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

A Truck of Crap

"Thanks," I said, turning around and staring at the open back door. I'd ordered fans set up to make sure the two privates had plenty of ventilation while they worked. Last thing I wanted was them coughing up blood from being exposed to too much ammonia. They'd almost gone in with bleach, but I'd seen ammonia crystals from the dried urine on the MOPP suits, and I'd rather then didn't gas themselves.

...he used mustard gas he brewed up on them all, then burned them down with a flamethrower...

The Major lit a cigarette of his own. "If you don't mind me saying, Chief, since I double at battalion S-2, I took a peek at your record."

I just shrugged, then took off my sunglasses and rubbed at the scars before putting them back on. The day was cloudy, but still bright enough to be painful without my mirrored sunglasses.

"It's pretty heavily redacted," He said.

"Yeah, well, Cold War Bullshit," I told him, quoting Stillwater.

"Anything you can share? Lots of people with some heavy rank are kind of interested," He probed.

I slowly turned and faced him, "Really?"

He nodded.

"My own unit's S-2 is asking me to reveal redacted and possibly classified information because some high ranking officers are curious?" I asked mildly, raising an eyebrow, "They believe that they should know what was redacted merely so they can satisfy a sense of curiosity?"

He flushed slightly and I turned away from him.

"I'll assume you were performing a standard conversational security test to see if I was willing to disclose sensitive information in the hopes of impressing fictional superiors," I said coldly. "I am not in the habit of disclosing sensitive information, even under enhanced interrogation."

"Uh, about that..." he said.

"I passed my review last month, before I left Fort Meade," I told him. "Still within previously recorded deviations."

"Did they really subject you to torture?" He asked me.

I nodded.

He made a scoffing noise, "The military thinks you might get captured?"

I turned back and faced him, taking off my sunglasses and squinting in the bright (to me) sunlight. "The military is not in the habit of taking unnecessary risks," I told him, then put my Ray-Bans back on. I sighed, "I know of several people who were exposed to enhanced interrogations by hostile nations. None of them broke because we were trained how to resist such methods by exposing us to them and instructing us how to resist as we endured them."

"Jesus, Chief," He said. He blew smoke and looked at me. "Are you sure you belong in this unit?"

I nodded slowly, staring in the doorway. The Orderly Room clerk was talking on the phone, two sergeants were waiting and talking, and a private was lurking around the front door. "It becomes more and more apparent every day that I am exactly what this unit needs."

We were silent for a long moment.

"You seem to have a low opinion of Charlie Company," He guessed.

I shook my head. "No. This can happen to the best units after a war. I checked, Sergeant Masters was slated to be put out for drunk driving right before this unit deployed to Desert Shield. The armorer, you can find many like him in units across the world's military forces. Nothing here is surprising, dismaying, or even unexpected." I turned to face him. "After all, I don't predict that I'll find myself locked in hand to hand combat with a dozen cannibals, trapped in an underground facility, desperately trying to protect pregnant women and infants with the surface covered by tens of meters of snow and the undead stalking my crew leader."