Did they require a person to sign a hold harmless agreement?
Not that I remember
Did you know the alleged high incidents of accidents and injury?
I didn't but I wasn't part of the 'in' crowd that had that information either.
Was the staff properly prepared to provide first aid / first responder type of assistance to people who got hurt?
That would be a big NO!
Did "they" properly describe the harshness of the experience, and possible injuries?
Not really, To a small extent they expressed that we might need all of the "harsh weather" equipment that we were taking and in that manner told us that it could be uncomfortable.
I forget this one.. but was it a corps REQUIREMENT?
As I recall, Yes I was led to believe that it was required for graduation unless you had a really good excuse. Believe it or not being blind was not an excuse. That just got you out of the hitchhiking part. I have a friend that is blind and in the corps. He was required to go LEAD.
What did you anticipate the experience to be like? Fun? gruesome? Dumb?
Fun. Daunting. I don't like hitchhiking...went against my common sense and what I had been taught. So I was really torn between obeying them or my parents upbringing (which I trusted far further than the Way).
How would you feel about doing it again?
I love to hike and mountain climb, but never again with them. They were uncaring and selfish.
So many questions..
I don't expect people to answer them all.. I would just like a general idea of what people were dealing with..
Did they require a person to sign a hold harmless agreement?
No - At least I don't remember signing anything or being required to do so - it may have been required later on (after '82)
Did you know the alleged high incidents of accidents and injury?
No - I didn't know about any accidents or injuries - but it seems to me that if I had heard about them I would have just thought it was reasonable considering the "ordeal."
Was the staff properly prepared to provide first aid / first responder type of assistance to people who got hurt?
I don't know. Some of the folks were very knowlegeable. I can't speak as to the training.
Did "they" properly describe the harshness of the experience, and possible injuries?
We had all heard the "incidents." They usually started with, "There I was hanging on the side of a rock with no hand holds in sight....." They usually ended with a story of deliverance AFTER the person had to deal with some sort of ordeal.
I forget this one.. but was it a corps REQUIREMENT?
YES!
What did you anticipate the experience to be like? Fun? gruesome? Dumb?
How would you feel about doing it again?
If I were a LOT younger, perhaps.....But not under the same conditions or group of folks running it. And, not for the purpose of "spiritual training."
So many questions..
I don't expect people to answer them all.. I would just like a general idea of what people were dealing with..
I thinks it's worth mentioning that being taught something...and actually doing it, are two different things. Efficiency comes with experience and practice. Oftentimes people were given instructions and then "shoved off the cliff" (figratively and literally). When it come to rock climbing and repelling, an individual should have had extensive pratice before endeavoring to do what twi demanded of them. Lead was not optional...if they called your name, you went.
...and yes, I recall numerous injuries. I remember some guy with a cast on his leg, another who broke his hand...people who returned were scraped up and oftentimes limping...and they were usually quite upbeat...I think they were thrilled that it was over!
Lead can be very dangerous. A shipmate of mine almost died from lead poisoning. Yeah, he had an affair with another mans wife, and that other man shot him. That kind of lead poisoning can be very dangerous.
Lead can be very dangerous. A shipmate of mine almost died from lead poisoning. Yeah, he had an affair with another mans wife, and that other man shot him. That kind of lead poisoning can be very dangerous.
When I was "in" ... we had no choice. If someone was too weak or sick to go LEAD, then they got kicked out of Corps. Also, if you failed at LEAD (whether that meant the Gunnison folks didn't approve of you, or you didn't make it back - hitch hiking - within the mandated time frame) then you got kicked out of Corps.
For Family Corps, there was an added difficulty, in that you were leaving your kids behind with God-knows-who.
They sent us out on a bus to Gunnison, so our hitch hiking was only on the return trip. Actually, the hitch hiking was a breeze compared to the bus ride, because a wicked intestinal virus had just hit the Indiana Campus, and the bus was a perfect environment for group contamination. By the time we got to Gunnison, we were all sick, "drained", to put it nicely. But nobody would tell the leadership, because it would make us look like wimps. The wife of our assistant Corps director supposedly got "altitude sickness" on about the third day, and was excused for a couple days to recover. Truth was that we were all sick as dogs, and it had nothing to do with altitude.
Nobody got hurt on our outing, but one couple got kicked out when they got back to Rome City, because they arrived a few hours after the deadline. This was a black couple, splendid people who loved God and raised their kids beautifully. Nobody even considered that perhaps their color accounted for fewer rides along the interstate from Colorado to Indiana.
