One time,when I was in Panama
Okay this isn't a heartwarming story about love, or a story about a big, mean, tough, and burly drill Sgt. This is a story that happened to myself and three other buddies on a tactical training mission in the heart of the rainforest in Panama.
It was early...Army early.. 4:30 a.m. when our guide woke us and told us to prepare for a S.A.L.U.T.E.(size,activity,location,uniform,time,and equipment) Evaluation, we had 30 min to grab what we needed and be in the jungle. Not knowing how far or how long we were going to be out it is always wise to pack more than you need, we all filled up our canteens and brought three MRE's a piece. Our mission?..To find the enemys hideout and send back a SALUTE REPORT without being detected.
Our guide info'd us on our mission and stated, more than once, if we were seen or spotted we would fail miserably and have to continue another mission at nightime(a rainforest is not somewhere you want to be at night). We got the map, a compass, a pair of binoculars and a letter with distances and locations.
We figured it to be about a 5 miler through a tropical rainforest, kinda like being locked in a greenhouse for about 8 hours. We walked and used the compass and map, and walked and walked. Ants and snakes and centipedes and spiders big enough to eat a small dog(maybe).
We walked at a really quick pace until we got about a mile from our target, then we slowed to a quiet, sneaky, walk.
All hand signals and total silence from here on in. No belching, fartin' sneezin',coughin' or gigglin'.
We started to hear our enemy through the rainforest..we could hear movement and people talking to each other. We got on our bellies and started to low crawl really slow. We got to where we could see them and started our report.
Everything was going great...we were quiet..un-noticed..sneaky.. and with the binoculars we were close enough to see their uniforms and everything.
Anybody reading this ever seen a Howler monkey? They are cute little monkeys that live in the rainforest...and they are the loudest animals known to man.
So the four of us are on our bellies in the rainforest and this little monkey comes by us and is like 2 feet away and watching us. We tried to do the right thing...to shoo it away using our hands, but it didn't work. It made a really loud shriek and almost attacked my buddy...I told you that we were on our stomachs right? That monkey got really mad and started making all kinds of noises and throwing leaves around and was about to blow our cover when...my buddy threw a rock at it.....everything stopped. That rock hit that monkey right above the eye and he stopped and just looked at us with a glance of sadness and left quickly back into the direction he came.
All was well with us.. we went back to our report. Size..about 10 people all male, Activity standing guard in front of a building, Location right where the map indicated,Uniform....then we heard some noise from above. I thought it was birds or something. We all rolled to our backs about the same time to see that little monkey and about ten of his little friends up in the trees over our heads throwing branches and sticks and rocks...anything they could at us. They were howling so loud that we had to cover our ears and all four of us ran out of that rainforest and away from those monkeys. Good thing this was a practice drill or we would've been statistics for sure.
Needless to say we failed and found ourselves in the rainforest at night.. which is a whole other story....not about monkeys though. Ever heard of cayman? Another story...another time.
Thanks for reading one of my many adventures..hope you enjoyed it.
Happy blogging
Me Out!!
It was early...Army early.. 4:30 a.m. when our guide woke us and told us to prepare for a S.A.L.U.T.E.(size,activity,location,uniform,time,and equipment) Evaluation, we had 30 min to grab what we needed and be in the jungle. Not knowing how far or how long we were going to be out it is always wise to pack more than you need, we all filled up our canteens and brought three MRE's a piece. Our mission?..To find the enemys hideout and send back a SALUTE REPORT without being detected.
Our guide info'd us on our mission and stated, more than once, if we were seen or spotted we would fail miserably and have to continue another mission at nightime(a rainforest is not somewhere you want to be at night). We got the map, a compass, a pair of binoculars and a letter with distances and locations.
We figured it to be about a 5 miler through a tropical rainforest, kinda like being locked in a greenhouse for about 8 hours. We walked and used the compass and map, and walked and walked. Ants and snakes and centipedes and spiders big enough to eat a small dog(maybe).
We walked at a really quick pace until we got about a mile from our target, then we slowed to a quiet, sneaky, walk.
All hand signals and total silence from here on in. No belching, fartin' sneezin',coughin' or gigglin'.
We started to hear our enemy through the rainforest..we could hear movement and people talking to each other. We got on our bellies and started to low crawl really slow. We got to where we could see them and started our report.
Everything was going great...we were quiet..un-noticed..sneaky.. and with the binoculars we were close enough to see their uniforms and everything.
Anybody reading this ever seen a Howler monkey? They are cute little monkeys that live in the rainforest...and they are the loudest animals known to man.
So the four of us are on our bellies in the rainforest and this little monkey comes by us and is like 2 feet away and watching us. We tried to do the right thing...to shoo it away using our hands, but it didn't work. It made a really loud shriek and almost attacked my buddy...I told you that we were on our stomachs right? That monkey got really mad and started making all kinds of noises and throwing leaves around and was about to blow our cover when...my buddy threw a rock at it.....everything stopped. That rock hit that monkey right above the eye and he stopped and just looked at us with a glance of sadness and left quickly back into the direction he came.
All was well with us.. we went back to our report. Size..about 10 people all male, Activity standing guard in front of a building, Location right where the map indicated,Uniform....then we heard some noise from above. I thought it was birds or something. We all rolled to our backs about the same time to see that little monkey and about ten of his little friends up in the trees over our heads throwing branches and sticks and rocks...anything they could at us. They were howling so loud that we had to cover our ears and all four of us ran out of that rainforest and away from those monkeys. Good thing this was a practice drill or we would've been statistics for sure.
Needless to say we failed and found ourselves in the rainforest at night.. which is a whole other story....not about monkeys though. Ever heard of cayman? Another story...another time.
Thanks for reading one of my many adventures..hope you enjoyed it.
Happy blogging
Me Out!!
