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

Thursday Training Again

Day Room
15th FSB Barracks
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
09 Jan, 1992
1000 Hours

I walked into the back of the Day Room, moving quietly to the back of the room. It was hot in the barracks so, like a lot of the soldiers currently in the Day Room, I took off  my BDU top, folded it, and set it in a chair. Satisfied I leaned back, my hands in front of me holding my beret and a Pepsi, my feet shoulder width apart, and my shoulders against the cinderblock wall. I was wearing my sunglasses and my starched BDU's, my jump boots spitshined. I had my red beret in my hand.

With the official dissolution of the Soviet Union I felt off balance, like a part of my life was missing. I'd talked about it with Sergeant Danville at my Mental Health appointment and was feeling better now that I knew that the feeling wasn't without merit. All of  my life the USSR had been there, a looming threat who's shadow fell on everything I did.

A nation that had killed friends of mine, now just gone without the massive war everyone had known was going to happen.

Harvey had told me that the feelings of anger and frustration, like I had been robbed of something, were perfectly normal.

I swallowed down a sigh and took a swig off of my Pepsi while I watched everyone sit through a class on the proper method of guiding a helicopter in during medivac operations on an active battlefield. Everyone was paying attention, since it had percolated through the rumor mill that we'd be going to the field again soon.

I'd labelled it "Pre-ARTEP" with every training office up-chain and this morning had gotten approval for it. Tomorrow I'd go down to the Fort Hood Airfield and talk to the CO's to double check that we'd have helicopter support.

Normally we wouldn't have the funds for this kind of training, but there's been an accounting mistake that I had decided to take advantage of.

I'd received "FSTS-317/NATO Site 93 Medical Training Funds, FY 92" for some reason. I called up to the Pentagon, and managed to keep the money for Charlie without having it deducted from the budget. The intricacies and arcane design of governmental finance and budgetary systems meant that if I didn't use those funds there was a very real chance that the amount not used would be deducted from 15th FSB and 1st Cav's FY '93 budget.

So, use it or lose it.

Which gave me the old Cold War budget for Atlas. I had more budget than Blackjack Brigade. I'd been in discussions all week with Division and Brigade once we came off of day-on/day-off. The money was a windfall, and I'd managed to let everyone know that while it was earmarked for medical support and training, and while I wouldn't turn it over to Division or Brigade, I was willing to involve other units in spending the training funds.

So not only were we going to do ARTEP, Pre-ARTEP, we'd be going to NTC at the Fort Erwin National Training Center Desert Warfare Area. I had enough funds to send the entire Brigade to NTC, no sweat.

So now I was wandering around making sure that everyone was teaching the classes that were on the training roster.

Back during the WinTex I'd told someone that they hadn't seen anything yet with training.

I hadn't lied.

Instead of going to the motorpool for PMCS after lunch, Charlie was going to be doing helicopter operations. Lunch was scheduled to be MRE's, all non-pregnant and non-profile troops would be going out to the field site. Those on profile or pregnant were going to stay back and run an "ops center" from the Supply Room.

Still, watching them in class without them really knowing I was back there showed me a few things.

A handful of soldiers weren't paying attention, weren't taking notes. Two of them were talking. I compared the two soldiers to my mental database of people on profile and simply came up with two Specialists who routinely avoided doing any real work.