Breaking up

Our engineering university required some physical education classes in the mix. Having had our fill of the more conventional type of gym classes in high school, my best friend Steve and I decided to get those college credits via US Army ROTC training instead.

There's a good chance Steve made the decision, and I just went along with it. In those days I was basically his side-kick in many things.

Most ROTC sessions were regular class room instruction periods, much like virtually all the rest of our college experience. Only here military instructors explained a bit about the history of war and the US military, as well as the basic strategies and tactics in modern conflicts.

But on occasion we did something different, such as examine and disassemble military firearms; do live fire target practice (shoot guns); participate in marching and maneuvering drills. Stuff like that.

On still rarer occasions we'd have field exercises or competitions. For instance, regarding orienteering-- or navigation of wilderness utilizing map and compass.

These field exercises and related major events usually took place on Saturdays (or entire weekends)-- for they required a lot more time and sometimes other resources too than were available for the more usual classes and schedule.

In some of these special events we also learned and practiced things like rappelling down walls or cliffs-- including one method called the Australian, which was basically diving down the rope with practically no braking at all due to especially dangerous conditions, I suppose. Like enemy fire, or the necessity to jump someone immediately below you.

Steve and I didn't especially like the military. We basically took the ROTC training to avoid what we regarded as the still more annoying regular gym classes. Plus, as we came from a hometown sometimes bristling with guns and fury, I guess we figured we'd feel more at home in ROTC than more conventional gym classes, too.

Basically we tended to think the whole military protocol thing to be a bit much. And weren't too keen on being marched or ordered around in any serious fashion for more than a few minutes at a time, either.

Fortunately our red-headed, eye glass wearing, main instructor Captain Tailor was well aware of the general tendencies of his students, and adapted marvelously to them. Or else was following a really devious plan to make us think military life was more laid back and relaxed than we might expect (right...).

Captain Tailor was by far Steve and mine's favorite among all the military personnel we regularly dealt with in Tech ROTC. He reminded me personally of Dex Vincent, a teacher in training at our high school whom we'd gotten chummy with.

Don't get me wrong though: Steve and mine's somewhat cavalier attitude to the training was not shared by everyone at Tech. There definitely existed too a 'gung ho' hard core faction of ROTC students-- especially among those who signed up to go beyond the basically civilian stage in which Steve and I were enrolled. Once or twice some of these guys showed up in our regular classes as Rangers-in-training (or something like that), and were very into just about everything regarding war and killing. Those guys Steve and I just rolled our eyes at-- after they'd left the room with their weapons, of course.

Another of the true military personnel on campus was Sergeant Whittaker.

Sergeant Whittaker was our instructor on rare occasion-- or for more specialized topics, perhaps. I can no longer recall now exactly what his classes were about.

No, what I recall most about Sergeant Whittaker today is his end.

Sergeant Whittaker often gave the impression he was awfully tightly wound. Like maybe what those young Rangers-in-training might turn into another ten or twenty years down the road.

Sergeant Whittaker wasn't particularly tall or big. But he had a strong and intense look about him. And he got his hair cut by shaver. So he was essentially bald.

Add this baldness to a bullet-shaped head with body to match, and you got a pretty aggressive looking character.

Sometimes Sergeant Whittaker would tell jokes which seemed to highlight the turmoil simmering within him. Not particularly funny jokes. But those around him would nervously laugh at them anyway, perhaps in the hope that he wouldn't suddenly explode like a bomb in their midst.

Don't get me wrong here: Sergeant Whittaker was also a somewhat likable guy. At least most of the time. It seemed obvious he was just incredibly lonely, and maybe suffered from some combat-related psychological problems too.

I personally felt a lot of sympathy for the guy.

But there seems to be quite a lot of poor miserable folks like Sergeant Whittaker out there. It'd take somebody a lot smarter and richer than most of us to figure out how to help them. So none of us students concerned ourselves too much about Sergeant Whittaker when he wasn't around.

It was Fall quarter of 1972. I almost hadn't returned to Tech at all for my second year, hoping to instead stay in Texas and get married. But the girl I meant to propose to was suddenly killed in a job-related accident. So it's safe to say that I wasn't the happiest guy on campus either, during this time.

A very brief improvement had come and gone in the form of a female graduate student from Taiwan. But she suddenly got called back home-- abruptly disappearing from my life-- much the same as Bridget had, not long before.

So this was the beginning of my second year at Tech, and my class schedule once again included some ROTC.

During that quarter there came along maybe the biggest ever event in our ROTC training so far: a weekend trip up into the mountains involving maybe the majority of all first and second year current ROTC students. Including some girls! Yay!

Steve and mine's own usual ROTC class had no girls in it at all that I can remember. But apparently they did exist somewhere in the program. We'd also seen evidence of this previously in field exercises like the orienteering competition.

This particular weekend may have been wholly optional on the part of the students; maybe we'd have gotten extra credit by attending; or maybe Steve was sick, or otherwise engaged that weekend. I can't recall those details now. But for whatever reason, Steve wasn't there.

Maybe I mainly went in the hope to meet girls. Or maybe I just wanted something different to do, and didn't have any more appealing alternatives. I'm sure I didn't need the extra credit-- for I did very well in my ROTC classes.

We didn't use a bus or anything like that for the trip. We all or most of us drove our own cars, forming a convoy with someone leading the way in an Army truck. So I drove Shadow. Thank God!

