Stories

Troy, North Carolina, 1983

I've always said that Mitch was the best of us.  Our Scout Platoon was the best in the division, especially just before Grenada, when the Boss was the Platoon Sergeant and Mitch, George, and I were the Squad Leaders.  The rest of the platoon was solid, and most everyone in the Division knew about us.  Mitch was the best Scout, shot, navigator, and, as this story will show, the strongest.

COL Nick Rowe requested us to aggress against Phase 3 of Special Forces Training multiple times.

This time, he asked us to help evaluate the SF Course by operating as an aggressor force against an actual SF team.  As their "guerrillas," the Team had a platoon of Marine Force Recon.  Our mission was to "die" when they got everything right, but punish them if they screwed up.

On one mission, we were to walk down a series of roads until ambushed and then play dead, letting the students process the Kill Zone and search our bodies for intel.  COL Rowe told us to "play the game" unless they weren't doing what they should or if we spotted them first.

Mitch led with his squad and spotted a guy asleep behind a tree.  He was lying there, with no camouflage, practically in the open.  I was close behind him with my squad.  George followed, about 3 minutes back, with his.

Mitch yelled Action Right!

We went into our Close Ambush Immediate Action Drill, hitting our flank on full auto and then rolling up their flank in the direction of movement.

The guerrillas began sprinting back to their ORP. 

As I searched the area and adjusted a security perimeter, I heard Mitch Yell, "I got two of 'em."  I saw him holding two Marines, about my size, with an arm around their chests.  They struggled as hard as they could, but could not break his grip on them.

Their Lane Walker was pretty pissed until we told him what happened.  We turned his students over to him and moved to our Assembly area.

We never heard what happened to them, but I bet one never remained in the open on an ambush again.   I know two Marines who never forgot being held by one farm-strong Alabama boy.