by Dave Hazel
“I planned to have the men start on additional pits first thing tomorrow,” Major Chick replied. “I agree with you Mykal.”
“Sir, I don’t think you should be lectured or schooled on military tactics by him,” said Lieutenant Johnson. His statement took them all by surprise. “Sir, we have the training and experience in military tactics and maneuvers.”
The statement and attitude caught Mykal off guard. He wasn’t sure if the Green Beret 1st lieutenant was joking. The pause and silence made all present feel awkward. “Did I miss something?” Mykal asked, giving the officer an opportunity to admit he was kidding or to clarify his position.
“I personally don’t think you have the qualifications to run a military operation of this size Mister Mykal Graves, as in civilian Mykal Graves. Even if you were restored to your rank of E-4, as a junior NCO you wouldn’t have the qualifications.”
“Whoa, what the hell is this?” Mykal snapped angrily and looked to the other officers present just in case he heard wrong. “First of all I was just making a simple suggestion because of my experience in dealing with the army of Sosos that could rain down on us at any moment. And now after getting an idea of their size we really need to do more. Did I say something wrong?” Mykal turned to Chick. “Did I step outta line?”
“No you didn’t Myk,” Chick held his hand up to calm Mykal and try to end the confrontation that looked about to explode. “I agree with you one hundred percent. So let’s back up a moment.”
“Sir, I just don’t understand why you’re kissing his ass,” Johnson inserted. “I just don’t understand why everyone here walks around as if Sergeant Graves is like a damn four star general.”
“Seriously? What the hell is your problem?” Mykal scoffed, it shocked him and his pride pushed him to get physical but he feared the Green Beret would probably beat him senselessly.
“Lieutenant Johnson, now that I see and understand where you’re coming from, I’m ordering you to cease and to stand down,” Chick said, his smile disappeared.
“You are way out of line mister,” Major Innes spoke up and he stood directly in front of Johnson to get in his face. “Stop it now. I don’t know what bug has crawled up your arse, but you had better take a walk and cool off.”
“I expect you to be at my quarters in one hour and thirty minutes!” Chick spoke in a manner that surprised the Company Commanders. Chick eyed his watch for the time. “Don’t be late,” he snarled. Though Major Chick did his best to come across as one of the guys and to get along with all under his command, they all knew he was a strict enforcer of respect of rank. “We will talk then. Think about this Lieutenant Johnson, we all volunteered for this mission. We all understood when we accepted this mission that Mister Graves and Towbar were to be the superiors with myself. You will give him your full co-operation and you will give him the respect due his position or you will be relieved of your command of platoon 2Delta4,” Chick added to show he knew the position of every one of his company commanders and platoon leaders.
“Yes Sir,” Johnson replied and snapped to attention. He realized he stepped over the line by allowing his personal feelings to leave his mind and float past his lips to get voiced in front of everyone. Lieutenant Johnson’s career had been peppered with incidents where his mouth instigated trouble with his superiors.
“Johnson, you are dismissed,” Chick said sharply. “I will listen to your explanation when you report as ordered.”
“Yes Sir,” Johnson saluted, did a crisp about face and walked off.
“Mykal, I am sorry about that,” Major Chick looked Mykal eye to eye. “I will not tolerate such disrespect from anyone under my command and it will not happen again. Company Commanders, you be sure to remind your personnel I will not tolerate such a blatant display of disrespect.”
“I don’t have a problem with that Sir. It just took me by surprise. At first I thought he was joking, because I don’t think I tried to be pushy or anything, did I?”
“No, you were not Myk. Don’t worry about him.”
“What is his problem?” Mykal asked.
“There will not be a problem,” Chick said with a smile. “Let’s get back to the issue at hand and I will handle Johnson when we are finished.”
“That’s fine, but what did I do so I don’t do it again?”
“It’s not what you did, Myk,” Major Innes said. “It’s all about rank with Lieutenant Johnson. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant about six months ago. He was prior enlisted and it was a struggle for him to get his commission. From my understanding, his first few months as a 2nd lieutenant, he was a holy terror to any enlisted. His commanding officer had to put a stop to his abuse of power. Since you’re not a commissioned officer I’m assuming he has difficulty submitting to your authority.”
“He needs to grow up,” Captain Taylor chimed in. “After you reprimand him Major Chick, being that I’m his Battalion Commander, and Captain Oakenfold is his Company Commander we will monitor his response and attitude. We will take the appropriate measures should a situation like this arise again.”
“Why is he here if he has a problem with me?”
“During the interview process he answered all the questions with the right answers,” Diaz answered. “I don’t know Johnson personally, but I do know he is a good officer. He has a problem controlling his tongue. That’s the scuttlebutt on him.”
“Do you think he’ll be a threat later?” Mykal asked.
“No. He will not be an issue after I chew his ass,” Major Chick answered. “Consider it done and finished. There will be no more issues. We all understand that this mission is not about you. This mission is about rescuing the people held captive by the Sosos.”
Mykal smiled. “Thank you, Sir. Back to what I originally wanted to say, there’s got to be close to a million Sosos and their allies out there and the numbers are growing. Captain Diaz can confirm that. I just don’t want to get caught off guard because we’ll get overrun.”
