"I don't believe in ghosts, but have a ghost story."

I was on the island of Tinian, in the CNMI, training with my light infantry unit. This island saw a pretty fair size battle when liberated in 1944. The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan were loaded on the bombers there.

Over the course of a couple nights on the island we continued to hear bolts sliding forward on rifles, safety's being switched off, whispers, snickers, things you may or may not hear around soldiers. Someone would always blame someone else about noise discipline and everyone accused would deny it was them.

One night I was scouting some lines when I came back to the main area where people were sleeping. The whole place was in total chaos. People I trusted swore they woke up to find themselves being carried off by three or four people. One man was crying, happy to be alive, believing that he had been bayoneted. Almost everyone frantic that they had been under attack by people in the area, pulled from their place of rest. None of the sentrys spotted anyone coming or going from our area. A call in to Command Center confirmed we were alone and off harassment status.

The next morning at the Command Center, the news got back to the hire ups. I was there. The XO (executive officer) mentioned he got up to take a leak and didn't hear anything around that time of night. One of the OPFOR (Opposing Force) guys who was out all night came in to report and get a cup of coffee. He over heard the XO mention the potty break and remarked, "Yessir, good thing you had your security team with you. You were almost pissing on my gilly suit. If you'd have been alone, I'd have taken you out."

The XO said, "I was alone. I don't have a security team." After a few moments of silence, everyone sort of went their own way and there was no more 'odd' doings the rest of the time there.

I don't believe in ghost, but I got a ghost story all right.

How about you guys? Every witness something unexplainable in the back country?