I got to spend a week in the swamps of the Florida panhandle for what we called Block 5 of our schoolhouse. I think I got about two hours of sleep that week because a fellow student got lost during the night navigation final, but otherwise no sleep during this Monday to Friday exercise.

The day before I had been saddled with humping the radio all day instead of switching off like we were supposed to. Just add it to my misery, not like it was going to kill me.....

....well not yet.

Saturday morning we're due to go home BUT someone, not me, lost his dummy rifle yesterday so we have to search for it. How do you lose a big piece of plastic dummy-corded (tied) to you? After a couple hours of searching I have to cross yet another creek. This one's not quite like the others, more narrow and the water seems still. Hell, I think I can jump it!

Of course I completely forgot about this radio I'm still hauling around. It sticks up above my head some and it smacks into a branch. I go into the water and instantly I'm up to my armpits, mostly in mud. The creeks normally come up maybe waist high. Fortunately for me I'm able to grab the offending branch and hang on for dear life. I'm yelling for help, swearing like a sailor, and desperately trying to feel for a bottom... I can't.

My classmates come rushing & see my predicament and start laughing. They have no effing clue how perilous my situation is and I've definitely already shit and pissed myself. They help me out, i.e. rescue my ass, and boy do I reek. I'm muddy up to my armpits and the shit outside my clothes (thankfully) smells worse than the shit inside them.

I got to finally hand off the radio and clean up before we head back to base. Never did find that dummy rifle and my classmates never did find out about my shitting myself, well maybe now 30 years later (Hawk 31)! I suspect one of the instructors realized the danger having us all spread out in the swamp was.....and wrote off the rifle.