I received this very
detailed, well-written, lessoned learned article from my COO a few months ago,
which he received from one of our operations directors. He couldn’t stop
laughing about it and told me that it was a must-read. It definitely is. Below
is the original version of the article. The version that has been entered into
the company’s archives is an edited version that offers a more succinct message
to our newer operators. However, the humor that is embedded in the original
version is simply too good to let go missed. Although it was drafted in a
sarcastic, long story response to an order issued for an in-depth report, we
all at Hambright Protection Services enjoyed it immensely. At the time, the
author found little humor in everything that happened to him on that particular
operation (I remember listening him and his team members being debriefed), but
now he can laugh about it all. Therefore, as I have received exponential demand to release it, and as I share a close, personal
relationship with the operator who authored the original version, and have
gained his permission to share it with all who may be interested, I have
decided to post it on the HPS blogsite, minus of course, any secure/classified information the
original article contained.
Enjoy gentlemen.
Rik Hambright
CEO, Hambright Protection Services
Lessons Learned Article
Working for a private military firm has its benefits, and of
course, it’s negative sides as well. Working for Hambright Protection Services
(HPS) allows me to travel the world over and work with other people, all of
whom are at the top of their professional game. Even though we at the Tier – 4
Operator level at HPS, are highly seasoned and proven operators, we are still
prone to make mistakes from time to time. I guess the cliché: “To be human is
to err,” has its merits. So, from time
to time, when a mistake is made, that error is highlighted in the lessons
learned section of the operation after action review briefing so that everyone
can learn from the mishaps and hopefully, not assimilate the same misfortune.
This article encompasses a situation in which several mistakes were made while
performing a geographical threat sweep and survey on a client’s remote
commercial property in central Panama
near the town of Aguas Claras
*Note: As HPS protocol stipulates the names of the
operators, the client, and the actual operation name will be omitted for the
purpose of maintaining operational security.
During the
planning phase of the Op, we could depict from the satellite imagery we were
given, that over half of the property wasn’t developed and consisted of thick
rainforest with triple canopy coverage. We were briefed that the other part of
the property had been developed two or three years before our client purchased
the property, and since the development, large swaths of razor grass had taken
over. The previous owner had evidently run out of money to develop the entire
property for commercial use, and in a jungle environment, if the development of
a property is not perpetually maintained, the jungle reclaims the land at an
astonishing rate. As well, with the flora, naturally comes the fauna, and being
as remote as this tract of land was, the local wildlife population was booming,
everywhere. Some of the local wildlife inhabiting this property happened to be
half the crux of the situation of lessons learned. The other half embarrassingly,
was borne of both my own, and my teammates,’ bone-headed stupidity.
My three man
team arrived in Panama City Soberania National Park
After meeting
with our local contact in Panama City
Like clock-work, after 25 minutes
the train came to a stop in the town of Gamboa
Foremost, the hectare after hectare of
surreally dense jungle comprising the Soberania National Park South America , sometimes large pools of
water form in the depressions, valleys, and recesses of the land’s topography.
This in turn is what constitutes obstacle #2. You see, while trying not to
drown or become prey themselves, all of the jungle wildlife that doesn’t thrive
in the overhead canopy of the forest escapes the rising waters via the same
peaks and elevations of higher ground that we are using to travel. Losing over
40% of jungle floor to rising water helps one to rapidly understand just how
much wildlife exists in a remote rain forest. To be fair to myself, at this
point in this article I do want to demonstrate that although I have over 18
combined years of special operations experience from both the U.S. Army, and
private military employment, the very vast majority of my experience has been achieved
in the Middle East, West and Northern Africa, and in the Philippines (a VERY
different kind of jungle). I did go to the U.S. Army Jungle School in Ft. Sherman , Panama
By day 2 and 4 hours we approached the
outskirts of our objective. As far as we knew we were uncompromised and still
maintained the element of surprise should we encounter any hostile threat on
the property. We geared up, covered and cached our rucks at the designated
rally point, completed our com checks, and quietly advanced on the areas during
our planning phases that we agreed would present the best opportunities for
elements of threat to thrive. Although I had a loose stool or two in the two
days past, little did I know, but mistake #1 was about to bite me square in the
ass. The ½ hour of clandestine patrol toward threat point Alpha was unbearable.
I had a pressure building in my intestines and bowels that was surreal. At one
point I declared a 10 minute security halt for listening Ops while I expunged
what must have been 10 times the amount of water than what I originally drank
from that damned bag on the train. Always, within 15 to 20 minutes of
evacuating my bowels of the most, rank smelling fluid imaginable, I would have
the ever demanding urge to do it again. This shed light on Mistake #2. Although I double ziplock-baggied the toilet
paper, I presume that some of the tussling of my gear from train to ground, and
shifting within my rucksack over land transit, caused a tear to form on the
outer zip lock baggie, and the seam in the inner baggie to ever so slightly
open in one corner. Never-the-less, the roll of toilet paper did its job and
acted like a parched sponge that had been resting in the arid, open Sahara desert for years. When I reached into the top of
my ruck, under the flap cover, to grab the zip lock package so that I could
hygienically clean my ass, I pulled out a bag of cream of wheat-like mush. In
utter humiliation I had to resort to tearing small strips from my undershirt,
from the bottom up, and off of the sleeves. A very important point must be made
for the audience reading this; those who are not private, professional soldiers
themselves. If you are a professional soldier, at this point in your professional
military career, you have been tested and proven many times. You should have a
fluent understanding of the kit you personally require to perform an Op and
therefore, you acquire it, carry it, and employ it as per your professional
discretion. You are a mercenary. You no longer have the superb logistical might
of the U.S. Government to simply resupply you with basic necessities (like
toiletries) should yours become fouled. And another thing, due to this lack of bottomless
logistical support, your teammates, although they would risk their own lives to
protect you, are not about to loose a pound of their own shit paper and parts
of their undershirts because you screwed the pooch and didn’t better prepare
the waterproofing of your Charmin. On the flip side of this situation, your
teammates will seize the silver lining in the proverbial clouds, and at great
expense to your pride, will openly enjoy the great comedic site of watching you
have to wipe your ass with your rapidly disappearing undershirt.
