 |
| Co.G 143rd ABN RNGR LRRP |
|
| | | | |
|
Many years ago, after returning from a tour in the Republic of
Panama, I joined a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, ABN/ Ranger Unit, garrisoned in Texas and was posted as a Senior Scout on the team. We were not the standard “Kick in
the door” Rangers as our mission was an LRRP one with our area of
operation, in the event of war, running from about ten miles to one
thousand miles behind the forward edge of battle area, with intelligence
gathering as its focus. We were an attachment of an MI Brigade. My
buddies there were a great group of guys and I learned a lot about
gathering intelligence and its application to the battlefield.
We would regularly train in the National Forests of Texas and in the
forests of many other states, as well as on military reservations in Texas and across the U.S. On one of these training missions, we were practicing
inserting our teams with rubber boats into water from helicopters. We
would be inserted (here the technical term "insertion" is used for jumping out the
back of the moving aircraft in full equipment, holding on to the sides
of a rubber boat) into the large reservoir by CH 47, then a waterborne
movement to a bridge where we would gather intelligence about the
bridge, measurements, traffic on the bridge and water and any other intelligence
pertinent to the mission and then execute a waterborne movement to land where we
would travel overland to an extraction point and be extracted by
helicopter. A typical LRRP type mission, (just shorter).
This mission went just as smooth as it could. We didn’t make a ripple
in the lake or any of the goings on there. We gathered our intel and
made our way to shore around 0300 hours, where we deflated the boat and
hid it in the brush under some dirt, limbs and some trash we picked up
at the shoreline. Being the Senior Scout, I was in charge of finding our
routes of travel and then scouting the way ahead on our missions.
Locating danger areas and then relaying this information to the team
leader for decisions on how to proceed.
After removing all traces of our landing, I began a recon of the
trails leading away from the shore, and immediately heard voices in the
woods, maybe thirty yards or so ahead. LRRP SOP requires that team members never
be seen or heard. Never do anything which might lead the enemy to know,
or even think, that a LRRP team has been in the area gathering intel.
Infractions of this rule are forbidden. Once the opposing force is made
aware that you have been there, the probability they will change things
and or make additional preparations which will compromise most of the
data you took such great pains to acquire, is quite likely.
I began working my way towards the voices and as I got closer, I
could make out that the the voices sounded strange. Obviously being in
Texas, I expected them to be in English, or perhaps even, Spanish. And while
the general sound of the voices were in English, they had a strange
quality to them and some words indeed sounded unintelligible or foreign.
I made my way to within ten or fifteen feet of a small group of men
talking and stopped to listen and watch them. I could only make out
vague shapes in the dark. But I could tell that they were in some kind
of uniform and were armed, and for some reason, were speaking in bad
German accents.
I was just about to break every rule in the LRRP handbook and walk
over and find out who they were and what they were doing there, when one
of the guys said he had to relieve himself. He walked toward me and
stopped right beside me and made ready to begin his project. I took this
opportunity to quietly slide in behind him and take him with my Ka-bar.
(I used the blunt side) And quietly told him to keep walking. Once far
enough away I turned him around and to my astonishment, could see he was
wearing a complete German SS Infantryman’s uniform.
 |
| Nazi Reenactors |
I was stunned. We were on a fake mission to gather intel on a bridge
in Texas. Had made our way to an obscure landing point and found it occupied by Nazis in SS
uniforms. I had one of those weird moments where you question what you
are seeing and then your mind races to find a solution to what your eyes
are telling you. Dozens of explanations are simultaneously viewed as
possibilities, including a momentary,(.0001 seconds), thought that some
how, some way, I had crossed through a fold in time and space, and I was
actually in Nazi Germany from 40 years ago.
I took a moment, and rejecting most of the theories my brain was
presenting, asked him what exactly the hell was going on. It turns out they were
members of a WWII Reenactors Group, participating in a WWII exercise, portraying
German units engaged in the Battle of the Bulge, in Belgium, at exactly
the same time that we were using the area for gathering intel in the
Republic of Georgia, Union of Soviet Socialists Republic. It is a small world, especially when
you lay Western Europe and Russia on top of Texas.
I talked with him a while asking him about his group and its
activities, then unceremoniously released him and continued on with my
mission. It was my first contact with a Reenactor, or even the idea of
reenacting. And I did not think to ask him the pressing question I have
had about that encounter until this day. Why? Not why
be a reenactor,
that is neither here nor there. People have all types of desires and
hobbies and I find this one actually, to be intriguing. But why, I meant
to ask him, a Nazi?
There are reenactor groups all over the country, all over the world.
