The Next Warrior

Proving Grounds - Part 25

After returning to Camp Endurance, the Battalion's make-shift camp city, William's team finally got the much-needed rest they required, as did the particularly weary and war-torn Nathaniel Romero. The ground may have been cold and damp beneath his bedroll, but as soon as Romero's face hit the pack he used as his pillow and his body lay flat on the sleeping bag, he was in another world. His sleep was alive with the replaying in his dreams of the night. In a thousand angles, variations, and endings, he fought the night's battle over and over. Some of the outcomes were favorable; most ended in his death. He could feel the false puncture wounds from the simulation rounds even in his sleep. The feeling of being shot haunted him, but the ghostly injury became something he learned to live with, as it faded away, along with a busted shoulder and a few cracked ribs. In his dreams, he pushed on, ever adapting and overcoming, in spite of the constant presence of pain. His mind never stopped attempting to resolve his conflicted spirt, though his body didn't move for another six hours.Nathaniel read once in a book how the human race is an amazing thing. We are problem-solving machines. Even in our sleep, our time of rest, we build problems, problems which may not need solving, which may have no solution at all, because the problems themselves do not exist in any real or imagined worlds. Regardless, we spend the whole of our nights endeavoring endlessly to solve them. What miracles and nightmares they've concocted in our nightly hallucinations one can only imagine, but when the sleeper awakes it is rare that he should encounter an obstacle he cannot eventually invent a solution to overcome.

The next night, he and the rest of the team set out on their mission, for the second time. On this try though, as a result of Romero's new experiences, Corporal William's focus and leadership, the quick actions of Suicide, and the enthusiasm and cheerful spirit of Kaiser, they persevered and completed the exercise in just over two hours and twenty three minutes. It wasn't the greatest time of any fire team in the platoon, but it was a good time.

With the test completed, they had only one final challenge before they could claim that they had completed SERE II training. Their final ritual, one last rite of passage, was a daunting ten mile night march down a worn road through the Carolina forests. Among Marines, it was called the Bataan Death March, though no official documentation would record it as such. It was a reminder of why the training existed. Memorial totems and monuments along the trail marked the struggles and tribulations of those who were left behind, and those who were taken by the enemy. They were the testaments of terrible instances of American men and women suffering brutal fates because they were unfortunate enough to become prisoners of war, or worse, killed under the custody of the enemy. It was a somber march, lasting through the darkest hours of the night.

The Death March finally ended as dawn began to break over the horizon. The haggard troop broke the gentle slope of the final hill just as the sun began to beam across their faces. The sunbeam reminded Romero of his night before, how different this felt. In spite of his body feeling physically broken, and exhausted beyond belief, his mind and his heart were alive and he felt confident again. It was good not to be alone. What a difference a day could make.

As they entered the Force on Force Tactics and Training Command's compound, their instructors and their battalion's staff greeted them. They were lined up on either side of the road clapping and cheering them in. The team was directed to make their way to the chow hall of the forty-five area where they cleared their weapons into a barrel and made their way inside. Inside, there were the few other fire teams of the platoon which had made it to the chow hall before them, waving them in with pride and directing them to offload their gear onto little wooden stands at the side of the chow hall. Before them lay a buffet of breakfast dishes the likes they felt they had never seen before. Sausages, steak, bacon and eggs, not the powdered, tasteless eggs, but real eggs; waffles, and pancakes, with whipped cream and every manner of syrup; not to mention all the fruit and juices anyone could ask for. There was even eight types of cereal, if that was what they wanted. No one would tell them to stop. They would gain back their strength, their stamina, and their spirit through the pure unadulterated medium of caloric intake. This was the Survivor's Breakfast, one of the few honors of training in the fleet. It was ending a brutal training on a celebration. It was a grand feast so that they may honor what they had done.