What was your "scariest" moment in the military?

Story Time.
In the spirit of previous posts I've made, SPOILER ALERT: Hijacking a UN vehicle is a bad idea. So is getting in an Afghan Taxi cab.

Kids, do not try this if you get an opportunity. I was fortunate this didn't wind up worse than it did.

So no shit, there I was, Afghanistan, 2003.
Back then, the country and the outposts weren't built up yet, and outside of Salerno, Bagram, Khandahar, and K2 most Soldiers lived in safe houses or very small compounds. Internet was spotty at best, and the CA Detachment we had in Herat was notoriously difficult to communicate with. Since we were up against suspenses for end of tour paperwork, it was decreed that we would bring the mountain to Mohammed, in the form of yours truly.
Now, getting from Bagram to Herat in those days was no small feat. You had three basic choices:
1. Drive there on the Ring Road. Not really a serious consideration.
2. Hop on the log rings from Bagram to Salerno to K2 to Herat. This journey would take the better part of a week, if the weather held up.
3. Hop a UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan) flight from Kabul to Herat.
Option three was selected.
After some trials and tribulations getting on the bird - twice getting marooned at Kabul International - once because the flight was cancelled for Eid al Fatr and once because I was taken to the civilian instead of the military terminal - not to mention a side adventure to secure turkeys for Thanksgiving (a great story by itself), eventually I got on the mangiest plane any of you have ever seen and made the trip. The plane was an AN-12, I think; looked like the bastard child of an A-10 and a C-130. It literally had to zig-zag to shoot the saddles in the ridgelines since it couldn't climb high enough to clear the Hindu Kush.
The plane was full of young UN volunteers. If you've never had occasion to meet these kinds of folks, they were hipsters before being a hipster was cool. Or maybe hippies a couple of decades late. I don't know, but every single cliché you can think of was represented there. Puchuli Oil, check. Birkenstocks, check. Hemp shirts, check. In any event, not my kind of folks. This will become relevant later in the story.
After a long flight where I kept my nose firmly buried in a book to avoid talking to these nimrods, we landed at Herat "International Airport". I suppose it probably had flights that came in from Iran. All the airfield consisted of was a control tower (unmanned), a tool shed (with useful aviation tools such as scythes and two-handed saws), and a guard shack. At the end of the runway was a pile of wrecked Soviet MiG-21's and a couple of broken down Mi-8's. A tumbleweed rolled by as I walked out the door.
Looking about, I can't help but notice that there are no US forces there to pick me up.
Meh.
I walked about a bit to see if maybe they're behind a building.
No such luck.
So I walk up to the UN Muldoon who looks to be in charge. Introducing myself, I ask him if he can give me a ride into town, in the event that my ride fails to appear. To my surprise, he says "no, we don't give rides to American Soldiers".
"What do you mean, 'you don't give rides to American Soldiers'? I just got off the same plane you did!"
He says, "We have an agreement to share aircraft seats, if available, but ground transportation to a belligerent party would be seen as taking sides."
Summoning my CA charm, I pointed out that I was travelling in civilian clothes, and don't look markedly different from the other passengers on the plane. No dice.
I pointed out that it would not be OK, probably dangerous, to leave me there alone when he had the means to conduct me to a safe location in the spirit of our shared mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Afghanistan. He could care less.
Feeling my blood start to boil, I decided to turn away and consider my options, muttering under my breath that I happened to be the only one there with a gun.
I tried walking over to talk to the Mujahaddin Militia that was guarding the airstrip. Asking if they'd seen any Americans today. The response I got back in Farsi - of course one of the languages that I hadn't studied up on - was something like "Durka, durka. No Habla"
Meh. So what to do?
Option one - I could wait and hope my ride would appear. Knowing that the logistics bird came once every two weeks and the reliability of the person who was supposed to transmit that I was en route was questionable - nay, very much in doubt, this seemed a bad idea.