Most of us looked forward to going LEAD because it meant we got to be off-campus, a rarity in those days.
For my whole life I have loved the mountains and the pines, the deer and the smell sagebrush. I live in Montana because of this. But after hiking and climbing and repelling and doing the "solo" thing, and then hitching home in a blizzard (they closed Interstate 80 so we hitched north to Interstate 90 and beat the closures up there by about an hour) ... after all of that, it took a lot of being back in the woods under NORMAL circumstances, for me to be able to once again appreciate God's handiwork in nature. LEAD ruined that appreciation for a lot of people. It was more a feat of survival than an exercise in trusting God or learning anything. And there was always this worry about the children back in Indiana, and what would happen to them if you got injured or killed in Colorado.
It could have been handled so much more effectively. It was a neat idea that got into the hands of some Way Nazis, and ended up being a nightmare.
I was sent on "gimp LEAD" my last year in the 13th. The regimen was focused on survival skills, not much climbing, some hiking, and choices were offered, ie., "hike to Capitan", or learn to kill a rabbit with a stick from 100 yds. We WERE required to Aussie Rappell, and were not allowed to use matches for ANY fires. I spent my "duo" in complete dark and cold, though it was early April.
This was after the LEAD Accident, my 1st yr., so I was very leary for our safety.
The most excruciating thing was getting back, knowing that my fiance' would be shipped out to Gunnison within days, and we got "stuck" in Wichita after walking through severe storms in TX all night. Upon arriving in KS, late, missing supper, being famished, I ate a bunch of rancid peanut butter and spent those next few days tossin' my cookies. But I chalk all this up to the goofy traditions already in place.
From what I read so far.. was it like the march of the penguins? Or more like salmon, racing upstream where a few (in this case probably the majority, despite casualties and losses) are rewarded for their "renewed mind" efforts?
The "problem" I have with the concept:
It was a REQUIREMENT for corps. Maybe that's why I never went corps.. with the athletic abilities of a carp, I likely would have ended up at the bottom of some chasm, a lot sooner than I should have in life..
But seriously.. I don't see how anybody could expect another human being to risk life and limb as a requirement in any kind of "christian" training program.. it really doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense..
and on top of it, a "program" that offered no more security than a cardboard box in a tornado.. seems if you were "lucky", you made the grade..
what happened to "preparation is the highest form of believing"?
Nobody really trained to help in the event somebody really got hurt.. no reasonable planning.. they violated their very own mandates..
If there was ANYTHING that demands micro-management, LEAD should have been it.
"Preparation" was preached big time when I was in Corps training. When it came to LEAD, the preparation was really weird.
We were required to come into residence with very specific and very expensive equipment to use when it was our time to go LEAD. Particular brands and materials for our sleeping bags and rain gear and mountain boots and backpacks - these were designated on our lists, and we could not deviate from those lists at all. We took all of this stuff with us to Gunnison, but when we arrived, we were told to leave it in the main building, and were directed to a whole new stash of the same stuff, which belonged to Gunnison.
In other words, they ordered us to use THEIR equipment, and leave ours behind. It was weird. We spent hours and hours shopping for these things, and lots of money, only to leave it behind when we headed up the trails and into the woods. I still don't get it.
We were "prepared" at least materially, but it was all replaced by Ministry equipment. And LOTS of equipment too! I weigh 135 pounds and had to carry a 40 pound pack with me for the whole ordeal - iron frying pans, jugs of water, heavy stuff.
.... and choices were offered, ie., "hike to Capitan", or learn to kill a rabbit with a stick from 100 yds.
I don't think I have ever done that, even when the "stick" was the stock of a nice 22 rifle. The rabbit stick might work at 30 feet, but did that ever really happen at LEAD? I scared a few squirrels with one, but never even hit one. And I have a good arm. I just don't think that was ever part of LEAD, except for the hypothetical, "throw this stick ... see, that is how we help you survive!"
100 yards is funny, unless it was a remote controlled stick of dynamite ... which would be hilarious ... but I couldn't throw a stick 100 yards ... 100 feet maybe, but not to kill rabbit ...
I don't think I have ever done that, even when the "stick" was the stock of a nice 22 rifle. The rabbit stick might work at 30 feet, but did that ever really happen at LEAD? I scared a few squirrels with one, but never even hit one. And I have a good arm. I just don't think that was ever part of LEAD, except for the hypothetical, "throw this stick ... see, that is how we help you survive!"
