Corporate Avenger
06-16-2005, 08:11 AM
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan - The two soldiers had heard stories about a ghost that was supposed to haunt the guard towers overlooking a graveyard on the outskirts of the base.
http://www.fortbraggnc.com/photos/2005/jun/m12tower.jpg
But after two weeks of duty in one of the towers without seeing anything, Spc. Drew Painter and Spc. Jeremiah Jackson were skeptical.
Then they heard a laugh over the radio. It was shrill, almost painful, and - according to them - could only have been made by a little girl.
"No grown man in the Army could have made it,'' said Painter, who is 23.
Painter and Jackson, paratroopers with the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, called the other guard towers to see whether other soldiers had heard the laugh. They suspected their buddies were playing a practical joke. But no one had heard it.
It brought to mind the stories they had heard about the haunted tower.
The story around the base was that two Marines were in the tower one night when they saw an Afghan girl and her pet goat walking on the road. When they took off their night-vision goggles, she was gone.
When they put their goggles back on, the girl was standing on the balcony of their tower. Both men ran down the stairs. The rumor is that they refused to return to the guard tower, even if it meant they would be punished.
The night after hearing the laugh, Painter and Jackson were back in the tower - weary and a little jumpy. A few hours into the shift, the "ghost'' was back.
Both paratroopers said they could feel something moving behind them, and every once in a while it sounded like someone stepped on the trap door leading to the tower's middle level. The temperature in the tower dropped a few degrees, they said. Both men said they were huddled in the corner next to the radio.
"Are you movin'?'' Painter would ask when he heard something.
"No. You?'' Jackson would reply.
Then another tower called. The soldiers there said they were detecting a 3-foot-tall "form'' walking around the bottom of the tower that Jackson and Painter were in. The soldiers told Painter and Jackson that it looked like it was waving.
Reluctantly, Jackson said, he went to investigate.
"I walked around the whole balcony and didn't see anything,'' he said.
http://www.fortbraggnc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=7052223
http://www.fortbraggnc.com/photos/2005/jun/m12tower.jpg
But after two weeks of duty in one of the towers without seeing anything, Spc. Drew Painter and Spc. Jeremiah Jackson were skeptical.
Then they heard a laugh over the radio. It was shrill, almost painful, and - according to them - could only have been made by a little girl.
"No grown man in the Army could have made it,'' said Painter, who is 23.
Painter and Jackson, paratroopers with the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, called the other guard towers to see whether other soldiers had heard the laugh. They suspected their buddies were playing a practical joke. But no one had heard it.
It brought to mind the stories they had heard about the haunted tower.
The story around the base was that two Marines were in the tower one night when they saw an Afghan girl and her pet goat walking on the road. When they took off their night-vision goggles, she was gone.
When they put their goggles back on, the girl was standing on the balcony of their tower. Both men ran down the stairs. The rumor is that they refused to return to the guard tower, even if it meant they would be punished.
The night after hearing the laugh, Painter and Jackson were back in the tower - weary and a little jumpy. A few hours into the shift, the "ghost'' was back.
Both paratroopers said they could feel something moving behind them, and every once in a while it sounded like someone stepped on the trap door leading to the tower's middle level. The temperature in the tower dropped a few degrees, they said. Both men said they were huddled in the corner next to the radio.
"Are you movin'?'' Painter would ask when he heard something.
"No. You?'' Jackson would reply.
Then another tower called. The soldiers there said they were detecting a 3-foot-tall "form'' walking around the bottom of the tower that Jackson and Painter were in. The soldiers told Painter and Jackson that it looked like it was waving.
Reluctantly, Jackson said, he went to investigate.
"I walked around the whole balcony and didn't see anything,'' he said.
http://www.fortbraggnc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=7052223