Combat Control School - Assault Zones through Graduation

     Combat Control School PART 2

The struggle to obtain the scarlet beret

My second time through Combat Control School ( CCS) started in September of 2006.  The heat wasn't as bad as the middle of the summer, which was a major help for the course.  I also knew what to expect; this made me dread going through the entire course all over again.  Somehow, I got the motivation to make a second attempt of that brutal course.

In order to understand what I'd already committed to in this course, be sure to check out this article on the first brutal selection week of Combat Control school and this article about how far I made it on my first attempt.

I managed to get through the second attempt of CCS, and make it to the point I was dropped the first time.

Although it was my second time through, and it wasn't as hot, I still had a couple of issues that nearly caused me to quit.

Expectations

The instructors expected a little more from me the second time through, although I felt I didn't have much to give.  I also felt they were watching me closer, paying a little more attention to every move I made.  I also felt like the team captain was keeping a closer eye on me, just be be sure I didn't mess up on his team.  This brings up another problem...

                       

               My new team Captain didn't like me

I know, suck it up, right. This guy, I later find out, suffered severe emotional abuse from his father.  His father also said he would amount to nothing.  I didn't find out until years later, from some of my own online research on that guy, that was the reason he had some of these issues.

In my previous class, I got along with most of the guys really well.  In the September class, I started having some issues with the team captain.  He had the attitude that I was a screw up ( because of mistakes in my previous class) and his attitude rubbed off on a lot of the team.

Imagine a short man with beady eyes that had a hint of insecurity, and you can kind of picture what he looked and acted like.  I was 5' 9" , and he was about 3 inches shorter than I was. He was phenomenal at PT and being a team leader, but he had a side to him that reflected a bully.  He seemed to like having authority and control over me and possibly my future in CCT. 

I specifically remember being in a bar in with most of the team before the start of the second class.  A girl was looking at me in the bar, and eventually came to talk to me.  After the conversation, the team captain walked up to me and asked, " why do you think she would want you?"  He had a look of hate in his eyes.

It was at that point that I remembered the first time I met him.  

In air traffic control school, my team captain was there, but he had just shown up when I was about to leave the course.  At the time I was there, there was a curfew ( because previous teams had gotten in trouble), but a few other guys and I showed up late one night.

When we went into the barracks, the instructors were there checking to see if anyone was missing.  We managed to sneak in, and we saw my team captain peeking out of his room when he heard the instructors screaming.  We asked him if he could say he saw us there that night ( that wasn't the best thing to do ).  He shook his head and glared directly at me.

Enough about this guy, but having the team captain hate you in training makes life a lot harder.  It rubbed off onto the team and made this difficult school harder than it needed to be.

I'm not trying to blame my hardships on other people, but this guy was one of the biggest jerks I'd ever met in my life.  If he was an enlisted guy, it would have been easier to tell him to fuck off, but he was in charge of our team.

I knew what to expect

The saying,  "ignorance is bliss", applied to my second run through CCS.  I had a lot of the course memorized.  Just knowing the pain and difficult times in the first week, almost made me quit before I started the second class.  Knowing how hard the land navigation course was with all that weight on my back for an entire week was hard to accept.

How the events I'd already done the first time went the second time

Now to get into how the second attempt went.  It sucked, no way around it.  But, a lot of it was easier for me.

Although the rough times were harder because I dreaded them more, the technical aspect, like land navigation and tactics came easier and helped free my mind, which ultimately helped with the mental game this course was.

I crushed the land navigation course in about 6 hours, instead of almost 12.   And I qualified easily on the weapons portion.

I almost quit again during the tactics portion when they made us breathe in massive amounts of riot gas.   

In my first class, we had a roll back ( like I became in the September class ) , and during the CS gas drama, he refused to go into the smoke ( because he knew how bad it was).  The instructors made him go in anyway.

I tried the same thing, but I got the same result.  It was just as bad as the first time.

Assault Zones

After the tactics phase, we moved on to the learn the basics of setting up an airfield out on Fort Bragg.  Before the field phase we also brushed up on air traffic control phraseology and worked with our radios again.

