Report 18439: Possible scream at Ft. Stewart

I was assigned to Fort Stewart with my platoon during an NTC train-up.  The MP supervised road crossing of 144 (hard stand night road crossings at that time had to have MPs to manage the traffic) had been closed for the night leaving my platoon separated on the opposite side of the road from the Task Force and my company--we were told to stay put on the SE side of 144 until morning when we could cross without the MPs.  Since we had been down range for many weeks, we maintained radio contact, formed a herringbone in a clearing, but otherwise went admin and I let everyone sleep.  Most of the soldiers were turret lizards sleeping on top of their tracks.  Almost all had the ramp down (Not very tactical but we were smoked).  The weather was warm and sticky, typical for early Fall in SE Georgia.  Sometime during the evening as I and my platoon sergeant sat underneath a tree talking, we heard a terrible scream from our front, about fifty yards away inside the treeline.  I got up to walk toward the noise but my platoon sergeant stopped me.  The scream sounded like a woman being harmed, but there was a wildness to it as well.  At the time I assumed it was a panther (but have recently heard there is no extant recording a such a thing.  That and I drive past Woman Hollering Creek outside of San Antonio from time to time and am reminded).  There was nothing else.  The funny thing was when the scream finished, all the previously quiet armored vehicle engines started and the soldiers raised the ramps, climbed inside and went back to sleep.