“He is correct Sir,” Diaz agreed. “I’ve never seen a military force of that size before. The one positive is they look to be a rag tag group, a massive mob rather than an organized military machine. Their weapons are primitive, but will be effective up close.”
“We will work on the pits and we will have the men lay mines out beyond the opening. We will take care of the defensive positioning on this end Myk. I want you to focus on the rescue of the prisoners. Run your plan by us and we will give you any input that we would suggest.”
“Thank you. I do have one quick question for you. When you spoke to Johnson, what did you mean by 2Delta4?”
“Great question and I guess we should have briefed you,” Chick said and nodded with a smile. “This organization of Towbar One is not a traditional military organization. We’re a regiment in size so to keep structure simple, since this force was thrown together hastily, and made up of different branches and groups from foreign services, we broke down the force by position so that though everyone will probably not know the names of all the leaders and team mates, this will help all involved.
“The first number in 2Delta4 is the battalion. The next is the company, then the platoon. So Lieutenant Johnson is the platoon leader of 2nd Battalion, Delta company the 4th Platoon. Since there are four squads with twelve men in each squad we could pinpoint each individual part of a fire team. So to use Johnson’s Platoon again, we could say 2Delta4-1-8 and that would be 2nd Battalion, Delta Company, 4th Platoon, 1st squad, and 8th member of the squad. Another example would be 1Alpha2-3-1 which would easily tell us 1st Battalion, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon, 3rd squad and the 1st member which would be the squad leader.”
“That makes it simple. Thanks. So how about…”
5.
“So what’s the word Myk?” Jake asked when Mykal rejoined their group. Sam and the Dosch family were with them but William and Officer Danny Weller were not.
“We just got done planning the rescue. Where’s Weller?”
“He and
Captain Roberts went to go get more to eat,” Larry answered.
“If you guys see him before I do, I need to see him right away. We need as much info as we can get about the Soso’s camp.”
“So whadda we gonna do about rescuing those people?” Sam asked with a broad smile.
“Sorry buddy, you’re not doing anything about the rescue. What did the doctors say about your arm?”
“They said I’m alright,” he lied angrily. “There’s really not much they can do about it here, but I can get it fixed with surgery when we get back to the world. But come on Myk, I can take care of myself. Let me help.”
“I’m sorry Sam, but I don’t wanna hear it. There’s too much on the line. You can’t use one of your arms, and I’d be giving up one of our spots for a one armed man instead of a two armed Marine. It doesn’t make sense, let alone the possible danger for you and those near you. I just can’t do it.”
“Screw you Myk. How the hell did you become the damn boss?” He yelled angrily, which took everyone by surprise.
They all watched to see how Mykal was going to deal with the volatile situation. “Sam, I really care about you and that’s why I’m gonna say you can’t come along.”
“Go screw yourself you asshole,” he snarled and stormed off in an angry huff.
Mykal bit his lip to keep from arguing. “What the hell are you all looking at me like that for?” He asked his friends. “What, am I wrong for not allowing him to come along? So now I’m the bad guy?”
“No you’re not Myk,” Jake laughed quietly because of Mykal’s new leadership position and making the right decision. “I would have done the same thing,” he added and lightly punched Mykal’s arm. “He’s mad, but you did the right thing and he’ll get over it. Sam knows you’re right, he’s just angry that he feels useless around here. I’ll talk to him.”
“Okay, here’s the plan. Tomorrow we’re gonna take eighty people, ten per helicopter and they’re gonna be dropped off at a safe spot away from the Soso camp. This group will be south west of the Soso camp because there is a forest or large gathering of trees out there. It will give them good cover until night fall. The helicopters will come back and refuel and take another group of the same size to the north west of the Soso camp. These two groups of one hundred and sixty men will be the diversion force. They’re gonna have extra M-60s, a couple of mortar teams and a couple of flame thrower teams and--”
“Flame throwers?” Jake interrupted with surprise.
“And mortars?” Larry asked just as surprised.
“Yeah, I asked for them specifically cuz I know it’ll scare the hell outta the Sosos,” Mykal laughed at their expressions. “From their point of view they’ll see that humans can breathe fire. Everyone will all have several hand grenades and so on. Now my force of eighty will be dropped on the east side of the camp. My force will be the one that goes into the camp and frees the prisoners.”
“Why are you going to do that?” Roy Dosch asked.
“It’s a long story, but it’s my responsibility to make sure that certain VIPs make it back so I wanna go,” Mykal shrugged. He didn’t want to go into detail. “We noticed the prisoners were toward the east side of the overall camp,” he said to change the subject. “There isn’t much else over that way. It appears they pushed all the prisoners to the east side of their camp rather than put them in the middle of the camp which is great for us because that will make it easier for extraction.”
“Who is going with you?” Boris asked. “Because I’d like to go with you.”
