours, the eight-miler in less than two, and so forth. Airborne tryouts, on the other hand, would be based on run times. Since I'm not a particularly fast runner when compared to some of my younger and smaller peers, Air Assault was probably a
 better choice for me.

So, getting back to my Karate Kid analogy, I had no idea what my body could do when pitted against others. Because athletics weren’t stressed when I was a kid, I never competed in organized physical competition -- not in high school, not in college, not ever. Also, I'm not what you would call "coordinated" -- that is to say, I'm completely spastic, having little or no control over my motor functions. However, the more time I spend in the Army, the more I both want to belong and want to prove to my peers that I belong. Also, there are things that I just want to prove to myself.

So through November and December I rucked. Twelve candidates eventually dwindled to nine; nevertheless, I always finished in the top four, even finishing first in the six-mile march. Despite the shin splints and torn-up feet and the fatigue that would last all day, I couldn't imagine quitting. According to Chief McIntosh, the Warrant Officer who's overseeing the competition, the Charlottesville course is harder than the official Air Assault course at Ft. Campbell, KY, due to the fact that here we're marching up little mountains. But anyway, in addition to the physical stress, the ruck marches are mentally and emotionally intense: you're wandering alone though the pre-dawn darkness and you want to quit because the pain is relentless, but something wills you to continue and finish.

Two Thursdays ago I reported at 0350 for the 12 miler -- the ruck march that would count above the others. Though the weather was clear, the temperature was about 20 degrees. At 0400 we were off and I led for the first mile! Then disaster struck -- the 25lb bag of rice I had been using to weight my ruck came over and out the top. I mean, the damn thing committed suicide. I had secured it the day before and rechecked it that morning, but apparently I screwed up. As I stood frozen, staring at my bag of failures, the other marchers were fast approaching. I was just crestfallen, sensing that all of my hard work and training had been for naught. Chief, who had been jogging with us in case of an emergency, yelled at me to stand still. I don't know what was worse: having a man who earned a bronze star in Iraq forcibly squaring me away on the sidewalks of Charlottesville, or watching my peers shuffle past me. Honestly, once the bag of rice was again in my ruck, I wanted to quit and
 go back to bed.

The thing is, over these past few months, I feel as though I've become a different person. So I kept going. And going. Eventually, I overtook all but one person who passed me and finished second overall, coming in behind only a marathoner who broke the course record that morning. My time of 2:33 was only two minutes off the old record.

The next weekend I had another chance to put this "different person" theory to the test, as I passed an exact facsimile of the Ft. Campbell Air Assault confidence course (located at Ft. Pickett here in VA). Some of the obstacles put me forty-five feet in the air, which was damn scary since I was out in the open hanging onto ladders and ropes.

That Monday the order of merit list was published. I finished second. I will be attending Air Assault school at the end of May so I can learn how to assault air.

There’s a whole lot more I wanted to write, mostly about camaraderie, my new friends, drinking and raising hell, but proving myself physically will be the most important thing I take from this place.

your pal,
daniel

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