There were four points of determined threat and we had already cleared three of them. The only signs of people thus far had been several worn trails of traffic either used by indigenous people transecting the property on foot while travelling, or by larger game (probably by both). However, with the intermittent heavy rains, the employment of tracking skills to define exactly what or who used these trails proved futile. It wouldn’t be until the day after tomorrow, in the most embarrassing way that I would find out what the trails appeared to be used by. By the time we were moving onto threat point Delta I felt like I had regained control of my bowels, even if it was by the power of my sheer will. I was on point and I motioned for another security halt 100 yards from the heart of the GPS X and Y of the objective. Just when things seemed like they were starting to turn around for the better, I heard the breaking of cover and heavy movement at about 50 yards to my 12:00. I gave the signal for absolute quiet and motioned for my other two team members to come up. When they were by my side I pointed in the general direction of the potential threat, and pulled out my small set of 10X game binoculars. Trying to spot movement on an uneven floor of a jungle is a bitch to state the least. Small hills and other elevations obstruct your field of view. Trying to rise and gain a visual vantage point though the dense vegetation at the waist or chest high level proves to be even more impossible. However, I actually found a break in the vegetation, gained a vantage point, and within a minute or two of quiet observation I saw something move. What appeared to be a natural-looking thatch cover of decomposing palm leaves and other various types of dead vegetation covering what appeared to be a small depression or hole in the ground, rustled aggressively. Something was definitely underneath that covering. I didn’t know if it was the entrance to a small subterranean drug lab, or a lookout’s spider hole waiting for someone to come along to ambush as its location was about 10 feet off of the path of what appeared to be a well used game trail. Either way, I couldn’t confirm the type of threat, but I knew what I saw. So, I remained on point with my teammates covering my flanks from my both sides of my 06:00, and with my M-4 at the ready, I openly aggressed upon the covered depression. I heard or saw no more movement from the coverage but I simply now sensed two unfortunate things: both a definitive threat from beneath the foliage cover, and the overwhelming urge to explosively blow more fluid from my ass. However, I am now committed to the threat, so when I got about 10 feet from the coverage I maintained a bead in the center mass of the patch of coverage and yelled: “¡Conio, afuera de agujero! Manos arribas, apurate!!” (Translation: Get the fuck out of the hole and put your hand up, fast!) This is where everything in my world went into slow motion.
At first nothing happened. I figured
whoever was in there was stalling and I was going to have to fire a warning
shot, or neutralize one of them (if there was more than one) to establish
dominate tactical control over the threat. Then before I could act,… oh shit
then,.. what looked like a rabid fucking hippo shot out from under that dead
foliage, hit me like a pro linebacker putting me flat on my ass, and kept on
running through the thick underbrush like a raped ape on fire. If you have
never seen a tapir before, they resemble a cross between a long snouted feral
hog and a small land hippopotamus. This particular one was 600 pounds in weight
if it was an ounce, and it was ¼ ton of scared shitless, fast-moving mass. As I
lay on my back and realized that I wasn’t injured anywhere other than to my
pride, and that there were no bad guys posing any threat to me or my team,
staring up at the light rain falling through the jungle canopy, I took the next
few seconds to replay in my mind what had just happened in slow motion.
Giggling a little to myself on the inside, as to how scared shitless that poor,
monstrosity of a tapir was, I came to the stark and humiliating realization
that I couldn’t state the same about myself. When the tapir broke the cover of
the foliage, I instinctively tensed my muscles for impact, let out a yell
causing a furthering of inter-thoracic pressure, and inadvertently, I shat
myself. When I finally stood up, the tell tale signs of earthy hues and tones
that covered the seat of my light-colored blue jeans, and the upper part of the
back of my right hamstring, only further fueled the comic relief session of my
peanut gallery teammates. The hyena-like giggling that was being emitted from
them in response to me being bowled over by the tapir from Hell erupted into a
full blown hee-haw fest when they saw the soiled ass of my jeans. Because I was
operating in the 100% humidity of the rainforest, and because of the bacterial Petri
dish the jungle humidity can be, I don’t wear any underwear and go “commando”
so that my nether region can breathe. Most operators I know do this. When you
chaff in the jungle it can lead to very serious infections. Therefore, I had no
“safety net” in place to capture the contents of the “mishaps.” Adding insult
to injury, as I was operating in a jungle environment, and as is the law to
keep the creepy crawlies out of one’s pant legs, my jeans were bloused into my
jungle boots. As the seething, liquid humiliation adhered to the laws of
gravity and travelled the length of my legs, the more constitute matter within
it had nowhere to escape and simply pooled up around my right calve and shin. (Lesson
Learned #1: ALWAYS supply and manage
your own water sources on third world ops.) *Side Note: Mr. Montezuma
sir,…. Fuck you…
With both my oh-so professional teammates
holding onto each other and laughing hysterically behind me, I declared all of
the threat objectives clear so that we can begin the survey portion of the Op,
believing wholeheartedly, that if I sink my entire energy and attention into
the remaining work I will be putting this situation as far behind me as
possible. The very first thing I needed to do was to get cleaned, get changed,
and wash my soiled clothes as best possible, in one of the smaller pools of
collecting rain water. Minus my city clothes cached with our agent back in
civilization, for clothing, in my ruck were the 2 additional pairs of jeans, 2
BDU bottoms, 3 t-shirts, 2 additional BDU blouses, 1 long sleeve black work
shirt, 6 pairs of socks, and the extra pair of jungle boots I had brought. We
had two more days on site and another 2 days and 4 hours of hump time to get
back to civilization, so I had to make what I had work for me. After finding a
suitable pool of water, I stripped, washed myself and my soiled jeans and
socks, dried myself, and got redressed. I stored my wet clothes in one of the
waterproof bags I brought and had stored in my ruck, until a more suitable time
arose where I could hang and dry them.
I took the top 1/3 of the property and
began my survey. About 2 hours into the topographical mapping it started
pouring again. I made a lean-to out of fallen palm branches and some huge
elephant ear leaves I found. While hunkering and waiting the squall out under
my ad-hoc shelter, no longer my friend my bowels started having demands of me
again. I had genuine concern for dehydration as I only brought 7 - 5quart
canteens of water for me. In the jungle I will go through just about a gallon
of water per day. I had a disposable water purifier pen and tube good for
another 100 gallons of water, but still, I felt like I was expelling more
fluids than I was taking in or carried with me to support the rate of
expulsion. Either way, every time I expelled water I would drink some to off
set any risk of loss of electrolytes and cramping. So far I was fine. I found a
suitable hollow between the raised roots of a huge jungle tree to squat in and expelled
the fluids demanding their way out. Luckily, in the same crevasse between
raised tree roots that I was in was a 4 foot tall plant with large, oval-like
shaped leaves that I could use to clean myself and keep from having to
destroy this t-shirt as well (Mistake #3).
It appeared at the time that my luck might be turning back on track. FYI: it
wasn’t.
I wouldn’t find
out until the team regrouped at our clandestine patrol base for the evening, but
that the plant with the big leaves I used to wipe my ass with was actually a
juvenile version of something called Gympie Gympie tree. Under normal
conditions this wouldn’t mean a damned thing and I wouldn’t give a shit.