Out in the field, we started in the daylight.  We were out at dirt landing strip that was 4,000 feet long.  We had large panels packed in our ruck sacks ( along with everything else ).  We had two large, orange panels each.  We had to run down the dirt runway and set up the panels every 500 feet.  On our small radios, the man assigned the job aligner, would tell each person to move the panels right or left to ensure the panels were perfectly aligned.

I almost was kicked out during this phase.  Somehow, one of my large panels was missing from my ruck sack ( I knew I put it in there) I pulled one out of the ruck, and my heart sank when the other wasn't there. This thing was like four feet long! I have my theory on what happened, but I don't know for sure, so I will leave it at that.

They made me pay and threatened to remove me, but untimately I continued on.

We set up the airfield several times each day.  We all wondered why we didn't have ATVs or dirt bikes, and we were told, " you get to use those later!"

Sometimes you might have been the guy that had to run the entire length of the runway, or the the guy that only had to run 500 feet.  If you were lucky, you were the aligner.  But, the aligner was in charge of making sure the panels were completely straight, and it had to be PERFECT.  We spent a lot of time getting smoked because the alignment wasn't just right.

After the panels were set up, we got into groups and communicated with C17s and C130s and practiced ATC phraseology eventually landing the aircraft on the dirt runway that we set up.

Once we finished with the daytime operations, we moved to night ops.

The night ops were basically the same except the rucks were a little lighter.  We carried small battery powered lights to place on the dirt strip, and the small runway actually looked light a real runway with edge lights every 500 feet.  Again,  this was a lot of running up and down the dirt strip all night long.

Some fun after assault zones before the final evaluations

We did a few events before we went out to the field for the final field training exercise (FTX).  They weren't that bad but they were physically challenging.  

We went to an obstacle course out on Fort Bragg with the name " Nasty Nick".  I'm pretty sure the Army Rangers and Special Forces used that obstacle course in their training.  We always ran an O course at Lackland ( the obstacles weren't that bad, but the obstacles were spread out pretty far, so it was definitely a cardio workout.  The O course at ATC school wasn't that bad either, but we did run it a few times with a ruck sack on.

The Nasty Nick was pretty tough because the entire course was rope climbing.  ( If I haven't mentioned, if you ever want to do this type of training, practice climbing ropes.

There was a point that we had to cross a small bridge over a small creek that was about 4 feet deep, but on the walk through of the course an instructor said, " there's a bridge there, but you all aren't going to use it.  You gotta go through the creek."   It was late November, so that was a definite cool down.

After assault zones, we did some practice rappelling off the side of the practice tower by the school house with a ruck sack on.  We eventually had to climb an extended ladder that hung down from the mock aircraft on top of the rappel tower.

                                          

                                  The Final FTX

The final field training exercise ( FTX ) was one of the most difficult events of the course for a good reason: Most of the things we'd learned in the course would be applied during the final week.

I have to admit that the CCS course and instructors did an incredible job applying pressure and making the FTX a great learning experience.

In this portion, we moved to a part of Fort Bragg that we were not familiar with.  Although we did get more sleep during this phase than hell week, I found this part more exhausting because of the amount of tasks we had to apply, and from the stress of a simulated combat experience.

The FTX started at night.  The first test was simple to understand, but executing it was a major challenge.  The entire team would board a C130 with static line chutes on.  We were flown to a drop zone  over a dirt runway 4000 feet long ( like in assault zones) and we jumped out at an altitude of 800 feet.

Once the last person exited the aircraft, we had one hour to to gather our parachutes up, grab our gear ( our ruck sacks and anyone with the huge alternate weapon was lined up on the drop zone.  We jumped with rucks between our legs, but at that point in training our huge rucks were to large to jump with, so we jumped with smaller ones with weight in them.) we had to get the runway set up with runway lights, get our radios set up and land the same C130 that we had jumped out of.

Also, as soon as we hit the ground the role playing started, which was the instructors who acted like the enemy.  If we saw them we had to engage and fire our M4 ,with blank rounds, using the proper techniques.

As you can imagine, the 1 hour time limit was very tight considering what had to be accomplished.  If we went over the time limit, we were awarded a smoke session and we did the event over again.

