Just a short story. As in a prior post, before Ranger school I had gone into Fayetteville (AKA FayetteNam) to Ranger Joes, and bought a nice custom sheath for my Buck General sheath knife, the long bladed one. Same one I wore in my later RVN Advisory tour. Anyway, one cold day in Ranger School, somewhere up in the Georgia mountains, another student had to secure some sort of line to a tree for some task. Watched him stab his big KABAR into the tree, and then give his imbedded blade a little push, and his knife immediately snapped off at the hilt. So I decided while KABAR's were really historic and tactical looking, they really weren't suitable for some tasks. I would keep my Buck.

The Fawn. Before, when I had been in ROTC, we watched a lot of army training films. One of the staff NCO's was actually in one we saw, where prisoners escaped, and what survival tasks they employed. One was shaving a pine tree, to scrape off the thin underbarrk, and use that for "food." Yeah right....

The same NCO had been in Germany in the same platoon Elvis was in, at the same time. He said Elvis was a model solder, and when Elvis saw how the troops had to cut the grass with scissors, he bought the company a power mower.

So being very hungry in Ranger School, resting against a pine tree, and recalling that Army movie, I pulled out a blade, and shaved off a strip of under bark, and proceeded to chew on it. The Army was wrong. It was like sucking on a terpentine soaked rag. Awful, burning, searing... Mark that suggestion up to avoid at all costs.

In the same mountains, out on point with another student, we came upon a tiny fawn, hidden in the brush. He and I told each other we should kill it, and find a way to cook it for our patrol team. But neither of us was an experienced hunter, and as we stood over the tiny, helpless fawn, each telling the other to kill it, the fawn grew tired our discussion, leapt up and was gone in a flash.

Next, the Granny Knot.... SF VET