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

Gathering Paperwork

Charlie Company Area
15th Forward Support Battalion
Fort Hood, Texas
United States of America
24 September, 1991
0750 Hours

The formation was drawn up, Ambulance Platoon on my right, Treatment on my left. I'd memorized more of who was who, including their MOS, and it let me take better stock of the two platoons as they waited for the First Sergeant to call them to attention. I'd spent the night before going over the company TO&E, examining the METL, looking over the information from 15th FSB Headquarters to figure out what the unit was tasked with.

The arrangement was stupid.

From what I'd been able to tell, at one point in the past, maybe as far back as Vietnam, the unit had only been involved in driving ambulances and providing front line medical care. Back in the days before females were allowed in units like 15th FSB due to the proximity to the front lines. Now, the organization made no sense. I understood it, and I also understood that it led to confusion, a mixing of MOS's that made no sense, and would not be coherent during deployment. How it had managed during Desert Storm was a mystery to me.

Like most units, they'd burned all their records after the Ground War.

To top it off, I'd found that the TO&E had been adjusted right before they deployed to the Gulf, and that Charlie was actually only sitting at 50% of their pre-Gulf numbers. That was a problem, since the METL had reverted.

Yeah, the Cold War was over, and numbers were supposed to be dropping, but skimping on the medical was just stupid. I'd noted that HHC and Bravo, which was nothing but mechanics, were back to their Cold War numbers. Hell, Bravo practically outnumbered the rest of the Battalion put together.

Which wouldn't be much comfort to any wounded of a mass-cal we had to treat.

It wasn't raining, but it had the night before, and now the air was filled with humidity that made my shirt stick to me and covered me with sweat. I wasn't acclimated yet, used to colder weather and ice cold air conditioning.

The morning PT had felt good, and I was getting less stares. The run had been slow, so I'd done the Airborne Shuffle behind the entire company, dropping back when soldier's fell out to encourage them to keep going.

PT needed to be rebuilt. A lot of these guys had never regained the muscle mass they'd lost in the Gulf. A lot of movies made it so civvies thought that you put on a lot of weight during war time, but that wasn't true. Stress and exhaustion messed with your appetite. 2/19th had suffered chronic water shortages till almost January, which led to more appetite suppressant. You often forgot to eat, just flopping into your cot, too tired to eat. Dysentery could hit at any time, anywhere, with the poor water quality. Drinking bottled water didn't help, since a lot of the Arabs just refilled the water bottles from the tap and glued the cap back onto the "safety seal ring". Lots of troops had come down with what had been nicknamed 'bubble guts'.

It wasn't uncommon for a soldier to lose 10% or more of their mass. If they were weight lifters, PT monkeys, or used to heavy work, they could lose more.

I'd left Walter Reed for Warrant School weighing a massive 125 pounds. Stokes had been almost skeletal when I'd seen her, probably weighing about 130, and Nancy, hell, nobody had ever seen Nancy that skinny. She had probably weighed a buck oh five.

So the fact that the men and women in front of me hadn't put back on their weight after the Gulf, or hadn't kept up with PT during the months since 15th had returned was less a reflection on them and more a reflection on the previous Training Officer.

The First Sergeant calling everyone to attention broke my chain of thought, and I put my feet together, hands at my sides, back straight, shoulders back, chest out. I felt weird. In 2/19th, most of the men were taller than me, but in Charlie Company, it seems like over half of them were smaller than me, both in height and mass.