[Easy 6]

One day while I was in the Army up in Fairbanks AK, me and a few guys from my platoon were tasked with ambushing an infantry unit on patrol, it was an exercise meant to teach them how to properly react to it and maneuver to take out the aggressors

They spread 5 of us out about a mile or so apart along a prescribed path out in the boonies, one group of 3 and two solo ambushers

I was a solo ambusher, we were all equipped with MILES gear (basically a laser tag system) it fires a laser every time you fire a blank round in your M16, the purpose was to try and inflict casualties that the unit would have to deal with while responding

So a squad was scheduled to come by about once an hour for us to ambush, well I had just finished with the first squad to come by, and about 5 minutes later I hear the crunching sound of a massive animal walking around in this giant field of cane brush off to one side of me, this shit is like seven - eight feet tall and very thick, couldnt see into it more than a few feet

My heart starts racing immediately, I just KNEW it was a bear and I was scared shitless because NO ONE was around to help... so this goes on for several minutes, its just crunching around and I'm hoping it either stays in the cane field, or if it does come out of the field it does so down the way to my left or right

I'm huddled up against a tree, as quiet and still as a scared rabbit

I start thinking about how to defend myself if I have to, and those of you who've served are probably aware that a blank will fire one the cleaning rods from the rifle cleaning kit in the butt of an M16, hard enough to jam several inches of it into a tree

Sure as hell not what you WANT when facing a bear, but its the only thing I could cook up, so I drop one of the rods down the barrel... and wait...

Well this thing DID end up crashing out the field, 10 yards directly in front of me

At first I was at least a LITTLE relieved, it wasnt a bear... but a gigantic bull moose complete with huge rack, this thing was at least 8 foot at the shoulder... HUGE

Now you have to understand, moose trample several people a year up there to death, and this thing could've destroyed me... I knew for sure the cleaning rod would only piss it off if I'd had to fire it

It stopped just outside the brush and stared at me crouched down next to this tree for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only 30 seconds... then it gratefully walked off down the edge of that brush field

Thats as scared as I've ever been in my life, tied with the time a guy put a loaded gun to my head