Charlie Company Operations Office
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
20 September, 1991
1500 Hours
The box crashed as I slung it into the back of the 5-ton, the destroyed MOPP suits looking somewhat forlorn as they began darkening from the rain. I bent down, grabbed another box of refuse, and threw it in the back of the truck. The MP next to me shook his head as I threw a third box, this one full of damaged and destroyed masks, into the truck. He was checking each box off on a list. My BDU softcap kept the rain out of my eyes, but my brown T-shirt and pants were soaked. I felt hot and sticky, even with the rain, and every breath felt like I was trying to pull soup into my lungs.
The whole thing had devolved into a complete Charlie Foxtrot.
Captain Jane had called the MP's on the condition of the NBC Room. It was obvious Sergeant Masters had destroyed everything when he found out he was getting an Other Than Honorable discharge, which meant he lost all his VA benefits, from the GI Bill to medical care, because he'd been a fat lazy slob who drove drunk once too often.
Next to me was Major Cribbs, the Battalion Supply Officer, who was just watching silently as I tossed another box into the back of the truck. The two truck drivers, both of them from the Motorpool Section of Charlie company, were about ten feet from him, drinking Pepsi and smoking cigarettes while they watched me throw the boxes in the back. Everything would be taken down to the evidence room, and while Sergeant Masters may have thought becoming a civilian put him beyond Uncle Sam's reach, he was going to learn that someone was going to have to fuck the midget.
There were a pair of Privates, both of them on Extra Duty following Article-15 non-judicial punishment, scrubbing down the NBC Room while I threw the boxes into the back of the truck, using the effort to bleed away the rage that was building up.
Christ, if some kind of unforeseeable event had gone down and Charlie Company had been forced to deploy with the NBC gear in that kind of shape, they'd have had 100% casualties. As it was, I kept having to resist the urge to go into the CO's office, grab Captain Jane, and scrub her face with CS powder till her eyes bled.
I grabbed the last box of masks, slung it into the back, then slapped my hands together like I was dusting them off, turning around and facing the Major.
"That's it, sir," I snarled.
"Ease down, Chief," He said, his Texas drawl thick. "Ain't nobody's fault. Captain Jane's been asking Battalion to replace the key for the NBC room since before Sergeant Masters was chaptered out, nobody ever got around to it."
I growled, bunching my fists with the crunch of knuckles. "That don't make it no better, sir," I told him. I dug in my pocket, pulling out my cigarettes and lighting one. I exhaled smoke, putting my pack and Zippo away, and waved at the back door to the Company offices. "All our weapons are ruined, all our NBC gear is ruined, and nobody has done PMCS on the radios or NVG's since they got back from the Gulf."
He nodded slowly. "There were some problems due to Stop-Loss and some discipline problems."
I shook my head. "No, I've seen real discipline problems. This was flat out a failure of leadership on whoever was in charge before Captain Jane took over last month. What happened to the old CO of Charlie?"
He shrugged. "PCS'd to Fort Lewis. I'll let JAG know about all this."
"We done here?" The MP asked.
"Yeah, yeah," I told him, waving at him through the smoke. "Thanks, Sergeant."
"No problem, Chief," He said, waving at the two guys who were supposed to drive the cargo truck. "Good luck."
"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."
He cocked his head and gave me an odd look, joining me when I started laughing.
He missed the self-mocking bitterness in it.
"That's funny, Chief," He said. I just grunted, field stripping my cigarette and putting the butt in my pocket. I noticed with some disdain that he just flicked his butt into the rain soaked back parking lot. Some poor enlistedman would have to pick it up during police call.
I just grunted and headed back in, checking my watch. They'd been in there for 20 minutes. I stuck my head in the NBC Room.
"You two, out for 10 minutes. Take a walk, get some fresh air," I snapped. They looked startled at that. I took a look at the room, noting they'd actually been busting their asses. Another round and they'd have it finished. I made a mental note to let them know I appreciated their hard work when they finished and give them some time off to blow the crap out of their lungs.
"Thanks, Chief," One said, moving past me outside.
"Be back in 10, don't make me look for you, you won't like it," I warned, heading into the main office.
"Yes, Chief," They chorused, heading out the door. I chuckled to myself, walking out of the office and looking at the two Privates and Donovan standing under the overhead cover smoking and/or bullshitting.
The two privates looked nervous and I walked up, digging my smokes out of my pocket. I could see their desire to leave warring with their fear of me getting angry at them for leaving and smiled at them.
"Easy, privates, I'm just out here to have a smoke," I told them. I put a smoke between my teeth, tucked the pack away and cracked my Zippo to light it.
"What's that say on your lighter?" The male asked. His nametag read "Stalk", the females read "Winter" and I felt a sudden chill at the coincidence.
I handed it to him, knowing perfectly well what it said.
Fighting for Peace
Is Like Fucking For Virginity
Both Are Bloody
But Fun As Hell!
-Atlas 86-90
The 2/19th seal, the twin sabers over the crossbow with the banner reading "FINISH THE FIGHT!" at the bottom and laurel wreath surrounding the whole thing. They both looked it then Donovan leaned in to look at before Stalk handed it back.
"That's uh, not what I expected," Stalk said.
I grinned. "Yeah," I pocketed it, taking a drag off of it. I thought for a second, then decided to take a risk. "All right, you three, feel up to giving a fat girl a little bit of honesty?"
All three looked uncomfortable, even though Winter giggled a little, but they did nod.
"As the training OIC, where do you feel there's any problems with training or anything else?" I asked. All three looked uncomfortable. "I mean, besides the fact that they seem they'd rather give you make work to keep you out of the way and make you look busy for the higher ranks than actually train you on anything?"
They all looked at each other.
"Anyplace you feel training is lacking? Don't get me wrong, you're all going to the range, you're all going to do a PT test, but that bullshit you had to put up with when it came time to turn in your weapons? That crap ended today when I fired your shamming Armorer."
The two privates looked startled at that, looking at Donovan, who nodded.
"That wasn't cleaning weapons, that was damaging them, putting your lives and the lives of any patients at risk," I told them coldly.
They stood for a long moment, looking at each other. Donovan was the first to break the silence.
"Nobody is even assigned to any vehicles, vehicles, we don't even know who is driving them," He said.
That seemed to open a flood. They weren't doing their jobs. They'd done the same six classes over and over on Thursday, which were just Common Tasks. Ambulance Platoon wasn't licensed on the vehicles, hadn't driven them in months and had were possibly lazy, stupid as well as incompetent. Treatment platoon was possibly lazy, stupid, and incompetent, and had not treated a single patient in months. Lieutenant Hendricks had a bad habit of grabbing people and yanking them around as well as was verbally abusive with a tendency to scapegoat others, even going as far as lying if it kept her out of trouble. Captain Jane didn't seem to do anything but hide in her office after she was transferred from Headquarters Company. First Sergeant Ramirez hid in his office. Someone was stealing morphine from the TMC (Troop Medical Clinic) and Treatment was being blamed even though nobody from Treatment worked in the TMC, much less had access to the pharmacy.
The list went on and on, and I recorded everything in my notebook, showing them that I wasn't writing down the names of the people who told me, just the complaints.
Two cigarettes later I put my green notebook back into my pocket and stared at them.
"Pass it around, don't let anyone over E-4 know or anyone you think is a snitch," I told them. "Tonight, twenty-one hundred, meet me at the loading dock behind the company. I want to hear all of it."
I stared at them, going to Parade Rest.
"Every. Little. Bit."