Case Study: Revolution

Thanks for the comments guys.

Yes, Faith got to where he is now both because of the bad/stupid things he did previously, and the good/smart/lucky things that he did or had happen to him as well. The thing that he really has going for him is that he has people who care about him. Success in the military is largely a factor of being able to successfully manage interpersonal relationships, whether that be with your spouse, your peers, your subordinates, or your superiors. Faith is also growing up a bit, becoming more mature and more experienced. For example, he's no longer beating the crap out of enlisted Soldiers in darkened parking lots (even those that really, really deserve it!). He is starting to get his anger issues under control, which is good for him.

Yes, this case study will end, lol. In fact I plan to have it completely written tonight. Some of you aren't going to like the ending.

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Ultimately, Faith told the other two candidates about the points, and Ken couldn’t help but overhear. So it was likely that all of them were going to pass this particular exercise… if any of them did.

“Hey, has anyone seen my ruck?” Ken asked.
 
Thanks for the comments guys.

Yes, Faith got to where he is now both because of the bad/stupid things he did previously, and the good/smart/lucky things that he did or had happen to him as well. The thing that he really has going for him is that he has people who care about him. Success in the military is largely a factor of being able to successfully manage interpersonal relationships, whether that be with your spouse, your peers, your subordinates, or your superiors. Faith is also growing up a bit, becoming more mature and more experienced. For example, he's no longer beating the crap out of enlisted Soldiers in darkened parking lots (even those that really, really deserve it!). He is starting to get his anger issues under control, which is good for him.

Yes, this case study will end, lol. In fact I plan to have it completely written tonight. Some of you aren't going to like the ending.

/////

Ultimately, Faith told the other two candidates about the points, and Ken couldn’t help but overhear. So it was likely that all of them were going to pass this particular exercise… if any of them did.

“Hey, has anyone seen my ruck?” Ken asked.

Uh-oh Faith is a non-select. Also sounds like someone is heckling Ken or he is REALLY absent minded and misplaced his large hump.
 
As it turned out, Faith and Shannon were right about the instructions for the land navigation event, and they were right to take their rucks with them. After collecting the answer sheets from all of the candidates, the cadre announced a “layout” inspection of everyone’s rucks. Those candidates who had not carried their rucks with them on the course discovered that their rucks were nowhere to be found.

“You left your weapon and equipment behind?” one cadre member exclaimed in mock horror. “I wonder what might possibly had happened to it? You had better find it, candidates! What are you waiting for? Fall out—start looking!”

Faith was annoyed that the laziness of others was going to cause more work for himself and the other candidates that had done the right thing. But he recognized this as yet another haze, another challenge to be overcome. He shouldered his ruck and grabbed his rubber M-16 and stepped outside of the assembly area.

“Candidate Faith! a cadre member barked. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“To help look for the missing rucksacks,” Faith explained.

“Are you missing YOUR rucksack, Candidate Faith?” this was meant rhetorically, because it was clear that Faith had his own gear.

“No,” Faith responded.

“Then get back into the assembly area,” the other man responded.

Faith and the remaining candidates were instructed to empty their rucks and present the contents for inspection. There were exclamations of surprise as several candidates discovered large and heavy rocks concealed inside their packs. Two candidates, however, had no rocks in their rucks. The cadre members noted this, but did not say anything directly to the two.

“Candidates! The first thing you should do with any piece of equipment is inspect it,” a cadre member intoned sonorously. Had you done that with your equipment, you would have noted that it contained a rock, a large and heavy rock that it would have been in your interests to discover, and discard, like apparently these two candidates did.” Faith said nothing.

“How was carrying that rock around, candidate?” a cadre member asked Shannon sarcastically.

“I guess you got me,” she responded noncommittally.

“Candidates! If you make it into the hallowed ranks of the 16th SAVE, you will never leave behind your comrades, your equipment, or a job undone. Let me here you say that.”

“I will never leave behind my comrades, my equipment, or a job undone,” the candidates duly repeated.

“I can’t hear you! Say it like you mean it!” he shouted.

