From The Chapters: (Each page starts a story from a different person)

JUST A KID:
 

I was in Ranger School as a 19-year-old, E-2 Private. I had done basic training, Advanced Individual Training (AIT), Airborne School, Ranger Indoctrination Program, and four and a half months in the Ranger Battalion and, boom, I was in Ranger School. I had been a Private my whole military life and had never had leadership training. I had always been a follower, getting yelled at and told what to do, never having to think too much. Then I hit Ranger School, where as a lowly Private, I was an equal with senior Sergeants, Captains and a Major. I was intimidated by these guys, ‘They’ve got to know so much more than me.’ When we talked, one of the first questions was always, “So, what do you do?”

“Well, I’m a platoon Sergeant,” or “I’m getting ready to be a platoon leader,” they’d reply.

‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘Golly gee, I’m a Private, a faceless member of the squad responsible for leading only myself.’

The first patrol we went on was a wonderful learning experience. I was a super follower, you told me to do something and I did it, no questions. Then I was put into my first leadership position as the squad leader for the patrol. ‘I’ve got a map. I’m in charge. God, this is crazy,’ I thought. My mission was to move the patrol from actions at the objective to the patrol base and then conduct patrol base activities. The previous squad leader had gotten the patrol lost earlier in the day, and we hit the objective at one o’clock in the morning.

I took command of the patrol and took off on what was mapped out to be about a five-kilometer movement. Well into the march I maintained my confidence that we were in the right spot, but some of the other guys disagreed and claimed that we were off target. They started questioning young, ‘cherry’ Faulkner, “Hey, man, do you know where you are?”

Land navigation, as a skill, is a mental game as much as it is a trained talent. In the dark it is impossible to be 100 percent confident you know exactly where you are. As we moved, I translated my upward and downward steps into the contour lines on the map and marked where I calculated we were. Starting with that assumption, I looked at the direction of march on the map and then got a mental picture of what the next leg of the march would look like. The difficult part comes when your expectation of the coming leg differs from what you find. That’s the point of question, insecurity and vulnerability. It takes mental strength to maintain your confidence through the fast and furious second guessing. You think, ‘I wasn’t really sure that the last hill was this one here, and that valley may have been this one instead of this one,’ and on and on. However, that night I stuck to my guns

“Halt,” I commanded. “Yeah, I know where I’m at.” I could not see anything on the map, so I kneeled down, pulled out my red lens flashlight and lied, “Yeah, this looks right.” It was pitch black out so who in the world could tell if we were in the right spot, but we kept moving. ---//////////

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