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CHAPTER 1
Loud ungodly screams shattered the forest night, reverberating in the darkened woods. It sent chills to every part of my body. I was separated from whatever beast lurked out there by only the thin material of my small tent, and that thought doomed any hope of sleep.
How I came to be alone in a dark forest far from civilization is part of the saga of an adventure that led to my long hike on the Appalachian Trail, and how it changed my life for the better.
* * *
Where did it all start? In the heart of a city boy a long time ago. Raised in Philadelphia, I was of average height and weight, dirty blond hair that stuck up in the back, and glasses. I despised my nearsightedness because it prevented me from being involved in contact sports, which I would have loved.
Going backpacking was a lifelong dream that I thought was going to go unfulfilled. When I was younger I was fascinated by the thought of backpacking in the woods, going somewhere new and different. Maybe it was because I wanted to be set free in the outdoors. I wanted to be boundless as the wind, blowing through fields, over mountains, along the roads of this great country. I wanted to be on my own, to be able to survive in the forest, to roam, to be independent!
The Tacony Park was the closest I got to the wild outdoors. It was near my home in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia. A big wonderful playground of trees, tall grass, the park was a fun place where my friends and I lolled away our summers, climbing trees, playing in ditches, and in the fall, jumping out of trees into piled up straw they cut in the meadow area. It was a carefree life.
Train tracks separated the park from the woods beyond the tracks. It wasn't really wilderness, but to us the densely wooded area was a mysterious backcountry we walked through with caution, kids not sure of what to expect in the forest beyond the bounds of a civilized world. The train tracks crossed the Tacony Creek on a trestle bridge. Next to the tracks was a slender wooden planked pathway with a pipe railing. Sometimes we walked on the bridge — boys looking at the wide creek below, dropping ballast stones from the railroad bed and counting how long it took before they hit the water. "That one took two seconds. Let's see if this big stone falls faster." Often we met under the bridge between the concrete abutments that supported the trestle and listened to locomotives noisily clattering overhead, spraying us with lube oil that smelled of a hot engine.
Crossing over those tracks, to a space hidden from the streets, into the world of trees, deep bushes and a hidden abandoned stone quarry was magical. There were no rules; we would just run wildly and enjoy the exploration, imagine wild animals, and hike without care. The idea of being in the wild excited me. I read everything I could about backpacking and even thought of a summer forest service job. I knew my parents would explode at the mere suggestion, so I never told them. I was alone with these daydreams. There was no one I knew who backpacked. Let's face it ... the people I knew didn't even know what backpacking was! They thought a backpack was something you put on an achy back. My dream of long overland hiking was just that, an empty dream.
When I was in the second year of high school, I had a friend named Shel whose father took us hunting in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. We stayed in a rustic cabin in the woods. It was early December, and so frigid that a wooden box outside the window served as a refrigerator. I had read a book on deer hunting and knew everything from how to stay downwind from the prey to how to gut out the animal. (Don't start to cut until you're sure the animal is dead. Take a branch and brush the deer's eyes — if it doesn't move, its dead!) We didn't get a deer, but I got a great kick out of being in the mountain forest. We went hunting in the early years of college. I never shot a deer. Had one in my sights once, but I didn't shoot it. By the time I counted the points on the deer's antlers to make sure it was a legal buck, it was gone. It was just as well; for me it was the trek in the woods that was important.
Being in woodlands was so great, I volunteered to stalk the prey for my friends Shel and Lou. I would go around the mountain and come up to where my buddies waited with their rifles. The idea was that the deer would move away from me and towards them. Most people don't like to be the stalker because you lose the chance of shooting your own deer, it takes effort to walk through the woods, and someone could mistake you for a deer. (I never worried about being accidentally shot; my pals were sharp shooters. Besides, I didn't owe them any money.)
One cold November day my pals took their places in the woods. I walked down the mountain, turned around and headed up to where I thought they were waiting. It started snowing. Being late afternoon and overcast, everything turned light gray, and I lost my bearings. I tried to backtrack, thinking I could retrace my footsteps in the snow. Then, gently falling snow covered my footsteps, and I ended up wandering aimlessly. The trail itself disappeared beneath heavier falling snow. I was cold and didn't know which way to go. My worst fears were coming true. I was lost in the woods ... in a snowstorm. Lost. Freezing. Panic set in, wreaking havoc in my bowel. I suddenly wished there was a bathroom nearby.
My heart was thumping. I wanted to throw down my Winchester rifle and run. I looked to the right. I looked to the left. Everything looked the same, drab shades of gray, tall bare trees, darkening spaces between, a lost, lonely, forgotten bleak world. I was falling into forlorn empty space. Something inside reminded me the international distress signal is three shots. Should I shoot three times into the air? I saw an object move ahead in the gloom. What the heck is it? Nearer, I made out red and black plaid ... a hunter crossing ahead of me. I ran to him and asked if he knew where the trail is. Gruffly he said, "Over there," and started to walk away.