However as it relates to this situation, the Gympie Gympie tree’s leaves have
very fine nettles that if come into contact with bare skin, they embed
themselves in the flesh and create an intense burning sensation. Normally, one
can place a piece of tape over the affected area, and while pulling the tape
back off of the skin, remove all nettles and rectify the problem once and for
all. In my current SNAFU, I am soaking wet so even if I had brought any Gympie
Gympie nettle mitigating tape, it wouldn’t adhere to my skin anyways. And, I actually
placed a fistful of those leaves against, and aggressively stroked them again
and again, across against my naked turd cutter.
It took about
10 minutes to get the full effect, but once the time had passed I now gave that
shit I earlier mentioned not giving had I been under other circumstances,. My butthole,
inner butt checks, and even my damned gooch were on freakin’ fire. I can liken
the sensation to closely straddling the sun while naked. It was like I had been
putting out cigars with my asshole. It was unbearable. I sucked it up and took
breaks sitting in pools of water every so often. When the team met back up I
told them what had happened (while sitting in another shallow pool of water).
One of the guys had spent a few years in 7th Group and had spent a
lot of time in training and on Ops in Central and South
America . He asked me to show him the actual plant I used. I took
the both of them over to the location and this is where I learned (between fits
of hysterical laughter from him) about the infamous Gympie Gympie tree. (Lessons
#2 and #3 Learned: ALWAYS triple bag
your TP and bring a back-up supply also triple bagged. Don’t count on the local
flora to be a viable source of your personal items of toiletry.)
After bringing
each other up to speed on the surveys performed in each our sections of the
property, we safely ascertained that no threats existed on the property, other
than that of 600 pound rogue tapirs. Evidently, as it stipulates in my
teammates’ corroborated testimony drafted in written report, and to their
continuing delight in my humiliation, such a threat “can be simply mitigated by screaming at the hostile tapir in Spanish
and then immediately, defecating on yourself. It appears that when you follow
those steps in exact succession the most dreaded tapir will make a hasty retreat
in abject disgust.”
Assholes…
We put up our
tented hammocks encased with mosquito netting, built a fire and set in for the
evening. I hung some of my wet clothes inside my hammock to dry over night, in
an attempt to offset the risk of running out of dry clothing. As our
clandestine patrol base was situated on some of the higher ground in the area
of property with the triple canopy coverage, when we lost sunlight everything
became pitch black without the light of the fire. From 22:00Hrs until 07:00Hrs
we each took a 3 hour watch. The “unnamed teammate” from 7th Group
gave explicit warning to tie EVERYTHING loose down due to the lack of light. I
did not catch the direction where he was going with this advice.
Never-the-less, I dummy-corded my M-4, my tac-vest, and my boots to my body and
the rope supporting the roof of my tented hammock, and my ruck to the tree
supporting the head of my hammock. I did have Vaseline in my ruck. (As a combat
diver I have always relied upon it to create a superb seal on my mask whenever
I had to grow facial hair, or to gap any seal leaks in my open circuit dive
gear (non-O2 lines)
o-rings, so in habit, I always carry some with me in my kit. In fact, I had
some light sub-surface ravine topography mapping to do the next day and would
need it.) As my asshole still resembled a space shuttle after burner, I smeared
it down with the Vaseline and it helped immensely. One of the guys found some
fresh mangoes in a massive tree a few yards away and I ate two with some citrus
trail mix and a little beef jerky before bed (Mistake #4).
My watch
started at 04:00Hrs. However, I got up at 03:30Hrs to once again, relieve
myself of another massive amount of fluid. This is where Mistake #4 came to
light. The acids from the fresh mangoes and the dehydrated pieces of citrus
fruit in my trail mix commingled with the pepper in my beef jerky, in essence,
rendered the once watery fluids erupting from my lower orifice, into some kind
of unholy ghost pepper/habanero pepper mix hot sauce, that when it touched the
already raw flesh of my butthole, inner-ass checks and grundle, caused
outbursts of Turrets syndrome-metal scream-singing, muscular contortions, and grunt-speaking
fluently in tongues I’ve never heard of. In turn, the combination of the
nettles still in my flesh and the acids that continued to scorch my anus and
surrounding undercarriage flesh caused the reaction of severe swelling. To
which extent I wouldn’t learn about until later. In the meantime, I began
stripping pieces of this new t-shirt now to wipe my ass because I sure as Hell
wasn’t going to use so much as even the vein of a leaf to ever wipe my ass again.
(Lesson Learned #4: NEVER EVER
consume highly-acidic and/or peppery foods when you have diarrhea. It melds
with stomach acids and further burns and irritates the already sensitive flesh
at the exit-orifice opening.)
By the time I
found my way back to my hammock for my watch shift (and to lather more Vaseline
on) another downpour started. A small flow of water entered the fire pit and we
lost the fire. It was only about two hours until day light anyways. I finished
applying the Vaseline (most generously) and getting my clothes situated when
the downpour ended as quickly as it had started. Besides the sound of millions
of droplets of water hitting the wet, dead foliage covering the rainforest
floor, it appeared as if nothing else existed with us in this part of the
jungle. Everything was dead quiet. This was very weird because all through the
night, rain or no rain, there were constant sounds of jungle night birds,
insects, and small mammals. I didn’t understand this until about 20 minutes
later when King fucking Kong showed up to the party.