100 yards is funny, unless it was a remote controlled stick of dynamite ... which would be hilarious ... but I couldn't throw a stick 100 yards ... 100 feet maybe, but not to kill rabbit ...
just sayin' ...
Actually, I think that may be one of those much heralded "figures of speech".
I can't remember the Aramaic or Greek name for it but I think it loosely translates---------"stick figure".
Whatever...the "catch all" phrase of "all believing = receiving" means anything is "available", from top to bottom. One of those Catch 22 principals which...never fails to prove a point! <_<
"100 yards is funny, unless it was a remote controlled stick of dynamite ... which would be hilarious ... but I couldn't throw a stick 100 yards ... 100 feet maybe, but not to kill rabbit ...
just sayin' ...
--------------------
Yeah, it was more than 20 years ago, and maybe it was 100 ft., but either way, to even stalk a rabbit to that close was a "stretch". I remember DSmith (sp?) flung a stick 60 ft. or so and splintered a tree stump. That was our illustration of "how it could be done". With every one of my 105 pounds, it would've had to be within 20 ft. I'm pretty accurate with a .22 though. A LOT less effort!
I learned some things that seemed remotely valuable at the time, but I've learned way more in a few episodes of "Man vs. Wild", and it was way less dangerous getting to the Discovery Channel than "hitchin' a ride" to Tinnie. I guess they did their best to come up with something meaningful for us "Gimps".
We did dig a 6x6x6 FT hole in the ground to collect condensation from a clear tarp. Unearthed some scorpions! General consensus was that out of the dozen or so of us on the project, 11 would have died of thirst within a week, unless we dug MANY more of them. I did get a "Bow & Drill" Fire going in practice, but as I said, not much help on the duo after 2 days of rain. I actually tried my matches in spite of the ruling, but they were soaked too.
My greatest challenge, was as a smoker going 10 days without. I was really up against it, but I didn't kick the habit and join the unhooked generation until it was MY choice, 9 yrs. ago.
How many people actually quit smoking for good on BLEAD. I know I lit up both times within 30 seconds of leaving the Tinnie General Store. I also drank a beer within a minute of leaving Tinnie my second time.
I chewed tobacco way back then and had a nice pack of leaf waiting for me hitchback clothes. I started chewing at Gunnison when my job was picking up .... behind the horses ( yes .... is the proper word for horse poop) I couldn't tell the difference between what I was chewin and what I was shovelin. (sudo if you read this I quit the stuff 23 years ago so my teeth are in somewhat good shape now)
Squirrel - They had a small first Aid kit but all the things they needed were available. I am a Wilderness EMT and we are taught to provide wilderness first Aid with a minimum of equipment (Pack frames make great backboards, Tent poles are great splints, branches and towels are good Thompson O-Rings (Splints for Femur fractures) T-Shirts will work as bandages and stay free minipads sop up blood and will help control bleeding, Tampons can be used as gauze in a mouth thats bleeding) they were OK in this area but in terms of groups being lead back to camp at the end of a day w/o a map or compass, Untrained climbing instructors and inadequate equipment. The food was tasty but the jury is still out as to whether they were providing enough caloric intake to sustain the activities we were required to do.
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Eyesopen
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doojable
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GrouchoMarxJr
I thinks it's worth mentioning that being taught something...and actually doing it, are two different things. Efficiency comes with experience and practice. Oftentimes people were given instructions and then "shoved off the cliff" (figratively and literally). When it come to rock climbing and repelling, an individual should have had extensive pratice before endeavoring to do what twi demanded of them. Lead was not optional...if they called your name, you went.
...and yes, I recall numerous injuries. I remember some guy with a cast on his leg, another who broke his hand...people who returned were scraped up and oftentimes limping...and they were usually quite upbeat...I think they were thrilled that it was over!
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J0nny Ling0
Lead can be very dangerous. A shipmate of mine almost died from lead poisoning. Yeah, he had an affair with another mans wife, and that other man shot him. That kind of lead poisoning can be very dangerous.
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excathedra
you're a riot <_<
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waysider
Could be a spoonful of water
Save you from the desert sand
Just a spoon of LEAD from my 45
Gonna save you from another man.
--------Spoonful---------Willie Dixon
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Shifra
When I was "in" ... we had no choice. If someone was too weak or sick to go LEAD, then they got kicked out of Corps. Also, if you failed at LEAD (whether that meant the Gunnison folks didn't approve of you, or you didn't make it back - hitch hiking - within the mandated time frame) then you got kicked out of Corps.
