Issue In Doubt

by David Sherman

  “How’d you know we were here?” the major asked in a shaky voice.

  “I saw movement, sir,” Mackie replied.

  The major stood up and shook his head. “I was positive we were hidden before you got close enough to see us.”

  Mackie grinned. “India Three/One, Sir. We’re the best.” He turned to look at where the rest of the squad was moving up. “Referees, Sergeant Martin.”

  “Referees, huh?” Martin reached the mound and looked at the major. “Sorry to have disturbed you, sir. Mackie, good job. Continue as you were.”

  “Aye aye, Sergeant.” Mackie returned to the trail to resume his advance.

  A couple of minutes later, Lieutenant Commiskey’s voice came over the platoon net. “The point just flushed a couple of referees, so you know bad guys have to be close. Everybody, look alert.” Primary functions of the “referees” were to determine who were “casualties,” which casualties were wounded, which killed, and to free up the “casualties” once it was proper for them to move.

  Commiskey was right; less than fifty meters beyond where he’d discovered the referees, Mackie, taking a slow step, felt a tug on his boot. He eased his foot back and looked down, but couldn’t see what he’d felt. He took a careful step backward, and lowered himself to examine the path close up.

  There! He caught the faint glimmer of a monofilament tripwire about ten centimeters above the ground. He followed it with his eyes in one direction and saw where it was secured to the base of a sapling. In the other it was attached to a flash-bang, a simulated antipersonnel mine. The wire was taut, holding the fuse’s striker out. If the tension on the wire was released by the wire being broken, the striker would slam home, setting off the mine.

  “Damn,” Adriance murmured just behind Mackie’s shoulder.

  “Got that right,” Mackie murmured back. He carefully examined the area around the flash-bang without touching anything. He was looking for the safety pin; if he could find it he could insert it to prevent the striker from going home when the tripwire broke. He didn’t expect to find the pin.

  “Pull back,” Adriance said, and duck-walked backward himself. Mackie followed.

  Sergeant Martin joined them. “Talk to me,” he said. Mackie told the squad leader what he’d found. Martin toggled his helmet comm to the platoon’s command circuit and reported the finding of the booby trap to Commiskey. He didn’t look happy when he’d gotten his instructions.

  “Mark the booby trap, then move off the trail to the right and wait for instructions. Second squad’s going to the left and third’s in reserve. We’re going to sweep the area to the front, looking for an ambush. Do it while I tell the rest of the squad.”

  “Aye aye.” Adriance’s expression said he didn’t like it either. “You heard the man. Mark that booby trap.”

  “Right. Mark it with what?”

  “Come on, Mackie, you’re smart.”

  “Yeah,” Mackie said sourly. “Field expedient. Hold this for me.” He extended his rifle for his fire team leader to take. As he returned the few meters to the booby trap, he reached into the first aid kit hanging from his belt and withdrew a field dressing. He stopped far enough away from where he remembered the tripwire was that he wouldn’t accidentally hit it, and knelt. While he looked for anchor points that wouldn’t interfere with the wire, he opened the field dressing and unwound its straps. He tied the end of one strap to a sapling a few centimeters from the one the tripwire was attached to, then tied the end of the other strap to a similar place near the flash-bang. When the field dressing was in place a few centimeters higher than the wire, he withdrew his bayonet and drew a series of “X”s in the path under the marking, with two arrows pointing at the explosive. Finished, he backed off.

  “Here.” Adriance handed his rifle to him. “Let’s go.” Adriance pointed into the brush next to the trail. “You know where it is. Take a position two meters in from it and wait.”

  “Are you sure?” Mackie asked. “That close to the trail?”

  Adriance shrugged. “That’s what the man said.”

  “What about protecting the environment?”

  “Just do it, Mackie.”

  Mackie shook his head. He didn’t think two meters from the path was deep enough, and he’d let higher-higher worry about trampling the environment. He went where Adriance sent him and lowered to one knee, pointing his rifle to his front, ready to open fire. Sounds to his right told him that Adriance was positioning the rest of the fire team. More sounds, faintly-heard, were Sergeant Martin positioning the rest of the squad.