The camp was pretty far out in the boonies. Fairly hilly and wooded boonies. We all parked our cars in a large grassy field surrounded by wooded hills. There were a few camp buildings at one end of the field, such as a large open-air but screened-in eating area, basically consisting of a great concrete slab floor, covered with a single large roof supported by wooden beams, and containing plenty of picnic tables and benches. The other buildings there were smaller, but with solid walls all around. I can't recall the purpose of the lesser structures; I don't think we had anything much to do with them during our stay.

That field and attendant buildings where we parked was just our arrival location. The main events for our weekend would occur elsewhere. For once on foot, we were all led up a winding gravel road, to a group of cabins hidden on one of the surrounding hillsides.

Whoever was in charge seemed to be keeping a pretty loose rein on us that evening. Or maybe I've just forgotten some of the activities which went on then.

Apparently Captain Tailor wasn't there. Or any other of the ROTC instructors, but for one. And seemingly none of the Rangers-in-training, or similar folks either. Looking back on it now, that was definitely odd. So we had a dearth of authority figures with us on that trip. But none of us students really cared, or took much notice of the fact.

I remember a bunch of us locating one cabin which was larger than the rest, and having a little party. I'd brought along a boom-box, so we had music too.

I can't recall exactly how many of us there were. But I think it was less than thirty. I believe guys outnumbered girls by three or four to one. I quickly found myself left out in the cold, girl-wise. As did many other fellows.

With the supply of girls quickly depleted-- and there being no alcohol or anything else for a different type of recreation-- the party died down pretty early.

Yeah, it was a sad little affair, considering everyone in attendance was college age. I'm sure many church picnics or eight year olds' birthday parties are wilder and more raucous than our little ROTC get-together there was.

I took my boom-box to the cabin I'd previously staked out for the night. It was a four-bunker.

Though the cabins may have offered sheets and blankets for the bunks, I preferred my own sleeping bag.

The cabin was relatively small. Basically one room with bunk beds built into two walls which faced one another. The cabin's door to the outside defined the cabin's front, while the back end was solid wall (no window). You could look up and see the rafters supporting the standard A-framed roof overhead.

I say the cabin was relatively small because all its few features were built over-sized. Each single bunk might could have held three people sleeping side-by-side. The beams used in construction were pretty hefty. You could easily stand up on your knees on the lower bunks (and maybe even jump up and down that way) without hitting the upper. A guy nine feet tall wouldn't have bumped his head on anything while pacing back and forth through the middle of the cabin.

I don't know if all the small cabins were the same as that one. But most of them seemed to share the few or no windows aspect.

I think it was maybe 9 or 10 PM when I bunked down. Yeah, pretty early. But definitely after dark.

I personally was most concerned about insects. I didn't want anything crawling over me or biting me while I was there-- especially while I was asleep. At that time I had a mountain-climbing sleeping bag, equipped with a hood and drawstring that allowed me to fully enclose myself while leaving just a small hole in the area of my face to let in air. So after switching off the cabin's single central incandescent bulb, I mummified myself.

I was just drifting off to sleep when I first detected something unusual. At first I did nothing but stay motionless, and listen. Then there it was again: a rustling in the cabin. But I was alone.

I slowly opened up my sleeping bag for a look around. But after I emerged I saw nothing.

After another instance or two like this, I climbed completely out of the bag, switched on the light, and closely examined the cabin interior as best I could. Looking particularly for snakes. But found nothing. What in the heck could be causing that noise? I wondered.

I hadn't been back in my bag for long when two more guys showed up to claim a couple more beds. I was glad for the company, due to the ongoing intermittent rustling. I figured maybe the additional people would make whatever it was go away, or perhaps one of the new guys could find it and fix the problem.

No big deal, I thought. I did inform them of what I'd heard, and my suspicions that we had an unseen room-mate of some sort, so they'd want to keep an eye out. And once again the light was switched off.

After the other guys had settled in too, the rustling noise returned. Like me, they looked around and found nothing. We discussed the matter a bit, but couldn't figure out much to do about it.

We decided to leave the light on inside the cabin, so that we might get a glimpse of whatever was making the racket. We didn't like the idea of trying to sleep under the light, but it seemed like a prudent measure at the time.

I'd camped out under far worse conditions than this before, and only rarely had animal problems. Fellow human or insect problems were far more prevalent, in my experience.

But the noise kept coming and going. Becoming truly annoying for anyone wishing to sleep. And it seemed to be getting louder. Then there came a point when I seemed to feel a vibration accompanying it in the heavy wooden beams of the structure itself.

What the hell!? That suggested something big!

Again I tried peering about the cabin surreptitiously to catch a glimpse of the noise-maker. I was trying to move as little and slowly as possible so as not to spook whatever it was. For the thing had an almost supernatural knack for turning invisible on you.

That's when I saw it. And it was horrifying. At least to me, and in that moment.

It was the biggest rat I'd ever seen in my life. Somewhere between the size of a small and medium-sized dog. On the opposite side of the room from me, but just maybe eight feet away in straight-line distance. And it was fast.

And no: this was no possum-- which at times might be mistaken for a big rat. This was definitely a rat.

As of today (2010) I've only seen in real life rats of this size twice. Here in the cabin was my first.

To be honest, my memory of the next few minutes is jumbled at best. But I sounded the alarm for the other fellows, informing them of the monster roaming literally within inches of all of us, walking on the wooden rails at the sides of the bunks and sniffing at us, apparently trying to decide who to eat first.