Option two - I could get back on the plane and go back to Kabul, tail between my legs and a mission failure. That was not very palatable, especially given the trouble it took to get there in the first place.
Option three - I could take off on foot and try to get to the safehouse. I had reconnoitered the route, and I knew it was a ways away. Brigands and worse were commonplace out there, and I was carrying a fair amount of classified material and had only 30 rounds (travelling light due to the nature of the flight) and had no commo (to my chagrin, I was told I "didn't need it" when I left Bagram). And I was less confident where in the city the safe house was than when I left a week earlier. Hmmm... nope.
Option four - I could attempt to reason with the UN guy again, and if that doesn't work, be more assertive given the fact I was armed. This was starting to look like a good idea. Even though I had no interest in going to jail or starting an international incident, I was not about to get stuck there alone with just the pogy bait in my backpack to sustain myself.
In the meantime, the plane had taxied away and was preparing to leave. Option two eliminated.
This time UN guy was a little more amenable, but still denied my charm and wit.
Crap.
As I was considering the merits and demerits of option four, up walks one of the militia guys and says something like "durka, durka TAXI, mumbo jumbo".
Hmmm... perhaps another option presents itself.
So I walk over with him and he starts to get in what looks like his POV. Looks sort of like a taxi with it's orange and white paint job (like nearly every passenger car in Afghanistan), but old boy has it pimped out in shag carpet on the doors and ceiling and a sweet disco ball hanging from the rearview mirror.
Jesus Christ.
I thought for a moment. Single driver, and I am armed and in the back seat behind him. I should be able to handle this.
Against all common sense, I get in and tell him to get me to the PRT in Herat.
No habla.
Sigh.
So I find a UN guy who speaks English and Farsi and get him to explain to my driver where I am trying to go. And we are on our way.
I tried to keep it cool, but as we passed through checkpoints guarded by some very questionable characters, I was getting pretty anxious. I knew we were heading the correct direction (North) on the only road to be had out there, but as the ride went on and no Herat in sight, the mind began to wander towards bad case scenarios. When we crossed the Helmand River, I relaxed a bit, knowing that was about halfway there. Good thing I didn't decide to be stubborn and take off walking; that was a lot further than I thought. Probably 40KM or so.
Gradually, Herat comes into view. After a long day, I was very interested in chilling out with my guys. But then, Herat is on my 9 o'clock, then my 8...
Crap. MF'er sold me out.
I rack a round, explaining again that our destination is the PRT.
"Yes, yes. PRT!" says the Muj.
Finally, we start making turns, heading into the core of the city and eventually arriving in front of a walled compound with guard towers. Looks promising.
Unfortunately, all I see are more militiamen. Not a US Soldier in sight.
Thinking I'm screwed I resolve that if this goes South, I am definitely going to grease the guy who drove me there before I wind up in some warlord's basement.
The Muj start to approach, seeing a vehicle standing near the gate. I got out, pointing my weapon at the driver, but keeping it low so the guards wouldn't see right away.
Just as they get too close, one of them squints at me and says "American?"
What the hell. "Yes", I manage to say.
Excited mumbo jumbo from the guards leads to one of them going in the compound. Out walks a scruffy Soldier that looked like he'd gone native long ago.
"What are you doing here?"
I explained who I was and why I was there.
Incredulous, the SF Soldier says "You came here in that?"
"Yup. Looked like the best of a bunch of bad ideas."
Turns out that the PRT had moved to the new location while I was in Kabul. I was lucky that anyone was there, the SF guy explained to me. He was only there to grab some furniture and "comfort items" that the ODA had stashed there.
Lucky me.
Well, the mission was accomplished, although I had to explain to persons of ever-increasing rank (culminating with then BG Lloyd Austin, now Vice Chief of the Army) how I had come to be unaccounted for and self-navigated Helmand Province. I was alternately yelled at or given a coin, sometimes both. I think most of the vitriol was aimed at my CoC, though. I had a very specific PFC manning the radio on the day I left to give a little personal time and attention to.