  Commiskey’s voice came over the platoon net. “First and second squads, move out. Maintain your interval and dress.”

  The two squads started advancing slowly, the twenty-six Marines walking as quietly as they could through the brush, which wasn’t as quiet as any of them wanted. They watched their front for the “enemy,” and looked to their sides to check their intervals and dress—made sure they didn’t bunch up and that they stayed approximately on line.

  PFC Zion, on the fire team’s extreme right, eight meters from the path, was the first to spot the ambush. Unfortunately for him, the ambush had heard the squad’s approach, and shifted position to face its flank. The detectors on Zion’s chest registered the fire aimed at him and his armor froze him in mid-step before he could get off a shot. Off balance, he toppled to the ground.

  At the sound of the first shot, Mackie dove for the ground. But before he got there, a flash-bang went off close to his right front. His armor froze and he hit the ground in the attitude he’d been diving; his rifle pushing forward to go into his shoulder, his left arm extending along the rifle’s forestock, right arm bending to the side, his legs spreading, his torso curving. He slapped into the ground and the blank-fire-adapter on the muzzle of his rifle skidded into the leaves and dirt in front of him. For an instant, Mackie’s toes and the adapter on his rifle held him off the ground, then the weight of his load toppled him onto his right side; momentum carried him over onto his left. After a second, he rocked back to his right side, then left again. It took several rocks before he reached an uncomfortable equilibrium.

  Adriance and Orndoff were diving and were hit at the same time as Mackie. They also froze and rocked as Mackie had, until the three of them looked like nothing so much as three upended tortoises.

  Before second squad managed to realign itself and charge across the path into the flank of the ambush, first squad suffered five more simulated casualties. Third squad rushed up from behind and added its fire to the fight.

  In the end, none of the bad guys got away, but third platoon had suffered eight “dead” and seven more “badly wounded,” including Commiskey. That left Guillen in command of a platoon of twenty-seven Marines, the strength of two squads plus someone in command. Everyone in first squad was out of action.

  The referees Mackie had discovered followed behind third squad and closely observed the fire fight, noting where all the casualties were. When the shooting was over, the major unfroze them one at a time, noting each casualty’s name, and handed the “dead” over to the enlisted referee to escort to the “morgue,” where they would remain until the end of this phase of the exercise. Third platoon and the company corpsmen were responsible for moving the “wounded” to the battalion aid station.

  A few hours later, phase one of the exercise was finished. All the dead were resurrected, and the seriously wounded were healed. Captain Carl L. Sitter, the India Company commanding officer, assembled his Marines for a debriefing during the hour they had before the next phase of the exercise began. The enlisted Marines gathered in a semi-circle in front of him, the officers and platoon sergeants grouped to his rear.

  “Did I tell you to unass your gear?” Sitter snarled. Nearly all of the Marines had removed their packs and load-bearing webbing to ease the strain of carrying the nearly one hundred kilos of weaponry, ammunition, and other items in their basic combat loads. Sitter and the senior Marines behind him were all wear
ing their packs and gear.

  “We didn’t do too well out there today,” Sitter said after giving his Marines a moment to re-don their gear and start to squirm under his glare. “Things started off well when first platoon found two referees,” he looked at Mackie, who looked back without expression, “but went to hell from there. When a company starts off by losing more than a third of a platoon, it doesn’t bode well for accomplishing the company’s objective.

  “And we barely did.” Sitter looked slowly over the company again. “As a matter of fact, if we’d been up against a real enemy instead of an aggressor force that was supposed to let us win, I don’t think we would have accomplished our mission.

  “All right, break into platoons and chow down on field rats. Keep your packs and other gear on, so you don’t forget how we screwed up today. Maybe it’ll have you doing better on tonight’s evolution. And clean your weapons!”

