Live Fire Exercise: Fireyne IV 16 Augustus 1972
Gentlemen! We will be conducting a Live Fire exercise at Oh five thirty.
This is in three hours from now.
May I suggest that you get some sleep.
Later:
“Your mission on the officer training course: there are not bad crews – only bad leaders…
“These are your General Orders of the Day
(They must love saying this part …)
“Gennilmen - You have FOURTEEN days to complete this selection course
We will be waiting for the SUCCESSFUL OFFICERS at the Fireyne Four Terminal.
You MAY have noticed that you have NO supplies.
If you want to EAT, You WILL Find It.
If you want to DRINK, You WILL Find It.
If you want to FIND Fireyne Four, the coded coordinates are written on the piece of paper you have been given.
You WILL Decode This Message.
You WILL Find it.
You will be disembarking in ten minutes, gennilmen…
On the floor, under your seat, you will find a SACK.
This sack of sand is your MOST PRIZED possession.
You WILL have it with you at ALL TIMES.
You WILL Protect it WITH Your Miserable Fukken LIFE…
Failure to have this Sack With You, AT ALL TIMES, will immediately Disqualify YOU.
Walk sleep wash shit - I Don’t Care, Gennilmen
This ARMY…does not CARE.
Not for YOU…
You soldiers,,, YOU! CARE For IT…
That bag of sand is Milly Terry Proper Tee.
It is the soil of Your Country
A COUNTRY which, I WILL remind YOU, that As SOLDIERS, You Have SWORN..
To Uphold AND…
DEFEND
With Your Miserable LIFE
If NEED be…
Be advised Gennilmen… This is NOT a drill. You are to be tested under Live Fire!
LOOSING this sack will find you IN the STOCKADE.
TAMPERING with This Sack, to alter its weight, will FIND YOU In The Courts MARSHALL.
And you WILL be Dishonored and you WILL be Discharged, accordingly… Go explain that to your mother.
Bless her soul
But rest easy, soldiers. Any Time… Any TIME that You Want To Put your Sack Down… ALL you have to do, is walk over to the Pace Truck that is following you and Put Your Sack DOWN.
And you Are Out Of the Selection Course… SOLDIERS
AND… You Can Go Home.
home…HOME? How bout that??
You May Not Board the Pace Truck.
You WILL finish your march. It is the VERY Least you can do.
If You fall and LOOSE Consciousness, you WILL await a casevac gunship.
If you suffer from exhaustion or dehydration you will WAIT for the casevac gunship to collect you.
If you are crippled you WILL WAIT for the casevac.
AND!
As you are ALL So Called “Officers”
You may not assist, NOR expect assistance from, your FELLOW officers.
After all, if You cannot Do It ALONE – WHY should your men?
This course is designed for the INGENIOUS INDIVIDUAL.
This course is DESIGNED to Break You.
It is DESIGNED to make you FAIL!
Sadly. Some of you will not make it to Fireyne Four.
You WILL Fail.
Failure is NORMAL here.
Success, is unusual.
Only ten of you will pass.
I will remind you now… that if you attempt to BOARD the pace truck You WILL be DISQUALIFIED from the Officer Selection Course, and you WILL be sent back to GROUND INFANTRY… with the rest of the GRUNTS.
I can See How You will LIKE That!
BACK
With all the GRUNTS
NOW
If you feel you cannot do this course NOW
Take one step back, soldiers. DO IT NOW.
Last Chance?
No regrets…??
Fare well, gentlemen…
Welcome to Fireyne Four…
We are waiting for you.
Success belongs to the bold! Fourteen Days!!!
DO!
Or Die Trying…
Go There… That is all!
Pamwe Chete!!!!!
05:30 - And we are gone.
Bailing out of the trucks as they roll… Out of the truck!. Out of the truck!. Out of the truck!.
Out of the truck!
Geddout! Out! Geddout! Fukkit! Ged da Fuk Out!!!
Heading into the dark morning… darkest before dawn.
All we have is ourselves
Brave – but not yet clever…..
Not
Yet
Do! Or die trying…???
Welcome to Fireyne Four???
Shitttt!
We’re fukken screwed…
Then One Day it was my turn to "Give The Speech"... How I arrived here is not important. That I want my fellow soldiers to succeed? All I have to give them... all I know and am is all I have to offer to defend them from that dark realm... where we all end and endure in the memories of those that follow in our foot steps.
“Pamwe Chete!”
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