“I WILL NEVER LEAVE BEHIND MY COMRADES, MY EQUIPMENT, OR A JOB UNDONE!” the candidates thundered back.

“Better,” the man in black said. “Now, your friends, the other candidates, they didn’t do that. They thought they could get over by leaving their equipment behind. So they get to go look for it. And eventually they will find it and come back here. But in the meantime…” he paused, “in the meantime, you can do what you want while you wait.” Then he and the other cadre members departed. What Faith wanted to do was eat something and take a nap. He dug out his MRE and started eating. Since he had no idea how much time he had, he didn’t take the time to activate the heater and made sure to only open one item at a time. When he was done, he sat down with his back to his rucksack to take another quick nap. He saw cadre members harrying other candidates who scampered around individually or in pairs, looking for their rucksacks and rubber M-16s. In the distance, Faith could barely make out a rucksack dangling from a flagpole. None of the candidates running around searching for their gear seemed to have noticed it yet. It was his fervent hope that it belonged to Ken.
 
OK I have the rest of the case study totally written out and will post it over the course of the next 24 hours or so.

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Faith fell asleep again shortly after he noticed the rucksack hanging from the flagpole. He awoke a short time later to the sound of shouted instructions. “Candidates! Your final event is a 15 mile footmarch. This is an individual event. You must end the footmarch with the same equipment with which you began it. You may not assist any other candidate in any way. You may not speak to any other candidate. The route is clearly marked and is ten miles out, and ten miles back. You have four hours to complete this exercise. Are there any questions?”

There were not. Faith struggled to his feet and shouldered his rucksack. He cinched down the shoulder straps and fastened the waist belt. “Good luck!” he whispered to Shannon. “You too,” she responded.

“Begin!”

This was going to be a true “movement to daylight” footmarch. Even with a relatively light load, 15 miles was still a very long distance to go, especially at the tail end of a long and challenging couple of days. Fortunately, footmarching was something that Faith did exceptionally well. He would much rather footmarch 12, 15, or even 20 miles than run just 10. He started off at a brisk walk, but after he felt his legs stretch out a bit, he began to run. This was by no means a sprint, just a gentle jog, probably not even an “Airborne shuffle.” But it was a steady pace that ate up the miles, and Faith knew he could sustain it almost indefinitely.

Faith was among the first finishers. While he still didn’t have his watch, he knew from the stopwatch that they had given for the land navigation exercise that he was well under the four-hour time limit. He moved to the side of the finish line after checking in with the cadre, sat down and took off his boots and put his feet up on his rucksack in order to let the blood that had pooled in his legs drain back into the rest of his body. He felt good, but he knew he was reaching the end of his endurance. He was glad that the footmarch was the last event of assessment.
 
Faith felt anxious as he waited for Shannon to cross the finish line, which she did with about ten minutes to spare. But she did not look good at all. She was limping on both feet, and she looked very pale. She checked in with the cadre and then collapsed in a heap on the ground. Other candidates were talking with each other, so Faith reasoned that the “no talking” admonition only applied during the actual footmarch.

“Hey, how are you doing?” he asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You don’t look fine,” Faith countered. Shannon only glared at him.

“Look, take off your boots and put your legs up, and change your socks. You’ll feel better and you’ll recover faster.”

“I’m good, I don’t want to take my boots off,” she said.

“Of course you don’t want to take your boots off, you probably have blisters all over your feet and you know they’re going to swell up once you get them out of your boots. But if you don’t do something about them now, it’s only going to get worse.” She knew he was right and slowly, painfully stripped off her boots.

“Put your feet up here,” Faith instructed, patting Shannon’s ruck. She did this, and Faith went to pull off her socks to look at her feet. Her socks where stuck to her feet with dried blood. Shannon flinched only once as Faith gingerly removed her socks. Her heel, most of her toes, and the pads of her feet were covered with blood and blisters. Faith whistled out loud.

“Bad?” she asked. Faith nodded.

“I’ve got some tincture of benzoin in the first aid kit in my ruck,” she said. “Can you get it out for me?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_of_benzoin

“Sure, but I don’t even know what that is,” Faith answered.

