Some time long ago, I think I was 18 years old and a young Navy man. I was stationed at Subic Bay naval base in the Philippines.
It was a Friday night and I decided to hit the town of Olongapo. A few buds and I hit the local bars we were there for awhile but we grew bored and we all decided to take a trip to Subic City which was about 10 miles out of the mainstay town.
So the fellas and I hit a few bars and got pretty drunk. My compainions decided to hook up with a few ladies so now I was left alone. It was around 2 or 3 AM and I decided to head back to the base. Well in that region the best form of transportation was a Jitney, Something like in the image below, but not quite as crowded.
**broken link removed**
Since it was late at night, I felt safe as few people were using the Jitneys, so I popped on one where I was the only passenger. "Olongapo" I tell the driver, and off we went. A few miles were traveled and we stop. 3 local men jump in the back with me. I was furthest from the exit of the vehicle and now there were three men sitting in front of me with smiles on their face that I translated as I am in trouble.
We drove some ways further into the darkened night, and I was just crapping myself at this point as it just did not seem right.
Driver pulls over in a dark section of the road and informs me this was a special fair, and the cost would be more than a usual fair. I asked "how much" answer was, how much do you got? And the driver displays a nasty looking butterfly knife.
It became obvious that I was in trouble. The driver with the butterfly knife behind me and three sneering locals in front of me, blocking my run for freedom.
So I assessed my situation and decided to use a football maneuver to get out the back, and this is what I did, elbows and knees were flying as I flew out of that Jitney.
I quickly ran from my would be assailants into the jungle where I began to fall down a steep hill full of most painful plants and shrubs. I regained my footing at some point and crawled further into the brush.
At some point I decided to make my last stand. I hid as best I could as I heard the others searching for me as they would call out, "Hey Joe we just want your money" "Make it easy Joe and come out". I found a nice broken branch that would surely knock someone into submission. I stayed in my concealment huddled and quiet, barely breathing.
I heard the other men searching for me, but they were a ways off, so I just sat, and sat in this jungle mess with lord only knows what was crawling about me.
These men searched for what felt like eternity and if they had found me I would surely have been killed. As time passed, they gave up the search but I remained silent and still until daylight broke.
After the streets came alive with people, I made it back to main road, got another Jitney and headed to base, so all was well. Well not quite, I was late for reporting for duty and received quite a unpleasant greeting from my boss.
The whole thing scared the poop out of me.
I almost forgot this part. After all that, I had contracted a few nasty bugs and they decided to make me the host of their parasitic party. I got a bad case of the squirts for a week. A few doses of antibiotics later, my color changed from yellow to normal