I could see the zodiacs start to slide back off the ramp towards the water.  As the front end of the double duck cleared the ramp I thought “did people just follow out really close…?”  

That evening I was running the safety boat team consisting of one American manned zodiac and two Malaysian manned zodiacs in roughly a triangle allowing visual verification that the safety team was ready.  As we watched from out on the water the chopper came over, ramp open, red lights on allowing for those inside to maintain their night vision once out of the helo.  We were closing out the helocast training with “double duck” night iterations.  Two zodiacs are stacked bow to stern in the helo.  The bottom is nose in, the top nose out.  They are lashed together and go out as one.  Once in the water, you swim to them, cut the lashings, separate the boats, mount the engines, and off you go just like that and nothing ever goes wrong.  

As the troops swam and rallied on the boats after the cast I saw three individuals rapidly transferred to a Malaysian safety boat and moved to shore. We later found out that they had held onto the life lines on the perimeter of the boat vice the bow line.  700lbs. of boat left the ramp and off. they. went.  Sadly the first guy out hit the wooden transom on the top boat banging his head pretty good.  The second guy hit the first guy’s head and the third guy hit the second guy’s head.  In daylight, I am sure it would’ve looked like a scene from the Three Stooges.  They were whisked away so fast that we did not really know what happened until the next day when we saw their faces were all lumped up and fortunately no real damage was done.  “You told them to hold the rope” said Sgt. Johnny the Malaysians Commandos version of Sgt. Rock said.  He strutted about with clear authority and admiration of the commandos. “No, we said to hold onto the bow line.” I stated flatly.  Notably, he’d done zero training with us.  He was just present to share his knowledge and wisdom at various events throughout the day.  No way.  We had done multiple iterations without problem, demonstrated this, and finally allowed them to be the bowline team culminating in night double duck iterations, then this happened.      

A couple of weeks prior to this it all began after the epic trip from the U.S.

“Of course we can swim, we are Malaysian Commandos!” echoing in my brain as we tried to manage the situation. Being on a SCUBA team my team was largely in charge of the water operations training consisting of boat operations – zodiacs (rubber boats) and kayaks. I made a tactical error I never made again. I asked the Malaysian commander if his guys could swim. The answer spoken above with an air of “how dare you ask such a question” turned out to be patently false. Our team could have held a simple swim call under the guise of PT, water polo, or something to get them into the water and make a rudimentary assessment. Face in Asia is a real thing and this would have avoided the “test” metric and allowed us to get a look at them.

Instead, we were helo-casting from USAF HH-53 half a mile from shore in roughly 20 feet of water. We were doing what was known as a “soft duck.” That means we had a zodiac on the helicopter, nose in. The chopper would fly normally then descend and slow down and get to 10/10 – 10 feet off the water and 10 knots or slower and slower. Once at that altitude the cast master (sounds cool but it was just one of us with some rudimentary commands making sure it was safe to exit) would say “go” and you’d push the boat off the ramp while holding onto an extended bowline and follow it out one behind the other in a linear fashion.

For instructional purposes for the first several casts, we led the way holding onto the boat followed by the Malaysians. Myself and the Team Sergeant going last. The technique was not to let go of the bowline (the prop blast would push the boat away and if you lost the line in certain conditions that could be catastrophic) and that those soldiers once in the water and safe would swim back towards the aircraft pulling the boat so all could get in. Everything was going as planned. The aircraft was at the right height and speed, all the troops were tuned in and paying attention. “Go” was given and out went the boat and we all followed. Once in the water, it all changed. I was the last one out jumping from what I assess was roughly 15ft. A common occurrence as the weight lessens in the aircraft it has a tendency to rise. I jumped, tight body position into the water, sub surface four to five feet and swim back up. 

Surfacing, I looked up and the boat was a solid 25 yards away. Malaysians were swimming to it many frantically. All the Americans were still in the water and several commandos were nicely ensconced within the boat ignoring other Malaysian that were flailing wildly mere feet away despite the assistance of third world floatation devices. They literally were ignoring the situation. We were dumbfounded. Like a man struggling in the water mere feet from you can be completely ignored (nothing like the satisfaction of saving your own life).

We all saw what was happening. My guys closest to the boat started grabbing those closest to them and pulling them toward the boat. The bowline crew continued finning back towards the mass of people in the water. I started grabbing the struggling Malaysians from behind and pushing them toward the zodiac. Most immediately relaxed as soon as an American grabbed them, thankfully not attempting to drown us too. We were successful in that all got in the boat. Once in and despite our shock, we treated it like it was no big deal not wanting anyone to lose face.

We returned to shore, my team gathering alone off to ourselves. All of us were in disbelief and discussed in very soldierly terms what had just happened (think of a Shock and Awe campaign using F-bombs). We had multiple iterations that day and needed a new plan. Two of my team would continue to be the bowline team and swim it back while the rest of us went last and once in the water would push from the back as necessary until all were in the boat. It worked. We also alerted those in the safety boats to be extra vigilant and pay attention. What I find fascinating to this day was that the Malaysians seemingly took some comfort that we would save and help them but culturally would have no issue that others would not – we never figured this out.

We were rotating different groups of Americans and commandos through the water training. We discovered jellyfish were in the water (Hey is your face stinging? No, but my legs are… excellent!). I told one U.S. team sergeant “you need to wear some pants, jellyfish.” “Ching ching?” (roughly translated as seriously? in Thai). “Ching ching brother.” And we all started training in our uniform pants. Another grizzled team sergeant called out to me “hey Chief – good training today.” “Thanks John!” “Confirmed for me that I am supposed to operate on land.” He said smiling.

