Battalion Aid Station
15th FSB Operations Area
Field Site 32
Fort Hood, Texas
CONUS
Saturday
21 October, 1991
2100
The perimeter was secure. Another check had shown that. I'd passed around instruction for everyone to get ready for a dawn roll-out. We'd changed position three times, each time breaking down, loading, moving, setting up. The first time it had taken almost 5 hours. Yesterday they'd dropped it to four hours. This morning it had been just over three and a half. None of those times counted travel time, of course, but at least they'd cut down on the time. Honestly, I'd never expected it to get below four.
Have to admit, I was pretty damn proud of them.
I passed by the crew served weapon position, nodding to the troops, and kept walking. It was still raining, the whole damn field site nothing but mud and old dried grass. But, like the saying went: If it ain't raining, it ain't training.
I paused by the ambulances to light a cigarette. When I leaned against one I noticed it was rocking slightly. Chuckling to myself, I walked away to leave whoever was in there to their carnal amusements. I remembered back in Desert Storm there was more than one commander of a co-ed unit who tried to forbid any sexual liaisons, but any member of the E-4 Mafia could have told them that trying to do that was like holding back the tide.
You can't select for aggressiveness and ingenuity and not expect those same people to try to sneak around and engage in sexual intercourse despite the prohibition.
Colonel Henry (NR) had done it easy. He'd just set aside three Conex, had a sign in sheet on each of them, a basket of condoms inside, and made sure that female troops had access to birth control bills. He'd then made it known that any pregnancies would result in a field grade Article-15 and immediate expulsion from the combat zone. We'd had only two pop up pregnant, one of those from before the unit deployed, the other had gotten knocked up by her husband, so Colonel Henry had waived the Article-15 and sent both of them back.
To Blackbriar.
That had chilled everyone's blood enough that the Conexes had gone unused for almost a week.
A peek into the GP Small tent where the QRF was showed that four of the eight man team was awake, quietly playing spades while wearing their NVG's. I nodded to them when they all looked up, then withdrew from the tent.
A short walk in the rain and I put on my sunglasses. Then pushed into the TOC, where SSG Meyers was sitting by the radio, a handset in his lap, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.
"Checked the line, Sergeant, looking good out there," I told him, moving over and stripping off my battle-rattle. I set my M-3 down next to the radio, racked my rattle on the chair, and sat down across from him.
He nodded, tapping his ashes in a mostly empty paper cup. "Don't you ever sleep, Chief?"
I shook my head, "Kind of. I don't take my night pills out in the field, so I only sleep about three to five hours a night. If I grab a short nap during the day, it's usually only three."
He looked at me, cocking his head slightly. "That can't be healthy."
"How about you, champ?" I asked, tapping my ashes.
"I'm always tired in the field," he said, then yawned and laughed. "I figured I wouldn't have so much to do when I made rank, now I miss the days I wasn't an NCO."
I grinned at him. "E-4 Mafia, baby. There's always a PFC to do the job."
That made him snicker. I took off my boonie-hat and he stared.
"A cravat?" He asked.
"Ayup," I pulled it off and shook my head, letting my braid drop down to the middle of my back. I could hear it dripping water onto the canvas floor of the tent. I pulled it around and started to undo it.
"That's a lot of hair," He said. More to fill in the silence than anything else.
"Ayup," Halfway through the braid a cluster of holly leaves fell from my hair.
They were scorched slightly.
"What is this?" He asked me, lifting up the cluster of holly leaves from the floor. He caught one wrong, jabbing the point of one of the leaves into the pad of his thumb. "Ouch."
"Holly leaves. Wards off bad spirits, provides protection, especially in the wilderness, and for some reason keeps me calm," I shrugged. "Religious thing."
"Never struck me as a religious woman, Chief," He said, raising an eyebrow.
I just shrugged.
"Looking forward to getting back tomorrow?" Meyers asked me after a few minutes. I was busy getting my hair ready to rebraid.
"Yeah, lot of work to do," I said.
He frowned. "Like?"
"Well, aggregate the data from this exercise, figure out ammo consumption, check it against the Ranger's data for how often they took hits, check fuel consumption, break down frequency, and try to figure out how to improve our efficency," I told him, my hand starting to twist my hair back into a tight braid.
"Hmph," He shook his head. "Where's your helper monkey?" There was a slight edge to his tone that I didn't like.
"Gave him some time to hang with the rest of the lower enlisted. Don't want him feeling ostracized from his peers," I said. I paused, digging some holly leaves out of my pocket and going back to braiding my hair, making sure to weave the holly leaves into it.
That made him nod. After a long moment he finally blurted out whatever was making him so damn fidgety.
"Lieutenant Hendricks and Sergeant Gable approached me right after chow tonight," He blurted.
"Not gay, not crazy," I grinned. "Well, the last one, I'm certified by Mental Health as fit for duty," I told him honestly.
...lead by example, you bovine waste of carbon and protein, show those mouth breathing knuckle dragging animals that the Army gives them resources to care for themselves by ensuring you use them as needed...
...don't be like me, you California heifer. Do better than me, if you can ever divorce your brain from that sloppy roast beef sandwich you call a gash, you brain-shot mongoloid...
"Can I ask why you go to Mental Health?" He asked me.
I nodded. "Sure."
He was silent for a minute, then looked at me. "Umm, why?"
I shrugged. "Combat and deprivation induced psychological trauma," I said. "It happens. It's the military."
"You seem awfully blase about it," he said.
"Time and miles behind me," I said. I wrapped my braid at the back of my head, picked up the cravat, and covered my hair with it. "How can the enlisted trust me when I tell them they need medical assistance if I don't follow my own advice?"
