The confidence course featured a number of difficult obstacle stations. This one nobody ever really figured out how to overcome it. The confidence course was near the chow hall, so we saw it three times a day for weeks before we were required to endure each station.
The one that intimidated me the most was the log ladder that was 2-3 stories high. We had to climb up one side, cross over, and then climb down the other side. I have always been afraid of heights, so that was particularly daunting. But when we had to finally do it, I simply did it. Guys were behind me and ahead of me on the ladder. I could not back out even if I wanted to. I climbed to the top, stopped for a moment to view the entire scene below me, then crossed over and climbed back down. It was exhilarating, to say the least.
I was able to do all of the other stations, but not this one.
Another course we had to do, and this was just after a rain, so we all marched back totally muddy, was a course I know longer remember that required that we crawl under barbed wire, through cement pipes, across one-rope and two-rope bridges, and across a stationary, elevated log.
Candidate Wright was tall. Candidate Booher was big. He'd played college football and even had a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys. When he walked across the long log, it had become muddy and slippery at this point. At the end of the log, he slipped. I watched as his natural athleticism took over and he did a complete flip in the air, rifle held in both hands, and landed on his feet. Even the East German judge would have given him a 9.5 or better.
The cement pipe was interesting because it was narrow. Each of us barely fit in it, and it did give one a sense of hypochondria once inside. One of the staff waited at the end. If he could grab your rifle away from you and you scrunched your way to the end of the pipe, you had to crawl through it all over again. I held tight as I finally emerged.
We had our stenciled name tapes (white cloth with black lettering) across our backs, and one over our front pocket, to identify us to any of the staff. (We had paid the wives of the enlisted staff to sew them on for all of us.) After this particular course, the name tapes on the green fatigue uniforms we wore that day never were entirely white again.
I do have to relate one of my blunders when I was in charge of the platoon. The platoon sergeant was required to awaken the platoon in the morning. I had a watch with luminous hands. As I lay in my bunk in the darkness, I looked at my watch. Was it almost 5:00 AM or 12:25 AM? Which hand was longer than the other, I wondered, growing more concerned the more I stared at the dial. There was noises of people moving around in the squad bay above us. Was that platoon getting ready while we were late? Why hadn't the CQ awakened me to awaken the platoon?
Finally, I made a decision: We were going to be late if I did not act. I jumped from my bunk and made for the light switch. I flipped it on. "Get up, get up!" I called out. Everyone was crawling from underneath his sheet and blanket until someone sleepily complained, "My watch as it's 12:30?" Someone else agreed. I looked down at my watch dial and realized that they were right. I then ordered, "Everyone go back to sleep!" They obeyed me, glad to get a few more hours of rest.
The next afternoon, as I was in line at the truck which brought our clean and starched fatigues back from the base laundry, the guy ahead of me remarked, realizing that I was from 1st Platoon, "I heard that a guy in your platoon woke everyone up by mistake in the middle of the night." "Yeah," I responded, chuckling, "that was me."
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