FORT IRWIN, Calif. (AP) — A soldier participating in a rotation at the National Training Center made direct physical contact with a Mojave Desert tortoise Tuesday afternoon, an act prohibited by federal law, base regulations, and three separate safety briefs delivered in the preceding 72 hours by NCOs who are now questioning their chosen profession.
Nothing happened.
The tortoise walked away. The soldier walked away. The desert, which has absorbed mechanized infantry, a generations-long accumulation of human error, and summer temperatures that would kill a less committed landscape, continued to exist.
The incident occurred at approximately 1340 local time in a staging area near the eastern training corridor. Witnesses say the soldier separated from his element, approached the tortoise, which was stationary near a scrub brush approximately fifteen meters off the hardball, and picked it up with both hands in the manner of someone who had been told not to do exactly that and had simply chosen a different outcome.
“I told him not to touch it,” said the soldier’s squad leader, a staff sergeant who has now given the wildlife brief five times this rotation and is prepared to give it again, he said, “for as long as God puts air in my lungs and privates in my formation.” He added that he had made direct eye contact with the soldier during the brief. “I pointed at him. I said ‘you, specifically.’ He nodded. I thought we had an understanding.”
They did not have an understanding.
The soldier, a private first class on his first NTC rotation, said the tortoise looked like it wanted to be picked up. When asked to elaborate, he said it was moving toward him. When informed that tortoises move toward things because they are slow and largely indifferent to obstacles, he said that was a fair point and that he had not considered it at the time.
He was then informed, by three NCOs in overlapping sentences, that he had potentially committed a federal crime.
He nodded throughout.
“He had the face,” said one sergeant, “of a person who has genuinely never experienced a consequence. Like consequences are a thing that happen to other people in other zip codes and he has simply never encountered one personally.”
The Mojave Desert tortoise is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Federal regulations prohibit touching, harassing, pursuing, or disturbing the animals in any way. Violations carry fines of up to $50,000 and up to one year in federal prison. Fort Irwin’s installation wildlife brief, which is mandatory, covers this in detail, includes photographs, and according to the staff sergeant, “has the word federal in it at least six times, which I now realize was not enough.”
An investigation was not opened. The tortoise, assessed by an installation wildlife officer who responded to the scene, showed no signs of distress. It had, by the time the wildlife officer arrived, moved approximately four meters and appeared to be, in the officer’s words, “completely fine and probably unaware that any of this is still happening.”
The private, by contrast, received a counseling statement. It was his third of the rotation. The rotation is fourteen days old.
“That’s a pace,” his platoon sergeant said. “That is a statistically remarkable pace. The first one was for sleeping through a radio watch. The second one was for an incident involving an MRE heater that I am not going to describe because we are still doing a damage assessment. And now this.” He paused. “He’s not a bad kid. He’s just operating on a frequency that the rest of us can’t fully receive.”
Asked whether the soldier had shown any remorse, the platoon sergeant considered the question carefully.
“He asked,” he said, “whether the tortoise could be the unit mascot.”
The answer was no.
The private accepted this.
“He seemed,” the platoon sergeant said, “like he might bring it up again later.”
The soldier’s squad leader has requested that the wildlife brief be moved from a standalone block of instruction to a recurring element of every morning formation for the remainder of the rotation. The request is under consideration. A laminated card with the words DO NOT TOUCH THE TORTOISE is being produced by the unit S6 and will be issued to the private before end of day Thursday.
It will be the only laminated card issued to a single soldier for this purpose in the history of the National Training Center, as far as anyone can determine.
“We checked,” said one officer. “We actually checked.”
The wildlife brief will be given again Thursday.
The private will be present.
He will be in the front row.
His squad leader will be pointing at him.
The tortoise, for its part, was spotted Wednesday morning approximately 200 meters from Tuesday’s incident site, moving at its own pace, on its own schedule, unbothered by federal law, base regulations, safety briefs, the United States Army, or the private first class from whatever zip code produced him.
It had, witnesses said, the energy of an animal that has seen this before and expects to see it again.
It is probably right.