“My task will be the most dangerous, so I’m looking for volunteers. My group will be the last group in, but the helicopters will stay with us to get the prisoners out of there as soon as possible. So my plan is to wait until dark, tiptoe into the camp, silently kill any Sosos that may be a threat, grab the hostages, tiptoe right back out of there and get them to the choppers where they’ll be flown to safety first.”
“Just like that?” Larry laughed with a snap of his fingers. “You’re joking, right? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
“And what is the other group going to be doing on the west side of the camp?” Boris asked.
“They’re going to be ready to open up with everything they have if we get detected and need a diversion. If we run into any trouble, they’re going to draw the Sosos to them to enable us to get away. If something like that does happen we think we’ll be able to sneak the prisoners away during all the confusion and will be able to fight our way through the small resistance we may encounter. If that does happen, we’ll be in radio contact so we’ll let them know when we’re safe and they will head west until the choppers come to pick them up.”
“I’ll go with your group Myk,” Boris volunteered again.
“Understand once we get the prisoners out of there my group will be left on the ground. Only the prisoners will be flown out right away and we’ll try to squeeze them into two or three helicopters so my group and the rest of the helicopters can support the two groups on the west side if they get detected. Then the two groups to the west will be picked up because they will be in greater danger.
“Now if everything goes smoothly,” he continued. “And we sneak in there and grab the hostages without being detected, then we’ll fly out with the hostages. After we return them back to camp here, we’ll go back and pick up groups One and Two after that. My group, group Three, is going to be at most risk by my choice,” he announced to his friends. “I need to make sure the VIPs get out of there. Failure is not an option.”
“I still wanna go with your group,” Boris declared.
“Good, I’ll gladly take you buddy,” Mykal said happily. “Now if everything goes fine and there are no hiccups we should be done before sunrise. If Murphy’s Law kicks in, I’m hoping we should be done by the middle of the day tomorrow.”
“I’m gonna volunteer to be with your group Myk,” Larry said and played with the hair on his face. “But I gotta tell ya I don’t like the idea of being on foot behind Soso lines.”
“Listen, you guys don’t have to do anything. Like Major Chick said as soon as he got here, you guys are like rescued POWs. You can just sit back and relax. You’ve put in your time.”
“I know Myk, but damn, I gotta get outta this Pass. It’s making me nuts to stay here,” Larry laughed madly.
“I’m thinking about coming along too Myk,” Jake said as he folded his arms across his chest. “I really do need to get out of the Pass too. I’m going stir crazy.”
“Do you think it’ll be safe?” William asked as he stepped into their circle. “I heard just a little bit of what you men were saying. It sounds suicidal to me.”
“It’ll be dangerous, yes, but it’s not like we’re carrying gasoline cans and walking barefoot over hot coals,” Mykal laughed at the mental picture he put in his mind. “You have to understand the Sosos won’t have any kind of security set up, nothing complex or deep anyway. They might have a few guards in place to watch over the prisoners, but Towbar’s people never go on the offensive so they’ll never expect it. Besides, they never fight at night so they won’t see this coming. If the shit hits the fan it’s gonna be just as new and scary to them as it is to us. We’ll have the upper hand.
“Right now as I speak, Major Chick and Captain Diaz are going through the ranks to find out who has what experience and those with the specialized training of infiltrating and killing silently are going to be on my team. I think the Sosos are gonna be shocked when they wake up in the morning,” Mykal laughed and gave a confident smirk.
“I don’t think something like that would work,” William moaned. “Isn’t there a better way?”
“You don’t have to go. Besides you’re just a desk jockey anyway, right. So you shouldn’t go.”
“No, I need to, I mean I want to go,” he corrected himself.
Mykal felt sure William was one of the people who had the job of watching his every movement so he would allow William
to go because William would be able to verify that he did everything possible, should the mission fail. “Whether it’s gonna work or not depends on those doing the job,” Mykal said. “I have all the confidence in the world with these guys who are gonna step up and volunteer,” he said and turned to face his friends. “I don’t want any of you guys to go, cuz you’ve all been through a lot. You guys have been at risk for six months now, so I want you guys to sit back and relax until we go home. Don’t take me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want you to go cuz I know you’re more than capable enough or I woulda never brought it up. Plus I know I can count on you guys to have my back. And I’d rather be with guys who have experience versus training and I’d rather have the comfort of being with friends who I know.”
“I am with you my friend,” Towbar said and there was no doubt he would go with Mykal. “I will do anything you request.”
“Towbar, maybe you should stay behind on this one,” Mykal suggested and it pained him to say it. “Since we’re gonna be so far behind the enemy lines, if something bad happens who is gonna lead your people?”
“I have capable leaders my friend. Besides, I am curious to see how your sneaky tactics work. It may be something my people may be able to employ at a later time. I truly desire to go.”
“You know I’d love to have you with me. You’ll probably end up saving my life again,” Mykal joked.
“I’d like to go along with you Myk,” Roy Jr. offered. “Now that I know my brother and my daddy are okay I’d like to help.”
“Me too,” Randy followed his brother’s lead.
“Mykal, you know I would like to go along,” Roy Sr. said. He looked down at his feet as if ashamed because of his age. “I just wouldn’t be able to keep up with you youngsters. I just--”
