A story for Gary - Final Part. 10/6/2006
“Alpha Base, Alpha Base, this is Team Charlie, we are taking fire, and have one man down, over.”
I jumped out of the helo, and landed up to my boots in mud. I ran out and knelt down, scanning the treeline. Everything seemed normal, except for the noise and wind blast from the chopper. I could sense the rest of the team jumping out very quickly behind me. A couple of troopers took positions to my left and right, weapons at the ready. I was still fairly relaxed. Soldiers who have spent time in combat tend to have a sense of when things are going to go terribly wrong, and their lives are in danger. I didn’t get that feeling here.
Until I heard an all too familiar “crack”, and saw the trooper on my left go down. I yelled for everyone to take cover, and brought my weapon to my shoulder, looking at the tree line and scanning for movement. The helo lifted off very quickly, I guess the pilot must have heard the gun shot as well. I knew what the pilot was going to to do. He would go overhead, out of small arms range, and loiter overhead until I told him we had secured the area, and he would come down again and evac the casualty.
I motioned the R.O. over, and got in touch with base camp to give them a situation report. As I was doing so, the rest of the team had fanned out into defensive positions in a circle around me. Until I noticed that the only 2 team members not to have done so were the Sarge, and the nugget. I was still on the radio to base, and could hear a voice on the other end asking me if I wanted the response team flown in for back-up, and if they should mobilise the air support.
“Wait one,” I replied.
I walked over and saw the Sarge laying into the nugget with his fists. As in beating the crap out of him. One of the troopers had gone over to his team mate who had been shot, and was tending to him, it didn’t look serious, because I could hear the trooper cursing and swearing and trying to get up.
I tapped the Sarge on the shoulder, and he paused in mid beating. He had the nugget grabbed by the collar in one fist, and the nugget was already sporting a swollen eye. I raised an eyebrow at the Sarge, and he said to me, “Fucking nugget didn’t safe his weapon in the chopper. He tripped and fell as he exited, and discharged his weapon.”
This had now become serious. All military operations have a set of procedures which are followed to the letter. Not because someone wants to make a soldier’s life difficult, which it already is, but more to ensure that dumb fuck accidents like this didn’t happen and result in someone’s parents or wife getting a visit from the C.O. and having their entire lives turned upside down.
One of the procedures we had, after much discussion with the guys running the air side of things in the Battalion, was that weapons would be safed in the helicopter. And this nugget had just violated this procedure, and managed to shoot a team mate in the process. Which is exactly what this procedure was trying to avoid.
I shook my head at this, because I was now probably going to be hauled up in front of a court martial to testify, and might be held responsible for not ensuring that procedures were followed. I was tempted to give the nugget a kick in the balls, but refrained from doing so. I motioned the R.O. over, and asked the helo pilot to come down for an evac.
We loaded the nugget and the injured team member into the helo for return to base. While all this was happening, a couple of the team had gone into the tree line, and were walking a bunch of guys out at gun point. I could see shotguns slung over their shoulders, which were probably confiscated from the guys they were walking out.
I walked over to them, and asked one of them who they were, and what were they doing in a restricted area. He said they were loggers. Illegal loggers. I sighed. More reports and hearings were in my immediate future. I called base, and updated them. The X.O. came on the line, and asked me if I wanted to turn them over to the civilian authorities for action, or whether we should settle the matter there and then. The loggers saw the murderous gleam in my eyes, and to a man, they fell to their knees, begging and pleading.
The Sarge walked over to them, and told them they had till sunset to get out of the A.O., otherwise he would come hunting for them.
- Posted in : Pulp Fiction
- Author : thesnark
Comments»
First!!
Whatta dumbf**k!! Even I, not being in the military before, know that you should safety your weapon….
But of course, its just a story and didn’t really happen in real life… really…
Fark! Ya, me and my buddy almost got gunned down by auto fire coz a dumbfuck didn’t safe his live weapon during change position. talk about close call. and yes, that dumbfuck got tibai’d by our warren officer kau-kau!
Bikerwannabe : It’s all fiction man, and I’m just a figment of your imagination.
Fucking friendly fire.
I’m looking forward to more fictions in the future.
Final Part? How could this be Final Part? With an ending like that? That’s a sequel ending.
Thank you very much for the honor, Snark. It ranks right up there with the very best war-fiction because of it’s authentic feel. As everyone who has ever put on a uniform and gone into harm’s way knows; The Plan seldom survives first contact with the enemy.
Why, one could say that, because the ending wasn’t all wrapped up nice and tidy, it could very well have happened in real-life! ;^)
Ride (and write) well,
=gc=