Facing challenges
in Rudder's Rangers
Story and photos by Rill Hughes
—~~
■
it’s three in the morning. The temperature’s
in the mid-30s, but stiff gusts of wind make
it feel much colder. For the shivering men
guarding a camp ringed with barbed wire,
there’s little consolation that temperatures
will reach the mid-70s later on.
A young man in a nearby building is de
termined the men in the camp won’t live to
feel the warmth of the sun. The room he’s in
is painted a sickly shade of green. His fa
tigues are green, too — in fact almost every
thing in the room is green. With his face cov
ered in clown-white greasepaint, the soldier
stares into a mirror lit by a single tungsten
bulb as he puts the finishing touches on his
skeleton-like make-up job.
Ifs the ‘face of death. ”
Back at the camp, the guards
hunch around a small fire that
provides little protection from
the wind. They’ve been up all
night guarding a downed U.S.
airman being held in a small
hut at the rear of the camp.
The long night has been
quiet, but constant vigilance
and the cruel weather have
taken their toll on the guards.
Thev’re sleepv, and their nerves
are frazzled from listening for
noises that might signal the be
ginning of an attack from the
darkness that surrounds their
camp.
In the green room, the soldier
with the white face and black-
ringed eves turns from the mir
ror and faces a group of young
men, all wearing the “face of
death.” Their mission is to res
cue the prisoner being held by
the enemy forces.
The group commander has
his men synchronize their
watches, and goes over the as
sault plan one last time. The
group checks their equipment
as they listen, sliding clips of
ammunition into their weapons
as the leader finishes reciting
the last details of the mission.
Then they wait.
Time passes slowly for the
group. The mission they’ve
come to carry out will take less
than two minutes of combat,
but the preparations seem to
have taken forever. They now
wait in the limbo between the
preparation and the intense
physical and mental coordina
tion required carry it out. To
pass the time, some make small
talk, some smoke cigarettes,
others dip snuff, but all are
anxious to get on with the job at
hand.
At a little after 5 a.m., the
soldiers synchronize their
watches again and begin to slip
quietly from the room. They
move out swiftly, taking up po
sitions around the camp, un
seen by the guards.