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

I Don't Need Friends

Battalion Aid Station
15th FSB Operations Area
Field Site 32
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
Saturday
21 October, 1991
2100

The perimeter was secure. Another check had shown that. I'd passed around instruction for everyone to get ready for a dawn roll-out. We'd changed position three times, each time breaking down, loading, moving, setting up. The first time it had taken almost 5 hours. Yesterday they'd dropped it to four hours. This morning it had been just over three and a half. None of those times counted travel time, of course, but at least they'd cut down on the time. Honestly, I'd never expected it to get below four.

Have to admit, I was pretty damn proud of them.

I passed by the crew served weapon position, nodding to the troops, and kept walking. It was still raining, the whole damn field site nothing but mud and old dried grass. But, like the saying went: If it ain't raining, it ain't training.

I paused by the ambulances to light a cigarette. When I leaned against one I noticed it was rocking slightly. Chuckling to myself, I walked away to leave whoever was in there to their carnal amusements. I remembered back in Desert Storm there was more than one commander of a co-ed unit who tried to forbid any sexual liaisons, but any member of the E-4 Mafia could have told them that trying to do that was like holding back the tide.

You can't select for aggressiveness and ingenuity and not expect those same people to try to sneak around and engage in sexual intercourse despite the prohibition.

Colonel Henry (NR) had done it easy. He'd just set aside three Conex, had a sign in sheet on each of them, a basket of condoms inside, and made sure that female troops had access to birth control bills. He'd then made it known that any pregnancies would result in a field grade Article-15 and immediate expulsion from the combat zone. We'd had only two pop up pregnant, one of those from before the unit deployed, the other had gotten knocked up by her husband, so Colonel Henry had waived the Article-15 and sent both of them back.

To Blackbriar.

That had chilled everyone's blood enough that the Conexes had gone unused for almost a week.

A peek into the GP Small tent where the QRF was showed that four of the eight man team was awake, quietly playing spades while wearing their NVG's. I nodded to them when they all looked up, then withdrew from the tent.

A short walk in the rain and I put on my sunglasses. Then pushed into the TOC, where SSG Meyers was sitting by the radio, a handset in his lap, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.

"Checked the line, Sergeant, looking good out there," I told him, moving over and stripping off my battle-rattle. I set my M-3 down next to the radio, racked my rattle on the chair, and sat down across from him.

He nodded, tapping his ashes in a mostly empty paper cup. "Don't you ever sleep, Chief?"

I shook my head, "Kind of. I don't take my night pills out in the field, so I only sleep about three to five hours a night. If I grab a short nap during the day, it's usually only three."

He looked at me, cocking his head slightly. "That can't be healthy."

"How about you, champ?" I asked, tapping my ashes.

"I'm always tired in the field," he said, then yawned and laughed. "I figured I wouldn't have so much to do when I made rank, now I miss the days I wasn't an NCO."

I grinned at him. "E-4 Mafia, baby. There's always a PFC to do the job."

That made him snicker. I took off my boonie-hat and he stared.

"A cravat?" He asked.

"Ayup," I pulled it off and shook my head, letting my braid drop down to the middle of my back. I could hear it dripping water onto the canvas floor of the tent. I pulled it around and started to undo it.