This was a long night, but we finally got the job done, and we moved to our next objective point.  It was an overland movement for several miles. We moved to an area deep into Fort Bragg, and along the way we were met with enemy fire, CS gas, and several attempts to surround us.  We used the techniques from tactics to disengage from the enemy, while other instructors watched our every move.  They looked for any safety violations, improper movements, and made sure the situation was handled properly.

Once we reached our objective, we set up a camp.  We slept underneath ponchos when we finally had a chance to sleep in the early morning hours, but it wasn't exactly restful sleep.  

High Alert

When we finally got a chance to settle down, we had to figure out how to allow as much rest as we could, but we had to have to guys standing watch surrounding the camp in rotations.  Once I finally  got to sleep, I was tapped on the shoulder for my turn to stand watch.  Also, this wasn't anything like a fun camp out.  We had to leave no trace behind.  This meant no camp fires for sure.  Even when we took a crap, we had to take the shovel out of our ruck and bury it in the dirt.

During this phase in late November the nights were chilly in North Carolina, and the weather was clear.  The moon near the full moon phase. Many of my memories are at night with the light from the moon shining down in a pale, eerie glow.  The sound of the enemy in the distance with their vehicles and ATVs at certain points stuck with me for a while.  I was never in an actual combat mission, but this was enough of the feeling for me to remember for a long time. 

The first night we got attacked in the early morning hours, and of course, it was while I was on watch.  Daylight was about to break and my teammate just stuck a wad of Copenhagen in his mouth, then he squinted.  " Did you see that?", he asked me.  I looked in the direction he was looking, and sure enough I though I spotted some movement close to the ground.  The battle seasoned instructors were excellent at sneaking up on inexperienced trainees.  Then, there was nothing.  I thought maybe we were just paranoid.

A few minutes later, chaos broke out around the camp just like the beginning of hell week, but that time we had to react and get out of  there.

Reacting to CS gas and chaos

Sure enough, I saw a slight movement on the ground.  The instructor was low and he silently moved our way.  There were several more that seemed to appear out of nowhere.  By the time I saw all of them, they lit us up with gun fire.

We did the tactics drills so much that reacting to them seemed second nature.  I immediately started to fire back and yelled as loud as I could to alert the rest of the team.

Naked woobie

At that point, an incident the instructors coined " naked woobie" happened.  At the time it was horrifying for me to witness ( because the CS gas was so harsh), but later I thought it was funny as hell.

While we were gathering our camp, which was just our ponchos above us and our gear packed up ( we were supposed to be fully dressed and ready for action) I saw one man lying under his poncho with just his shorts on.  I'm not sure why because it was pretty chilly, but the sleeping bags were nice and warm.  He was slow to react to the situation.  While the rest of the team grabbed their gear and fell into lines to engage the enemy and move away, one the guy with this guy was slowly waking from a deep sleep.  I saw one of those CS cans go rolling under his poncho next to him and start smoking.  To me, it was like a grenade because of my two experiences with it.  I yelled at him, " No!" He started coughing and gasping for air, and he ran out from under his poncho with his camouflaged blanket around his waist.  He looked naked. " Naked woobie coming your way!", I heard an instructor yell. We paid for that move with a smoke session.

We moved to another site early that morning.  While we moved, we always moved in two groups, each with a point man in front, a man in the back ( who would turn around to check every few steps for movement, a navigation man, and a radio ( comms) guy.  Of course, we carried all of our gear and vests.

While we had down time, we did what we always did out on the field events: we fixed our feet with mole skin, ( mine were getting shredded because my boots sucked) applied fresh camo to our faces, shaved, and ate some MREs.

The rest of the week was spent planning missions during the day, and executing them at night.  The sleep schedule continued to be minimal.  

Each mission was carefully planned during the day under a wooden shed out in the middle of Fort Bragg, and with each new mission brought a new responsibility.  I was being carefully watched by the instructors for any mistakes, so I was nervous when I found out I was gonna be the team leader on one of the missions.  I'm not sure if that was a coincidence, or if it was just the same luck I'd been having throughout the entire pipeline.

