IV Orienteering – Foxtrot Company in General

I realized after trying to get ahold of my son for months. Yes, months. That my grandson doesn’t know me, or our family history. My son being a way too easily dismissible millennial has no idea what his grandparents, let alone his great grand parents lived through. Last October I was shocked to find out my ten year old grandson didn’t know I had flown jets in the Navy.
There is a lot of shit I need to write. Foxtrot Company and the Orienteering team would logically be about chapter 4. I was 19. Was a shy monster.

IV Orienteering – Foxtrot Company
I am a 57 year old man. The preponderance of my ethnic background is Caucasian. As Popeye would say “I am what I yam.”

I was born to a very young couple. My mother turned 18 in April. I was born in August. My father turned 22 a few weeks after I was born.

Down the male line of my family we have all been career military. My son finally broke that run. My paternal grandfather tracked us back to 1066

I was born in 1962. August 6th. The day after Marilyn Monroe died.

My father taught me how to shoot and by 8 or 9 I was weapon safe. Another 9 years and I was qualified as an “expert” in the Army.

I was going to school at MMI. The school was named after Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox.” He was played by Mel Gibson in the movie “The Patriot.”

There were four companies at Marion Military Institute. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. I was in Charlie Co. I was also a member of the orienteering club. We opted to refer to ourselves as “Foxtrot.”

We were all big boys. Back then I was 6’3” and around 200#. I was the smallest guy in Foxtrot. We wore olive-drab fatigue pants, combat boots and black t-shirts that said “MMI” and below that in a smaller font “Foxtrot.”

Unlike the rest of the competitors, we ran the orienteering course. We regularly demolished active duty Army orienteering teams. We ran a new course every day of the week. We had active duty advisors who were only a few years older than us. But they loved us, because we intimidated everybody in the Southeast. We would climb off the bus at Fort Benning or Fort Jackson. Stack our duffle bags and stand at parade rest. You would hear “that’s the assholes from Alabama” even though only one of the team was from Alabama. Charlie was from Anniston. Active duty hated us. We were all 18-19 years old, universally humongous and in the prime of our life.

President Reagan was elected that year and my Pell Grant dried up so I got to make different plans. Just as well. Had I stayed in the accelerated commissioning program in the Army I would have been a major, or maybe a Lt Col when Desert Shield / Desert Storm happened. Instead I spent 7 yeas as an Air Force avionics guys. I watched Desert Storm on CNN on the TV in the Ready Room of VT-86. Flying T-47s and TA-4Js.
A year or so later I was running through the woods in Warner Springs, California. My orienteering skills hadn’t deteriorated in the interceding years. I was one of the last four guys who had to come in after they called “ollie ollie.” My training partner was a marine Lance Corporal, and something in Marine training told him to keep moving. My Navy training told me were in a 5 mile by 5 mile box. Staying in place was infinitely smarter. We hooked up with a couple of pre-trident Navy Seals. They liked moving. I deferred to their training. And. Ollie Ollie. They got us got. If not for the Marine and the two almost-Seals I might still be out there munching on cactus roots and stealing apples and water from the “partisans.”

I am still a bit incredulous, that officers in training are considered clueless in land-nav. A bunch of 18-19 year old kids scrubbed the floor with a bunch of mid-grade enlisted Infantry. Guys who had been in the Army 4+ years.
I guess the next chapter will have to be the Air Force years.