There was no
light and I couldn’t see a damned thing as we didn’t have a tactical reason to
procure any NODs. I did have a white lens torch but, as the beam it puts out is
so bright and will compromise our location to anyone who just might be out
there, tactical regulation stipulates to never to turn it on except for absolute
emergencies, or signaling ops. So sit in the dark I had. I was sitting there listening to everything
around our base trying to pick up on any movement or sound out of place and
trying not to think about having to take another flame thrower of a shit. That’s
when it happened. Branches in the far canopy above and to the east of us
started moving loudly and aggressively. It was about 04:30Hrs and still pitch
dark. The branch movements stopped and then it started as a very low, unearthly
howl/yell that could only emit from the vocal chords of a 1000 pound flesh
eating jungle yeti, and ended up as an even louder scream a few octaves higher
than the initiating low howl. Satan was absolutely real and that bitch lived in
the Panamanian jungle canopy right over our heads. I turned my white lens torch
in less than a nano-second, made sure that the round chambered in my M-4 for
yesterday’s great tapir assault was still good to go, switched off my safety,
and got my tac-vest on. Shit was about to hit the fan. All I could do was mentally
picture that damned alien from the movie Predator in that El Salvadorian rain
forest, forcing Arnold Schwarzenegger to cover his self in swamp mud; and then chasing
him all over the place. Regardless of its bad-ass infrared and cloaking
technologies, I was going to give it one Hell of a fight. Then, probably
because of the beam of bright white light from my torch, more of these infernal
things started that low howl turning into an unbelievably high screams right
above our heads now. I didn’t have to wake anyone as they too heard these
unholy beasts and saw the light from my torch. The teammate from 7th
Group said he hoped everything was still tied down, not to worry and to turn
off the flashlight, (which I did), that it’s cool, and that he was going back
to bed. I was astonished, here we were the three of us, like the 300 Spartans
against the million-man Persian hordes, and he was going back to bed. WTF? He
must have known what I was thinking as he said kind of laughingly from under
the cover of his tented hammock, “Dude, those are howler monkeys. Don’t
stress.” In the pitch dark again, I thought Monkeys? …… MONKEYS?!? Those Sasquatch
yells and screams never came from any monkey on the end of an organ grinder’s
leash I’ve ever seen. He was right about the Gympie Gympie tree, and this was
one of his old stomping grounds so I calmed down and waited, of course, with my
selector switch still on semi-auto. It sounded like they were right over us for
a while as small sticks and braches would periodically hit the tent covers to
our hammocks. Then it dawned on me that they were here for the mango tree. This
was a large troop of monkeys, big monkeys at that, and we had situated our
patrol base smack-dab in the middle of their foraging territory. I watch the
damned Discovery channel. All I could do was to wait for the relief of daylight
to give me a different perspective on this situation, and an insight into the
actual size of these monkeys because at the moment, they sounded like a bunch
of silverback lowland gorillas up there. So I sat, listened, and waited, with of
course, my selector switch still on semi-auto.
By 07:00Hrs. We
had good daylight, no matter how filtered by the jungle’s triple canopy, and we
were up and breaking the base. He was right. There were a lot of monkeys moving
around in the canopy and they weren’t in the least happy with us being in their
territory. A couple of sticks were thrown along with a half eaten mango or two
and that was the thick of it, so we didn’t pay any attention to them in hopes
of them following suit. During the Op planning phase it was agreed that I would
map out the seafloor of the small ravine that transected the upper northwestern
corner of the property in case there was an expected commercial use of the
waterway. Soundings and a topography map would have to be made. I would also
take X and Y fixes on the highest two peaks in the razor grass field in case
the principal wanted to use the area for helo-logistics and resupply. I would
employ my pathfinder skills and pre-designate flight paths and establish a
multi-bird LZ on the map as well, just in case. I grabbed my M-4, .40Cal., ruck
and kit and headed off for the ravine, but before we each departed our own way
we re-established com checks and agreed for a 12:00 rendezvous at the patrol
base site for chow. Before we left I was having exceptional discomfort with
what felt like exponential swelling in my ass. My other teammate opposite the
guy from 7th Group was an ex-18D from 3rd Group. As
embarrassing as it was, the swelling was so bad that I had lost a little
feeling and I didn’t know if I had lost continence because I was already very
damp from the jungle’s constant humidity. I asked if he would look at it and
give me a prognosis. Of course there was a joke or two, as expected from these
two yahoos, but still, I dropped my pants, bent over, opened the cargo door to
put the door bundle on display, and waited for the verdict. I heard the sharp
intake of breath between teeth and I knew that it wasn’t good news. He said I
needed to be scrubbed to remove the remaining nettles, and I need a really good
topical antibacterial with an anti-swelling agent. At lunch chow he said that
he would dig the antibacterial and ant-swelling agents out of his medical bag,
but that I was scrubbing my own ass. Okay, I said, but because it feels
seriously weird, how bad does it look? His response couldn’t have been more
medically professional. He actually replied with, “It looks like and angry
crabapple. Or maybe the swollen, winking eye of a prize-fighting pig.” WTF??... Where in the Hell do you learn what
one of those looks like? Both he and my other teammate laughed at the joke but
to this day I am still clueless as to how my painfully swollen orifice could be
likened to a winking pig’s eye….. WTF?.....
[I know that you two
are reading this so, now that some
time has passed and the joke is over, I seriously wish you two would bring me
up to speed on what that means… WTF?]
As
I redressed and departed, the rain started again with a vengeance. I wasn’t so
much worried about threats to me from the wildlife in the ravine. It wasn’t
that large a body of water, perhaps 20 meters across at the widest point, with
a max depth of 3 meters. My concern was the increasing current due to
commingling rain runoff, and how it will eventually change the topography of
the bottom over the course of the next few months of rainy season, rendering
any map I create today, antiquated. It would suck major ass for some small barge
captain to travel down stream from the main channel ferrying in commercial
supplies, based upon my intelligence given, only to run aground where there is
supposed to be substantial depth for marine vessel operability. Either way,
that is an inherited risk of using small channel ways in a rainforest and I am
confident that the barge captains in the area are more than adept at dealing
with those risks. So, I pulled my fins from their webbing storage on the outer rear
of my ruck, and got my mask out of the inside, my tac-board, my white chart
board with grease pencil, grabbed my rapidly diminishing Vaseline and greased
my face where the mask needed to make a seal, and I started my ravine survey. 3
hours later and I had finished. I was really lucky. Although the water was cloudy
due to the mud from rain water run-off, the bottom was most rock and old coral
deposit. At one time, this ravine was a small river, and salty, brackish water
ran through it. However, today there were no signs of the mangroves that must
have thrived on the ravine banks here, only, encroaching jungle. Although my
report doesn’t state it, this ravine in the next 50 to 100 years will become
extinct and unless constantly mitigated, the jungle will have bridged
completely over. I am glad I was finished because my in my bowels again, were
those ever-present high-pressure fluids that were knocking at the back door
like Vikings of yore batter-ramming a castle’s drawbridge gate.
So, I found a
suitable place to handle my business. However, things have changed a bit since
I last evacuated. My asshole and surrounding flesh had evidently swollen
unevenly, and it hurt. I felt that if I pressed down with all the pressure I
could muster, perhaps everything will just shoot out and be over with quickly.
So, I dropped my pants and held them behind my knees, squatted, and when I was
ready I pressed like I was giving birth to a 12 pounder. The good news was that
as planned, the fluids shot right out like thickened, muddy river water with
little pain. The bad news was that because of the unevenness of the swelling
around my anus, everything shot 100 miles per hour out at an angle like I was
firing a 10 pound shot chocolate pudding canon. I had just shit all over the
back of, and the on instep of my right boot. All I could do was to sit there shaking
my head, staring at my befouled boot in disgusted astonishment. The warm fluid
sensation seeping into the canvass material of my jungle boot was simply just the
newest assault on my dignity. At that moment, I came to the odd realization
that for the first time in my life since I was 1 ½ years old, I have shat upon
myself twice in a 24hour period. With an hour left until the rendezvous, and my
asshole once again feeling like the business end of a burnt matchstick, I went
and stood in the cool current of the ravine for a few minutes, and then when
satisfied with the cleanliness of my once befouled boot and foot, I headed out
to the razor grass field.