I also scrambled out of my sleeping bag and grabbed my stuff, informing the other two guys that no way was I going to sleep there tonight.

Yeah, you can call me a wimp if you want to. But why risk getting hurt or infected with rabies or something if you don't have to? I had a choice there: fight the monster, or not fight the monster. I chose to let the monster do whatever the hell it wanted in that case.

I seem to remember one guy acting paralyzed with fear for a bit after beholding the beast. But the other wanted to fight it for the cabin. Well, good luck! I told him.

The rat had disappeared again after I'd alerted everyone. Maybe the guy wanting to fight it hadn't seen it before it vanished this latest time. Or maybe he was just crazy.

I don't think either guy had anywhere else to go, having ridden up there with someone else. Me though, I had Shadow. It may be I offered to let them sleep in the car too-- while warning them that at least one of us might have to sit upright in a car seat all night-- and they declined. I can't recall. But under the circumstances, I think I would have made them the offer.

Maybe they were more afraid of the dark walk than the giant rat; I don't know. I just knew I wasn't going to sleep with that thing!

Although there may have been available spaces in other cabins-- or entirely empty cabins-- remaining in the area, I didn't seek any of them. No, it was hard to tell which cabins were now occupied, and to what extent.

Plus, for all I knew they might all have resident rats. Yuck!

But it was very dark outside. The camp had very few outside lights. And the cabins were removed from the parking area by a fairly long gravel road winding around and down the hill.

I also had no flashlight with me. I recall straining to see ahead on the way down the hill (my night vision was nowhere near as good as Steve's).

Thankfully there was some moonlight that night. But very little of it could light my way down the road due to the thick tree crowns overhanging the course.

I stopped about half-way down the hill, when I saw something which looked like an enormous snake laying square across the road in my path. It was huge. It was hard to tell if it was moving or not in the darkness.

I'd just come from seeing the biggest rat of my life. So there was little doubt in me that I might encounter the biggest snake next (though it did seem like quite the unlucky coincidence).

I examined it from a distance for a bit. It didn't seem to be moving. Was it dead? Was it truly a snake? It was so damnably dark under the trees that I wasn't sure of anything.

It stretched too far across the road to go around. And seemed too scary big to try jumping over. All the snakes I had experience with could move pretty fast when they wanted. I also wasn't sure which end was the head, if it was a snake.

I didn't want to go off the road into the blackness of the woods to get around it. Not in a place like this with giant rats and giant snakes(!)

I backtracked a bit and found a long stick. Then I returned to the snake-thing and began gingerly testing it with my stick, staying ready to run like the wind.

But tests showed it to be limp. I got braver, and soon found it was merely a piece of really thick and heavy rope laying across the road. Rope bigger around than my wrist. Like you might see on a sea-going ship.

I got a little angry at whoever had left it there-- as well as embarrassed that a mere rope had held me up like that. But at least no one had been there to see it.

I sure didn't remember noticing the rope there on the walk up in daylight!

I continued on down the hill road, making it to the deserted parking area. Then climbed into Shadow, onto his spacious, carpeted rear interior shelf, now fairly well lit by moonlight streaming through the huge rear window overhead.

Something jarred me awake, not long at all after I'd fallen asleep.

What the heck is it this time? I wondered. I figured maybe someone else had come down the hill to sleep in their car, and their door slam had awoken me.

But then I heard more noises. They were either gunshots-- or really big firecrackers going off-- somewhere in the distance. Not in the parking area itself, but elsewhere.

What the hell was going on? I wondered. I sat up and examined the grassy parking area, the other cars, and the buildings in the moonlight, through Shadow's wealth of windows. All was quiet in my immediate surroundings.

Then I heard another not too distant explosion. And maybe other sounds-- but I wasn't sure what they were.

I tried to ignore it for a bit, figuring it was nothing important. But it kept happening. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out any good reason for that sort of noise to be coming from up the hill at that time of night.

It kept nagging at me until I knew I'd have to go investigate before I could get any sleep. I hate it when that happens.

I put my shoes back on, rustled up a flashlight from Shadow's store, and headed back up the hill again. Stopping first for a moment at the foot of the hill, to acquire a decent walking stick (just in case I encountered another unexpected thing along the way). The night air seemed a lot colder now. The occasional strange bangs and other noises were still present. The other noises sounded a little like either strange wind behavior�or the voices of excited or frightened people.

Again, I wondered what the heck could be going on up there.

As I got closer to the source of the ruckus I decided it wise to act more covertly, switching my light off, among other measures. For the racket definitely sounded threatening now.

Sometimes I heard the loud voice of a single man yelling amidst the cabins. Then shots. Definitely gun shots. And scared wailing and pleading sounds sometimes coming from the cabins the students were staying in.

Holy crap!

Somebody was shooting up the place! And everyone was trapped in the cabins, afraid to emerge and make a run for it.

I crept nearer in an effort to learn more. But I truly didn't want to get shot. Or trapped, like everyone else.

Holy crap: it occurred to me there might be more than one shooter. But after some more scouting around, I concluded that there seemed to be only the one.

And who was that one? Poor old Sergeant Whittaker. He'd finally lost it. Been wound up way too tight for way too long: his spring had finally broken. My eyes welled up at the thought. For I knew something of how he felt: intense loneliness and isolation; feeling angry at the whole world, and wanting to fight back against everything which had led you to this point-- but having no clear way to do it; feeling like you have nothing, and yet wanting everything...