I have been on quite a few adventures in my time in the Army. Been shot at; lost some Soldiers. But I have never been more scared than I was at the point it looked like I'd wind up in an Afghan Warlord's basement.

February 11 1970 at 0003 hrs, we had just been hit with sappers coming through the perimeter wire, the tower guard had opened fire and had a couple of KIA Charlie's between the triple concertina wire. Myself and another "new" guy were posted in the ditch running along the dirt road as a blocking force. After a while the other guy says that he sees movement in front of us...(oh, by he way, we were posted with no radio communications.). With no communications available, I decided to pop an illumination flare. When the flare went off...nothing! no movement, after the flare went out, my partner and myself, saw movement between the fence lines...we both had our M-16's over the road and ready to rock-n-roll when I decided pop another flare. Again, when the flare ignighted there was nothing...at about this time a Jeep came barreling at full speed, down the road, lights off and skidded to a stop where we were, someone jumped out of the jeep and asked "what do you see"...I yelled to the guy and told him to get down, at we were seeing movement on the fenceline . It was then that I realized that the individual that had jumped from the Jeep was a Lt. he told us that the only thing between the fences was a K9 patrol....think of this...we were posted with no communications, and we were not briefed on friendlies in our sector, I had been in country 1 month, the guy with me, had less time then me in country. All we had were our M-16's and 3 slap flares each. We came close to blowing away a fellow SP, but because I wouldn't shoot or let my partner shoot we didn't. I had just turned 21 on the 10th. Yea, I was scared, but ultimately relieved that I had made the right call and pissed off that we were put in a that situation by the posting NCO. WELCOME TO VIETNAM...

Doing a free-fall demonstration jump on a college campus as part of US Army ROTC recruiting seemed like a good idea. I was the only enlisted platform instructor at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY in 1977. The KY ANG parachute team would be jumping and these were the same guys I jumped with on weekends at our local skydiving drop zone. Col. White, the Professor of Military Science, approved my request to jump with the guys.

Monday morning we had a Huey out on the university auditorium parking lot for a series of jumps. I should have figured that this was going to be a bad day as the first jump ended up with a controlled crash after 2 steering lines came off the right side of my 5-cell StratoStar canopy.

Raul Parker, another of our local skydiving group, was in the crowd and offered me his Para-Commander for the next jump. He had packed it Sunday afternoon on the DZ and said it was good to go. I strapped it on and climbed into the chopper for jump #2.

We exited at 7,500 ft and all went well until we broke apart at 2,500 feet to pull. I pulled at about 1,900 ft but didn't feel the deployment bag come off my back. I dropped a shoulder thinking I had a pilotchute hesitation but nothing happened. Now I'm starting to get excited. Twelve previous malfunctions over an 7 year period trained me not to panic but rely on my training. I tucked my legs under me to sit up and the bag fell out of the main container and landed on my legs. When I kicked the bag, the pilotchute went between some loose suspension lines, took a turn, then inflated, pulling a locked bag out.

Now I'm falling feet-to-earth and the high chest mounted reserve is covering my canopy releases. I had to take my left hand to pull the reserve down; use my right hand to pull the cover down and stick my thumb through the release ring to cutaway the right riser set. Switching hands, I repeated the process to cut away the left riser set. Now I'm back in free-fall.

I had a real "Oh Shit" moment when I looked at the altimeter mounted on the top of the reserve and saw that I was passing through 400 ft! I pulled and suddenly time went to extreme slow motion. I watched the canopy deploy under my left arm; I could clearly see the traffic stopped at a red light on the 4 lane divided highway I was headed for; I thought of my fiancee in the crowd watching (we were to be married in May); and that I had really screwed the pooch on this one. There was no panic or fear; I just asked the Lord to help me.

The next thing I know I get three very violent jolts - 1) terminal reserve opening, 2) altimeter panel hitting me in my mouth, and 3) three point landing on that divided highway (left and right heels and my butt). I figured the reserve opened about 40 ft off the ground; just high enough to slow me down to about maybe 50 ft per second rate of descent before impact.

After getting my wind back, I got up and hobbled over to the median, gathering my reserve in my arms. After the traffic cleared, I hobbled across the road to the north side of the highway (side our DZ was on) and started heading that way. A guy in a pickup truck stopped and asked if I needed a ride. I told him what was going on and where he could take me. Then he asked where my plane crashed. He thought the double zipper black jumpsuit I was wearing was a flight suit.

When I got back with the rest of the jumpers, Maj Dick Stoops was the first to reach me. He had just completed the FAA's Rigger Training Course and the reserve I used was his first pack job. First words out of his mouth was "It Worked!" and then he asked "Why are you still alive?". I've thought about that question every day for the past 39 years as I wake up in back pain every day. Two major surgeries; my arresting on the table during the first surgery; and now the preparation for a possible third back surgery.