What it feels like to be in Hell

This account is from a member of an elite force in a branch of the military. His experience was a training exercise, closely monitored and administered by the military. His team is serving a tour of duty in an undisclosed foreign land.

It's a training exercise. That's what you're told, at least. It becomes more than that. After a bit, you believe you really are a POW. Takes somewhere around 72 hours for that belief to set in. 72 hours for your perception, for your reality to be that of a POW.

For 5 days you're taught survival skills, what plants to eat, what plants not to eat. You learn what plants and bugs will plug you up and which will give you the runs, only by experience, though. It's 10 degrees outside, freezing rain. The ground is frozen. Plants are dead. My team was given three-day old roadkill to eat. Possum or Raccoon, I think. It doesn't matter how long you boil it or cook it, it won't go down that smoothly. But you're so hungry and so tired of eating seeds, tree leaves and ferns, you'll wolf it down. I've never puked so violently after eating something in my life.

After the survival training, hell starts. Somehow, I've crossed enemy lines and must make it back to a friendly camp. I cannot reveal anything about my team's mission. I have no idea I am or how far into enemy territory I have gone. All I have are the clothes on your back. No gun, no knife, no matches. Just what I'm wearing. I have to survive. I wonder, "What the hell is going on?" This gives way to the realization that I am alone and I have nothing but what I have on my back. There is no preparation for what you will go through. No physical or mental training to mimic hell.

There are people and dogs tracking me. Now, the worst of all things happens: the mind games. You have control of yourself, but do you have control of your mind? This is the question you will be asking yourself every second of every day. Do you try to get sustenance and possibly expose your self or do you wait for the help that is supposed to be coming? Your mind is working on you and your body is telling you it needs food, water, warm anything, an end to the running, and an end to games. Your good sense takes over. You carry on, waiting for that help to come, somehow, some where. You can't really surrender because who do you surrender to? There is no government here to make the Geneva Code work. There is only hatred for a war criminal that you have become in the eyes of those looking for you day and night.

The temperature is dropping well below freezing and the rain has started to fall just enough so the ice my body in a thin glaze. Thoughts run through my head, "What if?" But no, a sign has come that a friend is in the area and a pick up is coming. That's why I wait in the 2 inches of mud and water and whatever else. I sought shelter in this road ditch for that chance. It's pitch black and it sucks. I start to doze in and out for three days. I'm frozen, I've been wet, I slept in a hole by day, and moved by night. Rescue is coming in 2 minutes. Lights are coming. I scurry to the ditch and cover my head so as not to look at who it is so I can't identify them later if the worst happens.

I'm awakened by the sudden stop of the truck and rude groping of my body by those that have been looking for you. Was it all a trap? I have no idea. All I know is that I have no idea what is going to happen.

Humility comes first as I'm stripped naked in 20 degree weather with people laughing at me. That will do it every time. Then, solitude grips me as I find yourself in a cell where I can't stretch out. It's more like an animal cage, the type you'd transport your dog in. About 3'x4'. I can't stand up, I can't stretch out. I have to sit or lie in the fetal position. The cement floor freezes you to the core.

Next, the noises of things you don't speak about haunt you. Over and over, it's voices of crying babies, crazy things. Sleep has no way of coming here or for the following days. No food, no rest. Just time to think about who you are. And waiting for the questions you know will come.

I'm taken to a room with the tender soldier. He thrusts some papers in front of me and demands me to sign them. I refuse. I don't even look at or read the papers. He's pissed now and gives me a choice: Sign the papers or be placed in a freezing pond. I choose the pond.

I'm thrown into a pond, breaking the surface ice. The pond's up to my chest. I'm forced to sit in this frozen pond. Seconds seem like an eternity. My body's shaking like an earthquake. You wonder if this is what hell is like.

You may be asking why I chose the freezing pond. It's simple really. You always have a choice. Even in a POW camp. I chose the pond for this reason: I knew that my body would not function when I got out. How could I sign papers when I couldn't hold a pen? You always have a choice.

Once the questions start they don't stop. Ever. Even when they are not in your face you keep running things over in your head, "What did I say? Was it too much? Did I endanger someone else?" I have no way of knowing.

That is the worst of all. The pain of being hit, crawling through ice-covered ground, being hooded are things I can focus on. My body will heal. But the unknown, I have no focus, only more questions.

The temperature drops to about 5 degrees. Frostbite and hypothermia set in. The mind dulls to nothing. Sleep catches you mid-stride. I'm awakened by the falling of my own body to the ground. More questions come. I try to focus, telling myself, "Keep it real. Keep going, help is coming. Somewhere, somehow." That is how you focus. "How do I get myself out of this mind-induced hell? Escape!!!!! Escape to where? I have no idea where I am. It's freezing. I have nothing. The doors are locked. The guards never stop watching."

Escape is your focus. Without that, you have nothing, nothing, nothing. But the one thing you have been waiting for-men of your own code to come for you- has come. The red-white-and-blue rise in front of you. I cried like a baby. There on the grounds are your leaders and your fellow brothers. It's emotional. You're crying, they're crying. Embraces all around. You've made it. You've gone through hell and come back stronger and smarter. It's a feeling that only those who have gone through this will have. There is no description. But you stand tall, proud that you made it home, proud of the men that have risked the same fate or worse to come for you, proud to be an American. Because that is your code.

"It is up to you and only you on how you deal with it. No one else can do it for you, to survive and come home. Live the code of being an American and never relent. We are coming for you." That is your focus. Always.