Date: 2018-07-29
To: Antlers Camgrounp
Miles today: 0.0

........ The rain was a steady peaceful sound and the distant lighting was the perfect environment to put on my headphones and listen to music on my IPOD to fall asleep to. The constant sounds of loons across the lake combined now with bullfrogs croaking and those weird bugs in the trunks of the trees was more than I could resist so I decided to take off the earphones and listen to and watch natures concert. The distant lighting was lighting up the inside of the tent with the shadows of the tress reflecting down on the rain fly. The thunder was slowly getting louder and the time between the flash and bag was now around 12 seconds, about two miles away. I remembered being up at Marilee¢s family cabin by Grand Marias Minnesota close to the BWCA and Lake Superior. I knew she loved going up there as she loved to fish, especially the walleye from the lake the cabin was on. I wished she could be here. I loved that not only she liked to fish but she loved to eat them even more. She would literally clean them on the spot, coat them in a flour batter and fry them golden brown. We would make a home-made tartar sauce topping off without the best fish I have ever eaten. The more I thought about her the more I realized that over the years our vacations were really my vacations were really my vacations. Sailing trip here or bike trip there, etc. I promised myself that the next vacation would be what she loved to do no matter what ¢ of course as long as I could go along. I smiled hoping that somehow my brain waves were telling her to schedule our next adventure. What happened next is beyond words I simply cannot really describe. The best analogy I can come up with is image a young adult living in a very rural Midwest farming America in the mid 1800¢s, educated, hardworking the land, and void of anything technology. Then they are without warning suddenly in a huge IMAX theater with Dolby surround sound, vibrating seats showing a 3-D version of Jurassic Park. They simply would not be able to describe to anyone what they experienced and most would think they were delusional to explain huge dinosaurs come towards them in a tropical world beyond anything they learned in school. For me that is how I feel trying to explain my night.  It was a combination of emotions, and image snippets of my life in both a chaotic yet understandable pattern telling me a story. There were no words, there were no voices, there we no one else there and I simply laid there. I saw Riley as he was hiking the first part of the trail and the frolicking the did with other hikers begging rubs and trying to get them to play with him at night by the campfires we had. I laughed out loud at the thought then it turned to the night he almost died. I could see every second of that night and felt every emotion I experienced that night like is was happing now. I only glimpsed of that night in my early log but the details were clear and now. That night Riley and I reached Neels Gap Georgia. The temps were already dropping and the forecast was for heavy rain, wind and snow mixed overnight. I set up my hammock on top of a small hill then headed down to a large campfire other hikers had going. Riley and I spent the evening talking with them for about two hours before the fire began to die down and everyone decided to hunker down in their tents as misting rain began. I knew from the previous three nights that Riley was cold so I tried to see if you would sleep in my hammock with me but to no avail. He wanted nothing to do with that hammock and jumped out so I tried to use my extra blanket in addition to the two blankets I brought for him to create a shelter under my hammock and large rain fly above me. Because Riley had over the last few nights decided to sneak out and go visit other hikers, I decided I would keep him on the lease attached to my wrist. As the night progressed, the rain got harder and now a wind was rocking my hammock with me in it. I looked down and kept arraigning Riley¢s blankets to keep him protected. Around 4am I awoke to realize Riley and the lease were no longer there. The night on the mountain was pitch black and I was a little frustrated I would have to go find him. I turned on my flashlight and began to scan the hillside hoping to see him. I was quietly calling out Riley, Riley when leaves by a tree about twenty feet away moved. I called out Riley again and his head popped up. I called him but I could see he was having problems so I scrambled out of my hammock. He saw me coming and tried to get up but each time he kept falling over. I knew at that moment he was in trouble. I got to him and realized that both he was in far more serious trouble than I thought and knew my trip was over. Riley was dying. He could barely hold his eyes open, could not stand up and was shaking so hard I knew he could not help himself. The rain was relentless and all I could do was hold him and comfort him in a pouring cold rain. I knew I had to find a way off that mountain yet knew there was simply no help anywhere. I started to cry in my tent just like I did that night blaming myself for what I knew was going to happen. He was going to die. Then I saw a flashlight, then a second flashlight coming towards me. It was the same hikers I shared the campfire with just hours earlier. The first immediately helped carry Riley back to my hammock and blankets, while the second, a woman ran back to her tent and pulled out her own sleeping bag, helping us get Riley inside it. Then more hikers came, two running back to restart the campfire with left over wood that was protected by an old structure from early days. Within minutes a half dozen hikers that I never met in my life came to my rescue. These were the same young hikers, like Jessica I met at Mount Katahdin, with weird long hair, dirty clothes all smoking pot the night before that I mentally judged harshly because they were different from me and in some way I believed not as good as me. By 6am the rain stopped and pre-dawn sunrise began to lighten the sky and mountains. We moved Riley