For Family Corps, there was an added difficulty, in that you were leaving your kids behind with God-knows-who.
They sent us out on a bus to Gunnison, so our hitch hiking was only on the return trip. Actually, the hitch hiking was a breeze compared to the bus ride, because a wicked intestinal virus had just hit the Indiana Campus, and the bus was a perfect environment for group contamination. By the time we got to Gunnison, we were all sick, "drained", to put it nicely. But nobody would tell the leadership, because it would make us look like wimps. The wife of our assistant Corps director supposedly got "altitude sickness" on about the third day, and was excused for a couple days to recover. Truth was that we were all sick as dogs, and it had nothing to do with altitude.
Nobody got hurt on our outing, but one couple got kicked out when they got back to Rome City, because they arrived a few hours after the deadline. This was a black couple, splendid people who loved God and raised their kids beautifully. Nobody even considered that perhaps their color accounted for fewer rides along the interstate from Colorado to Indiana.
Most of us looked forward to going LEAD because it meant we got to be off-campus, a rarity in those days.
For my whole life I have loved the mountains and the pines, the deer and the smell sagebrush. I live in Montana because of this. But after hiking and climbing and repelling and doing the "solo" thing, and then hitching home in a blizzard (they closed Interstate 80 so we hitched north to Interstate 90 and beat the closures up there by about an hour) ... after all of that, it took a lot of being back in the woods under NORMAL circumstances, for me to be able to once again appreciate God's handiwork in nature. LEAD ruined that appreciation for a lot of people. It was more a feat of survival than an exercise in trusting God or learning anything. And there was always this worry about the children back in Indiana, and what would happen to them if you got injured or killed in Colorado.
It could have been handled so much more effectively. It was a neat idea that got into the hands of some Way Nazis, and ended up being a nightmare.
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Dot Matrix
I hated LEAD.
I went my first year.
My second, I wrote them a letter and told them I believed I was NOT suppose to go and requested NOT to go.
They did not sent me! It surprised me! And I was still in the corps- not kicked out.
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cinderpelt
I was sent on "gimp LEAD" my last year in the 13th. The regimen was focused on survival skills, not much climbing, some hiking, and choices were offered, ie., "hike to Capitan", or learn to kill a rabbit with a stick from 100 yds. We WERE required to Aussie Rappell, and were not allowed to use matches for ANY fires. I spent my "duo" in complete dark and cold, though it was early April.
This was after the LEAD Accident, my 1st yr., so I was very leary for our safety.
The most excruciating thing was getting back, knowing that my fiance' would be shipped out to Gunnison within days, and we got "stuck" in Wichita after walking through severe storms in TX all night. Upon arriving in KS, late, missing supper, being famished, I ate a bunch of rancid peanut butter and spent those next few days tossin' my cookies. But I chalk all this up to the goofy traditions already in place.
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Ham
From what I read so far.. was it like the march of the penguins? Or more like salmon, racing upstream where a few (in this case probably the majority, despite casualties and losses) are rewarded for their "renewed mind" efforts?
The "problem" I have with the concept:
It was a REQUIREMENT for corps. Maybe that's why I never went corps.. with the athletic abilities of a carp, I likely would have ended up at the bottom of some chasm, a lot sooner than I should have in life..
But seriously.. I don't see how anybody could expect another human being to risk life and limb as a requirement in any kind of "christian" training program.. it really doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense..
and on top of it, a "program" that offered no more security than a cardboard box in a tornado.. seems if you were "lucky", you made the grade..
what happened to "preparation is the highest form of believing"?
Nobody really trained to help in the event somebody really got hurt.. no reasonable planning.. they violated their very own mandates..
If there was ANYTHING that demands micro-management, LEAD should have been it.
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Shifra
Mr. H -
"Preparation" was preached big time when I was in Corps training. When it came to LEAD, the preparation was really weird.
We were required to come into residence with very specific and very expensive equipment to use when it was our time to go LEAD. Particular brands and materials for our sleeping bags and rain gear and mountain boots and backpacks - these were designated on our lists, and we could not deviate from those lists at all. We took all of this stuff with us to Gunnison, but when we arrived, we were told to leave it in the main building, and were directed to a whole new stash of the same stuff, which belonged to Gunnison.
In other words, they ordered us to use THEIR equipment, and leave ours behind. It was weird. We spent hours and hours shopping for these things, and lots of money, only to leave it behind when we headed up the trails and into the woods. I still don't get it.