I found the two
high points again with no problem. Each was about 2 meters in height and about
30 meters in layered circumference. Luckily they were over 400 meters apart and
posed no threat to the establishment of a viable, multi-bird LZ. I climbed up
to the center of the peak of the first land mass and captured the true X and Y
on my GPS. With that out of the way, based upon the closest wood line, the estimated
tree height of that wood line, in reference to the location of the other land
mass, I designated the LZ and directions of approach and take off of the lead
birds. Then I headed over to the other land mass, which was significantly wider
and easier to climb upon, and it had a wider peak as well. At its summit, I
noticed that there were a lot of large, flat stones resting all over the place.
I remember that striking me as being very odd because they were out of place
with the rest of the geological geography there, and I couldn’t figure out how
they had all gotten there. Either way, I quickly rolled myself up onto the
peak to acquire its X and Y coordinates (Mistake #5). As I prompted the GPS unit to capture the
coordinates, I heard a very loud and getting increasingly louder, hissing
sound. It resembled the loud rush of escaping of air from the initial cracking
open of an open circuit tank’s first stage while under pressure. It was really
loud. That’s when I took a closer look onto those flat rocks to my right. The
biggest bushmaster snake I have ever seen was coiled and rapidly rising onto
its tail. It was as thick as one of my calves and shins, and I noticed that it
had pinkish hues to its brown and black diamond patterning, and as it got
louder and raised higher all I could think was, “Aw shit….”
Everything
went into slow motion again. My M-4 was on a wolf sling and was easily
accessible. I also had a tactical right thigh rig with my S&W .40Cal. I
could try and secure, raise, aim and fire one my weapons, but this thing was
pissed and was moving fast. Then it started coming at me, and really fast. I am
5’9” tall. This damned snake was a good 5 foot off the ground and moving like a
pistol shot. I turned and went total Forrest Gump: “If I was going somewhere, I
was running.” I ran like the wind but I could still hear it hissing and
breaking through the razor grass and it sounded like it was gaining on me. I
just turned up the heat and kept going. Now, it wasn’t far to the patrol base
from where this whole chase started; maybe 150 yards. As I enter the wood line
sprinting I still heard that hissing bastard behind me and I could also see my
teammates 20 yards in front of me, one sitting and one standing at our
rendezvous point. As I rushed at full speed into the jungle’s tree line, they
looked up at me. It’s funny the minute details one can remember when something
life-threatening happens. I can clearly remember the looks on their faces when
they saw me sprint into the rainforest and head toward the patrol base at
nearly a breakneck speed. They were looking at me with perplexed and confused
looks on their faces like what in the Hell is he doing now? Then to shift around
a large plant I side stepped to the left, and they got a full view of what was
happening. Then I can clearly remember the looks on their faces changing when
they saw that big bitch of a snake, five feet upright in height, coming just as
fast, transitioning from the expressions of perplexity, to wide-eyed OH MOTHER
OF GOD expressions. The 18D was now standing wide-eyed, waiving his hands and
arms, and yelling Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! But I don’t think that had the desired
effect on the snake he was hoping for as in the next second we three were side
by side, thrashing through the rainforest vegetation like our friend the 600
pound tapir from the day before, at breakneck speeds of sprinting. We continued
our path until the guy from 7th Group found his way up a tree and
informed us of the bushmaster’s end of pursuit. We three sauntered back to the
patrol base and didn’t say much of anything to each other, keeping one eye
trained to our direction of travel and the other to our flanks. That was one
really big and pissed off poisonous snake. (Lesson Learned #5: And I already
knew this one but became careless – ALWAYS
look on before you step over, step on before you step over, and when in a
rainforest, especially near water, flat rocks are a haven for reptiles like snakes
to sun themselves. Note: These rocks as well, are a good source of potential
food for you if the risk doesn’t outweigh the gains.)
Back at the rendezvous point we summed
up what we had accomplished and what tasks remained to complete the Op. (I
can’t possible express the elation I felt when I checked through one nervously
squinting eye, whether or not my GPS unit captured the elevation location of
Snakezilla’s lair, and found out that in fact it had!) Luckily my end of the Op
was complete and I would help both of them with whatever needed to be performed
in each their sectors. The 18D gave me the ointments and a small, plastic
medical brush and the instructions I needed to begin the cleaning and healing
process of my ass. As we ate our meals the troop of monkeys came back to where
our patrol base was situated, moving around in the canopy about 60 to 100 feet
above our heads. Everything was going well until things started dropping out of
the canopy onto us. It started with the average assortment of half eaten fruit
and pieces of branches. Then it graduated to larger branches, unto finally,
monkey feces. To this point in the Op, I have had my fill with feces issues. As
the monkeys were becoming increasingly agitated and bolder in their actions, I simply
ended my meal, performed a com check with both my teammates, then took my
chances with Snakezilla and strolled back through the razor grass field to the
ravine to wash and follow the 18D’s medical instructions on how to fix my
inflamed ass. I followed every direction to the proverbial “T.” The small,
plastic medical brush that I was given to scrub my swollen under-area ended up
feeling like I was scrubbing my ass with a sea urchin right off the BBQ grill.
I was putting
everything back in my ruck when I received word on the horn to get back to the
patrol base A.S.A.P. Evidently, while I
was gone the monkeys became increasingly bold and one descended one of the
trees and grabbed a waterproof note bag with the 7th Group guy’s
notes from his end of the Op. This is bad because we need those notes to
generate both field and final reports both in Panama City ,
and back in Houston
We picked our
gear up and headed back toward the razor grass field, very fucking carefully
might I add because Snakezilla undoubtedly dwells there. From the vantage point
of the open field we could see one Hell of a lot of tree canopy in the distance
moving and shaking and literally heading our way. We looked at one another and
agreed to head to the ravine. It was as if all the monkey tribes were united by
some unseen monkey king who wants a piece of our asses. I had a feeling that it
was going to be a long night. That’s when another torrential downpour started
again. At least the rain kept the monkeys calm, for the time being at least.
With no sight of Snakezilla around we walked quickly, yet cautiously toward the
ravine. At the ravine we figured out a way to get to the different areas of
each their sections of the property still requiring inspections of
topographical elevations and relief. It was decided that I would help my
teammate from 7th Group who had more acreage to inspect. We
performed another com check and moved out.