and I, still in the woman¢s now soaked sleeping bag to a building that housed an outfitter business during the day. I had hoped that when they opened at 9 I could at least try to call for help. Two more hikers, Dr. Longspoon (he was not really a doctor, just his trail name) and Sassy approached. Longspoon  indicated he worked at a veterinary clinic and was studying to be a veterinarian. He took one look at Riley and stated Riley was in severe shock and that I needed to get him off the mountain and off the trail for at least three days of full rest. Sassy took out her own sleeping bag and hood to cover Riley in a dry bag with down to keep him warm. Riley was still shaking violently and other than opening his eyes like he understood we were helping him would close them and fall back to sleep. When the store opened Sassy went to call a ¢Trail Angel¢ to arrange a ride from Neel¢s Gap to the Top Of Georgia hostel up the trail explaining the situation and asking if they would allow us to come with Riley to recover. The Trail Angel arrived around 1pm in the afternoon. Longspoon and Sassy stayed with me until the angel arrived. The hostel was great and other hikers helped me around the clock taking care of Riley. He never even got out of my bunk for food, water, anything. He simply slept all day and all night. By the third day I could see he was recovering. To this day and this night, I could still see all of their faces, Dr. Longspoon, Sassy, Percy, Sweet Feet, Stink Mouse, etc. etc. that group of misfits I so wrongly judged were more than just good people, they were honorable people and they were heroes who selflessly saved my dog. I think of them often and I wept this night as I did that night remembering them.   Then the next story began. This time about one of the lowest points in my military career and one of the proudest moments in my military career. The military unit I took over in 2000 to command was on the verge of being decommissioned. Several commanders had been fired, investigations of wrong doing showed this was a unit out of control and void of any values or honor. Somehow they felt they were there to party. The unit was categorized as non-mission capable, meaning they we incapable of meeting any standards to mission readiness and doing their job. At the request the local command structure asked the Air Force for a year to turn the unit around. By 2001, serious housecleaning resulted in the departure of those responsible, leaving the door open for junior leaders to take over. The Air Force came back and completed and IG Inspection, testing the ability to prove itself. This band of misfits and new comers not only proved their worth with a score of ¢Outstanding¢ but achieved a feat never accomplished before, a perfect score. No errors, no corrections, just perfection in everything they did. 9/11 came and now it was time to test the real capabilities of this unit.  At the time I was deployed to Andrews Air Force Base Crisis Action Team. An organization dedicated to operationalize units against mission orders and deploy them to combat operations. I saw my unit was ordered to support and deploy with the Army¢s elite 82nd Airborne in an initial drive into Iraq and into the heart of Bagdad in the opening days of the Gulf War. I headed back to select the team including SMS Bob Simpkins to lead the team along with TSgt. Gardner and Christen with extensive experience. I took 12 members into a classified room to explain what is happening to them and what the mission was. Amongst them was Sgt. Brittney Brodin, Sgt. Elissa Magee both just 20 years old along with Sgt. Hanson. I could tell all were shocked as they knew they were going into combat, not just what you see on TV but real combat with real weapons and real people shooting at them. Sgt Brodin quietly raised her hand to ask a question which was ¢¢¦ I joined the Air Force so I could go to college¢¦ what does this mean¢¦¢. I chuckled a little in my head and explained it was time to pay back all that Air Force tuition she received. These were still kids in my eyes and I knew they were scared. By the time they completed they mission they drove with the 82nd Airborne directly into Bagdad in what is now considered the fastest, farthest, most mechanized troop offensive drive in modern warfare history.  My lowest moment is when I got a call from the base classified command post asking if I had turned on CNN News. Of course they could not reveal any classified information over the phone but as soon as I saw the news I knew it was bad. They were deployed to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) and were under fire from unknown sources. The battle was still on as CNN was reporting it indicating casualties were reported. I thought my lowest moment would becoming the first commander at the base to lose a member¢¦ until my phone rang. It was Sgt Magee¢s mother in panic wanting to know if her daughter was alive or dead. Of course the only way she would have known is if Elissa herself let her mother know where she was going. A no-no, but understandable a child confiding in her mother. Neither the command post or myself had any information to know who was injured or killed. As I had done before in my career before I became a commander, I punted the answer rather than being comforting and straight forward. I should have told her the truth that I did not know but that I know the team she is with are the best of the best and that I would keep her informed. Instead¢¦.I simply lied to her telling her that I already talked to the team and her daughter was safe and alive. I gave a mother false hope. I lied to a mother frantic about her loved one. I gave her the answer I knew she wanted to hear and that would help get me out this conversation. As I hung up, I realized how I dishonored and selfish I was. I betrayed her confidence in me and could not comprehend how terrible it would be if the worst was reality. I accepted that I was nothing more than a coward and I never felt lower than I did at that moment. Potential tragedy turned heroic as the command post called me in. It was a call