by Ken Cook
I’m not entirely positive on the time of year but as I recall it was cool and dry so it must have been Fall. I think was 1984 (Maybe 85?) and I was working for the Land Navigation School out at Camp McCall NC. I was pulling “Radio Watch” which meant that I had about an hours worth of duties every four hours for 24 hours straight and then I was off for the next 24 hours. Not a bad detail at all. Yeah, Camp McCall was/is way the hell out and gone from anyplace a civilized person would ever want to be but I wasn’t civilized back then and there was always something “interesting” going on out there.
One evening was shaping up to be one of those gorgeous knock –your-eyes-out kind of nights that come only rarely in North Carolina. A warm afternoon and evening with no clouds and little humidity had given me the urge to get up and do something destructive (A fine and honorable urge in that time and place.) so I was wandering around among the deserted-for-the-evening, ancient “Temporary Buildings” of the main Camp area looking for mischief when I noticed a nice, fat, healthy, rabbit hopping amiably about the compound.
Not being up on my OPFOR Rabbit ID skills, I can’t tell you what kind of rabbit it was, only that it was obviously one of the domesticated rabbits that were kept at the camp for training purposes. There used to be all kinds of domesticated animals kept around the Camp for “training purposes” back in those days. Please remember, this was the Dark Ages before anyone in the military wanted to be Politically Correct and in certain circles, it was considered “good training” to kill and eat something small and furry with big brown eyes. (I’ll leave it to the reader to speculate as to what this training was good for.) Occasionally, one of these self-propelled training aids would break free and because of this, there was always a small population of fat, floppy-eared, rabbits hopping around the camp. It was actually kind of funny to see if you didn’t know why they were there in the first place.
At that particular time, I was carrying a nice little Pacific Cutlery (The company we now know as Benchmade Knives.) “Presentation Tanto” designed by a gentleman named Kuzan Oda. This was a very decent little blade that came at a pretty fair price. I seem to remember it ran about seventy-five dollars, which was a little bit steep but not too bad for a fixed blade production knife back then.
Out of a great deal of boredom and a little bit of hunger, an idea was born.
I cast my eyes about and soon spotted some pieces of assorted lumber laying against the wall of a building. I commandeered one of these and with a length of 550 cord (We always had 550 cord!) carefully and securely fastened that tanto to the end of a six foot long, 1 inch by 1 inch shaft. What had been a knife was now transformed. I now had a clunky but perfectly serviceable spear.
Slowly and with great deliberation I began my stalk of B’rer Rabbit. No hunter ever approached his prey with greater stealth and deliberation than I stalked that rabbit. Hell, why not? I still had 3 hours before my next scheduled transmission. The phrase “Nothin’ but time” was never so true.
I don’t know how long I stalked after that lil’ bunny. Might have been 5 minutes, might have been 25. But eventually, he turned his big wide ass to me and looked away and that’s when I flicked the spear into him and pinned him to the ground. I grabbed him and pulled the blade out, then gave the head a quick twitch and the body stilled instantly.
Now the work began.
I gathered some pine straw for tinder (It’s everywhere around Ft. Bragg and Camp McCall.) and scrounged until I’d gathered a small quantity of much harder to find hardwood twigs and branches and built what the cowboys used to call “A hatful of fire.” I used a bit of lumber, wire, and some ingenuity to make an ugly but workable spit, and while the fire settled down to something I could cook over, I skinned and gutted Bunny Rabbit.
The rabbit was coming along nicely, browning in it’s own fat and taking on that delicious golden brown color you only get when you’re cooking over open flames when a voice behind me asked if there was enough to two.
I said: “Sure, pull up a rock!” and glanced around only to see that the visitor to my fire was Lieutenant Colonel James. N. Rowe, then commander of Camp McCall and the US Army Special Forces SERE School.
Something about my “guest’s” demeanor told me that a sudden outbreak of Military Customs and Courtesy would not be welcome at the moment and so we sat in a strange but comfortable silence for a few minutes, this man who was truly a legend in his own time and this young Sergeant that was trying hard not to show the incredible awe he felt at being in the presence of True Greatness.
Soon we agreed that the rabbit was “done enough” and I pulled him off the spit and split it in half. We ate slowly and enjoyed the quiet of the evening and quiet pleasantries were exchanged. He complimented me on my patience during the hunt, (Apparently he’d watched the whole affair from a window somewhere.) the economical size of the fire and it’s smokeless quality, and my cooking. (Which oddly, was what I found most flattering.) He then got up, wiped his greasy hands on some pine straw (It really is everywhere down there) and started to leave.
As he started to walk away, I couldn’t help myself. I slowly came to the position of attention, saluted and said “Thank you, Sir.” I’ll never know if he knew what I was thanking him for and I don’t think I fully understood myself. But I do now.
Thank you, Colonel Rowe.
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