Ozark National Forest, AR — Survival expert and television personality Bear Grylls made an unplanned discovery Tuesday while filming the fourteenth season of his wilderness survival series, locating a 76-year-old second lieutenant who had been reported missing during a land navigation exercise at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas in October of 1972 and had, by all available evidence, been out there ever since.
The lieutenant was fine.
He was not finished.
“I still have two points left,” said the lieutenant, a man who in 1972 was a 22-year-old ROTC graduate on his first field exercise and is now a 76-year-old man with a compass, a pace count, and what he described as “a pretty good system.” “I’m not going back until I find them.”
Grylls, who has filmed in 57 countries and describes himself as having seen everything the natural world has to offer, was visibly unprepared for the encounter.
“He came out of the tree line,” Grylls said, still processing. “Full uniform. Worn down to nothing, but still on. Boots resoled with what I believe was bark and personal determination. He had a patrol cap. I don’t know how the patrol cap survived. I don’t think I want to know.”
According to the lieutenant, the past 54 years have been, in his assessment, “mostly fine.” He constructed a shelter in the first week, identified reliable water sources in the first month, and developed what he described as a sustainable routine that he had been meaning to wrap up once he found his two remaining points.
He has not found his two remaining points.
“The terrain doesn’t match the map,” he said, producing a 1971 topographic map that Grylls’s production team confirmed is accurate but predates several significant changes to the area including two highways, a reservoir, and a Walmart.
“That might be your issue,” Grylls said, carefully.
The lieutenant looked at the map. He looked at the terrain. He looked back at the map.
“I accounted for the reservoir,” he said.
He had not accounted for the Walmart.
Army officials confirmed the lieutenant’s records are on file, that he was officially listed as absent without leave in 1974 after the missing classification expired, and that his promotion to first lieutenant, which had been pending at the time of his disappearance, was never processed.
He has been a second lieutenant for 54 years.
When informed of this, the lieutenant set his jaw in the way that men of a certain generation set their jaw when they have something to say and have decided not to say it.
He said it anyway.
It is not printable.
Grylls offered to guide him out of the forest. The lieutenant declined, stating that he does not need to be guided out of a forest and that he has been navigating this terrain for five decades.
He then walked in the wrong direction.
Grylls followed at a respectful distance.
They have been walking for three days.
At press time the lieutenant had identified what he believes is his first remaining point, confirmed it against his 1971 map, and announced that he expects to complete the course by Thursday assuming the weather holds and nobody moves the Walmart.
He is being promoted to first lieutenant upon his return.
The paperwork was submitted Tuesday.
It is expected to process in four to six weeks.
He has waited 54 years.
He can wait four to six weeks.
