Chapter 86

Flashback – Ben – Back at the formerly captured hospital

I was walking around, checking on my men (that sounded funny to me - ‘my men’) and noticed none of them had NV on. I squatted by a Pvt. and asked, “Where’s your night vision gear?”

He replied, “Sgt., we never used it before.”

I stood up and ordered in my command voice, “All night sentries will use NV gear until further notice.”

I watched as they pulled their NV gear out of their packs, put them on their helmets, switched them on and began to scan their assigned areas.

One of them reported, “I have a large contingent of towelheads on the move.”

I moved beside him and verified that he was correct. I informed him, “They are positioning themselves for a morning attack. Let’s see if we can mess up their plans.”

I put the thermal scope back on my sniper rifle, set the bipod on the window frame and began to take out the fuckers. At first they were confused because they couldn’t tell where the fire was coming from but finally one of them figured out it was the hospital and they hightailed it back to their fucking rat holes.

I waited until one stuck his head up and then blew it off. The Pvt. beside me said, “That was a hell of a shot!”

I replied, “Thanks for the praise but I’m just doing part of my job.”

We spent the rest of the watch keeping the towelheads from coming back. It was time for the next watch so I pulled them to the side and ordered, “You will use your NV and continue to scan the area. We have effectively eliminated fifteen of the fuckers tonight. They are trying to mass for a morning attack, so this is of utmost importance.”

I headed to George’s HQ area where he was sawing logs on a makeshift couch/bed. I crawled over in the corner and caught a little sleep. I woke in two hours like I planned and went to check on the watch. Thank God they were all awake! If I had found one sleeping I probably would have tossed the fucker out of the window. I squatted beside a Pvt. and asked, “What’s going on?”

He complained, “The towelheads are moving but are staying just out of the range of our M4’s.”

I smiled and said, “Let’s shake them up some.”

I found a good position for my sniper rifle, turned on the thermal scope and began to blast the fuckers to their hell. It didn’t take as long for them to figure it out this time until they hauled ass back to their ‘safe’ location. I yawned and said, “Come and wake me when they start moving again.”

The Pvt. woke me three more times that night and I sent the fuckers scurrying. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow when the M107 was supposed to show up. Then their ‘safe’ location was going to turn into their graves.

Someone kicked my boot and waking from a sound sleep I reacted by using a leg sweep and knocked them on their ass. George complained, “Banzai what the fuck!”

I apologized, “Sorry Sir! I was up off and on most of the night. The towelheads were trying to mass in an area for an attack.”

George said, “Next time I will make sure to shout your name.”

I laughed and said, “That’s probably a good idea.” I stood up, helped George to his feet and he said, “The Blackhawk should be here in ten minutes; they’re going to drop the supplies on the roof.”

I asked, “Is there any coffee around.”

George said, “Just the instant from the MREs. At least we have a canteen full of hot water.”

Shit I knew there was something I forgot to ask George to get: A coffee pot. I went to the canteen full of hot water, pulled out two of the instant coffee packs from the MREs, poured them in a cup, added the hot water and said, “I’m heading up to the roof to make sure the area is relatively clear.”

George followed me and I asked, “Whatever happened to Jack’s spotting scope?”

George said, “I’m not sure.”

I swore, “Shit, Jack will kick your ass if you lost his spotting scope.”

A Corporal approached, held the spotting scope up and asked, “Sgt., is this device that you’re looking for?”

Thank God it was Jack’s spotting scope. I asked, “Corporal, what have you been doing with this?”

He said, “I keep an eye on the towelheads with it, and announce when we have a new suicide bomber coming.”

I smiled at him and said, “Good work Corporal, why don’t you keep the spotting scope but whatever you do don’t let it get damaged or my spotter will have your ass.”

He said, “Thank you Sgt. I will make sure I take good care out of it. By the way, there are a bunch of towelheads over there.”

He pointed at the remnant of a wall of one of the buildings and I said, “Thank you and we’re going to take care of them after the Blackhawk arrives.”

The area was relatively clear, and cleared out even more after I used my sniper rife to send a couple of them to hell.

The Blackhawk ended up being a CH-53 Super Stallion with a huge fucking pallet swinging below it. I ordered, “Stay clear of the pallet.”