Reenacting wars and battles that have occurred since the beginning of
time. I imagine the current fascination with cavemen, in insurance
commercials and television sitcoms, will spawn a group with the agenda
of reenacting early battles between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, if
they are in fact, not already being fought as we speak.
We count among the members of the Revolutionary War Veterans
Association several members I know of who belong to reenactor groups.
They take their groups to schools and universities around the states
they reside in and teach people about the American Revolutionary War. How
American Colonials dressed and ate and lived in that time period. I
think this is a wonderful and needed function of these groups. But even
if all they wanted to do was stage reenactments of Revolutionary War
battles, that would be great too. I have no qualms with this and find it
very appealing. I have not donned a Revolutionary War costume yet,
though I might well do so some day soon and take the program to schools
in my area and teach them about our forefathers and their ways and
ideas.
However, the fact remains that to stage a battle between two opposing
forces from an historical event, you will need troops from both sides.
In this case American and British forces. Finding the men to portray
American Forces seems rather simple. It would seem that people would be
very interested in putting on the costume of one of our American Heroes.
Perhaps a General Washington, a Colonel Barrett, or a Captain Issac
Davis. These men were heroes worthy of emulation. But where will you get
the British forces? The General Gages, the Colonel Smiths, the Major
Pitcairns and the Jesse Adairs? Or, the Banastre Tareltons?
Is there a large population of British exiles in America to draw
from? Are these men who represent the British all actually British
citizens? And if not, what makes a man decide to become a reenactor on
the wrong side of the war? And don’t misunderstand me, I have a great
deal of respect for the soldiers of other nations whom we have engaged
in battle. The men who fought honorably for their nations deserve the
respect of their nations and of ours for their courage and sacrifices in
representing their countries honorably on fields of battle. The men who
fought dishonorably, on any side, wrapping themselves in their
countries flags in order to commit atrocities and crimes against people
and property, deserve no respect. And their judgment will come.
And so, there are people who will dress up as Adolph Hitler, tiny
little mustache and all, and prance around in Nazi uniforms. People who
want to dress as Imperial Storm Troopers and track down Luke Skywalker
and drag him back to Darth Vader (who someone else is playing) . People
who will want to be German soldiers in reenactment wars, or dress in
British uniforms and shoot Colonials in Revolutionary War battles.
People who they admire and want to emulate. Fine, no problem.
I am sure you could find people to take any side in any battle that
has ever been fought. But, my question remains, how do they decide the
role they will play, and why
As a child I remember playing the part of Audy Murphy in the westerns
and in his WWII movies. I was always the “Good Guy” sheriff, tracking
down desperadoes and outlaws. I was always the American platoon Sargent
in the WWII and WWI wars we acted out in backyards across the
neighborhoods and schoolyards. Back then it was hard to get anyone to
play the bad guys. Usually it turned out to be the smaller kids and kid
brothers who wanted to play, but were only allowed to play if they would
accept the role of the evil German soldiers or the bad outlaws. They
didn’t want to, but they had no choice. Take the assigned part of bad
guy, and get bruised and pummeled by the rest of us, or don’t accept it,
and get bruised and pummeled by the rest of us.
These days, it seems harder and harder to find children who will
stand in the ranks with the Dough Boys and Yanks, than it is to find
kids willing to be the “Super Bad Nazi Dudes”, or the “Gangstas”. Of
course to kids nowadays, the word Nazi has little meaning and is usually
reserved for, or thought to represent, Conservatives/Republicans.
 |
| Banastre Tarleton |
What has happened in America? When I was looking at reenactment
groups recently in order to ask some of them to come to Appleseeds and
give the attendees some idea of what early American Soldiers Looked
like, what they wore and how they acted in ranks, I found dozens of
sites that were dedicated to the British born, Banastre Tarleton. A
Colonel in the British army who followed a “total war” ideology. Any and
all enemies of the British were to be dispatched by any means
necessary, including any civilians who gave aid and comfort the the
enemy.
Colonel William Tavington, the sinister cavalry officer in the movie,
“The Patriot” is based on Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his
exploits in America during the Revolutionary War. He was the one who
herded the civilian population of the town into the church, chained the
doors and fired the church. Not a nice man, and yet there are literally
hundreds of Americans emulating and praising this British Officer. If
they were British citizens I could better understand it, maybe, but I
wrote to several of them asking if they were English, and they were not,
they were Americans. Or, without trying to qualify what it takes to
make an individual an American, their response to my inquiry informed me
that they had been been born here to American parents.
But they have chosen to play the role of Banastre Tarleton in their
fantasy lives. Every single day, people all over the world play out the
roles they have been cast in, or selected. Some roles are better than
others. Sometimes we pick our roles and sometimes they are picked for
us. But we can always change the roles we play in our lives, we can
trade them in for new roles. We can become the heroes we have always
dreamed of, we can alter and adapt the roles we play, in real life in a
meaningful way, and not just in fantasy.
