The Ranger Way: Earning My Combat Scroll
December 8, 2022 by Special Guest
by James Webb
It was my 3rd mission that I bagged my first bad guy.
Right out of the bird, I knew we were running up to the top of a hill and just above the target building. To be blatantly honest, all I paid attention to at that point was how far we were walking and if there was a terrain feature or not we had to cross, meaning a big ass mountain or anything that would make walking harder.
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SGT (Ret.) James Webb (Far right)
Back then I didn’t know anything or so it seems now that I have survived it all. All I knew that night is that I had to stay with my Team Leader, hell to be honest with you, that night I didn’t even have a radio. I remember putting the mortar rounds on my back and immediately feeling the shoulder straps sliding off the normal position. I remember also trying to figure out between two different bags which one was more comfortable and usable on the objective. Well, the only difference was which one would start hurting in 15 secs, while the new one would hurt in 10. In almost every aspect of being a Ranger, you’re going to feel pain for a very, very long time. That pain burns at the very beginning, but when you start to feel it, you just have to mentally control it. It’s like when you pull off your socks and your feet are rubbed raw enough to pull off the skin in your arches. We don’t stop when that happens. When you start walking out to the final manifest call for the mission, you can feel the scabs separating and it feels like walking on glass, but eventually they all bust up and you don’t feel it and eventually you’ll learn how to block it out.
https://havokjournal.com/culture/earning-my-combat-scroll/