I stared through flurrying snow to over there, but didn't see any trail. Just a blanket of dirty white snow in the approaching dusk. I stopped him and demanded with fierce, desperate determination, "Put me on the trail!" It wasn't just melting snowflakes beading on my reddened forehead; it was the moisture of desperation and fear. He looked at my hand clutching the Winchester's trigger guard, maybe thinking my index finger was perilously close to the trigger itself. Never taking his eyes off my hand, he walked me to the trail.
The following year I was better prepared. It came to my attention that if you get lost it is best to stay calm by chewing a piece of gum. Amply supplied with sticks of Wrigley's chewing gum, I ventured forth. Lou dropped off first to take his stand. Shel and I walked down the mountain and then Shel dropped off to take his stand. Enjoying the walk in the woods better than anything, I trekked on and at some point — to give some legitimacy to my alleged hunting — eventually stopped and waited for deer to arrive. The day wore on — no signs of deer.
Walking back, it occurred to me that the scenery was not familiar. I really didn't know where I was. As luck would have it, I stumbled into Shel who was also wandering aimlessly in the woods. I said, "Do you know where the trail is?"
"No."
So I searched in my pocket. "Have a piece of gum!"
Shel's anguished face softened into a smile as he reached for the stick of Wrigley's. We walked for a while chewing and trying to figure out where we were. After a short time, Lou arrived, laughing almost hysterically at the sight of us. "What's so funny?" Shel asked. Lou said he had seen us from his perch on the hill, and we were roaming around aimlessly — less than thirty feet from the trail.
We had a good laugh, but I will never, ever forget the gut-wrenching horror of being lost the year before.
Those were my only experiences with the backcountry. After college I went to law school. After law school I started to practice law in Philadelphia, got married, bought a house, and became very busy. My wife, Barbara, is pretty and petite, yet hardy. She accommodated my woodsman spirit and was willing to be more physically active than her generation was raised to be — mainly because it was something I enjoyed. She agreed to join the Outdoor Club of South Jersey with me. We went on day hikes in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and took some trips to Vermont and Maine for short weeks of day hiking.
The day hikes were fine, but what I really longed for was long-distance backpacking. However, there was no way Barbara was going to sleep on the ground in deep frigid forests, and do without a daily shower.
For too many years I became captive to an office of law books, phone calls, depositions, investigations, trials, settlements, and emails. I got up early every day and exercised, went to a gym several times a week to work off stress.
Any ideas of being free and hiking long distances in far-off mountain forests disappeared, fading into a far away past. Buried were any conscious thoughts of ever backpacking.
CHAPTER 2
he Appalachian Trail attracts many different people. Here is another person who — through the struggles of war — would eventually find his way to Appalachian heights and adventures.
Khe Sanh, Vietnam, 1968
Khe Sanh is on a barren plateau sometimes veiled by mist. The bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War took place there.
From January 30 to January 31, 1968, a devastating salvo of artillery shells, mortars, and rockets crashed into the American air base at Khe Sanh in an isolated spot near North Vietnam. Eighteen Marines were killed, forty were wounded. For several months the enemy relentlessly bombarded the Khe Sanh air base, home to five thousand U.S. Marines. On one day alone, thirteen hundred artillery rounds rocked the American base and its outposts. On some days the shelling continued at the rate of a hundred explosions every hour.
Carl James Saxton was twenty-one years old of medium height and slender build. Jim, as he was called, arrived in Vietnam as part of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division. On April 1, 1968, Jim's division started Operation Pegasus to relieve the besieged marines. After five days of fierce battle the army linked up with the marines, and the enemy siege was officially lifted. The U.S. 1st Cavalry suffered 92 killed and 629 wounded.
The North Vietnamese Army [NVA] overran a U.S. Green Beret camp on the Laotian border. Three days of intense fighting followed. The U.S. military retook their special forces camp, lost it to the NVA, and finally the U.S. forces recaptured the camp. The enemy continued bringing supplies over the mountains and harassing fire over the border from Laos on the West. A decision was made to stop them — take them out by sending U.S. troops on a clandestine mission into Laos.
Following Jim's fighting in Operation Pegasus, the 1st Cavalry moved to the boarder between Vietnam and Laos near Khe Sanh. Jim was a grenadier. He used a 40mm grenade launcher that looked like a sawed off shotgun with a very wide bore. Jim was in the war close-up, firing high-explosive grenades at targets only 50 to 250 meters away. "As a grenadier, I have a rifleman with me to protect me as I use the grenade launcher," Jim Saxton said. "We got to the top of the mountain — that's where the bunkers were — and we fired into the bunkers." He held the short stubby weapon to his shoulder, supported the barrel with one hand, and pulled the trigger with his other hand. The weapon jolted back as the explosive missile flew toward its target at 250 feet a second. The bunker exploded into flames, smoke, and debris. "The squad leader at the bottom of the hill was supposed to send support up for us." Jim added, "He didn't."