“It helps keep your feet going when they get messed up,” she explained.

Faith located Shannon’s first aid packet and gave it to her. “Want me to clean up your feet a little before you put that on?” he asked. Faith rinsed off Shannon’s feet as best he could, using her old socks to daub spots of blood away from her skin. When that was done, Shannon handed him a small vial.

“I’m going to need you to put this on,” she said.

“Why is that?” Faith asked.

“Because it’s going to hurt like a bitch,” Shannon confided.

When she was ready, Faith poured a little of the vial of tincture onto the worst areas of her left foot. She gave a little yelp of pain and closed her eyes, but she took the pain. “Other foot now,” she instructed.

When he was done, Faith put the first aid kit back in Shannon’s pack, and helped her get clean socks on her feet. “Thanks,” she said.
 
About four candidates did not finish the footmarch event in the scheduled four hours. Two candidates finished shortly after time had expired, and two candidates were brought back in a black van. All of them looked physically spent, and they all looked like they had some kind of foot injury.

The cadre members gave them time to treat their feet, and then delivered some rather shocking news. “Candidates! Your next event is the five mile formation run. You will change into running shoes and fall in on the starting line in ten minutes. This run will be at an eight minute pace.”

Faith was enormously frustrated with this news. What happened to “the footmarch is the last event?” Running was never Faith’s strong suit, and while he could normally manage five miles at an eight minute pace, it was asking a lot to do it immediately after a 15-mile footmarch. In fact, it was asking too much. Two candidates quit outright at the news of the run. They gathered their things and got into the black vans, never to be seen again. Shannon sighed deeply.

“What are you going to do?” Faith asked her. She was in no shape to run.

“Well, I’m going to put my running shoes on, and then I’m going to run five miles at an eight minute pace,” she replied with utter confidence. Faith admired her determination, but he didn’t think she had it in her. He wondered if he did.
 
Faith formed up at the front right corner of the line. This put him in the “right guide” position, which would ostensibly allow him to control the pace of the run. Other candidates formed up to his left and to his rear. But just before the run was supposed to start, someone appeared on his right. It was Ken.

“Hey man, fall in at the back of the formation,” Faith instructed him.

“No thanks, I like running in the front,” Ken replied. “I get to stretch my legs, and I get to decide how fast we run. I’m feeling pretty good right now, so I think we’ll start off pretty quick, and then taper off after I start getting tired.”

Faith didn’t remember seeing Ken come in during the footmarch, maybe he came in while Faith was helping Shannon. But Ken, true to his Barbie namesake, looked positively… clean. Everyone else’s uniform was streaked with sweat and salt, but Ken looked remarkably clean. Faith was seriously considering administering an elbow smash to the face when a voice called out,

“Forward, march! Doubletime, march!” and the group was off at a run.

Whatever pace they were running, Faith knew that it was not an eight-minute mile. It was faster… a LOT faster. Faith mentally added another entry to his “list of reasons to maim Ken.” The cadre members insisted on calling cadence during the run, which further added to the discomfort the candidates were experiencing. For some, it was just too much. The man to Faith’s immediate left fell out of the formation. Shannon stepped up to take his place. Having her alongside him, hanging in there despite the injuries he knew she had, gave Faith a shot of adrenalin. He made up his mind that there was going to be nothing that could stop him from finishing this run, and successfully gaining a slot in the 16th, lying cadre and that asshole Ken aside. Then, something completely unexpected happened.
 

You should've known something like that was coming. They put it out in the initial briefing for the event that it was a 15-mile march on a course that's ten out and ten back. That's five miles left unaccounted for. In any kind of selection, that kind of distance isn't going to be unaccounted for, unplanned for, or anything like that. They damned sure weren't going to have a stretch limo waiting on them with a jacuzzi in the rear deck for the final five miles.
 
“Quicktime, march! Marktime, march! Group, halt!” The run was suddenly over. The group had run less than 100 yards; clearly, the thread of a five mile run was merely a gut check, to see who would keep going and who would quit.

“Candidates! On the command of fall out, you will file into the classroom to your right, where you will receive further instructions. Fall out!”
 
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