I was standing
on the precipice of such a small cliff, thinking about where I was going to go
to next relive the pressure building in my bowels, when behind me came a rush
of water and before I could react, I was falling down the 5 feet of the cliff
face with the racing water that had seconds before, magically appeared. I slid
down a newly formed stream, its bottom slick with mud carried for miles, and waterlogged,
sulfurous-smelling, decomposing vegetation. The slope of the decline was
perhaps 20 degrees, but the length, until leveling-out, was nearly 600 yards. I
was in for a ride. I was wearing my rucksack on my back which made me even
clumsier in my attempts to gain a foothold as the water was forcing its weight
with that of my own down the decline of the hillside. Thrashing in the torrent
of water currents, I aimlessly grabbed at roots, vines, and the trunks of
plants and juvenile trees, with no luck. Within another 60 seconds the ride was
over, I was covered in mud and dead leaves, as was everything inside my
rucksack. The waterproof bag that contained all of my clothes, poncho liner,
extra-large civilian travel bag for all of my gear, and other essentials had
torn along with the rucksack cover when it came in contact with an end of one
of the broken logs resting on the ground, at over 20 miles per hour during my
jungle white water body surfing experience. I would have to hand-wash
everything, create a roofed shelter, and dry everything over night. I had no
choice. I would need at the very least, dry socks and boots for the hump back
into civilization. At least I still had my M-4, my .40 Cal .
My teammate
from 7th Group took the dead monkey and buried him. We thought about
barbequing the thing but we didn’t want any more trouble from King Louie and
his minions. Tonight I’d settle for a can of raviolis and some trail mix, - no
dehydrated citrus fruit, and definitely no peppered jerky. It was still early
so both my teammates wanted to try their luck with ad-hoc fishing in the ravine
with 550 cord gut and some survival hooks. After they gathered the wood for a
fire, they left. There were plenty of pools of water to wash myself, my rucksack,
and gear, and my clothes in. so, I got to it. Within about three hours the light was fading
fast, and I was wrapping up getting all my clothes situated underneath the
thatch roof to dry. With no luck at the ravine, the 18D was back at base and
was starting the fire for both the heat needed to dry my stuff and so that we
could have hot canned chow for diner.
The engineering
design of the thatch roof seemed to work. The only problem was trying to make a
fire with small, wet firewood. Once the fire was going though, everything
started coming together. Thus far, I was extremely lucky as the rain had been
nearly non-existent. Only the sporadic drip here and there of the collecting
rain water remaining in the canopy’s leaves served as reminder of the day’s earlier
heavy rains. If I could see through the canopy I would have bet I would be
looking at stars. Keeping one partial t-shirts remaining for toiletry use
handy, from the light of the fire I rested nude in the shelter of my netted and
roofed hammock cleaning and oiling my M-4 carbine and .40Cal. sidearm. Once one
of the now half t-shirts in the front of the thatch roof being dried first, was
finally dried, I put it on for some body cover as the combination of the wet
earth three feet beneath me, and the cool air of the rainforest at night was
beginning to chill me. I would have to wait another few hours for everything
else to become dry enough to wear comfortably. As long as the fire kept up, by early
morning all of my clothes and poncho liner should be as warm and dry as dessert
sand.
Because of all
of the cleaning I needed to do of my ancillary gear, I took the first watch to
capitalize on my time awake. Because I had to keep rotating my drying clothes under
the thatch roof to get the optimization of even-drying I was not able to
actually tie everything under that thatch roof down (Mistake #7). My esteemed colleague from 7th Group was
very clear about this security measure. However, he had the shift following
mine, and the 18D following him, and they were both aware of the inability to
follow this security protocol. They both stated that they each would devote
additional attention to these items in the case that the infernal horde of
crazed howler monkeys returned. With borrowed towels from my teammates, I
finished the cleaning and drying of all of my ancillary support gear.
Completed, I placed it all back into the dried waterproof bag that was my
rucksack liner. Luckily, the tear in the bag was near the top of it, so I
simply rectified the situation by levelly cutting off the affected area with my
knife, and goose-neck tied the new top of the bag once it carried the contents
requiring waterproofing. Although the bag didn’t have its original capacity,
not everything I originally had stored in it needed waterproofing. So,
encompassing what was pertinently in need of dry storage, received it, and everything
else went into the rucksack shell. With my shift at an end, having emptying my
bowels for the umpteenth time today, the waterproof rucksack liner finally full
of clean gear and back in its place inside my rucksack (which was tied down to
the tree supporting my hammock), and with my drying boots and a pair of already
dried socks, my cleaned weapons (.40Cal in its holster), and tac-vest with ammo
and magazines in the hammock with me, and my utter exhaustion from today’s
events at an absolute zenith, I used one of the borrowed, damp towels as a
makeshift blanket and promptly passed out. My sleep was both deep and peaceful.
All over the
place were 2 ½ to 3 ½ foot tall (with equally as long tails) black monkeys,
jumping to the ground, running back up in trees, yelling, screaming, and
carrying items yet to be identified as the fire had burned down to a point
where the light emitted from it was minimal and not brilliant enough to
penetrate the shadows of the trees 15 foot above our heads. I had a clear view
of 20 foot in radius around our hammocks and the fire pit. Before I reached
into my hammock for the towel to wrap around my waist, I did notice that the
thatch roof was on the ground, and positioned in three pieces about 10 foot to
the right of the fire pit. The borrowed towel was a medium sized towel and
barely wrapped around my waist. I had to really pull the ends to gain enough
material to tie a square knot and secure the towel over my lower torso. As the
towel only covered about 8 inches of my upper thighs, the only purpose it
really stood for was in protection of whatever little dignity I had remaining
in my poor soul. With the towel secured over my waist, I reached back into my
hammock and grabbed my boots, socks, and .40Cal.
Although the
monkeys were all over the place, they were staying only at the edges of the
light from the diminishing fire. With both my other teammates yelling at the
monkeys to drop things they had picked
up and to get away, I took the opportunity to quickly put my socks and boots
on. When I took a closer look at the thatch hut resting in a twisted three
pieces, in abject horror, I finally realized what my teammates were yelling
about. The howler monkeys had torn apart the ad-hoc thatch roof and snatched
everything they could carry from beneath it and took to the trees with it all.
All I was left with to wear was what I had on. My boots and sock (luckily), a
t-shirt with the lower half of the midsection gone, my tac-vest, .40Cal with
thigh rig, and a medium sized, O.D. green towel that barely wrapped around my
waist, and that as well, only barely covered my groin and top 5 to 6 inches of
my thighs when I walked. This towel wardrobe thing simply wasn’t working.
With the fire beginning to subside in
minutes from the onset of this fiasco, luckily, light began to filter through
branches and leaves f the canopy overhead. This obviously illuminated my
current situation. My clothes from beneath the thatch roof were strewn amongst
the branches of the trees above us. Some items were 60 feet overhead, and the
most were far above that. It was apparent that the monkeys had tried to take
other things as well, but they were tied down and as quickly as the monkeys
descended and tried to steal them, they gave up when the items proved immobile in
the hands of the monkeys.