We were "prepared" at least materially, but it was all replaced by Ministry equipment. And LOTS of equipment too! I weigh 135 pounds and had to carry a 40 pound pack with me for the whole ordeal - iron frying pans, jugs of water, heavy stuff.
H-e-a-v-y indeed!!
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excathedra
shifra, this whole thing makes me sick
it's really not about LEAD, it's about the way and how it sucked
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Bumpy
~EX~ Relax, I've found a "lead" for the guy with the "remote"! Nothing like twi
!
Satisfaction Guaranteed! I'll need a delivery address! Bump
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excathedra
bump, maybe i'll just believe god and hitch to france to pick him up !!!!!!
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Bumpy
You may find him along 'the way'// HE FLOATS!!
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excathedra
hope floats :)
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rhino
I don't think I have ever done that, even when the "stick" was the stock of a nice 22 rifle. The rabbit stick might work at 30 feet, but did that ever really happen at LEAD? I scared a few squirrels with one, but never even hit one. And I have a good arm. I just don't think that was ever part of LEAD, except for the hypothetical, "throw this stick ... see, that is how we help you survive!"
100 yards is funny, unless it was a remote controlled stick of dynamite ... which would be hilarious ... but I couldn't throw a stick 100 yards ... 100 feet maybe, but not to kill rabbit ...
just sayin' ...
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waysider
Actually, I think that may be one of those much heralded "figures of speech".
I can't remember the Aramaic or Greek name for it but I think it loosely translates---------"stick figure".
Davey--- Davey Crockett
King of the wild frontier.
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dmiller
Use the remote, don't hitch! ;)
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Bumpy
Whatever...the "catch all" phrase of "all believing = receiving" means anything is "available", from top to bottom. One of those Catch 22 principals which...never fails to prove a point! <_<
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cinderpelt
Quoth Rhino:
"100 yards is funny, unless it was a remote controlled stick of dynamite ... which would be hilarious ... but I couldn't throw a stick 100 yards ... 100 feet maybe, but not to kill rabbit ...
just sayin' ...
--------------------
Yeah, it was more than 20 years ago, and maybe it was 100 ft., but either way, to even stalk a rabbit to that close was a "stretch". I remember DSmith (sp?) flung a stick 60 ft. or so and splintered a tree stump. That was our illustration of "how it could be done". With every one of my 105 pounds, it would've had to be within 20 ft. I'm pretty accurate with a .22 though. A LOT less effort!
I learned some things that seemed remotely valuable at the time, but I've learned way more in a few episodes of "Man vs. Wild", and it was way less dangerous getting to the Discovery Channel than "hitchin' a ride" to Tinnie. I guess they did their best to come up with something meaningful for us "Gimps".
We did dig a 6x6x6 FT hole in the ground to collect condensation from a clear tarp. Unearthed some scorpions! General consensus was that out of the dozen or so of us on the project, 11 would have died of thirst within a week, unless we dug MANY more of them. I did get a "Bow & Drill" Fire going in practice, but as I said, not much help on the duo after 2 days of rain. I actually tried my matches in spite of the ruling, but they were soaked too.
My greatest challenge, was as a smoker going 10 days without. I was really up against it, but I didn't kick the habit and join the unhooked generation until it was MY choice, 9 yrs. ago.
--------------------
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Out There
How many people actually quit smoking for good on BLEAD. I know I lit up both times within 30 seconds of leaving the Tinnie General Store. I also drank a beer within a minute of leaving Tinnie my second time.
I chewed tobacco way back then and had a nice pack of leaf waiting for me hitchback clothes. I started chewing at Gunnison when my job was picking up .... behind the horses ( yes .... is the proper word for horse poop) I couldn't tell the difference between what I was chewin and what I was shovelin. (sudo if you read this I quit the stuff 23 years ago so my teeth are in somewhat good shape now)
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Ham
Another thought.. did anybody see as much as a decent first aid kit there?
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Out There
Squirrel - They had a small first Aid kit but all the things they needed were available. I am a Wilderness EMT and we are taught to provide wilderness first Aid with a minimum of equipment (Pack frames make great backboards, Tent poles are great splints, branches and towels are good Thompson O-Rings (Splints for Femur fractures) T-Shirts will work as bandages and stay free minipads sop up blood and will help control bleeding, Tampons can be used as gauze in a mouth thats bleeding) they were OK in this area but in terms of groups being lead back to camp at the end of a day w/o a map or compass, Untrained climbing instructors and inadequate equipment. The food was tasty but the jury is still out as to whether they were providing enough caloric intake to sustain the activities we were required to do.
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