I was heading for Vietnam, a very warm place, but first the Air Force
insisted that I attend survival school in Spokane, Washington in the
middle of winter.
February 12, 1970
Yesterday we had parachute landing falls, dragging, chute malfunctions
and steering. In the water training today we were launched off a
20' tower down a cable, release the seat survival kit, check the chute,
inflate the life vest, open the chute release covers, release the
chute,
climb into the raft, remove your seat, swim to another raft then under
a parachute canopy to another raft.
February 14, 1970
In outline what I'd done the past couple of days was... crawl
thru the mud of the obstacle course, get stripped & searched,
placed in solitary confinement, alternately interrogated and placed in
a little black box, moved to a compound, worked out in the rain, then
was released. Actually since yesterday was Friday the 13th it
probably would have been shot to hell anyway. It was a thoroughly
miserable experience, but I was expecting worse.
February 16, 1970
The class ahead of us returned from their trek today. One guy
died of exposure last night. Bad stuff.
My survival trek was cold, miserable, and snowy but at least nobody
died. The bad guys
looking for us
were on snowmobiles. I still don't like that sound.
