Slide for Life
Three Shouts Between Life and Death
This happened when I was serving in the military as a Ranger instructor for U.S. soldiers.
The American soldiers camped out in a valley at the Ranger school. There were more than thirty courses, ranging from PT and basic obstacles to mountain obstacles, and none of them could be called easy.
On top of that, the training was dangerous.
What worried me most wasn't the training itself, but safety. On some of the courses, one small mistake could lead to a serious accident, so I repeated the safety instructions again and again.
The most dangerous course was called "Slide for Life."
In this exercise, soldiers rode a metal cable about 150 meters down a hillside, dropped into a pond, and then swam to shore. It was a tough course.
The hill itself was about the height of a ten-story building, so simply standing at the top could be psychologically overwhelming. Soldiers with a fear of heights were allowed to do PT instead.
But in fact, the most frightening part of the exercise was not the height. It was the speed.
A pulley with wheels was attached to the cable, and once a soldier started, he came down at an incredible speed.
To keep the soldiers from focusing on that speed, we had them shout "Ranger" three times. The ride down lasted just about long enough for them to finish the three shouts. It also gave them something to concentrate on besides their fear.
Most of them, however, could not even open their mouths. The sensation of moving so fast startled them so badly that they completely forgot they were supposed to shout.
Some tried their best to get the words out, but it usually came out something like this:
"Raa-aaang-aaaahhh!"
By the time the chant had turned into a scream, they were already at the bottom, falling into a pond about six meters deep.
The instructors were waiting in black rubber boats. They were there to help anyone who could not swim, as well as anyone who entered the water incorrectly.
When entering the water, the soldiers were supposed to bend their bodies into an L-shape and enter butt-first.
If they went in standing up, the speed they had picked up on the cable could cause their bodies to fold forward, making their faces hit the surface of the water hard. Some ended up with bloody noses. Others felt dizzy for a moment from the impact.
Once this difficult and dangerous training was over, everyone returned to camp, changed out of their wet clothes, and attended the graduation ceremony.
They were given certificates of completion.
For these young American soldiers, the certificate was something special. So every now and then, there would be a soldier who insisted on doing a course that looked dangerous, even though the instructors were not forcing him to.
In the Korean military, however, there was a common practice of not putting soldiers who were about to be discharged through dangerous training. There was a kind of jinx about it: accidents happened more often just before discharge.
Young Korean men came into the military to fulfill their compulsory service, and they counted the days until they could go home. As discharge drew near, they naturally became excited at the thought of returning home—and, supposedly, that excitement made them careless.
I saw one of those accidents myself.
It was the day the final training had ended. The American soldiers had gone to change clothes for the graduation ceremony, and I was waiting for them.
That was when I saw some Korean soldiers heading up to do Slide for Life.
They began the exercise. One came down the cable. Then another. Then another.
Several minutes passed. Then I saw a medic suddenly running toward the pond.
There had been an accident. CPR began almost immediately.
I asked the American medic standing beside me to help. Two medics took turns doing chest compressions, but there was no response.
They took him to the military hospital, but he did not survive.
It was a heart attack.
The sad thing was that he was about to be discharged. He did not need to take the course at all. In fact, I was told that the instructor had even tried to talk him out of it.
Why?
Perhaps he had watched the other soldiers, trembling with fear, make it safely to the bottom and wanted to try it himself.
Or perhaps he simply wanted to complete every part of his military service properly, right up to the very end.
It was such a needless loss of life.
In the brief time it took to shout "Ranger" three times, the line between life and death had been crossed.
That accident changed the way I gave safety instructions afterward.
I added one more thing to the usual warnings: don't push yourself unnecessarily. Getting home was more important than completing the training.
Decades have passed since then.
And yet I still think about that day from time to time.
The image of the medic running desperately toward the pond. And the soldiers standing there, watching the man lying pale and motionless on the ground, hoping with all their hearts that he would come back.
Those images are still clear.
And yet the sky that day was perfectly clear.
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