I could see one of my extra jungle boots, two pairs of my
BDU pants, several socks strewn were and there, a BDU blouse, my poncho liner
(Dammit, I loved that poncho liner), and a half t-shirt roughly tugged through
branches and snagged in tight canopy vegetation. The good news was that the
engineering of the thatch roof looked like it had worked and everything from
down there looked relatively dry. There was absolutely no way any of us could
risk shimmying that high up a tree for these items as the risks of falling due
to slippery bark or a monkey attack were too great.
Over breakfast consisting of Ramen noodles, the guys expressed how terrible the situation was and how they were empathetic for me. The 18D especially, and as he tried to explain that this surgically precise monkey raid was so instantaneous and unpredictable, there was little time to react to anything. They were relentless, that they had to be trained in guerrilla/counter-guerrilla warfare Ops. In fact, he was sure that they were probably at that very moment, caching my other jungle boot and BDU bottoms in a secretive location to later recover and use against us in warfare. He further stipulated that this situation was nothing less than the employment of psychological operations by these monkeys, in an attempt to break our morale. I sat there on my rucksack listening to this ridiculousness, in my half t-shirt that two days before was whole, my damp towel haphazardly wrapped around my waist, offering no concealment of my junk as I perched atop my ruck, and my jungle boots. I was miserable and didn’t give one single shit. I just wanted to finish the Op. Feral fucking monkeys stole both my pride and dignity, and my asshole was so unbearably swollen; it felt like I was sitting on top of a tangerine. He looked at me and recognized my expression in response to his statement, and immediately said that he would loan me an extra pair of his pants when he returned from video recording and taking still shots of some of the higher elevation points for our principal’s construction engineers to review. The teammate from 7th Group said that he’d help him and that in light of my current disposition, suggested that I might as well stay and break down everyone’s hammocks and clear the patrol base until their return. No matter how bad I wanted to just accept the situation for what it was, I simply just wasn’t going to traipse around the jungle dressed like a third world country street hooker. (Lesson #7 Learned: When in rainforest triple canopy, regardless the conditions, TIE EVERYTHING DOWN before night fall. Period.)
I broke-down all of the hammocks, extinguished what was left of the fire and covered the pit with mud and wet vegetation, and removed any trace of us being there from the grounds of the patrol base. I couldn’t do shit about the trees. I was packing my 7th Group alumni teammate’s hammock into his ruck when I heard the mumbling of human voices. I was about 15 yards from the nearest game trail but the vegetation was so thick it was difficult to get both an audio and visual fix on where the voice were exactly coming from. I just knew two things, they weren’t coming from the direction of where my teammates were, and they weren’t speaking English. Then as quickly as I had heard them, the people emitting the voices appeared. They were a group of older indigenous people; three men and two women, none of them less than 55 years of age. The women were wearing colorful skirts and sandals, and were using sarong-type pieces of clothe draped across their foreheads, over their shoulders, and onto their backs to carry multiple plastic bags full of what must have been supplies. The men were wearing worn slacks, t-shirts and button-down traditional shirts worn un-tucked, and sandals as well. Two of them hand carried sacks full of supplies, and one had a back pack kind of frame made from manila rope he was using to carry sticks of firewood on his back. None of the saw me when I first saw them, but they were right upon me and there was no time to grab my M-4 resting on my rucksack, or my .40Cal inside of it, without causing a huge disturbance. There was no threat here so even though I could have gotten to my weapons, there was no need.
I was the foreigner here and I didn’t want to spook anyone so I tried to look nonchalant and calm. I rested my right elbow on the tree trunk next to me, my right cheekbone against my right fist and bending my right knee, I crossed my right leg over my left leg supporting me, resting my right foot on the tip of its toes. When they got within 20 feet of me they slowed down, stopped talking and the man in the front of the column looked wide-eyed at first, and then looked at me if I was an extra-terrestrial from Mars and picked up the pace while whispering something to the people behind him. I looked at him, and trying to express my cool and laid-back demeanor, in a low and relaxed voice, I said; “¿Que paso?” As the second guy in the column passed me after the person before him had, he too looked at me as if I was the most out of place thing in the universe, and then followed suit with his predecessor by picking up the pace, intermittently looking over his shoulder at me with expressions of astonishment as if he were witnessing a train wreck happen. I just kept my position and looked at him, nodded my head upward in the universal gesture of acceptance, and in the same easy, cool, low voice, I said; “¿Como estas?” The women identically did the same as the men before them while whispering things I couldn’t quite make out. I just kept it cool, rested against the tree, nodded my head upward, and in the same cool and calm voice, I said; “Hola.” After passing me and looking over their shoulders a few times with weird expressions of disapproval and disbelief, the man bringing up the rear was wide-eyed the whole time muttering something in what became clear as being the indigenous tongue of the Embera Indians. He didn’t pick up speed to meet up with his companions until after he passed me, never changing the wide-eyed expression on his wrinkled, weathered face. I just looked at him as if the world had slowed down to island time. I slowly nodded my head upward to him as well, smiling, and said ever so calmly; “¿Que paso?” As soon as he passed me and disappeared into the jungle vegetation like those before him in his column, I heard both my teammates behind me totally loose it with hyena-like laughter. They were standing back there watching me the whole time. I didn’t understand why they didn’t say anything congenial to the passer-bys. (Hearts and Minds gentlemen…..get on the ball!!)