At Appleseed we have simplified the roles we have selected for
Americans, by dividing them into just two categories. We use a “USS
America” analogy. We use this analogy quite often in our discussions,
and we are casting people for roles in this analogous story every day.
The scene we are casting for in our story, shows passengers on an
antiquated, but beautiful cruise liner. After a collision with an
iceberg, it appears the ship is sinking. Water is rising fast and the
decks on this multiple deck ship are rapidly passing under the water one
by one.
There is a crowd gathered on the uppermost deck, and they are split
into two groups. The first group( the largest of the two by far) has
people who are crying and moaning. Some who are ignoring the event
altogether and acting as if it were not actually happening and that they
were in the midst of a gay evening on the ship, chatting and giggling
among themselves. Some are just sitting there glassy eyed and muttering
to themselves over and over, “How did this happen? Oh Why!, oh why, and
What, oh what, will we ever do?.” But not doing anything, just repeating
their mantra over and over again as if it were some catechism that will
save them merely by its inane repetition.
 |
| The Titanic |
The second group is quickly forming work brigades to handle the
evacuation of water by bailing it into buckets and then moving the
buckets from the ships interiors to the railing where it can be poured
over the side and then sending the buckets back for more. Still others
are attempting to ascertain the location and extent of damages occurred
by the collision. Then gathering supplies in order to make repairs.
Still others are seeking medical aid for anyone injured in the
collision, in the bailing effort, or by the stampede of the ships crew
to get to the life rafts and desert the ship. Some are searching for,
finding and preparing food and water for the people who are bailing to
eat and drink.
In this scenario, before the volunteers for the “Bucket Brigade” were
allowed to volunteer, they had been asked, “Do you believe we can win
this battle with the rising water?, and, even if you do not, will you
continue to bail even as the water reaches your neck, your chin, your
nose?”. If they answered yes they were allowed the honor of volunteering
to help. The consensus was that no one would be a whiner or a doubter
and no one would be allowed to stand in the hallway or port side doors,
bemoaning their fate, and idling away their time while others bailed in
their stead.
The second group have committed themselves to a course of action, in
order to save themselves and their ship.The first group have committed
themselves to a course of action which compells them to do everything
and anything but help themselves. The first groups course also requires
them to criticize and rebuke the players in the second group for having a
love of their ship, and a common cause which unites them, rather than
seeking the satisfaction of their own personal “needs” and “feelings”
first, which would require them to remain idle until someone satisfied
those needs.
As I mentioned earlier, no roles are permanent. A role in the first
group where you laugh and idle away your time, listen to the band play
on as the ship, which is carrying your wife and children aboard as
passengers, slips beneath the waves, plunging to a watery grave
thousands of feet below the surface, may be exchanged for a role in the
second group, with ease.
Ships may be later constructed which can be christened with the same
name, but they will never be the same ship. You may survive the event
and some day marry again, perhaps have children again, but they will not
replace the wife and children you lost.
At the same time men and women from the second group, the bailing
party, may indeed become tired and weary. They may become disenchanted
with the constant bailing they are doing which to them, seems to be
doing no more than just allowing the ship to sink at a slower rate,
rather than any actual gains being made in the saving of the ship.
Because of the few hands doing the job of many, they feel worn and
abused and become disheartened and decide that perhaps it is just as
well if the ship sinks. Or they may feel some real or perceived slight
has impugned their honor,or injured their feelings, and leave in a huff.
Vowing to laugh as the ship sinks, even to drill holes in the hull to
help scuttle it. Perhaps even puncture the buckets their former mates
are using to bail with, vowing that it is better the whole ship go down
than their own personal dignity be wounded by a word here or there
asking them to hasten the bailing, lest the ship sink beneath their
feet. Oh!, how can all the trouble and misery be worth it? And they
eventually leave for the first group.
The people we look for at Appleseed, are the people from the “Bucket
Brigade” group, who have left their egos at the door when they received a
mission of such dire importance, people who will continue to bail even
as their heads slip beneath the water. The kind of men George Washington
was speaking of when he wrote to congress about the type of soldiers he
needed, “The type of men who wil make a brave defense when success is
very doubtful and falling into the enemy’s hands is very probable”. And
we are finding them every day. Real Americans who are willing to
exchange the role they were playing, for one America needs them to play
now.
And have no doubts, everyone in America is playing a role in this
scenario today. Every single person. Have you thought about which role
you are playing? The decision about which group you will belong to is a
personal one. No one can make it for you. It is a decision that
clarifies your character, illuminates it, and makes it visible to all.