There were many responsibilities on each mission, but I felt the team leader was the most watched and had to have a solid understanding of the detailed parts of each mission task.  The other responsibilities were communications ( ATC), navigation, point man etc., but most of these tasks were handled by two people each.

Another issue, like the last class, is I had a file of performance LORs handed out in the new class.  The missing panel was the last one, but they didn't make a huge deal out of it, which made me further wonder if someone had messed with it.

There were a lot of long nights of moving to an objective far away, getting attacked along the way and moving as quiet as possible in the moonlight.  We would eventually reach our target and take out the enemy as quick and efficient as possible.  We never did it just right, so a lot a smoke sessions occurred at random points.  

A lot of attacks involved CS gas along with the shooting.  It was easy to spot in the light of the moon. 

Sleep deprivation had caught up with me toward the end of the week.  On one long march to a mission objective the two groups split up to move in different areas.  I think we were being followed, but I can't remember the details.  At one point I looked over and saw the other team walking beside us about 30 yards away, but they were making absolutely no sound.  I watched them for miles moving at our pace the entire time.  I didn't realize until later that the other team was nowhere near us until we met up with them later.  I had seen an imaginary group the whole time.

After we finished up our missions late Thursday night, we had one more event to complete before getting the beret. In the morning would be a 15 mile ruck march that had to be completed in under 5 hours.  I was a little nervous about it because I knew it wasn't my strongest point, but I figured I could gut through it.  I also knew we had rucked much further than that in land navigation and the FTX.

My feet were in bad shape.  They were shredded from another four days of constantly moving with weight on my back.  I was concerned about it, because my feet hurt BAD.  Another NCO had some spare boots in his ruck.  They were light weight and way more comfortable than my jungle boots. They had tread more like the bottom of a running shoe and were made for training.   He let me borrow them since they were just his spare boots.

At around sunrise, we put all of our gear and lined up for the 15 mile ruck all the way back to the schoolhouse.  It was 15 miles, in 5 hours or less, along the roads back to the school house on Pope AFB.  No excuses. 

We were tired, hungry, and beat up from a week of fast paced learning and being attacked.  Even if we were fresh, this event would have been a challenge.  

The instructors drove beside us in the blue government truck talking to us through bull horns.  An instructor, who was on my ass the entire course, drove by me, and he talked to me through the bull horn for 5 minutes.  " At this pace, you'll never make it, McDonald", he said.

I did what I did on the land navigation course.  I started off at a trot, to make sure I didn't lose any time.  After about 20 minutes, the sharp, painful feeling in my feet went away.  I could, barely even feel my feet.

Returning to society

The roads through Fort Bragg were empty.  I saw a few of my teammates ahead of me; the occasional truck with feedback from a bull horn drove by.  I we approached the gate to Pope, I saw all the vehicles driving into their jobs on the base.  I saw several people staring at me through the window.  All of us probably looked like zombies walking into civilization again.  The camo on my face was starting to get smeared from all the sweat, with dark circles around my eyes.  I was in automatic mode.  Nothing mattered except grabbing my beret.

As I walked through the gate, each step was an enormous amount of work.  I knew where I was and how far I had to go; just a few more miles.

I walked the road that led to the school house.  I turned into the entrance and made my way up one final hill.  The instructors, and teammates that had finished, we waiting.  They yelled and encouraged me, as I trudged up the hill.  I could see the bright, red beret in the hand of the instructor.  Tears filled my eyes, as I made my way up the hill.

The same instructor that gave me so much grief on the ruck and throughout the course handed me my beret and shook my hand.  " Congratulations, McDonald" he said, as he smiled.

It was over.  I had made it to the end of CCS, which was a nightmare for me.  I did what I thought was impossible.  Making it through that course twice made me a different man than I was before I stepped foot into that brutal course.

Thanks for reading!

I hope this gives a better insight to how special operators are trained in the U.S. military.

You can live like a special operator in every day life by always striving to be better than you were the day before.  By accepting life is not fair, stop making excuses, and focus on your goals!

Nothing can stop you with right mindset.

Kevin