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

First Impressions

They were woefully under-strength for any prolonged engagement.

Unknown to even Captain Jane, I'd stopped by Battalion and gotten a look at the PT scores, the rifle qualification scores, and every other bit of their training records I could lay my hands on. It was almost frightening how easily I'd just walked in, asked for the records, and how the staff had helped me look it all up without even asking for identification.

I'd watched them for two days afterwards, including their Thursday Training, and watched the entire battalion wander around the motorpool Thursday afternoon.

I took another drag, outright in violation of military protocol and regulations, and exhaled.

"Chief, do you have anything to say to Charlie Company?" Captain Jane asked me, obviously expecting some kind 'oh, I'm so happy to be here, we'll all be best of friends' horseshit that every other officer had gushed to their new unit.

Except I wasn't here to make friends.

"You're all weak, poorly trained, and lack sufficient motivation from your superiors," I snapped, "Let's hope you're better at your jobs than what I've seen so far."

I nodded to the CO, and walked back behind the formation. I could hear angry murmuring, but didn't care. Half the female soldiers were pregnant. PT scores were in the gutter. None of them had a EFMB qualification except for one female soldier that they'd sent off to work for another unit. Most of them could barely qualify on their weapon, and I had serious doubts as to their competence in their MOS.

They were mostly medics. Sadly, only four of them had combat patches, and a quick perusal of their records had shown me that while they'd been deployed to Desert Storm, they hadn't fought in Desert Storm. 2LT Bradshaw had less than four months in the Army, a graduate of the ROTC program, which meant he was about useless as far as I was concerned. 2LT Hendricks had been in the unit almost six months, another graduate of ROTC, and I'd hated her the second I'd laid eyes on her. I don't know why, but she made my hands clench and my head ache at the base of my skull. 1LT Johnson was another female, the acting XO, but in the two days I'd lurked around the unit, I hadn't seen her do much more than hide from everyone.

Captain Jane tried laughing, hoping to break the tension and quell the angry muttering from the enlisted. A few looked back at me and I curled my lip at them.

They weren't even animals. I could train an animal to kill, to guard, to do a job.

These weaklings hadn't shown me anything to make me believe they'd joined the military for anything more than the GI Bill.

"With those words of wisdom from Chief Cromwell," Captain Jane said, coming to attention. The rest of the Company followed suit out of anticipation.

I just took another drag off my cigarette.

"Company! Attention!" Captain Jane called out. "Fall out."

The unit broke up, the two platoons moving into individual squads as they went over their jobs for the day. The two butterbars next to me quickly moved over to the platoon sergeants in order to hand out the orders for the day.

I just stared, my lip still curled in disgust.

They'd held formation in the open area between the quad and the parking lot, beneath the suspended second floor of the barracks, to stay out of the rain. I'd heard more than one of the soldiers complain that the rain was going to ruin the starch in their uniform and the mud would mess up the shine on their boots.

Captain Jane moved through the middle of the disintegrating formation, and I wondered if she was even aware at the way the enlisted moved out of her way. She stopped in front of me, and I looked down at the smaller woman.