Kicking the rusty North Carolina dust in route step, a column of cadets clumped to a halt on a narrow road. Into the woods, cluttered with heavy undergrowth and roofed with tall loblolly pines, moved a group headed by a lieutenant and a brace of ensigns wearing unseamanlike woodsman's boots and hunting knives. The newest course in the Navy's crowded curriculum for aviation cadets was about to begin: lessons in woodcraft for the young future flyers who might someday find themselves afoot and alone.
While the cadets watched, officers demonstrated some lore of survival. One found a...