  “Hey, what did we do wrong?” PFC Orndoff demanded as first squad settled in the shade of a tree to eat their rations. “The aggressors got us fair and square!”

  “Explain it to him, Adriance,” Sergeant Martin said.

  “You’re supposed to be smart, Mackie,” Corporal Adriance said. “Tell him what we did wrong.”

  Lance Corporal Mackie cleared his throat. “We didn’t exactly do anything wrong,” he said slowly. “It’s, well, it’s just that we aren’t supposed to give the bad guys a fair and square chance to do anything to us. We’re supposed to kill them before they can do anything.”

  “See? I said Mackie’s supposed to be smart,” Adriance said.

  “Yeah he is,” Martin agreed. “Keep it up, Mackie, and maybe you’ll make corporal one of these years.”

  “Hey, how should we have approached that ambush?” Orndoff demanded.

  Martin looked at him, then at the rest of the squad. “I’ll bet that right now Lieutenant Commiskey is hearing all about what he should have had the platoon do so that we didn’t walk into that ambush. But I didn’t say that, and you didn’t hear it from anybody. Right?”

  Mackie shrugged. “I didn’t hear nobody say nothing.”

  PFC Zion gave his fire team leader a startled look. “What, did somebody say something?”

  Orndoff shook his head. “I didn’t hear nobody say nothing.” He grinned at Adriance, who nodded back.

  “Remember that, Marine,” Adriance said.

  Orndoff grinned, then his expression reverted to confused. “But what should we have done?”

  Adriance sighed. “Tell him, Mackie. What would you have done?”

  Mackie was startled by Adriance again dropping the ball onto him, but recovered quickly. “What I would have done was take us deeper into the trees. That way we would have come in behind the ambush, instead of walking straight into it.”

  “Oh,” Orndoff said, awed.

  Chapter Five

  Exercise Area Bravo, Bellows Field Park, Oahu, Hawaii, NAU.

  Every Marine, no matter his rank, or position in a unit, is expected to be able to step into the position of his immediate commander or leader, sometimes even a higher position, and perform well. Unknown to everybody below the platoon command level, one element of the night phase of the training exercise was to test that ability among the junior NCOs and junior enlisted Marines of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines.

  Third platoon was in column in Bellows’s Exercise Area Bravo—a less environmentally sensitive area of the park, one that had few civilian visitors—moving toward their objective. The Marines had their night vision screens in place to allow them to see in the dark forest. Occasional flash-bangs went off in seemingly random locations—simulated enemy harassment-and-interdiction artillery fire.

  Halfway to the objective, Commiskey called a halt. “Squad leaders up,” he ordered on his helmet comm. “Assign your men defensive positions.”

  While nearly all instructions and data could be conveyed over the net, there was always a chance of enemy intercept. Besides, sometimes a face-to-face meeting was better than remote communications, so nobody thought there was anything unusual about Commiskey calling a squad leaders’ meeting. Commiskey led Guillen and platoon right guide Sergeant Richard Bender twenty meters off the path. Sergeant James E. Johnson, the second squad leader, being closest to the command group, was the first to join Commiskey. Commiskey withdrew a flash-bang from a cargo pocket and tossed it to the side, away from the platoon. It went off before the other squad leaders made it through the trees to join the command group.

  “Oh, shit!” Sergeant Martin shouted, hitting the dirt at the flash and the bang. A few meters to his left, third squad leader Sergeant Frederick W. Mausert also swore and hit the deck. So did the gun squad leader, Sergeant Matej Kocak.

  When a few seconds passed without another simulated artillery strike, or any word from the command group, the squad leaders pushed themselves up into crouches and dashed to where they believed the platoon command group was. They found the four Marines gently rocking on their backs in their frozen body armor. Using a few words to coordinate their actions, the two squad leaders checked the downed Marines and their comps.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Martin swore under his breath. Then into the platoon net, “Where’s comm?”

  “I’m here,” Corporal John H. Pruitt said as he scrambled to the scene.

  “Get me company,” Martin told him.

