The Gift of Adversity

252 Pages·2017·1.43 MB·English

by  Remy French

i
ii
Copyrighted Internationally
© 2017 Marcus Aurelius Anderson Publications
All Rights Reserved
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, or mechanical,
including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage
and retrieval system, without written permission by the author.
All translations of this work must be approved in writing by the
author. Please contact author for permission to translate and
distribute.
iii
Table of Contents
Chapter I – Sweet Dreams 1
Chapter II – Scrubs 7
Chapter III – War of Heart 21
Chapter IV – Epiphany Ever After 35
Chapter V – Back to Basics 47
Chapter VI – Know Thyself 69
Chapter VII – Shark Bait 97
Chapter VIII – Say Uncle 131
Chapter IX – First Class 163
Chapter X – Thirsty 191
Chapter XI – Whitebelt 221
Chapter XII – Recap 237
Gratitudes 241
Acknowledgements 243
iv
v
The Gift of Adversity
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest of souls.”
-Khalil Gibran

This book is dedicated to all whom find themselves
in the midst of Adversity.
-Marcus Aurelius Anderson

vi
vii

Chapter I
Sweet Dreams
"You're never more alive than when you're almost dead."
-Tim O'Brien-

Deadline.
The word sounds rather ominous as if someone's drawn a
line in the sand and once you cross it, you're no longer alive.
Thursday 04:30
My alarm is going off. I roll out of my warm bed and sleepily
look out the window. It's snowing, again. It hasn't stopped
snowing from the previous day and night. During the
winter months at Ft. Drum in upstate New York, it was
always snowing. Located roughly 30 miles south of the
Canadian border and coupled with the lake effect from
nearby Lake Ontario, precipitation was a constant year-
round. I put on my long thermal underwear and socks as I
checked the temperature. It says its -5 degrees outside, but
the wind chill factor says it feels like -20; a perfect day for
a ruck march in the 10th Mountain Light Infantry division.
This morning we are going to stretch our legs with a 10-
mile, 50% ruck march. The "50%" signifies the amount of
1
your own bodyweight that you pack into your rucksack. I
still smile when I think of the irony of such a name, "Light"
Infantry. The rucksack I was going to be carrying today
alone was 90 lbs. Then add to that our full Battle Rattle of
50 lbs. of plate body armor, a Kevlar helmet, my M4
carbine, and three quarts of water that inevitably froze
during the march. The ice and snow made the load we were
to bear for the next 10 miles feel even heavier. There was
little that we ever carried that was light, to say the least.
"Light" Infantry my ass.
The crowning jewel of our combat ensemble was our gas
masks designed for combat in chemical environments.
These were employed on our march to create artificial
oxygen deprivation simulating conditions in the mountains
of Afghanistan. Though it may sound extreme, these are the
methods that are required to prepare us for war in the
Korengal Valley.
These marches began at a standard ruck marching pace.
This can be anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes per mile
depending on the snow and ice, but every platoon in our
company was incredibly competitive so these marches
would always end up turning into more of a jogging pace as
each platoon would push ever harder to try to outdo the
other.
Originally a Light Infantry unit specializing in mountain
warfare in arctic conditions, 10th Mountain was activated
to battle the Nazi's in the Mountains of Italy during World
War II. 10th Mountain’s illustrious military history
includes deployments in Operation Desert Storm,
Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi
Freedom; as well as other peacekeeping deployments. 10th
Mountain is known for being featured in the book
"Blackhawk Down,” which was later made into a movie
chronicling The Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.
With our inevitable deployment approaching, this meant
the already intense training was taken up a few notches.
2