Fort Bragg
It was the middle of the night and it was raining.
Trautman was wearing a waterproof olive-green poncho with the hood down.
The colonel was totally unperturbed by the rain as he walked along the artificial bank.
Below him, in the stream, two groups of trainees were moving through the water, carrying two enormous poles as large as trees.
Trautman was proud of them all, even those who he know would never pass the tests, because each and every one of them was doing his best.
He observed them and spoke to them as they moved forward in the water.
“Chess is a game that was invented to teach the art of war to a young prince. Like a prince, you will also have a kingdom and the kingdom will be your mission: the task you are sent out to accomplish. In this kingdom you will be entirely alone and you will decide for yourselves how to proceed.
How you do it is entirely up to you.
I’m going to teach you the moves.
I’ll teach you how to play chess with death as your opponent, and you will be the princes.”
Below him the recruits were suffering; they were groaning in the water under the weight of the poles they were carrying.
Trautman just kept on talking.
“The SOG isn't a normal unit and you won't be trained like normal soldiers because your missions won't be standard missions.
You’ll be fighting behind enemy lines and to do that you’ll need a few skills and qualities ordinary soldiers normally don’t have. You won't be thinking like ordinary soldiers either.
Soldiers fight, and that’s it.
On the contrary, Green Berets silently enter the houses in the middle of the night and kill their 'targets' in front of their families.
And then, when you’re in enemy territory, there won't be anyone there telling you what to do.
There will be no backup and no radios and you won’t be able to call a helicopter or an artillery unit to bail you out.
Sometimes, you won't even have any weapons.
That’s when you will really be commanding yourselves, and this is why members of this unit are not trained in the same way the members of other special forces are trained.
In situations like the one I’ve just described to you your life is going to depend solely on what you do and what other team members do. Winning or losing means saving or losing your kingdom … and without your kingdom, you are nothing.
So if necessary, you die trying to hold on to it."
Close to the colonel the men started showing signs of sever fatigue and sufferance.
Barry was swearing, Ortega had a kind of punch-drunk look and Rambo was suffering in silence.
Wearing his usual impassive expression, Trautman was serious and made no comment. He didn’t let on but he was watching them all very carefully.
He had already noted two of them in particular: Ricardo Coletta and Robert Plaster.
The officer could tell they might be hurt in some way as they were already very tired; they were becoming distracted and clumsy. So it was just a matter of time before they suffered some kind of accident.
They had already gone beyond their physical limits but it was too soon to be in that kind of phase. He hadn’t decided to eliminate them yet but it was pointless for them to carry on. They were risking breaking an arm or something worse might happen.
Trautman wondered whether he should reject them immediately or wait a while.
He decided to hold on, hoping that his generosity wouldn't result in one of them getting seriously injured.
Like in Vietnam, at Fort Bragg being nice and generous wasn't such a good idea.
Delmore Barry seemed to be the strongest one in the group. Rambo was the youngest.
He was already done in, which could only be expected perhaps given his age but he was very good at hiding the fact.
For the moment he looked like he was holding out, but it was just an illusion.
Sooner or later he would pay the price of not having the same training and experience as all the others.
Again, the colonel studied the two men who were on the point of collapsing and were therefore running a risk.
They would definitely be all right when they got back to their units, and they might even end up as the best soldiers in their teams ... but it was not going to happen in the Green Berets.
In the SOG they were putting their lives at risk or they might be the cause of someone else’s injuries.
Plaster looked like a zombie.
His expression and lost gaze clearly showed he had reached the end of his tether.
Would he still remember his own name?
Soon, both of these trainees would 'explode', and that would be a dangerous moment, when they might really expose themselves to danger.
Trautman himself had been in a situation like that in Korea.
It had happened to him during a period of continuous fighting, and he had spent three whole days without sleeping.
Seeing these men suffering, he was obviously reminded of his own past experiences.
***
That night in Korea, Trautman started seeing the tents of the camp shifting and moving on their own; that was when he understood he had reached the limit.
It’s only natural, we’re human beings after all, but, thinking of the tragic events that followed, it had come far too soon.
His lack of lucidity induced him to make the wrong decision at least twice.
On the morning of the fourth day, he found himself at the top of a hill strewn with dead bodies. There was a stench of death everywhere.
He came out of it alive, that’s true, but he could hardly stand up.
He would carry the burden of his decisions weighing down on his heart for the rest of his life.
His 'human limits' had cost the lives of many men that day, and it was simply by chance that he had gotten out of that situation alive.
From that day on, Trautman decided to dedicate time to discovering how to avoid those limits, and over the years he found various ways of doing it.
Had he known about these techniques when he was younger, he might have saved many lives.
The time had come for him to pass on that knowledge in order to create better soldiers, who would have a few extra tricks up their sleeves when the time came.
The proper training would help them survive - and perhaps win - in dangerous situations.
***
That night, at Fort Bragg, in front of all of those men suffering in the pouring rain, Trautman had no desire to recall his own past experiences.
Watching these trainees, he had to focus on who was to going to collapse under the strain and more or less when, so that he could help them avoid being injured.
He had to make sure no-one ended up like Anderson the year before, a soldier who had lost an eye during a very difficult activity.
How could he forget it?
Ortega then fell into the water just in front of him. Trautman suddenly stopped thinking about the past.
Jorgensen was carrying a long wooden pole with the other men. He immediately used one arm to pull Ortega up out of the water.
As he did so he yelled because of the effort.
Ortega's head came out of the water and he started coughing and spitting out water.
After he had pulled him up, Jorgensen quickly put his hand back under the pole, yelling again.
Each pole weighed around one thousand pounds.
Trautman figured that in order to pull Ortega up out of the water, Jorgensen had dragged up a weight of about one hundred and twenty pounds using only one arm. It just took him a few seconds, but he managed it.
He then examined Ortega's face.
Ortega had blacked out for a few seconds. You could tell from the look in his eyes. He hadn't just tripped over something at the bottom of the stream; very briefly he had lost consciousness and the water revived his sense.
The group might have been about to lose Ortega too.
Trautman said:
“Ortega, do you think a king would be unaware of what’s going in his kingdom?”
“No sir,” he replied.
Ortega’s voice was rough and shrill on account of all the water he had swallowed.
“Jorgensen, would you say that in your kingdom there are subjects who are no use to you with respect to your mission?”
“No, sir,” came the reply.
“You helped your friend. Well done, Jorgensen. Barry, what do you do when you have to move the pieces on a chessboard?”
“I study the next move carefully, sir.”
“WHAT DO YOU DO IF THEY SHOOT AT YOU?”
“WE STUDY THE NEXT MOVE, SIR.”
“WHAT DO YOU DO IF THEY HIT YOU?”
“WE STUDY THE NEXT MOVE, SIR.”
“WHAT DO YOU DO IF THEY KILL YOU?”
“WE STUDY THE NEXT MOVE, SIR.”