“Raider”

By Gary L. Macnamara LTC IN (USAR – Ret)
Originally published in the February 2017 Sentinel

So, you thought that the United States Marine Corps had the only “Scouts and Raider Course.” Well another elite organization had a unique “Raider School” and I was privilege to attend this fine course.

In the summer of 1967, I was assigned to “A” Company, 2 Bn. 505 PIR, as an infantry platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division. I had returned from a nine-month tour with the 2nd Bn. 508 PIR in the Dominican Republic the previous year and was transferred to my present assignment in the 3rd Brigade. I was one of the senior platoon leaders in the Division.

MG Herbert Seitz was our Commanding General. MG Seitz ordered that one lieutenant from each rifle company be sent to the Raider School. The Raider School was an intensive three-week course that had been set up as a leadership school modeled on the Army’s Ranger School at Fort Benning, GA. The school was established to improve leadership skills among the Division’s non- commissioned officers. The reasoning was that if the school was good enough for the NCOs, it was good enough for the officers.

I reported to the School with my good friend Richard (Rick) O’Claire, “B” Company 2 Bn. 505 PIR, and we were paired up as Raider “buddies.” We were an effective team and we later attended Ranger School together (but that is a different story.). We concentrated on the same skills as Ranger School. We had rappelling, survival training, hand to hand combat and patrolling.

We conducted reconnaissance patrols, ambushes, patrol plan- ning and many of the tasks that are taught at the Ranger School at Fort Benning. We learned how to cross danger areas, land naviga- tion, stream crossing techniques with poncho rafts and generally how to survive on very little food. Of course we were always sleep deprived, because there was so much to teach in such a short period of time.

During the rappelling training many of us had to report to “Captain Rock,” elevate our feet on the rock and perform the required push-ups for minor errors and transgressions observed by the cadre. Unlike regular infantry training, Raider School was especially demanding. On the day that we had rappelling, Lt. Van Landingham was performing the body rappel. The line was draped between our legs across the front of our body and over our shoulder. Van had started down the side of the tower, when his hand slipped and the line ran down the inside of his leg. He fell for a good 20 feet before he was able to stop and the instructors ran to him. He sustained a major rope burn to his leg behind his knee and was unable to continue with the training. Many of us learned that the line would bite into your shoulder, so we placed a demolition card under our shirt to prevent injury. When the demo card I had under my shirt slipped, I sustained a very painful rope burn injury to my left shoulder. I never reported it because I wanted to stay in the course, but it was very painful because our field harness kept aggravating the wound. I still have the scar over that shoulder to this very day, almost fifty years later.

We also had survival training. Raider “Rick” and I were given a live chicken and we had to kill it. In true “Raider” fashion we did not just wring its neck. One of us had to bite the chicken’s head off and pass the bird to your buddy who drank the blood. I bit the head off and Rick drank the blood. My chore was less messy than his.