Hillside Patrol

Our small band of brothers gathered together for our August training event on Saturday, September 26th up at our Little Sioux training site near Mondamin, Iowa. In attendance were Big Dave, Gus, Scott, Jeff, Sean and myself. We spent some time reviewing our hand signals and discussed possibly changing some of them. I got picked to be squad leader for the day so that made things a bit more challenging for me. We worked on patrolling through clearings and up hillsides. Our lead scout, Scott, had some fun with his duties and informed us that he heard some Chinese soldiers hiding up ahead in a grouping of trees... So I went with the flow and from then on we immersed ourselves in a Korean War patrol scenario. We hunted imaginary little red commies up and down those hills. It was so much fun!!! We even fixed bayonets for a planned bayonet change that never happened. The hoards of Red Chinese and North Koreans may not have really been there that day - BUT THE MOSQUITOS SURE WERE!!! We spent far more time swatting at those pesky little bloodsuckers than anything else. We all gained a much deeper appreciation for the life that our Pacific warriors endured on all of those bug-infested island hopping campaigns. We wrapped up our training early because of the bugs and headed to the local watering hole to hold a little admin meeting. Big Dave was feeling generous and bought us all a few rounds. We tossed around ideas for future events, ways to increase our unit's visibility, and talked about doing more tactical events in the coming year. It was a great day and really got me to thinking more about the Korean War and our 2nd I.D. veterans who fought there. I'll end with a photo of a REAL 2nd Division hillside patrol somewhere in Korea... Through all the horrors of that war, I would imagine that quite a few soldiers did admire the spectacular vistas which lay sprawled out before them.