from SMS Bob Simpkins informing the team was alive, safe and did their job with professionalism and honor, something I knew had none but now hidden by the turn of events. Never again would I lie. The team returned heroes to the base. Siren¢s blasting with lights flashing bring the team from the Minneapolis Airport back on base. Family, friends, base personnel were all there to greet them, including Elissa¢s mother who hugged me. I felt as low than as I did in that call. Now my proudest moment. The leaders and those ¢kids¢ proved they were responsible adults and professionals under the most extreme conditions one could imagine. For his bravery under fire SMS Simpkins received the Bronze Star with Valor designation. The rest of the team received the Meritorious Service Medal and those two girls, well¢¦. I got a call from the recruiting office wanting to know if MaGee and Brodin could be available on a certain date¢¦ available for what . For their actions and participation in the largest offensive in history the President of the United States wanted to meet them. The day came and Air Force One landed. I along with other base personnel would be able to watch from a distance as my commander, General Terry Tripp escorted Magee and Brodin to the steps of the aircraft as President George Bush descended to meet them. I watched as they chatted, shook hands and exchanged coins, giving the president our unit coin and he giving them his presidential coin. I stood there not at their commander but as ¢dad¢ proud of his girls. I started boasting to everyone around me that they were ¢my girls¢ and I could not have been more proud of them at that moment. In the end I reflected on all of the unit now deployed all over the world over three continents resulted in the unit twice recognized as the NGAUS Outstanding Unit award, an award recognizing the top ten best units in the entire inventory and the U.S. Air Force Collins Award, recognizing the best combat weather team in the Air Force inventory. As I smiled in the tent about those heroes, my mind shifted again this time to growing up and my mother. I had for years struggled with my mother and the life we led. Things as child I watched and endured as I grew older I simply could not forgive my mother for. How could a parent do such things not only to a child but her children.  As far back as I could remember I resented her and upon her death I felt no sympathy, just relief. My sister for decades told me I had to forgive her but I never could come to terms and acceptance. Yet this night I it was different.  I cried and laughed as my brain danced across everything she did for me. I saw the nights she would stay out with me watching the stars, something I now love doing with Marilee under the Colorado skies. I saw the hours she spent hand sewing patches onto my scout uniforms, or the baseball game she took me too. I grew up in a very poor family, where a father and husband disappeared to never be seen or heard from again, left a mother of four girls and one boy just days old with nothing. Yet I saw how my mother would hunt for coins so we could have bus fare to get to those games, or take me shopping to get gifts for Christmas. She made every holiday special, fun and good. I could remember specifics meals she would cook for us and she was a great cook who found a way to stretch every dollar to house and feed her children.  In everyway that night all I could see was goodness in her. We lived in a period of time that divorced mothers were seen negatively and children of divorced families as broken and to be avoided. Life for me was tough, not have a dad and having a last name of Darling was open season by bullies that would punch me, hurt me, call me names and make fun of me, and destroy my stuff. As that story ended in my brain, I realized I was weeping with tears streaming down my cheeks onto my camping pillow. The tears were not of sadness but of joy. Who was I, I was thinking, to judge someone who found a way to survive and be a mother in so many ways. I accepted that for a woman with five children including a newborn baby left penniless by a selfish coward and alone in the 1950 was actually an amazing person, and her actions, like many of mine that I am not proud of were as out of desperation and fear. I looked upwards and quietly thanked her for giving me life, for taking care of me, and in the many ways showing me love. I told her she did not need my forgiveness because she did nothing anyone of us would do under the same circumstances. I apologized for not crying or caring at her funeral and told her that I loved her and missed her, and I hope that whatever her future holds that it will be great and she will be happy. She earned that in my mind. By now the thunder and lightning was dancing directly above me, rain pelting the tent. I remember putting on my earplugs to listen to music and that was the last thing I remember of that night falling asleep wondering what just happened and how amazing it was. I awoke to an absolutely beautiful day. The rain stopped and the view of the Maine wilderness on a small speck of land called Antlers Campground was what I always imagined. I knew today would be a great day and as Eddie and I began hiking out, all I could think of quietly hiking behind him relieving the night before. I awoke a different person that went to bed the night before. Somehow many of the questions I have been asking all my life were answered and cleared. Somehow I was at peace with myself and felt good about myself. I remembered that woman Jessica at Mount Katahdin and I kept asking myself, as she stated, that somehow if I asked a god I never really believed in for help, in fact does exist and somehow communicated with me.  As a scientist by nature and experience I kept coming to one and only one answer. A god far greater than anything I could imagine does exist and does listen. I stopped on the trail as Eddie walked on and looked skyward and said quietly  ¢¢¦Thank you God ¢¦¢ and a moment later I hear the sound of a loon. I smiled and started laughing out loud wondering if he replied back.