The men listened to my order, hell some of them even left the roof. The CH-53 carefully set the pallet on the roof, they cut it loose and then the chopper got the hell out of Dodge. The Marines rushed to the pallet until I ordered, “This isn’t a fucking Christmas present for you to open! I want an inventory of all the items on the pallet. I looked around, saw the Corporal whose nose I messed up, pointed at him and said, “And that’s your job.” I pointed to two other Pvts. and added, “And you will help him.”

I watched some as they began to unload the pallet then I heard, “Incoming suicide bomber!”

I ran over to the side of the roof the where announcement came from. This time it was a little boy and I started to hesitate but George whispered, “Banzai, boys or girls it doesn’t matter to the fucking towelheads as they do the same to both of them, take the shot.”

It helped me feel slightly better when I took the shot and the suicide vest exploded. Somehow we needed to find the fucker making the suicide vests and eliminate him.

I looked at George and asked, “George, do all the suicide bombers come from the same direction?”

He thought for a moment and said, “Not all of them, but most of them do. What are you thinking?”

I smiled at George and said, “I think a little recon mission is called for. I want to find the fucking place where the suicide vests are being created and take it and the fucker building them out.”

George faltered, “Banzai, I’m not sure I can authorize that mission, it sounds dangerous.”

I knew sooner or later George and I were going to disagree so I suggested, “Sir, why don’t you get on the horn to Colonel Maggie and see what she says.”

George looked at me and asked, “She’s going to approve it, isn’t she?”

I smiled at George and replied, “Yes Sir she will. I’m Recon and that is part of what I do.”

The Corporal came over, I looked at him and asked, “Well?”

He handed me a yellow legal pad and said, “Sgt., here’s a list of the items we’ve received. I also double checked it with the inventory sheet on the pallet.”

I replied, “Good job Corporal!”

I looked at the list and said, “Bless you Colonel Maggie.”

George asked, “Did you get everything you wanted?”

I smiled and said, “It’s even better than that, she sent a coffee maker.”

George responded, “A lot of good that will do, we don’t have electricity.”

I replied, “Not now we don’t, but this is a hospital so it will have backup generators. With a little work we will not only have power, we will have lights at night.”

The Corporal who handed me the sheet said, “Sgt., there are power mains that run close to the hospital. They were severed by the towelheads and are hanging loose. Perhaps I could hook them up so we would have power almost all the time.”

I asked, “Do you have any experience working with things like this?”

He answered, “Yes Sgt., I did it back home all the time.”

I ordered, “Corporal, if you electrocute yourself, I’m going to kill you.”

He laughed and replied, “No problems Sgt., I will be careful.”

I looked at George and said, “Now it’s time to take care of some towelheads.”

We headed up to the roof. I found the box containing the M107 and the other boxes containing the M25s and changed my mind. I looked at a Pvt. and ordered, “Go find me the five best shooters from last night.”

He took off and I told George, “First, I want to deploy the M25s before we pull out the M107 and raise some hell.”

I took the first M25 out of its box, found the ammo, slapped in the magazine, racked the action, headed to the edge of the roof and found a towelhead who thought he was going to sneak past me. I used the mildot scope to calculate the distance¹, ran the math in my head, did the holdover and fired. The round hit him in the chest and he was dead.

¹ A person’s chest is 16 to 17 inches high. By using the mildots in the scope, you can calculate the range. Height in inches/361000/number of mildots = range
17/361000/ .49 = 963 yards

George commented, “Nice shot, how far away was he?”

I replied, “He was just under 1000 yards.”

One of the shooters came up and reported, “Sgt. you wanted to see me?”

I replied, “Let’s wait until everyone shows up.”

The other four showed up then I handed them their new M25s along with the cheat sheet that was in the box and began my instructions, “This is your new rifle, I tested one of them and they are accurate as hell...”

George interrupted, “ ... Banzai made a kill shot with that rifle at almost 1000 yards.”

I continue, “The accuracy of this rifle is only as good as the shooter is at estimating the size of a towelheads chest using the mildot reticle. The average chest size is 16 to 17 inches. For the shot I saw the towelheads chest measured .49 mils. If you look on your cheat sheet you will see that equates to 963 yards. Now don’t bother with messing with the dials on the scope, just make the holdover the cheat sheet tells you and fire.”

One of the shooters asked, “What about the wind?”

I replied, “Well the good news is it’s not very windy here. Later we will go over holdoffs for windage and also how to clean your rifle so you don’t damage it. Are there any further questions?”