He gave me a light smirk, "Lead by example."
"Yup," I got up, moving over to the coffee pot. "So what were you with before Cav?"
"First Infantry," he said. "Charlie 299."
"Didn't deploy?" I asked him, digging out my canteen cup.
"Nope," He admitted as I poured coffee into the metal cup. "Stayed at Fort Riley the whole time."
I added creamer and sugar and moved over to sit down while he kept talking.
"Made Staff Sergeant by the point spread while they were deployed. Thought I was lucky to be out of the war," He said. "We were supposed to be part of the second deployment after you guys got wiped out."
That made me let loose with a bark of sharp laughter. "Yeah, didn't work out like anyone thought, did it?"
He glared at me, and I saw the simmering anger I'd seen in the eyes of a lot of people who didn't deploy in the first wave that then were left out of everything. More than a few NCO's and officers had figured that the first group would get wiped the fuck out, barely hold, and they'd come in on the second deployment and win the war after the first wave left four hundred thousand dead on VX soaked sand.
"Yeah. Back here in the States we saw that the Ground War had kicked off on CNN," He gave a frustrated grunt, "Next thing we knew, war was over and you guys had won."
I shook my head. "Not me. I was in ICU while the war got won," I told him, sitting back down. I groaned at the ache in my hips, shifted, and my right hip popped loudly. I sighed lustily and stared at him. "Yeah."
"Friend of mine works in Brigade HHC, asked her to get a look at your file," He said. I just raised an eyebrow, sipping off the coffee, wondering where the hell he was going. Again, a flash of something in his eyes.
...kill him before he does you. It's winter, that means survive at all costs...
...go away, Stillwater, you're dead...
I sighed. "Sergeant, please tell me you're not going to be the eight thousand two hundred and forty-fifth person who's got issues with me since I came to Cav. It's getting boring." I took off my sunglasses, giving him my best Dirty Harry squint in the 40W bulb. "Be nice if for once someone here in Cav would act like my medals didn't shrink their genitals to subatomic levels."
He glared at me again. "Some of us didn't get the chance to earn medals like that."
I grinned. I couldn't help it.
I pulled out my wallet, unsnapped it, and held it up so he could see what was pinned inside. the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. I unpinned them from my wallet and tossed them on the little table between them.
"You want them? There they are," I said, reaching down to my hip. He looked up at me right as I started smiling and slapped my hands on the table. "You pick those up, then tell me how to bring my friends back to life."
He stared at them.
"I mean, let's get honest, Sergeant," I snapped, feeling that raw red rage beginning to lap at the ice I normally surrounded myself with. "If the medals are the problem that all of you seem to have with me, then you just let everyone know I'd trade them for my friends in a hot heartbeat."
He was silent while I put the medals back in the wallet.
"You got a real attitude sometimes, Chief," He said.
I lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair. "Just to point something out to you, Sergeant," I said, "Something that a lot of people seem to forget. I'm not a butterbar, I'm not the equivalent of a 'cruit, I was a Staff Sergeant, same as you, before Warrant School."
I tapped the Silver Star. "And I earned that one while I was enlisted. Purple Heart before the Star too."
I couldn't resist. Partly because I was sick and tired of the attitude that some of the Senior NCO's thought they could show me to my face. It was hard enough being a female soldier, but I swear to the Old Gods, if you earned any rank or any medals then it got worse. Sneers. Mocking. Saying you got your rank or medals by performing sexual services, or you got them due to affirmative action, or that someone else earn them and politics got the medal or rank handed to you.
You were never good enough as a female soldier. Never fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, ruthless enough, good enough compared to the male soldiers.
The worst part was, in a lot of ways, it was true.
Which chapped my ass even further.
I opened my mouth to tear him a new one, to insult his masculinity, his bravery, everything about him.
...you're not an animal anymore, Cromwell...
That shifted gears. I took a deep breath and let it out, taking the time it took me to put on my sunglasses to get my temper under control. "Look, Sergeant, I don't know what the problem you and the other NCO's of Gambler have with me," I told him. I took a sip, holding up my hand to stop him when he went to say something, "But I'm done trying to make friends with all of you."
I set my canteen cup down, put out my cigarette, and set to wiping out my canteen cup.
"I didn't join the Army to make friends, and what friends I did make, they're all dead on a forgotten battlefield in a war nobody will remember in 10 years because we didn't lose bad enough for anyone to care," I tossed down the paper towel, put my canteen cup in the holder, and grabbed up my canteen, "But, given the treatment I've received from my subordinates and my superiors," I pushed the canteen into the holder and snapped it closed, then stood up.
"I can see now that you've all made up your minds," I said, picking up my battle rattle.
"Well, we are, as you put it, weak and incompetent," he sneered.
"Well, far be it from me to expect military professionalism from Army soldiers," I sneered right back, "Rather than take my words as incentive to improve, you've chosen to prove me right," I picked up my M-3, throwing the strap over my shoulder and letting it fall to my hip.
"Yeah, insulting everyone, and you wonder why nobody wants to be your friend, Chief," He sneered.
"I don't need friends," I snapped at him. "As long as you do your duty, I don't give a damn if you make voodoo dolls of me," I headed for the exit of the TOC.
"Yeah, well this is Cav, not whatever unit you were in," He shot back, standing up. "The only bigger joke than you is your stupid training schedules."
I paused, stopping to toss one last thing over my shoulders. "You think my training's been too rough on your so far, Sergeant?"
"Everyone knows your training schedules are just to prove you're a hardass," He shot back, "Trying to make everyone think you're some kind of badass."
I smiled widely at him. "You ain't seen nothing yet, Sergeant."