That Others May Live: "We're all mad here, you know"

Great stories go hand in hand with military service. There are a special few, however, who have a soul and drive that can keep them coming for an entire lifetime. If you've ever had a friend like my buddy, John, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

For these few individuals, the adventure doesn't always end with a DD214. For them, the military was like a gateway drug. It just gave them a taste for something they would crave over a lifetime. We're not all meant for a nine to five, y'all. Some of us were truly made to live life, not just read stories about it. My buddy John is definitely one of these people.

John Reid isn't your average bear. Of all the friends I made in the military, he easily ranks top five as a true character in life. I would even dare to say his existence among us common humans is a living testament that life doesn't just exist on earth, it pushes boundaries, dares into the unknown and smiles in the face of a relenting challenge.

I first met "Johnny Ringo", in 2008 in Samarra, Iraq. I was a fresh FNG medic in a very ugly area of Iraq and on my first deployment. My leadership, knowing I would need some good guidance, placed me with him right away. If you know how that works, that says allot about John. I was personally scared out of my mind for most that deployment, but John seemed to be different. For him, the things that could rattle me to my core only seemed to get him excited, and yet, even near misses with death couldn't seem to stop his never-ending cool guy attitude.

To give you a good back story, John Reid is a good ole country boy. Like most of the sort, military service was a very attractive option for him. He served a decade in the United States Army as an Infantryman, deployed multiple times, has been there, done that and had the beers with friends to laugh about it years latter like it wasn't no big thing. Of all the experiences he's had that could poison a person's soul, John has never let go of his laid back and easy-going personality.

John's accolades also don't end with his military service. He's a true American outdoorsman. I mean a real one. He can hike, hunt, stalk, camp, survive, navigate, climb, rappel, guide and strip game in a way that offers good competition to the people you would probably pay a whole lot of money to do such things. On top of that all, he also got is NREMT-P certification as a hobbyist in a world that seems to neglect such aspects of preparedness. To put is simply, he's definitely a top individual to put on your team for the apocalypse.

Now, having cool friends with amazing accolades is great, however, we all need to remember that even the best of us fall down sometimes, (pun intended), and even the best of us may need a hero of our own to come to the rescue.

On October 9th, 2018, John was doing what he loves best. High in the mountains of Seward, Alaska and stalking a mountain goat, he was hoping to bring home some more meat for the freezer and another good set of horns to put on the wall. Not all adventures end with a trophy picture and campfire, though. For some adventures, the end of a hunt is really only the beginning.

On this particular day, John was trekking through the mountains of Seward and looking forward to bringing home a healthy sized goat he'd been stalking. Anticipating an easy day, but always prepared for the worst, he was humping around in KUIU wear, a light packed Barney's frontier gear of Alaska pack, a good pair of Kenetrek boots and a Mossberg riffle in 300 winmag for a "one n done" trigger pull. Of all the things John was carrying that day, though, his Garmin In-Reach mini would prove to be the MVP.

Ole John found his target, closed his distance and made his move. At a few hundred yards, he took his first shot...and missed. Fuck!

Humping mountains is no joke. Anyone who's ever had the pleasure can attest. Now, the game continued, and John continued his stalk through creeks, sliding muddy mountain sides and until he finally found the spot to redeem his trophy. This time, he was within 50 yards, set into position and ready to finish his days hunt.

With one good trigger squeeze, John hit his mark and downed his goat. Ahh, redemption!

After downing his goat, John dropped his pack and moved his kill down to the bottom of the mountain. After climbing back up to grab his pack, he took a well-deserved rest before gearing up and moving back down the mountainside. There's a tricky thing about steep mountain sides, though. Sometimes, they can be a slippery slope.

After gearing up, John turned to make his decent back down the mountain and that's when the adventure really began. He lost his footing on the loose sliding ground and took the ride of his life for nearly 80 feet before coming to a "thump" at the bottom of a ravine. Dazed, confused, shocked and awed, John tried to get up and dust himself off when he realized something was very, very wrong. He couldn't stand up...

John had just become a human tumbleweed in a very unforgiving part of the world and his leg was now broken in multiple places. Now, if this was an average human, I would be very concerned, however, this was Johnny Ringo, a guy I came to admire for some seriously calm nerves during some very ugly situations. In all seriousness, he was like the Mathew McConahey of war. This meant the sky could literally be falling and he would be "Alright, alright, alright".

Lying at the bottom of the ravine, swelling with pain and unable to move his leg on his own, John kept his wits, relied on his training, began treating his own wounds and then dialed up an SOS call on his Garmin mini. So, who exactly answers the call when you have to dial 9-1-1 by satellite in a remote part of the world? I can say with allot of pride, it's not just anybody.