They didn’t have any questions, took their new rifles and began to practice. George suggested, “Banzai, do you want to help them some more?”

I replied, “No George not right now. I have a date with the M107 and some towelheads that are hiding behind a piece of one of the buildings.”

I pulled the M107 out of its box, grabbed some ammo and headed to my firing area.

Flashback – Jack – The next day, the training of John

It took another hour to arrange John’s foot locker. I was dead tired and said, “I’m hitting the sack, we need to make sure we’re up early.”

John announced, “Don’t worry Sgt. I always wake up early from when I was the cook since I had to get up and begin breakfast.”

I felt like complaining but knew it wouldn’t do any good so I turned over and went to sleep.

Too early the next morning, I heard John moving around and it woke me up. I flipped on the light and complained, “Damn, you weren’t kidding about waking up early. You’re up before the fucking roosters.”

John apologized, “Sorry about that, the good news is I made my bed.”

I got out of my bed, walked over to his bed and surprisingly a quarter did bounce off it. I praised him, “Good job! Since we’re up early let’s go do some PT. After that we’ll catch a shower and then make some MREs for breakfast.”

We headed out to the track and even though I hated it, started to run laps. John did better today - it was good to see that at least he was trying. After PT we headed to the laundry, picked up our clean BDUs and towels and headed to the shower. After the shower John said, “If you show me how to requisition MREs I will do that today.”

I really wondered how in the hell John had survived all this time if he didn’t know how to even requisition things so I finally asked, “John it doesn’t seem like you know how to requisition things, so how in the hell did you get the food that you cooked.”

John said, “Headquarters sent me the food and the menu I was to follow and I have to tell you it was hell!”

I probed, “Why was it so bad.”

John said, “Well many times the food they sent was terrible quality or they wouldn’t send enough for the number of troops I had to feed. There were times that I couldn’t even make the meals on the menus because they didn’t send the correct food.”

I asked, “Did you tell anyone about this?”

John slouched (I let it ride this time because I felt I was on to something) and replied, “Well, I tried to tell the Colonel, but every time I tried to tell her, she yelled at me for the food being so bad.”

I asked, “Do you think they sent you the food for this morning’s breakfast?”

John realized he was slouching, stood up straight and apologized, “Sorry Sgt. I know slouching is a bad habit I have. And unless the Colonel stopped the food shipments then we should have received the food for this breakfast.”

I said, “John, I would love to see what headquarters sent you for this breakfast.”

John responded, “Follow me.”

We headed into the empty kitchen and there was a pallet sitting on the floor of the kitchen. John walked over to it and said, “This was for this morning’s breakfast.”

He handed me the menu and I read that it was supposed to be SOS. I took a deep breath and complained, “What the hell stinks?”

John poked around on the pallet and said, “The beef for the SOS wasn’t refrigerated and has spoiled.”

I asked, “Why wasn’t it refrigerated?”

John replied, “I have no idea, that’s the way it always came in.”

I really felt like I was on to something so I questioned, “Are you telling me they ship this in a truck that’s not refrigerated?”

John said, “Yeah that’s right. When I complained they said they didn’t have any refrigerated trucks available.”

No wonder we were all fucking sick: HQ was doing a number on us! I ordered, “Come on John, we’re going to have a talk with Colonel Maggie.”

We walked into Colonel Maggie’s office and she said, “I wondered when you would get here, you’re a little late.”

I looked at Colonel Maggie and said, “Sir! John might not be to blame for the poor quality of the food since HQ has been doing a number on us. They are shipping the food in unrefrigerated trucks so by the time it gets here it’s spoiled.”

Colonel Maggie sat all the way back in her chair and said, “Jack, that’s hard to believe.”

I said, “Well, you should come and see the food they sent us for this morning’s breakfast. It’s spoiled already sitting in the kitchen.”

John added, “I am sure it was spoiled by the time it arrived.”

Colonel Maggie ordered, “John, lead the way to the kitchen.”

The three of us went to the kitchen, Colonel Maggie walked in, took one whiff of the air and about puked. She looked at John and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me.”

I interceded, “Sir, he tried to tell you several times but every time he went to your office, you yelled at him about the food.”

Colonel Maggie looked deep in thought and then said, “John I owe you and apology for not allowing you to tell me about this. I promise you I won’t do that again. Jack thank you for bringing this to my attention, now if you don’t mind I have some asses to chew.”