Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

A Truck of Crap

Charlie Company Operations Office
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
20 September, 1991
1500 Hours

The box crashed as I slung it into the back of the 5-ton, the destroyed MOPP suits looking somewhat forlorn as they began darkening from the rain. I bent down, grabbed another box of refuse, and threw it in the back of the truck. The MP next to me shook his head as I threw a third box, this one full of damaged and destroyed masks, into the truck. He was checking each box off on a list. My BDU softcap kept the rain out of my eyes, but my brown T-shirt and pants were soaked. I felt hot and sticky, even with the rain, and every breath felt like I was trying to pull soup into my lungs.

The whole thing had devolved into a complete Charlie Foxtrot.

Captain Jane had called the MP's on the condition of the NBC Room. It was obvious Sergeant Masters had destroyed everything when he found out he was getting an Other Than Honorable discharge, which meant he lost all his VA benefits, from the GI Bill to medical care, because he'd been a fat lazy slob who drove drunk once too often.

Next to me was Major Cribbs, the Battalion Supply Officer, who was just watching silently as I tossed another box into the back of the truck. The two truck drivers, both of them from the Motorpool Section of Charlie company, were about ten feet from him, drinking Pepsi and smoking cigarettes while they watched me throw the boxes in the back. Everything would be taken down to the evidence room, and while Sergeant Masters may have thought becoming a civilian put him beyond Uncle Sam's reach, he was going to learn that someone was going to have to fuck the midget.

There were a pair of Privates, both of them on Extra Duty following Article-15 non-judicial punishment, scrubbing down the NBC Room while I threw the boxes into the back of the truck, using the effort to bleed away the rage that was building up.

Christ, if some kind of unforeseeable event had gone down and Charlie Company had been forced to deploy with the NBC gear in that kind of shape, they'd have had 100% casualties. As it was, I kept having to resist the urge to go into the CO's office, grab Captain Jane, and scrub her face with CS powder till her eyes bled.

I grabbed the last box of masks, slung it into the back, then slapped my hands together like I was dusting them off, turning around and facing the Major.

"That's it, sir," I snarled.

"Ease down, Chief," He said, his Texas drawl thick. "Ain't nobody's fault. Captain Jane's been asking Battalion to replace the key for the NBC room since before Sergeant Masters was chaptered out, nobody ever got around to it."

I growled, bunching my fists with the crunch of knuckles. "That don't make it no better, sir," I told him. I dug in my pocket, pulling out my cigarettes and lighting one. I exhaled smoke, putting my pack and Zippo away, and waved at the back door to the Company offices. "All our weapons are ruined, all our NBC gear is ruined, and nobody has done PMCS on the radios or NVG's since they got back from the Gulf."

He nodded slowly. "There were some problems due to Stop-Loss and some discipline problems."

I shook my head. "No, I've seen real discipline problems. This was flat out a failure of leadership on whoever was in charge before Captain Jane took over last month. What happened to the old CO of Charlie?"

He shrugged. "PCS'd to Fort Lewis. I'll let JAG know about all this."

"We done here?" The MP asked.

"Yeah, yeah," I told him, waving at him through the smoke. "Thanks, Sergeant."

"No problem, Chief," He said, waving at the two guys who were supposed to drive the cargo truck. "Good luck."