But I decided I'd have to feel for him later. At the moment he was a danger to himself and others. Shooting randomly at the cabins with a semi-automatic pistol, as he walked about the middle of the place.

I had to get help!

I carefully backed myself out of the danger area, then ran down the hill road back to my car, and its CB radio. The radio and antenna were both brand new; recent replacements for a set up I lost to lightning in Texas the summer before.

Unfortunately, I couldn't raise anyone on the radio. Maybe the terrain was blocking me, or we were too far from civilization. Or the time of night meant there were too few in the area with their ears on.

I was tempted to just drive out and go for help. But it'd taken us at least a couple hours to get here. It'd likely take roughly that long for armed help to arrive-- atop however long it might require for me to contact such help in the first place. No matter how fast I drove.

I was afraid the students might not have that much time left. Heck: some of them might already have been shot! Maybe that was part of what the wailing from the cabins was about!

But even if no one had yet been wounded, Sergeant Whittaker could at any moment start battering down doors and shooting everyone in the cabins at point-blank range.

This was awful. Just awful. I didn't want to shoot the Sergeant! He needed help! Not a shot in the head!

But what else was there to do? I was sure I couldn't talk him down: it seemed the others had already tried and been terrorized for it.

I reluctantly pulled out my shotgun and revolver, and loaded them. Put on my scramble vest, and added some extra rounds from Shadow's main ammo supply to those normally kept in the vest's pockets. I also made sure I had some pen flares. Although I much preferred my flare pistol over the pens, it seemed far handier to carry the pens in this instance. I had a leather belt holster for my 38 snub-nose. specially molded to my gun's shape, with thumb snap at top. It was secure, yet made for a fast draw too. For it took only a natural flick of your thumb as you grabbed for your gun to release the snap. I slid my holstered pistol onto my belt.

I debated for a moment the merits of taking my hunting knife, but in the end slid its sheath too onto my belt.

I couldn't know just what all armament the Sergeant might have access to up the hill. He could have full bore military issue up there. So I figured I better go loaded for bear. Again, my eyes welled up with tears that I had to blink back. A little from fear of what was to come. But mostly from sadness. Sadness for myself, and for the Sergeant. As well as for every other human being on the planet, who found themselves being unfairly confronted with choices like these. I hoped Sergeant Whittaker would peaceably end his rampage before my return to the cabins.

I considered a couple strategies, like driving Shadow to meet him, or leaving Shadow in the parking area but switching on his siren as a distraction. But I saw problems with both of those.

My best course seemed to be just walking back up and trying to take him by surprise. Disable him if I could, without killing him.

But I figured he'd fight to his last breath. For I thought I knew how he felt.

Sergeant Whittaker needed somebody.

But all I had to give him was me.

My third walk up that hill was one of the worst I ever experienced. I was loaded down with my guns, vest, and extra ammo. It all felt really heavy. Much heavier than usual.

Regrettably, not a lot had changed by my return.

The Sergeant's rage was still flowing. He was still roaming the camp like a wild animal looking for a meal (I hoped he hadn't already hurt someone).

I'd loaded my 12 gauge pump with all shot, no slugs. I was hoping that that would be sufficient.

I tried to get myself into a good position without the Sergeant seeing me.

It helped somewhat that I'd been sneaking around in the woods of east Tennessee off and on since around age eight. Sometimes in the dark. Once or twice even in pitch blackness, where you had to feel your way for every inch of movement. I'd also on occasion done this in the face of serious danger from man or beast. But much more often such jaunts had been for fun.

I wasn't well-camouflaged, either. I had some Army face paint in Shadow, but hadn't thought to use it-- and maybe wouldn't have even if I had. Partly because I'd been unsure how much time the trapped students had left. My scramble vest was basically a very light brown-- almost golden colored-- hunter's vest. My pants were moderately faded blue jeans. My shirt at least was gray. My 12 gauge was dark due to the normal gun bluing. My 38 pistol was stainless steel, but the metal mostly hidden while holstered, and the finish somewhat dull and non-reflective anyway.

My main cover consisted of careful use of intervening vegetation, slow and quiet movements, and seeking shelter in the darkest shadows around. I tried my best to shield my eyes from the few shining lamp posts situated around the camp, in order to maintain my night vision. Those same lamps helped shield me from Sergeant Whittaker, so long as he stayed much more heavily immersed in their light than me.

I knew I had to exercise extreme caution here. For Sergeant Whittaker had been heavily trained to fend off attacks just like this. Hopefully he was drunk or high on something, and couldn't think clearly at all in terms of repelling my attack or killing me. Maybe I'd have the advantage of him having lost his mind. But in all those cases there was no way to know how much of the trained soldier might still be there. And military training is meant to shape your very being, down through the subconscious and even unconscious levels. Make you capable of instinctively responding to any threat like a warrior, with no need to think about it first.

Thus, in theory even a total nut-case, drugged-out-his-mind soldier, could be extremely dangerous.

I surely had surprise on my side. For I was fairly confident he was unaware of my leaving the camp considerably earlier. His crazy side probably thought he now had a whole weekend during which to terrorize the students, before anyone began to miss them.

Maybe that's why he hadn't burst into any of the cabins yet-- so far as I could tell.

