Sunday Read: That moment when you get it

How an obstacle course in the jungle led to a life of adventure

Maybe this isn’t for me

I grew up in bedroom community outside of St. Louis in the 70’s and 80’s. After high school all my siblings and most of my friends went to the University of Missouri. It was just what we did then. As mentioned in a previous post, I somehow stumbled my way into West Point.

The United States Military Academy is not your typical school by any means. It’s the original academy for training commissioned officers for the Army and was founded in 1802 on the cliffs above the Hudson River. From the moment you arrive you are flooded with the faces, names, and iconography of the famous graduates who came before from Ulysses S. Grant to Douglas MacArthur and thousands in between.

You are also flooded with screaming upperclassmen and ridiculous rules as each New Cadet goes through basic training on campus led by rising seniors. It is a singular experience like few others as you learn the rules and culture of a place far removed from my roots in Missouri.

I did not fit in. None of it made any sense to my young mind. How does squaring the corners in the hallway or memorizing the stories from that day’s New York Times make me a more capable commissioned officer in four years? Why does anyone think being screamed at for not being able cut a pie into seven even slices instill the discipline needed to lead soldiers in combat? Why do they make our uniforms out of wool so that it rubs all the hair off your legs?

It was a great mystery to me.

A kick in the ass and a promise of better times

Two things kept me going. First was my old man in his endearing New England, World War II Marine veteran way. When I first started seeing that I was not going to fit I sent a letter home as one does in those days. I quickly got a return letter that was both a cold bucket of water and completely on brand. Essentially, he said don’t come back here we like being empty nesters, you’re too late to get into a college so you’ll have to work in some shit job, and stop whining and stick it out.

Not ideal but not wrong either. Nothing like tough love from the old man..

The other kick was from my senior cadet squad leader. He was one of the more mellow leaders amongst the cadre. He could see me struggling with it all in those first few weeks of basic training and pulled me aside to check on where my head was now. I told him my frustration and compelling feeling I would not fit in.  He offered some profound words. “Wellman, you’re too nice of a guy to be here but we need guys like you too.”

I was confused but he went on to explain that West Point, and the Army, were big organizations and needed a diversity of leaders to make them work. While there were disciplinarians and screamers, there was also a need for the more cerebral and even handed leaders as well. We needed the nice guys as much as the others.

Then he offered a tip that would keep me in uniform for many years. Just hang in there for another couple of weeks until we headed to the ranges and started doing actual Army stuff as opposed to the West Point indoctrination portion of this journey. I promised to stick it out and he proved correct. Once I had a weapon in my hands and was working my way through the hills above the Academy, I found myself much more at home.

I promised myself I would put off quitting until the school year started at least. Then academics started and I didn’t do all that great. So, I promised myself I would stick it out until the end of Freshman year. I got better. Then I kept setting new deadlines and muddling through.

It changed in the jungle

One of the rules that guides a Cadet’s decisions at West Point is that once you attend class on the first day of your third year, you are committed to serve in the Army as an officer when you graduate, or as an enlisted soldier if you don’t. It’s a decision point that weighs on some Cadet’s more than others and I was one of them as I had been postponing quitting for a semester at a time to that point.

The summer prior is where they hook you. That is the year that Cadet’s fan out across the country, and world, to serve as actual leaders in military units and attend regular Army schools like Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, and others. Back in 1985 an unusual option was the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Sherman in Panama.

Jungle School was only open for entire military units to attend as a unit and not individuals, except when West Point filled an entire class each summer. I decided that if I stayed in West Point, I’d probably not get a chance to go to Jungle School and I really wanted to see the world. Panama seemed like a great place to start.

After a journey that literally involved planes, trains, boats, and buses we found ourselves on a historic base located on Toro Point at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal, on the western bank of the water directly opposite Colón. The training was grueling at times, but also something of an idyllic break from West Point as we were treated like any other soldiers. We had time off to explore, sit on the dock drinking beer, and relax between training.

Fort Sherman was home of the infamous ‘Green Monster’ obstacle course and each soldier had to pass the course to graduate and earn your Jungle Expert patch. We had prepared for a few days before being unleashed on the course itself. It was remarkable because along with the usual obstacles like massive ladders and rope bridges to navigate it weaved through the jungle muck and mud.

I was moving as fast as I could through the various components and turned a corner to find essentially a mud and rockslide tube that took you down through the foliage towards the ocean. I jumped in and slid down to a drop off right on to a shallow rock shelf that stretched out to the Caribbean.

I looked up and saw the sparking azure water and tropical fish swirling around my boots. To my right there was an old coastal gun fortification stretching over the sea and a light breeze washing across it all. That was the moment.

Coastal battery at Fort Sherman

I’ve had a few of them in my lifetime. A moment where you say ‘ah, I get it now.’ That was my aha moment for the Army. I was a kid from the suburbs of Missouri who had never even left the country before, and I was standing in calf deep water of the tropics surrounded by jungle and history. What else would I see if I stuck it out and pursued opportunities that would lead me too more of this.

I took it in for a moment then took off running and, one could argue, I never really stopped. I would graduate two years later and after flight school volunteer to take my first assignment in the Republic of Korea to fly the mountains and coasts of Asia. Even getting qualified to fly into the DMZ.

The next 22 years led me around the world from Cairo to Baghdad. From Hawaii to Costa Rica. Living in Kuwait and driving all over Germany. The kid from Missouri got to see the world because I slid into the sea one day on an obstacle course at the ripe old age of 19.

My best experiences in life came from seeking out the less worn path that included adventure as a side benefit.

Always choose adventure. Life is short.