Folbot kayaks are folding kayaks with a collapsible aluminum frame and a skin made of tough fabric with a waterproof coating. These are man-portable 2-man kayaks and pure fun. If you’ve ever 2-man kayaked you know what I am talking about. Then add cultural and language differences and wala – double fun! There are steering and cadence (front man is cadence, rear steers), launching and recovering, capsize drills, and lastly the military component of loading them with equipment thus sucking the fun right out of it. Climbing into a kayak in the open ocean is where it all happens. The frontman literally climbs onto the front of the kayak Kuala style, arms, and legs wrapped around the hull to steady it, while the back man gets in. Once in, the front man shimmies forward to get in as the back man “slaps” the water with his paddle to keep it from rolling. Suffice it to say this takes some practice and usually results in yelling or laughing, I went with the latter.

Interestingly Special Forces teams generally did not get along except when expertise is required. Special Forces teams have common tasks they all do and everyone else is jacked up in the way they do these save for “our” team. However, when you go outside what is common to all, water ops for example, you earn respect for what you do. It’s an interesting dichotomy.  

After two weeks of water training, we were ready for the “jungle training” from the Malaysians for the next week.

This actually started off with an airborne operation. Traditionally this happens at the beginning of the exercise but for reasons I can’t recall this is where it fell. It was a “surface of the sun day” in Malaysia, well over 100*F and max humidity to boot. The jump was standard fare. We used U.S. parachutes and Jumpmasters allowing for an exchange of wings once we were all assembled on the ground.

The funniest thing that happened is the Malaysian had some kind of kool-aid-like drink that smelled and tasted like Glade Air Freshener (mmm mmm). Jumps are long arduous processes that literally suck the life out of you. I have always said that the military makes things so miserable that you’ll do anything just to make it end. Say like jump out of a plane. Anyway as we conducted the jump, out we went, landed, gathered up our chutes and gear, and walked to the assembly area resulting in a completely sweat-soaked uniform. As we entered the lunch tent completely parched there sat a table of Glade in beautiful glasses complete with condensation, crying out for a heat exhausted paratrooper to take a drink. Oh and we did. You easily get to the third or fourth gulp before you realize that you just made an error. Then, as a goodwill ambassador, you try not to react spitting it out or loudly proclaiming (in those same soldierly terms above) your distaste.

Suffice it to say it became a completely entertaining people watching event. Ensuring all U.S. troops did not miss their chance to enjoy the delicacy with all of us stifling laughter and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Then we rolled into our training.

“I think he can smell me…” I said to my teammate. The Malaysian training this day was learning “man tracking and jungle survival.” I am certain the soldier speaking grew up in a loincloth trotting barefoot across the jungles of Borneo and could in fact tell I was there in the jungle just by sense of smell. He was talking about tracking a man across the grass of a field and into a wall of jungle growth. “Do you know which way he went? He asked. Inquiring of the path of the soldier that had walked through this area earlier. Through the grass was not really difficult once you’ve found a footprint and at least one other in order to get the distance of his gait. Use a stick to measure this then just walk it along from foot print to foot print. Then he went into a wall of jungle. “Do you know which way he went? Repeated. The group of Americans was silent. He walked over to what essentially was a wall of jungle and pointed to a leaf slightly outta synch with the others. I was in utter disbelief. Not on my best day brother would I ever see that….

We practiced moving through the jungle, the commandos pointing out various things including a Bamboo Viper nicely wrapped around the base of a large bamboo. The snake never moved, seemingly oblivious of us and we were good with that. We ended with an overnight stay in the jungle sleeping on hammocks with netting over them. You don’t sleep on the jungle floor (go ahead, let your imagination run wild what that – you are probably not too far off). During the night the jungle comes alive with creatures and noises you rarely see and probably don’t want to.

That night we heard what had to be some kind of beetle. We never saw one but they must be huge. The buzz sounded just shy of the HH-53’s we’d been training on. It landed on my mosquito net and the whole thing moved – I was in awe. Besides that it was largely uneventful and we got up the next morning and moved quickly out of the jungle and returned to Camp.

Over that weekend we decided to venture into town one evening. We walked roughly a mile to a known commodity “Jenny’s.” It was an open air “restaurant” consisting of a roof and an open kitchen surrounded by tables all on a raised platform. I am sure she and her family slept there as well classic SE Asia lifestyle. Recommended by teams that had been to this part of Malaysia prior she came highly recommended. We had her “red pepper chicken” and it was exceptional. The peppers hit the grill and the effect was like tear gas; all of our eyes were watering and we were choking back coughs. She served us chunks of chicken with these smoking hot peppers and sweet, small onions over rice and we washed it down with Carlsberg beer. It was stellar with the added bonus of enjoying the effects of the peppers throughout the next day (damn you Scoville!).

Interestingly during our time at Jenny’s one of the locals jumped up, moved rapidly away from his table, and started yelling. We went to high alert and tried to assess what was going on. Turned out there was an unusual and highly poisonous centipede that came in. All of the clientele scrambled. One of Jenny’s employees/family carefully approached it with a long pair tongs and picked it up and moved rapidly outside and killed it in a hideous manner I am sure (in the fire with you…). Everyone calmed down and we returned to eating after making a thorough examination of our own table.

Completely satisfied we returned to the camp, enjoyed our weekend and we started planning and preparation for the culmination exercise.