The collection of cabins weren't laid out in any nice and neat pattern. They couldn't be, due to the spot their builders had chosen to put them.

Basically the cabins sat in a clearing surrounded by woods on every side but where the access road came in. This clearing may have had its trees and underbrush removed, and some grass planted to replace them, but it had by no means been further civilized. That is, the ground underneath the cabins was the very opposite of flat and consistent. Like the rest of the immediate area, the clearing terrain abruptly rose and fell feet at a time, within only a matter of yards or meters in most directions. It was very broken and jumbled, with frequent rocky outcroppings of various size sprouting from the earth. It reminded me very much of large sections of rough, rocky pasture land one of my grandfathers had owned when I was a child, and in which I'd often played cowboys and indians with my siblings and cousins.

Such terrain could be dangerous even in daylight if you didn't watch your step. Especially for adults (kids have much shorter distances to fall, and less weight and momentum to bolster the risk of serious injury). And here, there was mostly dim moonlight and maybe a couple lamp posts to illuminate the entire camp of a dozen or so cabins.

The builders had simply placed the cabins wherever they could find reasonably flat spots of the necessary size among all the jumble. They'd also tried to make the fronts of all the cabins more or less face inwards to a meandering central path which tied them all together. The nature of the ground meant some cabins sat as much as twelve feet higher than their closest neighbors. Most stood at least fifteen to twenty feet from the central walk. The edge of the surrounding woods came as near as five or six feet of separation from some cabins, while being as far as twenty yards or so from others.

The tumbling nature of the ground, the surrounding woods, and the unusual placements of the cabins meant both the Sergeant and I would enjoy plentiful spots for cover-- but rapid movement over substantial distances could be filled with stumbling blocks and pitfalls: literally! Under these circumstances, shadow filled depressions like water filling pot holes, masking the depth of such hollows. And the color of certain other terrain features of a projecting or protruding nature made them show up not at all visually, in the current level of darkness-- shadowed or not.

How was I going to do this? I wondered. I considered just firing a warning shot, but was afraid that with his training he might immediately after find and kill me.

I decided I couldn't take any chances with him. I'd have to shoot to injure, at the very least.

But again, I was afraid if I didn't injure him sufficiently with my first blast, the end result might not be any different from firing a warning shot. Agh!

Holy crap!

The Sergeant was walking right up to my hiding place! In a flash, I realized this might be my best ever chance-- plus, I was scared that maybe he'd spotted me, and was going to suddenly pounce on me when he got near enough.

So I aimed my shotgun at his middle, and pulled the trigger. He was awfully close at the time-- like twenty feet or so. He fell backwards. The sound of my single shot echoed off of the surrounding hills. The camp got awfully quiet; the students seemed to recognize my shot as sounding different from the Sergeant's pistol firings.

I didn't know what to do next. I considered my next move, as I stayed quiet and in place where I was, trying to determine if I'd have to shoot him again, and desperately hoping the answer would be no. It appeared I'd gotten him full in the chest though.

Holy smokes! Suddenly the Sergeant startled me by rolling over and away from my line of fire, and then racing towards cover. With an agility which seemed impossible after getting blasted in the chest like that.

Oh shit! I barely got myself well-covered before a flurry of slugs pelted my position.

Damn it! I couldn't believe it! The Sergeant was moving like I hadn't injured him at all! Had I somehow missed him? And he'd just fallen backwards for cover reasons?

The Sergeant only seemed to be equipped with something like a 45 caliber pistol at the moment. But under the circumstances that might be a rough match for my shotgun. A 45 is a world-renowned man-stopper. A single hit from it, and a little guy like me would probably be finished. And the Sergeant might well be an expert marksman with it.

I sent a couple buckshot rounds in his new direction, apparently inflicting no damage.

This was getting truly scary. It was too dark, the Sergeant should have been dead (or at least badly wounded), and now I was facing a trained soldier, with no telling what sort of other weapons stashed around the place. It was like my own personal horror movie.

I badly wanted to raise the Sergeant's own uncertainty level too. So I pulled a flare pen from a vest pocket and launched a mini-fireball into the vicinity of his present cover, lighting up the place better, and maybe posing a whole new threat to him.

He sprang away from there to a new spot, faster than I could shoot him. But at least he'd moved farther away from me. In that moment, I thought farther was good.

Holy crap! Another several pistol rounds slammed into stuff around me. I felt flying debris cut me, but it didn't feel like anything serious (I checked the site with one hand, and didn't detect anything more alarming about it).

I pumped several loads of buckshot at his new position, then let fly another flare. He moved again.

I was certain I'd hit him with that very first shot. But I couldn't deny his apparent lack of injury now. Could it be he was on some sort of powerful drug which numbed him? Enabled him to continue on a while, beyond what should have been a killing blow? I'd read somewhere an account of why the US military had switched to 45 caliber pistols over 32s, long ago. The reason had been an American engagement of Filipinos in the Pacific. The Filipinos had taken some sort of drug which made them almost impossible to kill quickly with .32 rounds; they'd just kept on coming. Long enough to often savage the American soldiers who'd shot them. Switching to .45s had seemed to fix that particular vulnerability.

But the present situation still made no sense. At the range my 12 gauge buckshot had hit him, it couldn't have spread far enough to amount to something as limited as just two or three .32 impacts.

The Sergeant seemed to be headed towards a particular location: maybe to his personal armory. Holy crap! I couldn't let him get to it! He might have grenades or machine guns or anything in there!

