My friends have always been awesome to me, never leaving me behind and always helping me with wild ideas of how to do something.  You see the paralysis just affected my body and not my spirit, so not hunting had never occourred to me.  Hunting from the ground is cool and yes the new ground blinds make it easier to do but, it is not the same as hunting from an elevated treestand.  There is nothing like it when your up 15 feet or more in the air and able to see everything that is taking place like you aren’t even there.  13 years in my wheelchair had almost made me give up on the idea of hunting in the air again with my bow.   I was at the ATA Show in Atlanta last year and saw the big ladder stands for two that have heavy duty ladders on them and the urge to git’er done hit me again. 

I am strong in my upper body and thought that with a little help I could climb the ladder and make it up to the stand.  This got me started but, I found that to get 15 feet high was just too much for me to do.  So I tried a pulley on a chain around the tree at seat level with a rope to my Kawasaki Mule 3010 could pull me up using my River’s Edge full body safety harness.  My brother J.D. Albertson and friends Ron Zimmer and George Walden came up with putting an angle iron boom with a pulley right above my seat and using the Mule to lift me and into my stand.  Fastening the rope to the safety harness on my back allows me to climb with my hands while being lifted with the pulley.  If something broke I would still have a hold of the ladder but, the design is way to heavy duty for anything to go wrong.  The boom is fastened to the tree usng ratchet straps and weighs about 85 lbs.  The picture shows Ron Zimmer checking everything out before they attempt to lift me.  Ron joined the USMC with me right after high school. 

I was really excited to bow hunt from the stand and see deer under me as my had in years past while hunting from an elevated stand.  Tree stand hunting improves scent elimination and noise and movement stealth that you lose while hunting on the ground.  So they pulled me up for the first time on Nov 7, 2007 and I was ecstatic and they were in tears as they knew how much it meant to me and without their help I could not have been there.  After getting me settled on my plasma seat cushion and all the calls, arrows and rattling horns that I had to have with me they drove off in my Mule leaving me in the stand alone.  What a feeling, I could not safely get down by myself and I was miles from anyone or anything.  I did have a cell phone for emergencies but, I was basically going to be there until 45 minutes after dark as they would hunt and then come and get me. 

The woods settled down almost as soon as they drove out of hearing.  The squirrels and birds began to reappear and scamper after forage.  It was about 15 minutes until the deer began showing up.  My heart was racing as I had squirrels and turkeys all around me and the noise they were making in the dry leaves always gets your attention. You always know it is too loud to be a deer but, you have to look and confirm the sounds are not deer.  I heard a softer rustling then that I knew was not a squirrel and of course it was behind me. and over my right shoulder.  Turning my neck and straining to see I finally made out a mature doe and her 1 1/2 year old doe walking up the finger ridge right at my stand.  They both kept looking over their backs and stopping and turning to look behind them so I was pumped knowing a buck had to be behind them.  Sure enough more movement was coming up the ridge right at me.  It was a 7 point buck that I took to be 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years old.  They were all 3 safe from my arrows as they were not the size deer I was hunting on this day.  I am only going to harvest a buck over 150 B/C and nothing else.  They walked up the ridge and began to forage in the white oak grove my stand was in.  All 3 deer were within 20 feet of my tree and spent 2 hours feeding and frolicking around under me.  I was so excited as I had not had deer under me since the fall of 1993 before my snow tubing accident.  Yes, I had deer close to my ground blinds in the past but it is nothing like having them under you and completely unaware that you exist.  The doe’s bedded down about 20 yards from my tree stand and laid there until the buck got them up right at dark.  He was rutting but, they are a week from standing for him I am sure.  So as darkness was coming on they fed up and over the ridge proceeding down towards the winter wheat and picked corn fileds about 1 mile away.  

I had gotten some pictures of them and was just sitting there smiling all over from the  4 hours we had shared together.  Darkness was suddenly upon me and here I was 15 feet off the ground and very alone.  Hell abandoned is a better word! Nothing comes alive like the woods at night, raccoons and skunks were milling about and then the gremlins came!  The first one flew from a beech tree and hit me in the right arm.  I almost jumped or fell from the stand right then before I realized what it was that had scared me so bad.  There was 2 small flying squirrels that in the dark sounded and felt like frigging dragons.  LOL  After I confirmed what they were my pulse and heart rate got back to normal.  But I had to sit there about 45 minutes in the dark until my brother got there to get me down. 

I thanked him profusely over and over for the experience he enabled me to have by getting me up into the stand.  Non-hunters would not understand how this was such a great hunt when I had not fired a shot or even seen a big buck to brag about.  I have 7 deer over 140 B/C and this hunt was better and meant as much to me as any of those hunts had meant to me.  It was great to be in the tree again!

SEMPER Fi to those who know!   

Dear Marine Corps Family, 

“The Few. The Proud. The Marines.” is more than just a slogan. These 

three sentences represent who we are, epitomizing the challenge of 

becoming (The Few), and the reward of being (The Proud), one of the 

elite (The Marines). Suffice it to say, Few slogans convey such a Proud 

tradition. 

Our tagline has been a foundation in the Marine Corps for over thirty 

years. Now we have the opportunity to immortalize these words into 

America’s civilian culture as well. “The Few. The Proud.” has been 

nominated BEST SLOGAN for the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. 

The Marine Corps joins a list of 26 other brands that will compete for 

entry based on total number of votes received online at 

http://advertising.yahoo.com/advertisingweek_07/slogan_poll.html 

Whether you are one of the few and the proud, or simply one of the 

faithful to those who bear the title United States Marine, we ask that 

you browse to the URL: 

http://advertising.yahoo.com/advertisingweek_07/slogan_poll.html to vote 

for the slogan that has meant so much to so many. If you have Internet 

access in more than one location, you can vote more than once, so 

remember to vote from home, work, the library, and anywhere else you can 

find a computer! 

With a dedicated constituency of active, former, and civilian members of 

the Marine Corps, strength of message, and patriotic nature of our 

institution, we are confident a concentrated effort will deliver “The 

Few. The Proud.” into the hall of fame, establishing it in its rightful 

place among elite American brands. 

We thank you for your support! 

Marine Corps Recruiting Command 

(703) 784-9433 

MCRC Advertising Department