When I was 14, my dad would drive me out to my friend's house to play airsoft in the woods near Wells, Maine.

We would go into the woods behind the sand pit that was right behind his house

where we'd built a pretty decent fort that was surrounded by a knee-high wall.

Inside the fort, we'd made foxholes and we had a fire pit in the middle.

We had a lot of fun spending nights out there and doing the stupid things that kids do,

like shooting each other with our air

guns and throwing CO2 canisters in the fire. On more than one occasion we spent the whole night

huddled up by the fire. We were freezing and waiting for the sun to come up and thaw us out.

My friend Greg, he and I had been at the Sea Cadet Program together for several years.

The Sea Cadets is a youth program for the Navy that was similar to the Boy Scouts.

He would later serve several years in the military.

He was a no-nonsense person and that kind of guy and you could trust your life with him.

That's only one reason why I ended up believing him when he told me this story.

On one of the occasions when we were hanging out in our fort with a few of our friends,

we decided to do a night maneuver operation. At that age, darkness was our friend, or so we thought.

Darkness is never your friend though.

It creeps over the woods and it puts an extra blanket of protection on those things

that can hurt you, while leaving mere humans more vulnerable and in greater danger. During our operation, my squad was in charge of guarding

the fort while Greg and his squad spread out, and they went around the sandpit and then

circle back to try to lay waste to our defense. It was just me and my other friend, and we were

sitting there waiting for quite a while. We knew it would

take Greg and his squad a little time to circle around the sandpit. I was in the forward foxhole,

...