I hurriedly refilled my shotgun magazine. Then tried to simultaneously cover myself, and hold him in place in his present location, with near continuous blasts, as I made my way to another position myself, nearer to him. I got some small comfort from the fact that he still acted like my shots might harm him, if I hit him right. He didn't behave at all like he thought himself to be bullet-proof.

Then I repeated my maneuver, moving still closer to him.

At that point he had no choice but to fire back as soon as he had an opening.

But I kept up the pressure, partially reloading my shotgun and coming at him again while shielded by its withering protective fire.

To tell the truth, as I write this decades later-- and no longer own the particular shot gun described here-- I'm unsure if it held seven or eight rounds in its magazine. But the magazine was roughly as long as the gun's short, rifle-like slug barrel. I only mention this for those used to shotguns holding far fewer rounds than that, which wouldn't have been nearly as useful in a gunfight such as this.

I couldn't know how many rounds the Sergeant had left in his pistol-- or how many spare magazines he might have on him-- but I definitely couldn't afford to let him reach weapons more substantial than his .45. He'd surely fired at least a dozen rounds-- maybe two-- since his gunfire had first awakened me in the car. Which I thought might account for somewhere between two and four clips-- as I seemed to recall standard .45s sporting seven round magazines. I knew about the weapons due to the research I'd personally done before choosing my own gear.

I believe my steady shotgun fire, accompanied by my relentless advance, forced him to use up his remaining ammo in an attempt to slow me down or get in a lucky shot. There'd been many times in my life up to that point that I'd wished I hadn't been such a small and skinny fella-- but being a smallish target may have saved my hide here. I finally managed to reach his cover, ready to shoot him then and there-- only to find my shotgun empty.

Yes: that was one hell of an uncomfortable moment. There was no way I could have attempted a reload right then. So my shotgun was suddenly nothing more than an unwieldy metal rod. So my survival then pivoted on the fact that I'd brought more than one firearm to this gun fight.

I still had my 38 Special revolver, and began shooting him in the torso over and over again with it, as he desperately sought new cover. I'd simply dropped my shotgun to the ground as soon as I realized it empty, and performed a quick draw of my pistol all in one motion.

(I'd made sure all my weapons' safeties were off before I'd even started up the hill this last time)

Yeah, yeah: the inexperienced shooters out there might ask why didn't I try shooting him in the head or arm or leg instead? Especially at such close range?

The short answer is you always aim for the center of your target-- especially on the run like this. That's your very best chance at injuring or stopping someone. You're far more likely to miss smaller targets like heads or limbs. Shoot for the exact center every time, and even when you're somewhat off the mark you should still do damage.

Plus, the only way to guarantee a hit from a decent stopping caliber snub nose pistol is to have the muzzle right up against the target (because of the recoil): I don't care how much target practice you do. So you better be aiming at the center of your target, if you can't press the barrel right up against them.

I'm sure Sergeant Whittaker would have agreed, in his more lucid moments.

I was certain I hit him at least once more, but still he sprang away again! Whatever drug he was on seemed miraculous in its effects.

This time though he was forced to change direction away from his cache, and to a particular cabin close by. He seemed to barricade himself inside there, based on the racket I heard.

The cabin appeared to be just like the one I'd previously vacated, with only the single entry/exit door, and no windows.

I retreated to the edge of the nearest woods facing the cabin door maybe ten yards away, and waited for him to come out, covering the door with my now fully reloaded shotgun. I was very glad for the new turn in events, for my revolver only held five rounds, and no way could I have reloaded it under the previous circumstances. If the Sergeant hadn't ducked into the cabin I almost certainly was about to have to run for my life myself-- away from him. In my new hiding place I was able to restock my pistol as well.

Thankfully the two fires started by my flares hadn't had enough fuel to spread very much in the cabin clearing.

I simply stayed there watching the Sergeant's cabin for the next while. I didn't know what else to do. My hands had shook so badly during the reloads, it took me several times longer to restock than usual. I felt weak all over for a bit, there. The Sergeant's seeming invulnerability to my blasts had badly shaken me. In years to come, it'd spawn countless nightmares of foes I could not stop with my weapons.

Maybe a couple hours after the commotion had died down (and I'd had some time to recover), one male student dared to emerge from one of the other cabins. I watched him cautiously look around the place for a few minutes. When his movements brought him into easy earshot of me, I yelled out a warning, and he froze.

"Please don't shoot me!" he pleaded, holding his hands up like he was surrendering.

I yelled back at him with some fresh info and instructions.

"The guy you have to worry about is Sergeant Whittaker. Right now he's in that cabin ahead of you, on your right. He's gone crazy. I've got a shotgun pointed at his door if he tries to come out again. I need you to tell everybody else in camp to leave immediately. Go down to their cars and leave. Before the Sergeant comes back out. Hurry!"

Yeah, in the real instance I was a bit more wordy and less organized. But that was the gist of what I told him. And soon the camp was well emptied out.

I remained in place for a while after all the students who could had escaped. Wondering all the time if it was safe for me to try leaving too. I was afraid though that the moment I turned my back, he'd be out of that cabin and on top of me.