These two were
laughing so hard the 18D, who was leaning against a tree to steady him self,
literally blew a totally noticeable snot bubble from one of his nostrils. I
couldn’t figure out what the fuck was so damned funny. I was simply trying to
diffuse a situation before it could start up, while being pleasantly congenial
to our indigenous hosts. Maybe I over did it a bit, but the point was still
evident. My colleague from 7th Group, who had tears running down his
face, took advantage of my completely bewildered state, and quickly shot a
picture of me standing there with our still photography camera and brought it
over so that I could see the data image of myself. Without the ridiculously exaggerated
pose on the tree, I still totally looked like a retarded man-prostitute. I had
no underwear on, I was in a Daisy Duke half t-shirt, a pair of boots, and was
barely covered up with a too-small towel. With the damned pose, well,…. Aw
shit……. I was humiliated. How did I not see this coming???? What the Hell was I
thinking? I was the one in the towel for Christ sakes…. Unreal. My teammates
were having one Hell of a hoot. In reflection of my own sheer stupidity, I just
repetitively asked myself; “How did this Op happen to me??” I must have done
such terrible things in a past life. I don’t know. You know, karma is a bitch…
After passing the camera back and forth and laughing their asses off for a while, the 18D gave me his extra, BDU bottoms. He was saving them for the next day and they were his last clean pair. The problem is that he is 5 foot 6 inches tall and a whole 150 pounds soaking wet. I am 5 foot 9 inches tall, very muscular, and I weigh 195 pounds. His BDU bottoms must have been a 29 inch waist with a 4 inch inseam. Squeezing my flesh into those things was sheer torture. I needed these pants to get back to civilization as at the very least, I couldn’t take a train back to
We are not
supposed to draw any attention to ourselves, what-so-ever, for many, many
reasons. Now how in the Hell am I supposed to not draw attention to myself
wearing a pair of pants that look like they have been painted on. Even the
cargo pockets on my thighs were stretched tight. I probably couldn’t have
crammed a quarter into either of them. Making matters worse, the pants in the
front were unbuttoned down to the final two buttons and I had my privacy patch on
a framed display. The obscenely detailed, giant moose knuckle outlined in the
front part of the crotch in the pants was simply another giant neon arrow of a
sign pointing and screaming; “ATTENTION!!!! ATTENTION!!!!” I looked as if I was
ready to initiate a one-man Pride Parade. It was totally fucked. As I knew that
I had to, (although I really didn’t want to), I bit the bullet, walked over,
and showed the peanut gallery what exactly we were working with.
I mean seriously, what did I do to get this Op?
When both
Hee-Hee and Ho-Ho actually stopped laughing, I informed my colleague from 7th
Group that I needed to borrow a shirt and a pair of his jeans. There was no way
that we were going to get past La Guardia troops on the train unnoticed, with
me looking like I had stepped right out of one of RuPaul’s nightmares. After a
few minutes of physically wrestling the damn camera away from him so that he
didn’t take a picture of this ensemble as well, he conceded and retrieved for me
an extra pair of his pants and a black t-shirt. The shirt was clean but the
jeans were filthy to the Nth degree, and smelled like worn buffalo
ass. He stated that he simply wasn’t giving up his last clean pair of pants. He
wasn’t on watch when I got robbed by the Jane Goodall Gang. He was right. I
don’t blame him, as I would have felt the same. I guess that I was headed back
to the ravine for a quick wash of pants. Wet or not, I would wear them for the
next two days hump back to Gamboa. Fuck it. I headed to the ravine for the
umpteenth time, to clean the several pounds of funk out of these Jeans.
After washing
the jeans in the ravine I beat them against some rocks near the embankment,
wrung them with my hands, and even twisted them around a small tree trunk until
every drop of water I could muster out of the fabric of those jeans was out. I
then put them on. My waist is 31” and the waist size of these jeans was 36”.
The inseam probably had to be measured in yards as there were all kinds of
extra length at the bottoms of the jean’s legs. Speaking of the legs, must have
been an exceptionally relaxed fit of jeans and it felt as if I could have fit
my entire body into one of the legs. I literally bounced around in them like a
clapper in a bell. These things were 5 sizes too big. It was as if MC Hammer
had designed his owl line of jeans and I was wearing the prototype. It looked
like I was wearing clown suit pants. I had to take 550 cord to tie the waist
down as I had no belt, and I had to roll the cuffs up about 6 or 7 times. I
looked like a fucking idiot in these pants. It was if I was off to attend a
Shriner’s Circus minus my ridiculously too small of a car. Weighing the levels
of idiocy between the pants and the towel, I of course chose to continue with
the pants; I had no choice. With the borrowed shirt perfectly covering up the
makeshift 550 cord belt and obvious over size of the pants, and with no other
incidents to report during the Op, two days later, with all of our gear broken
down and placed in the civilian bags that were stored in our rucksaks, we
boarded the train for Panama City. Arriving in the city I was amazed that I
didn’t attract any noticeable attention from the authorities policing the
trains. Either way, we were back in civilization and on our way to a hotel
where our clothes would be waiting for us, with hot water, good food, a soft
bed for the night, and accessible anti-swelling-anti-bacterial ointments.
That night,
with my ass-swelling beginning to decrease, and my intestinal tract near
normalcy, we all went out for a good meal, a few drinks, and to experience the
night life in beautiful Panama City, Panama. It was a lot of fun. The flight
back to the States was miserable. Expectedly so, as trying to either sitting on
top of a golf ball wedged in your ass, or shifting from cheek to cheek for five
hours sucked. Intermittently shooting the rod at my two teammates who were
sitting together two rows ahead and to the left of me, who kept turning around
to watch me uncomfortably shift from cheek to cheek, and then giggle, smile, whisper
and point, didn’t make me feel that much better, but it did help some. When I
thought about it during the flight the sequence of events over the course of
the past four days had been a combination of stupidity, lack of attention to
detain, and exceptionally poor luck. In succession these things happened to me:
infection (Montezuma’s
Revenge), dehydration, and,
Ø
I poisoned myself again via the assault to my
rectum with the Gympie Gympie tree leaves, in turn, causing my asshole to surreally
swell three times its natural size,
Ø
I have shat upon myself within multiplicity,
Ø
Via a stinky wall of water assault, I have
fallen down the side of a jungle cliff covering myself, and everything I own in
a sulfurous, noxious mud paste,
Ø
I have been struck by rancid monkey poo several
times (trust me, mangoes do them no favors),
Ø
I have been chased across a field and through
the jungle by a bushmaster snake clearly
abusing anabolic steroids,
Ø
I lost nearly all of the clothes I brought on
the Op to a thieving horde of despicable, relentlessly miserable monkeys,
resulting in:
Ø
My self-humiliation in front of indigenous
persons by dressing and appearing before them like a foreigner man-whore of the
jungle,
Ø
I was further humiliated by wearing in public
what could only be described as blue denim clown pants.
With all that has befallen me during
this Op, I earnestly hope that at the very least, one new operator will take
away from this article, a lesson or two that will keep him and his teammates
alive. I don’t know of anyone who died from humiliation due to monkey poo
assault violations and encrustation, or from excess humility yielded from
embarrassment, but I have heard of many accounts where a person died from a
poisonous snake bite that happened days away from proper medical attention. I
have also heard of persons dying from dysentery and dehydration due to the
consumption of tainted water. Therefore, it is my earnest intention, that
through the safety message in this article, I might reach some of the younger,
newer HPS operators, before they themselves, make similar mistakes in the
field. You simply just can not live this stuff down, no matter long you may
exist on this earth, nor how many awesome jobs you perform. So, as your job is
tough enough as it already is, take the lessons in this article and learn from
them at no cost to your physical or emotional being. This one is on me. Anyways,
like I earlier said, working for a private military firm has its benefits, and
of course, it’s negative sides as well.
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