  “Right.” Pruitt got on the net and contacted Captain Sitter. He gave the handset to Martin.

  “Six Actual, this is India-three-one,” Martin said in a voice steadier than he felt, “India-three-six, three-five, three-four, and three-two are all down.” India-three, third platoon, three-six, -five, -four, the ancient designations for the platoon commander, platoon sergeant, and right guide. Three-one, -two and -three, the designators for first, second, and third squad leaders.

  “All seniors in India-three are down except for three-one and three-three, is that right?” Sitter asked.

  “And guns. What do you want us to do with the casualties?”

  “I’ve got a GPS lock on your position. I’ll forward it to battalion, and they’ll pick them up. All right, three-one, you still have an objective to take. You’re now acting six. Three-three is now acting five. Assign the senior fire team leader in each squad to acting squad leader. You’ve got three minutes to reorganize and get moving again. India-six-actual out.”

  Martin returned the handset to Pruitt and looked at Mausert and Kocak. “It’s on us,” he said. “I’m acting six, and Fred’s five. We’ve got three minutes to reorganize the platoon and move out.”

  Mausert shook his head. “I always figured I’d make platoon sergeant some day. But, damn, I expected to have the rank when I did.”

  “You gonna give your squad to Phillips?” Martin asked.

  “Yeah,” Mausert answered. “He’s got seniority, and he’s pretty good.”

  “Do you have any problem with Glowin taking over second squad?”

  Mausert shook his head. “I think he can do it.”

  “Good. Let’s give them the news. I’m giving my squad to Adriance.” He turned to Pruitt. “Looks like we’ve got a new command group. You and me will be between first and second. Fred,” back to Mausert, “you’re between second and third. No sense in being where one round can get both of us. Matej, keep your guns where they are in the column.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Mausert said. Kocak nodded.

  “All right, time’s wasting. Let’s do it.”

  “What do you think the lieutenant wanted us for?” Mausert asked.

  Martin shook his head. “Maybe we’ll find out after this phase. Unless this was a set up.”

  “Could be,” Mausert agreed.

  “Let’s go.”

  The four headed back to the rest of the platoon and made the new assignments.

  “Mackie,” Martin said after making Adriance the acting squad leader, “this makes you acting fire team leader. Put one of your men up front, and move out.”

 
“Aye aye,” Mackie replied. He turned to his two men. “Zion, take point. Me, then Orndoff.”

  “Why me?” Zion objected. “I already got killed once today.”

  “So did all of us,” Mackie snapped. “Move out. I’ll guide you.”

  Zion stepped out, and the rest of third platoon followed. As soon as the platoon was beyond the place where they’d stopped and lost the command group, an umpire appeared out of the shadows and unlocked the armor of the downed Marines.

  “Wait here for battalion,” he instructed the four, then resumed trailing third platoon.

  An hour later, not much more than half a kilometer from the position that was the platoon’s objective, but still in forest, Sergeant Martin called a halt and reformed the platoon into squad columns twenty-five meters apart, with first squad in the middle, flanked by the other two rifle squads. The gun teams were on the flanks. He went ahead of first squad and called on the net, “Squad leaders up.” The three corporals who were acting as squad leaders quickly joined him and Mausert.

  “Going for a repeat performance, Sergeant Martin?” Adriance asked with a soft laugh, thinking of what happened when Commiskey called for a squad leaders’ meeting.

  “Just for that, your ass is mine later,” Martin said. After making sure everyone he wanted was present, he said, “Follow me,” and stepped out in the direction of the platoon’s objective.

  A hundred meters farther, the forest petered out into a terrain spottily covered with shrubs about half human-height. In most places, there was sufficient space between bushes for a man to pass without brushing one. Fifty meters beyond where Martin stopped his command group, the ground started slanting upward at a modest angle until it formed a ridge more than three hundred meters distant. The last fifty meters looked to be cleared of shrubs. They could faintly make out bunkers on the military crest of the ridgeline.