Growling in Clallam County, Washington

My name is Ken Gosline. In 1966 while stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington with the 4th Inf. Div., I had an encounter with, what I believed to be a bear, but now I know it was a bigfoot. The encounter itself did not happen at Fort Lewis. We were on operations up in the Olympic National Forest prior to leaving for VietNam. Myself and about seven other guys volunteered to play the enemy and try to sneak through the Company Lines. We waited till way past sunset before we attempted to infiltrate the lines. We were moving extremely slow, so it had to be past midnight when we were discovered and all hell broke loose. I lucked out and was not captured. I laid under a tree, avoiding capture for well over an hour. When I finally made it back to the logging road it had to be 3-4 a.m. When I got close to my Company area, I heard what I thought was another soldier coming down the side of a hill toward the logging road. I couldn't make out any details, just the outline of a "Big" G.I. If I couldn't make out his unit, I figured he couldn't make out mine, so I figured to reverse roles here and capture him. I challenged him by yelling "Halt, who goes there?" His answer was this ungodly growl that scared the crap out of me and I took off running down the logging road. Thinking it was a bear and that he was right behind me, I ran like I never ran before. I finally saw the campfire at my Company area and headed for it. Not knowing about bigfoot at the time, I told the guys I was chased by a bear. The next day I found out I was the only one to escape capture so it couldn't have been any of the guys out there. That growl was "REAL", not another G.I. trying to scare me. I left for VietNam in September 1966 and got back to "The World" in September 1967. I remember watching a T.V. special in October or November of 1967 about a creature that was filmed by a Mr. Patterson in the Northwest part of the U.S. At that time it all started coming together. Why it looked like a large G.I. coming down the hill and the real, scarey as hell growl. A bear, standing upright, coming down the hill with that slope would have been thrown forward onto all fours long before and wouldn't have been able to cover that distance walking upright.