Enemy bullets were whizzing around. There was the sharp yata-ta-ta-ta of machine gun fire. The rifleman next to Jim screamed out, "Ow, fuck, I'm hit!" The rifleman dropped his weapon and fell to the ground with a thud as his leg collapsed beneath him. He grabbed his leg. It was squirting blood between his fingers. Jim quickly looked around to assess the situation of bullets and explosions around them.
"Gimme your first aid pouch," the rifleman murmured.
Jim was feverishly thinking, I'm a rookie ... new to battle ... what the hell am I supposed to do! Jim knelt, dodging several pinging bullets, set down his grenade launcher. The rifleman was in agony. Jim knew he had to say something to keep him from passing out. "Use your own first-aid pouch. I'm supposed to use mine and you're supposed to use yours."
"You gonna let me bleed to death?"
Jim was half listening. He couldn't see any hostiles, but zinging bullets were coming from somewhere. Got to say something, he thought. "You're not gonna bleed to death ... 'cause ... 'cause you got a canteen cup and I got a canteen cup ... and ... you can drink your own blood," Jim said making a grim joke to keep the man conscious. Jim thought, That was dumb and crazy, butit's keepin' him from going into shock. Jim had already been busy opening the man's first-aid pack, quickly applied the thick bandage and tied it around the area of spurting blood. "Got to get you out of here, brother." Jim — slim at 160 pounds — lifted the man over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.
With his human cargo, Jim ran down the hill through a storm of bullets. Yata-ta-ta-ta — "Damn," he said to his buddy. "They got two machine guns cross firing at us." The region had been thoroughly bombed. It was open and desolate. There were craters everywhere. Jim tried dashing in a different direction. His feet slid in loosely exploded dirt. Shots whistled close by. There was a clanging at Jim's hip, and he felt wetness at his side and sudden lightness in the load carried on his belt. A bullet had smashed through his canteen and another severed his hip belt, dropping his ammunition pouches. Jim kept running down the hill, around deep gaps in the ground, in and out of crater holes to avoid wicked machine gun fire and explosions around him. Later, Jim confessed, "It's a wonder I didn't get shot. It's a miracle!"
His comrade was not so fortunate. Jim felt a jarring of the body across his shoulders as the already wounded warrior recoiled from another bullet wound. It burned into his right arm and sent a spray of blood across Jim's shirt. The soldier weakly uttered, "Oh, shit," went limp, and then was silent.
They reached the bottom. From Jim's blood-stained shoulders, a medic and another man lifted the limp soldier. He was medevaced out by helicopter.
For this stunning act of bravery, Jim was awarded the Army Commendation Medal: a bronze hexagon with an American bald eagle grasping three crossed arrows and bearing on its breast a shield suspended from a green ribbon. The document accompanying the Army Commendation Medal states, in part:
For heroism in the connection with military operations against hostile forces in the Republic of Vietnam. Specialist Four Saxton distinguished himself by heroism in action ... When his assault mission unit became heavily engaged with a larger enemy force and sustained a casualty, Specialist Four Saxton exposed himself to the hostile fire as he crossed an open area to his wounded comrade, administered first aid, and evacuating him to safety.
Eventually, the ribbon bore three oak clusters, denoting Jim's award of this medal for bravery in battles again and again during his military career.
A Shau Valley, Vietnam April 1968
The A Shau Valley was the scene of fierce fighting in Vietnam. It was long and narrow, really several valleys and mountains. The sides of the valley were thickly forested. A Shau Valley was critical to the enemy. They used it as a main pipeline for supplies and troops. Because of its importance to the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong (VC), it was the target of numerous military actions by allied forces, particularly the U.S. 101st Airborne Division. The NVA and VC vigorously defended A Shau. It was an area of much fighting throughout the Vietnam War and had a terrifying reputation for soldiers of both sides. A soldier who fought in A Shau had an honored position among combat veterans.
Jim and his men followed the motto of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment: Find the Bastards – Then Pile On! The men moved quietly through low foliage, sleeves rolled up, flak jackets unzipped due to the heat. Some were seasoned veterans. A few had already received several Purple Hearts.
Jim thought back to when he arrived in Vietnam, amid bedlam. As the young raw troops got off the plane, artillery and mortar blasts surrounded them. "You FNGs are gonna have to learn fast," the MP said to them with a sneer.
A quavering voice in the rear asked, "What's an FNG?"
The MP, a knowing smile on his face, responded, "Fuckin' New Guy, you jerkoff!"
In war, one way of promotion is when the guy above you gets wounded or killed. You take his place temporarily. If you do well, you get promoted. Such advancement is called blood stripes. Jim received blood stripes and was promoted to sergeant, commanding a squad of nine soldiers.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Avalanche & Gorilla Jim"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Albert Dragon.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
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