Eventually though-- with still no sign of him coming out-- I decided to try to make my own escape. I sneaked away from the camp, staying inside the tree line, skirting its edges, until I reached the road. My progress was slow and agonizing over all the near invisible obstacles in my course, because I was afraid to turn my back on the Sergeant's location. Only once I passed the first bend in the road did I turn and break into a dead run down the hill. I ran for all I was worth all the rest of the way to Shadow-- fearing the whole time that the Sergeant might be right behind me. Terribly winded, I threw my shotgun into the passenger seat, jumped in the car, and got the hell out of there.

I was disappointed to see there were still a few other vehicles in the lot (besides the Army truck I assumed the Sergeant had driven). I hoped that didn't mean someone had gotten killed, or left behind. Or was being held hostage by the Sergeant in that cabin. I'd heard no indications of others being inside with him.

But I figured that was for the professionals to deal with. The freed students would surely be reporting this to someone very soon. The only further thing I could think of to do about the situation was either escape, or give the Sergeant another chance to kill me.

I think I was so out of breath from the run that I was light-headed for the first few minutes of the drive out. And fearing the Sergeant might burst out of the woods somewhere along the way, to get me anyhow. For the road away from the camp was scarily meandering. It was easy to imagine a worst-case scenario where the Sergeant could still have caught me some distance away from the camp, on foot, simply by luck, or virtue of knowing a short cut.

And even after I no longer felt under threat of foot-pursuit, I worried about seeing the Sergeant's Army truck's head lights appearing behind me. What-ifs involving the Sergeant and bazookas or grenades or an M-60 machine gun spun through my head. I think I took Shadow up to 90 or 100 mph a few times along the way back to Tech, wherever I thought it reasonably safe under the circumstances on the rural highway. To reduce the Sergeant's chances of catching up to me.

That night/early morning I was far too scared to return to my dorm room. For what if the Sergeant had recognized me? And knew where I lived? He surely had access to my school records. But I was also afraid he might recognize my car if he saw it. So when I reached my campus town, I just kept going. To a point maybe 20 miles out of town, in the opposite direction from the camp. I did a slow back and forth survey of the vicinity there, and soon determined a decent little hidey hole in which to park. Then sat there, awake, for a long time. Dawn broke, while I waited. Around lunch-time I figured it was okay to start back to Tech. For surely everybody was after the Sergeant by then, and he'd be too busy to be looking for me.

Still though, I was cautious in returning to my dorm room. Fortunately, no one was waiting in ambush for me there. I finally got into my room (carrying my loaded 38 in a pants pocket), locked the door, put my gun on the floor under my study desk (where I could easily reach it on short notice), and passed out on the bed. My musician room-mate of the time was gone for the weekend.

I was so exhausted, I thankfully did not dream.

So what was the final tally?

Amazingly enough, there was only one fatality that night. And only one person shot. Sergeant Whittaker himself.

But no, my own shots had barely fazed him. For he'd been wearing something like a bullet-proof vest or flak jacket that stopped most or all I gave him. And my very first blast had been so close the shot hadn't had the chance to spread out and possibly do significant damage where he wasn't so well protected.

No, Sergeant Whittaker committed suicide, using his own weapon. According to the news I heard.

Maybe he eventually left the cabin for his cache, and shot himself then. Maybe he still had one bullet in the cabin itself. I don't know. But I didn't hear any shots inside the cabin while I was covering it.

All the students escaped more or less unscathed. The Sergeant had possessed no hostages. The cabin had been empty when he charged into it.

The extra cars in the lot were due to some of the students piling in with others in their haste to escape.

This was one of my closest calls ever, law-wise.

Thankfully none of the students knew who'd chased Sergeant Whittaker into that cabin, and held him there at gunpoint while they escaped. Even that guy I'd instructed to get everybody out hadn't ever seen me sitting there in the dark of the woods. Remember too that none of the cabins had windows. Plus, it'd been pretty dark throughout much of the camp (but for a couple instances of flare pen fireballs in action).

Heck: I'm not sure if even Sergeant Whittaker himself could have identified me, had he survived.

Thank God it hadn't been one of my shots which killed him!

In the years following, I'd sometimes wonder if the Sergeant did in fact recognize me-- one of his own students-- standing up to him there, in that dark and lonely place. Recognized me, and held back his last 45 shell rather than shooting me with it, when my shotgun ran dry. Recognized me, and retreated to the cabin rather than jumping and killing me bare-handed, when my shotgun struck empty. Recognized me, and purposely spared me, due to some last bit of human conscience and compassion still flickering somewhere deep inside his own personal hell. I'd wonder if he realized-- if only for a moment-- the horrific nature of what he was doing, and turned one last time to grapple with his own inner demons; to force himself into the cabin, to give me and the others a chance to escape. A chance to avoid accompanying him into the abyss.

For between his flak jacket protection, and my stubborn notion that I needed to target what was essentially the center of that protection with my rounds, he might well have had no reason to fear my 38 in that fateful moment.

He might could have killed me anyway. With his bare hands. Even as I ineffectually expended all five rounds into his jacket.

Yes, I've often wondered if that was the Sergeant's version of my own close call with the school bus full of kids, not long past.

Did a ghost visit the Sergeant too, after that? Inside the cabin? I hoped so. A kind and compassionate ghost. Like my Bridget.

