Night Land Nav was last night. I really can only equate it to those times when you were a kid and you had to wash dishes by hand even though there was this invention called a dishwasher. When you asked "why, oh why must my hands suffer?" you were told that it 'builds character.' Insert your similar childhood experience if mine doesn't suffice.
That is what I figure Night Land Nav is- a character building experience. Because other than that, I'm not exactly sure why we do it. There is nothing tactical about stomping through the woods, walking into trees or the straight out curses from poor Lieutenants unfortunate enough to get caught in the Razorblade-trees. However, now that it is done, we were all able to get a good laugh at the scrapes, tumbles and misfortunes of the nights events.
To start the night off, we gathered in the classroom about 2000 (8pm) and were given our box cards to find. The instructor went through the safety brief and one of the points was to wear goggles or eye protection. One of the Lts in my platoon brought out his goggles and I said, "I'd rather poke my eye out than wear those stupid looking things..."
1 hour later, the horn blast signals the start of the event. I set up my compass and take two steps into the tree line when *Whack*, I get poked in the eye with these stupid pokey razor blade sharp invisible leaves. I fell in agony like Ralphy in the "Christmas Story." At this point, I go internal.
[Internal is a term used in Marine Officer training to describe someone who doesn't care about anything else around them and only can think about how sucky life is for them.]
I pulled a card with long distances, which isn't always a bad thing but for some reason got into my head. My first box was 840m distance and through two streams. My internal land nav was telling me that I was traveling in circles. I kept telling myself that the box had to be through the next clearing but I felt like I was never going to get there. I took 3 major biffs and stomped through two streams but finally made it to a box.
Basically, all my other boxes went the same. Got coordinates, stumbled, clawed and crawled my way through the forest and got to boxes. There were a few streams, major draws and hills, spider webs, and little invisible trees I kept walking into but the worst were the razor blade leaves. I got several serious pokes in my eyes, one major slash across the neck (which I wondered if I would have to improvise a field expedient trach out of my map pen) and lacerations across my face. I felt beads of wetness dripping down my neck, and face which I thought would be pools of blood from all the cuts, but it turns out it was just sweat and I was just being wimpy. I only had one tiny scratch across my neck. Like I said, I was internal.
When my card finally was graded I apparently had drifted a box on two boxes and ended up with a 90%. I was fairly happy because the guy in front of me had apparently drifted so much at each box his only good news was that he would "get to practice again tomorrow night." It seemed that most people ended up drifting boxes here and there and I think my problem was following the red lights at the end. Lts were allowed to use their red flash lights to check their box number. So if you saw red lights, you knew there was a box close. The two boxes that I drifted on were the ones that I saw lights, then put away my compass and walked out. Next time I'll probably just follow my azimuth all the way out.
All in all, at the time it was not fun, but I can look back at it fondly now that I don't have to do it again. Until Final Night Land Nav that is...
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