FB - Training

Since he could not give them information, they had fixed his wounds so they could play with him some more and find out how much work he could take before it killed him. Well, he would show them a long wait for that. There was not much they could do to him that his instructors had not already put him through. Special Forces school and the five mile runs they made him run before breakfast, the ten miles of running after breakfast, heaving up the meal as he ran but careful not to break ranks because the penalty was ten extra miles for anyone who broke ranks to be sick. Climbing high towers, shouting his roster number to the jumpmaster, leaping, legs together, feet braced, elbows tucked in, yelling 'One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand' as he dropped, stomach rising to his throat, spring-harness jerking him up just before the ground. Thirty pushups for every lapse in the routine, plus a pushup shouted 'For the Airborne!' Another thirty pushups if the shout was weak plus another one 'For the Airborne!' In the mess hall, on the toilet, everywhere, the officers waited, abruptly yelling 'Hit it,' and he would have to snap down in a jumping pose, shouting 'One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand,' snapping to attention till dismissed, then shouting 'Clear, sir,' running off shouting 'Airborne! Airborne! Airborne!' Day-jumps into forests. Night-jumps into swamps to live there for a week, his only equipment a knife. Classes in weapons, explosives, surveillance, interrogation, hand-to-hand combat. A field of cattle, he and the other students holding knives. Bowels and stomachs strewn across the field, animals still alive and screeching. Hollowed carcasses and the order to crawl in, to wrap the carcass around him, to wash himself in blood.

That was the point of becoming a Green Beret. He could take anything. But each day in the jungle camp he grew weaker, and at last he was afraid that his body could not keep on.


- First Blood, Part 1, Chapter 10