Only a minimal investigation seemed to be done into the matter. Partly because the evidence seemed clear that in the end the Sergeant had killed himself. Sure, there were hints of someone else helping put an end to his rampage, but no eye-witnesses to their identity. Sure, I was questioned a bit. Along with everyone else. But I had the alibi of having left the cabin area quite some time before, being scared off by a giant rat: and two other guys to back up my story. Along with-- believe it or not-- the dead giant rat itself! No kidding! Somebody had actually snapped a photo of it the day after the incident, and sometime later I got to see it myself.

Once the Sergeant had begun his rampage, my two cabin-mates had definitely been trapped in a dire situation with the king rat inside the cabin. Death had literally been awaiting them outside. And it was them or the rat inside. And unfortunately for the rat, the appearance of a gun-firing maniac outside suddenly made even a huge rodent seem much less scary by comparison.

I don't recall those guys having any better weapons at their disposal than maybe their shoes, blankets, and pillows. Perhaps one of them had a belt, too. Hopefully they had at least a single small pocket knife between them, as well. Sheesh!

The struggle had to be very near to bare-handed, and in awfully close quarters.

I think the two rat-fighters accumulated the most injuries of all the students there that night. Including me!

So anyway, the whole rat thing turned out to be pretty handy. You might even say the rat saved us all. For my chances of success would have been substantially slimmer if I hadn't already been outside the camp when the Sergeant went feral.

The ROTC students on campus had their own ideas about the camp's mystery shooter. Many were sure it had to have been one of the senior student Rangers-in-training, or maybe some military pal of the Sergeant's who suspected he was about to go mentally AWOL, and so tried to minimize the collateral damage stemming from the event. In both cases, there'd been no sign of such persons accompanying us on the trip from campus. So they would have had to be waiting for us when we arrived, or secretly come in sometime afterwards.

And yes: Steve himself had to suspect me of being the culprit. For we'd accompanied one another into action before. But at the time he knew it was a very dicey situation, and it might be best to keep any hard information somewhat compartmentalized between us. So I think he tried his best not to press me on the matter. And as time passed, it just turned into one more thing flowing under that proverbial bridge.

For a while after that, I kept my guns and ammo stashed away somewhere other than my car or dorm room. And just hoped I wouldn't need them for anything during that span.

Luckily it turned out neither the college or the ROTC department-- or the US Army-- really wanted a drawn out and in-depth investigation of all this, making for newspaper article after newspaper article to scare off present and future students and recruits.

Plus, to the surprise of no one, the Sergeant had no family prodding the investigation from that direction.

I didn't exactly lie when questioned. Technically, I believe everything I told them was accurate. Thankfully the questions they asked me personally weren't nearly as probing and exhaustive as they could have been. They never did single me out for any special focus. Just the one brief Q & A session in a city police office, by appointment. They mainly seemed interested in how well I'd known the Sergeant, and if I'd spent any time with him outside of ROTC classes or events; met any of his friends-- especially other soldiers. Stuff like that.

Yeah, if they'd pushed me very much at all I might have admitted my role. But luckily they didn't. Plus, surely I wouldn't have been imprisoned for what I did. After all, somebody had to do something!

I was afraid though that if the truth got out about what happened with Sergeant Whittaker, I might get thrown out of school. Or get fined, or my guns confiscated (I couldn't afford either!) Or the public-at-large might find out about it (I was already black-listed on way too many girls' date rosters). Or maybe I was wrong, and I would get imprisoned(!) Yikes! I simply could not stand the idea of being jailed. Even just for a period of months. If I got the chance, I'd run for it first. And living on the lam 24-7 was a whole other thing I didn't want to have to do. I'd already had several small tastes of that, and didn't like them at all.

Too, if the camp thing became known, the authorities might start digging into other matters in my past...matters where my own legal liabilities might be still worse. And Steve and others might get into trouble as well. Yikes!

So I had plenty of reasons not to volunteer any info on this matter. The way I saw it, absolutely no good could come of it: only bad.

Fortunately, all that blew over more easily than expected. Although it did add considerable strain and stress to the remainder of that quarter for me at school (atop the anguish I was still feeling over Bridget's death). My schoolwork suffered, as I had difficulty concentrating on it. I kept worrying about how the camp thing was going to turn out; kept expecting the law to suddenly show up without warning to arrest me on campus somewhere.

It didn't help my worries any when such an event did actually take place. Only it turned out they weren't after me: they were after Steve! Yes, Steve got seized right out of a calculus class one day, that same quarter. Right from the seat next to me. I was stunned when it happened. Especially by it being Steve rather than me they were after.

As I often mention in these accounts, Steve had his own adventures: many of them much wilder than mine. This incident was related to one of those-- and not at all to Sergeant Whittaker(!) But that's a tale for Steve himself to relate someday (fortunately Steve wasn't detained for long on this particular occasion).

Enduring the agonizing week-after-week-after-week wait for this school quarter to end eventually seemed worse to me than my shoot-out with the Sergeant! For at least the gunfight had been mercifully quick by comparison.

If you get the impression I got very antsy there, you're getting it right. There seemed to be no way for me to know when the investigation truly ended, and I was finally safe. I soon literally ached to leave the place, as I stayed so tense much of the time that I would hurt all over at night.

But I was afraid to leave school before the quarter officially ended. For I thought that might make the police take another (and closer) look at me.

Finally, I'd just like to say I wish Sergeant Whittaker could have had a better life. One which wouldn't have left him broken and desperate like that at the end.

He deserved better.

How a patch of this ground might have looked in daylight.

Here's a scan of my Army ROTC training certificate (with privacy-sensitive bits blacked out).