Captain Brian Donlon and Army Major Jonathan Fox were the winners of the 2006 Outdoor Life Battle Lines contest. For the contest, U.S. servicemen (and women) were asked to submit essays on how hunting and fishing had helped them to become better soldiers. Here's what they wrote.
Jan 14, 2008
Captain Brian Donlon:
Growing up, I spent every summer at my grandparents' farm in Virginia. All of my memories of these trips include hours spent ranging along oak-lined ridges and across fields of tall grass and bramble, pellet rifle always in hand. In those sun-drenched, humid summer days, I entertained two fantasies. The first was of hunting big game as Theodore Roosevelt did, across continents and in exotic locales; the second was of earning the right to call myself a United States Marine. Every deer track and turkey feather I encountered seemed solid proof of my growing ability in the wild, each shot from my rifle a testament that I too could be part of the brotherhood that fought "in any clime or place."
These days, my time spent wandering freely through the hills has become more precious than ever, for while I have long since abandoned my hope of becoming a professional hunter, I have been honored to serve as a Marine over the last four years.
Nonetheless, while one dream has fallen in the wake of the other, I still see a complementary nature between my life as a hunter and my life as a Marine. I increasingly find that where I become a stronger hunter, I become a more proficient Marine, particularly in my self-sufficiency, confidence and ability to interpret a challenge from a perspective outside my own.
I define self-sufficiency as a collection of individual disciplines that allows me to succeed amid the stresses of fatigue and discomfort. The qualities needed to spend a cold desert night watching a sliver of road from the muddy edge of a reed-filled canal are the same as those that keep a hunter silent and patient for hours in a tree stand, though everything about the wind-frozen morning he endures tells him to seek cover and warmth far from the lonely deer trail he watches. Such qualities do not come free with the purchase of a hunting license, nor, despite the myth, are they permanent characteristics of boot camp. Planning, patience and endurance are learned through repetition. In my case, the repetition came on those afternoons spent scouting for sign and those mornings spent tramping through snow searching for a wounded deer. Later, this same germ of self-sufficiency would serve as the start of deeper disciplines I would use as a Marine.
Hemingway once wrote of a soldier returning from World War I and the confidence he felt when he remembered "all of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else."
The last day I hunted for whitetail deer was four winters ago. Many times in the three deployments that have separated me from that afternoon, I have closed my eyes and thought of the buck crossing over the ridgetop and pushing toward my stand, his feet rustling the graying leaves along the trail. I can still hear the sound of the single gunshot and feel the recoil of the weapon in the instant before the deer fell.
The buck was not exceptional in size of body or rack, nor was the shot taken at a great distance. Yet confidence still projects from this memory, for the moment was unmarred by ambiguity or doubt. A hunt was planned, an afternoon was spent in the pursuit and the goal was achieved. There was no question in the end, only the certainty of success. This incident is an example of the small moments of confidence born of my hunts that built upon one another and thus, in the times when I was most challenged by fear, fatigue, homesickness and stress, provided a well, a reservoir of confidence from which I drew.
I have been taught many times that "the enemy has a vote," that the best plan is one that understands the enemy. Whether you're seeking bear along mountain slides or protecting a convoy route, any plan that doesn't account for the opponent's point of view leaves the chance of success to luck alone. I first faced the challenge of a competitor with keen senses and a superior knowledge of the terrain in my early years of hunting, those years when it seemed impossible to fill a tag. For two seasons I hunted without getting a deer. It was not until I "turned the map around" and forced myself to understand the ground from a deer's perspective that I finally achieved success.
Once in Iraq, these lessons took on a new pattern. Bedding areas, wind and food sources were replaced by weapons caches, historic IED [improvised explosive device] sites and trigger lines, the signs left by a new competitor in a much more dangerous game.
Just as the role of the hunter and that of the warrior were one and the same in our primal past, when procuring and protecting a food source was central to survival, there is no clear delineation between the qualities that make me a good hunter and those that make me a good Marine. My makeup as a Marine has been undeniably molded by my days spent hunting, providing a source of comfort in trying times, valued experience in the face of adversity and a base on which to build greater strength.
Army Major Jonathan Fox was also a Battle Lines winner. Read his winning essay HERE.
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