I stared at them for a couple of seconds. “Are you kidding me? They’re rabbits!”
“Yeah but who knows where these rabbits came from.” I looked at the rabbits who only gave us passing interest.
“I think they are farm raised rabbits. They are probably used to being around people.” I replied.
One of them finally picked up the other end and we proceeded to go up the hill. Finally, after some times hiking up the hill, I heard a voice call out in distress.
“Wait, wait stop! Put down the cage!” We quickly put down the cage as I turned around.
“What’s wrong?!”
“One of the rabbits came over and sniffed my fingers.”
“So?”
“He could have bitten me!”
If you never went through the course, you are probably wondering what these rabbits were used for. Well for one, they were the food provided by the SF candidates to us “Guerrilla” fighters as an act of goodwill. Second, they would be used in a class about how to properly butcher an animal for consumption. I don’t know if this is standard practice, but to the best of my memory that class fell on the medic to teach. When the time came around, he gathered us together and took one of the rabbits out of the cage. Although he was teaching the class, it was quite obvious this was his first time. He came over stroking the rabbit with one hand. The rabbit seemed quite content, obviously used to being handled.
“Ok, you want to make sure the animal remains calm. You don’t want to distress or injure the animal unnecessarily, because it would deplete glycogen in the muscle and potentially spoil the meat.”
He was still stroking the animal, speaking rather calmly.
“The best way to dispatch an animal like this is to strangle it quickly. Break the neck in a quick motion.”
He stopped petting the rabbit while he was putting it down. With almost a yell, he tried to quickly break the neck of the animal, but didn’t succeed on first try. The poor thing was lying there, paralyzed but still breathing and alive. It took him several tries before he put the thing out of it’s misery. He tried another rabbit, only this time he place the animal on the ground and tried to pistol whip it with a M9 to the back of the neck. It didn’t do that much better.
To his credit, he did get better at it. And the rest of us was giving an opportunity to try with varying results. But I recall seeing later the foreign attaché who came in with the candidates, a Peruvian soldier, effortlessly dispatch a few rabbits with a swift flick of the wrist. I thought at the time he should have been the one teaching the class.
Animal Farms
Some days later, I was pulling guard duty at the main entrance overlooking the hill. I actually enjoyed it, because it was a rare warm day when the sun came out. I heard some strange noise, like grunting and looked down the trail. In the distance I could see a big hog, followed by one of the SF candidates. There was another hog followed by another SF candidate, both of whom were giving each other a hard time. It took them a while, but the first pair made it up (with the hog leading the way reluctantly). But the second hog was being difficult, and would constantly stop and refuse to go on. This would prompt his handler to respond by cursing and poking the hog to continue. They almost made it up to where I was when the hog, after seemingly tired of the litany of verbal and physical abuse started to waver and look the other way. The SF Candidate looked at it in exasperation.
“Oh you better fucking not.”
The beast turned around and tore down the hill at breakneck speed. The SF candidate gave chase, with a litany of screams and curse words one could muster from the entire English language. Of course I was rolling around laughing. It was some time before I heard the familiar sounds of cursing and grunting. The SF candidate was obviously very irritated and had now resorted to kicking the hog in the rear to get it to move up the hill. I guess I can’t blame either one of them. This time, he was successful in getting the recalcitrant animal into the our base, where both hogs were tied up near a boulder.
I was away on a mission when they slaughtered the hogs. From what I heard, the hogs gave a final act of defiance when it took more than one shot to the head before going down. We actually butchered, cleaned, and cooked the animals out there in the field. The food wasn’t for all of us though, we used it as a means to “reach out” to other guerrilla groups operating in the area and invite them to the feast. With the leftover rabbits, two hogs, beans, rice and various other foodstuff the other guerilla members brought to the potluck, we actually ate rather well. Beats daily constipation from MREs (Meals Refusing to Exit).
Although it was the tail end of the winter, there were some days it would warm up when the sun came out. When that happened, small lizards would crawl out and sun themselves on nearby rocks. I’m not a lizard expert, but they were probable Northern Fence Lizards or something similar.
I got good at catching them, since I was always given the important missions like guard duty and more guard duty. Part of it was because they were still, sluggish from the cold weather. The best way to catch them was approach very slowly and position yourself over them to the point they can’t react fast enough when you swoop down. They would see you coming, but either dismiss you as a non threat or think they can still get away at the last minute. I only bring this up because there was an instance when I saw one and decided to go for it. I stretched my hand out slowly, as the lizard only gave me passing interest. As I was about an arm’s length away, a giant fly came out of nowhere and landed on my hand. This piqued the lizard’s interest as it turned around to face me. I froze, not knowing what to expect. In a flash, the lizard was on the back of my hand, snacking on the big juicy prize. I had to go around the rest of the camp and convince them of the story with the lizard still balanced on my hand. And yes, this really happened, you didn’t pay a subscription to read made-up stories. Mostly.
D-Day
On the final leg of the exercise, Habu called us together, rubbing his hands with almost gleeful anticipation. He had just received news that the U.S. Military has decided to intervene and will soon invaded Pineland, ready to assist our fight against regime forces. We all gave a cheer at this announcement, less about the fictional account of our liberation from the Pineland regime, more so for the actual liberation to go home. By that time, I was half hoping for F-18’s to streak over the horizon carrying payloads of freedom, with waves of America’s finest jumping out of C-130’s like angels delivering salvation. But alas it didn’t happen. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up and breaking everything down. By this time, we had ended all pretenses about keeping an imaginary distance from the candidates and traded stories, cigarettes, and even leftover MRE and Pogey Bait we still had left. They were staying behind for a few days after we left the exercise, and they were still at the mercy of limited supplies to rely on. We climbed into the same trucks that brought us out to Paradise Pine back to the staging area at Camp Mackall, content that the liberation of Pineland was at hand.
Until the next Robin Sage exercise that is…
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