A story for Gary - Part Three. 9/8/2006
The jungle canopy was beautiful, stretching out to the horizon. From my vantage point, with the air blasting past, it was almost a comfortable place to be. For a single fleeting moment, I could forget who I was, and what I was, and exactly what it was we were supposed to be doing there. I was rudely awakened from my reverie by the Sarge. He tapped me on my shoulder, and pointed out where we were on the map.
We had learned to do this, double checking our co-ordinates every so often. Not that we didn’t trust our colleagues in the front seats, but we had had, on more than one occassion, touched down in entirely the wrong landing zone. The boys back in brigade had finally come to the conclusion that in order to minimise this error, they would minimise the number of LZs in a particular AO. Unfortunately this had the unpleasant effect of allowing the bad guys to guess fairly well where we were going to be on any particular day.
The guys in front knew their business this time, and the Sarge went back to fussing over the team. And the nugget. I looked over to him, and could see that he was flushed with adrenaline from going out on his first survey. I wondered if he really had any idea what was going to happen out there. You can go through any number of exercises and training ops, but, like every virgin knows, there is only one first time, and it is never anything like you expected it to be.
As we were heading along, skimming the trees on our merry way, the chopper’s crew chief nudged me, and pointed out and downwards. He drew my attention to something that shouldn’t have been there, a cut in the jungle, almost like a road. I gave the cut a closer look, and it was a road! Someone had come into a place where no one should have been, and in the process had made a road big enough for a fair sized vehicle to move through. The crew chief got on the horn to the driver, and then he passed me a spare headphone set and plugged me into the intercom.
The driver asked me to confirm the sighting, and I did so. While the pilot was speaking to me, I motioned for the R.O. to raise brigade. The Sarge raised an eyebrow, and moved over to have a look. If this was what I thought it was, it warranted a change in orders, and further investigation.
- Posted in : Pulp Fiction
- Author : thesnark
Comments»
woo.
There is a fucking road in the jungle!