Air Assault School Tryouts Narrative

The sun was still hiding behind the Earth, as I took off into the Bavarian countryside. Through mile five I had a firm grip on fifth place and was keeping a solid cadence. My battalion commander’s words were resonating in my head, “Karsevar! You better not freakin blow this chance. You better ruck your damn ass off tomorrow!”

The third and final day of Air Assault School tryouts was in full swing and I was sitting in a particularly uncomfortable 10th place out of 20. The last task to complete, was a timed 12-mile ruck march, and I had no room for error. Only the top ten soldiers during the overall tryout would receive a slot.

Although the majority of the route was heading east, my physical condition was heading due south. A sense of despair raced
After five days of the ten day course I had one of the highest grade point averages in the class. My eyes were ambitiously set on attaining the honor graduate, and anything beneath top marks would be considered by me a failure. My aura was oozing with confidence as I was outperforming my peers. My overall mood quickly changed when we were informed that our final assessment would statically drop over one third of the class. The foreboding sling load test was both a challenging and stressful event. Simply put, you have to find three of four faults in two minutes on a given piece of Army equipment, or you are dropped from the entire school. The first three items I inspected went smoothly. I found all four faults for a perfect score with plenty of time remaining on the clock. The last piece of equipment was a different story. Right off the bat I found my first two faults, but time was evaporating. I started to panic. There couldn't be more than ten seconds left when my eyes lit up with excitement. Just as I was about to identify my final deficiency, I heard my instructor yell ”TIME!” I pointed to the fault but there was nothing that could be done. I had