When it comes to high-risk rescue, whether it be in combat on the battlefield or a distress signal by civilians, there's nothing that compares to the Air Force Pararescueman. Known better as PJ's, these are hands down the equivalent to real life superheroes. These are special operations commandos who are experts in all forms of things like military parachuting, mountaineering, rappelling, civilian and combat diving, austere survival, combat evasion, civilian and special operations trauma medicine, flight medicine, dive medicine and special operations forces battlefield tactics. 

Like I said, real life superheroes.

Within minutes, John was connected with the Alaskan Air National Guard and a team from the 212th Rescue Squadron out of JB Elmendorf-RIchardson and a team of real-life superheroes were gearing up and on their way to get him.  The story doesn't end there, though. Just because there's a helicopter, a line and a rescuer doesn't mean there's going to be an easy rescue. This is also why we don't send just anyone when the stakes are high and lives are at risk. And that is exactly why we send PJ's.

Stuck in the cold, wet ravine and watching the rain that was coming in, John embraced his plight with exactly the same demeanor that I was used to seeing in Iraq with him. Like a total fucking champ and always finding the silver linings. True story, if your leg is broken and you're in the back country of Alaska, at least you've got some M&M's, right? Shit, on top of that, you've also got a phone. Might as well record the whole thing and make some good memories?

As the night set in and the air got cold, John could hear an old familiar sound. The chopping and whooshing of helicopter blades in the distance and getting closer. If you've ever been in the infantry, wounded and waiting for medevac, or an outdoorsman waiting for rescue, you can truly relate to and appreciate how beautiful that sound is.

As the bird got closer and relief started to set in, John began to realize the complexity of his situation. There was no straight line to get him. This means, due to the terrain and where he was laying in the ravine, they couldn't just drop a PJ to him, link him up and hoist him out. This is when it became obvious that the rescue was becoming complicated.

John, being a veteran himself, knew his rescuers and their pilot were using night vision to navigate to him and decided this was a perfect time to use his IR strobe he still had from his days as an Infantryman. Now, I'm not saying you should "relocate" your gear from the military, I'm simply saying it might come in handy one day. I bet ole John would say the same.

Looking up in the sky, John could tell his rescuers had reached a conundrum. They couldn't get a straight line to him because of the mountains and the ravine he was stuck in. That's when he got to personally witness why Air Force Pararescue is hailed by everyone as the top dog of high-risk rescue.

From the bottom of the wet ravine, John looked up into the star lit sky. Just then, he saw a single PJ descend and dangle from a line. He wasn't rappelling down to his location, though. He seemed to stop just below the mountain top and pause right there. Then, squinting to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, he saw the helicopter beginning to rock back and forth. In a steady rhythmic motion, the bird rocked side to side and started swinging the PJ dangling below like a pendulum.

"No fucking way!" John thought.

This went over and over for a few times before the dramatic finale. All the sudden, at the last rock of the bird, the PJ dangling from the line opened his line loose and began flying in an arc right down towards John at a Hollywood speed. If you've ever heard the zipping sound a rope makes while rappelling, imagine hearing one coming right out of the sky and straight at you in the middle of the night.

No shit, y'all, the helicopter crew straight sling shotted a PJ dangling from a rope, through a dark mountain pass and right into John's lap. In John's own words, it was the coolest fucking thing he's ever seen.

Now, a PJ is the mother of all trauma medics, but John was also a paramedic himself. He's also a very..very seasoned combat veteran from the GWOT. This essentially means all they had to do was check the work he had already done on himself and give a special lolly pop to ease some of the pain.

If you know about the special lolly, then you also know John was high as a kite for the next few hours.

My man John was eventually extracted and flown for about an hour to a hospital in Anchorage. His leg was broken at the tib and fib and required a nice sexy surgery. I don't want any of you to get heavy hearts for my friend John, though. True story, I've never known a little near-death experience to get my man John down and I'm sure this one didn't either. From my short conversation with him, it was this wild experience that opened his eyes and made him realize he wanted to be a professional hunting guide. In his own words, it's the closest thing he's ever felt to being in the military and he knew it was what he wanted to do and make into a lifestyle.

There are so many things I think about next to a campfire from my time in them military that I'm grateful I get to laugh about now. John, I'm glad you get to laugh about this one, buddy.

All seriousness, a sincere thank you to the Alaska Air National Guard for bringing my man John back. We kind of like him and would have missed him allot if you hadn't. There's some things money can't buy, and a team of PJ's is definitely one of them. John, I just hope you were kind enough to give that Garmin mini 5 stars on google buddy.

Y'all keep your packs dry, strobes ready and your InReach's within reach.

"We're all mad here, you know."