Chapter 2: You’re In The Army Now

Smokey looked over at Richard and spat at the sand. Her mouth was still dry and she complained, “How’d us highly trained specialists get stuck in this bastardized outfit – me as a barely competent thirteen juliet Fire Control Specialist and you an eleven bravo Grunt? Somebody musta thought it was a big joke putting me with the cannon boys.”

She sighed, and observed, “At least our pay is income tax free. Not a lot to spend all that loot on here. Add our exorbitant pay to the GI Bill and it will help with college.”

His partner batted her eyes at him, and asked, “Hey Sparks, I’m frustrated and horny. Care for some high-class nookie tonight? I think I can lure your cutie driver into our B-Hut. Ever since Selena deployed with us, she’s been talking about riding you bareback. How about we make her put her pussy where her mouth’s been bragging? She’s no desert queen, but she’s entitled to some relief, too. Besides, I really like her.”

There was more than casual sex motivating Smokey. The next day, Corporal Selena Johnson was once again due out as Richard’s driver in a small resupply convoy headed to one of the local’s compound. Smokey wanted to make sure that Selena knew who Richard belonged to and where she needed to go for permission to scratch her itch.

During the night’s passion, she established her ownership by placing Little Richard at Selena’s gate. Smokey generously gave her blessing for the two to share a cuddle or two during tomorrow’s overnight turnaround and pretty much anytime they were outside the wire. Inside the wire? Better ask!

The morning began with an almost normal routine. Up at O-dark-fifteen, the trio managed to shower together and get going with a high caloric but uninspired breakfast. Clearly, the second-string cooks were on duty, and the ever-present film of dust was not even a passable condiment. Richard and Selena had a mission briefing before Smokey was due for her shift, so she sat in just to be near him a little longer.

Now a sergeant, Richard was a fire team leader and was assigned to the next to last vehicle in the five-vehicle convoy. Sergeant Fowler, his squad leader, was shepherding Lieutenant Hawkins, their newbie platoon leader, and would travel in the convoy’s second Hummer. Between them was a five-ton, six-by-six, heavily modified, cargo truck.

Because his sergeant was occupied with the new lieutenant, Richard assumed the check-off duties and visited each vehicle in the lineup. Except the new lieutenant, he knew and trusted all the soldiers. Nevertheless, he inspected each vehicle, checked weapons, ammo, and emergency supplies.

He grinned every time he approached the customized M923A1. The flatbed truck had an armored hull and driver’s cabin, and above the cabin was mounted a .50 caliber machine-gun. It looked like a rolling junkyard, but the motorpool gang had welded steel plates along the bed and made it as safe as they could improvise. As such, it had a beauty all its own. On the other hand, he blessed the fact that his squad’s own chariots were the M1151 with updated turrets and armor packages.

The day’s cargo consisted of several pallets of ammunition, three cases of M18A1 Claymore mines, two crates of individual weapons, two ma deuces, too damned many jerrycans of JP-8 diesel fuel, and a padlocked footlocker containing unspecified commodities. Richard had never been to this particular enclave, but he knew that some local tyrant was going to be happy when they arrived.

On the way back to the rear of the convoy, he smacked the five ton’s off-side door to get the occupants’ attention. Hambone looked down from the turret and asked “Wazzup Sarge?” Hambone was the antithesis of the usual meanings of the nickname. He was sharp, funny, and deadly serious with his ma deuce. His ‘real’ name was Francis Jambon, changed by a savvy Cajun to Hambone as soon as he walked in singing his favorite – The Closer to the Bone–The Sweeter the Meat.

“Hambone, you and Ruthie listen up,” Richard instructed. “When we get hit, if the incoming is heavy shit, I want you out and away. All the steel plate in the sandbox won’t help you if the diesel lights and the ordinance cooks. Let me hear both of you say, ‘yes sergeant’!”

Returning to his own vehicle, he performed a radio check up and down the line and with the battery net. Satisfied, he ducked into his quarters, retrieved a red-painted ammo can, and stowed it with his gear. While Richard stood waiting for the order to move out, Smokey dashed up, kissed his cheek, and departed to report for her shift.

Before the first vehicle crossed the wire, Richard heard the bitching, “Same fuckin’ goat track! Two more times and I’ll know every freaking pebble.”

He smiled when he heard Sergeant Fowler snap, “Radio discipline, Wells! Another bitch like that and you’ll take the point on foot.” Yep. All was nominal.

“Fuckin’ dust is everywhere...”

Richard woke in the battery’s aid station with a splitting headache and no memory since breakfast. He cracked his eyes, and through a haze, he saw Smokey and Selena sitting together, holding hands, slumped and asleep. Clumsily reaching for a water glass on the stand beside him, he knocked it over and roused the dozing women.

“What the Hell happened?” he demanded of the startled pair.

“Short version?” Smokey asked him. “Fowler’s dead, the lieutenant’s alive but MEDEVACed, everyone else is okay with a few cuts and bruises, and you and Selena are heroes. Then, let’s see – Ali Baba wants your gonads because his case of Scotch was hidden in the six ton when it fire balled, and the whole battery knows why I sometimes call you Sparky.”

She paused, then added, “And Selena says you jumped on her and saved her life. She wants to – and I quote – ‘reward you in the best way’. I think it’s just an excuse to jump your bones again, but I wasn’t there and so my opinion doesn’t count.”

Selena was wisely silent for a moment, then told him. “I promised Bones a blowjob if he said you didn’t need a MEDEVAC. I figured if you got away from here, I’d never get to reward you. Then that heaven-sent medic turned me down and lied for you anyway. Said he was gay and joked he’d rather have a fifth of good Irish. Now I’m in debt to him too.”

Like everybody on the team, he endured the After Action Review (AAR) and was debriefed on the mission by the battalion S-2, and even a G-2 major from the general’s intelligence staff. Everyone, EVERYONE, was concerned that their attackers appeared to have detailed knowledge on the mission, route, load out on the six, and damned near everything. FUCK! At the time, Richard’s input was worthless, because his slowly returning recollections still ended shortly after the convoy left their firebase and began again when he woke in the aid station.

Over the next three days, bits and pieces of his memory drifted back, but there was no way in hell any responsible commander would send Sparky outside the wire unless they were all certain his head was working right. When his headache was gone, Smokey organized an unofficial, after hours debrief with the entire squad present. She commandeered the battery’s rec room and promoted two apiece iced down beers that she calculated would assure a flow of chatter, but not enough to cause useless verbal diarrhea. Though not a member, she knew Richard’s squad well.

As self-appointed ringleader of the circus Smokey began, “The purpose of this debrief is to help my boyfriend get his memory back, so we’re going to talk through the whole mission, but there is no need for everyone to give identical details over and over. We’ll see what he remembers, then start from the front and work back.” She looked at Richard and asked, “So, Sparks, what do you remember?”

Richard loved his natural leader girlfriend, so he grinned at her and winked. It was their signal, used only when he saw her taking charge. This whole thing was so Smokey, right down to the number of beers per person. When he smiled with his wink, it said he liked what she was doing. When he winked with a somber face, it meant she was overdoing it. Sometimes, she even paid attention...

Richard looked around at the interested faces and began, “I think I’m clear on everything before we left, including Smokey’s last-minute kiss. I remember Fowler chewing on Herbie for breaking radio discipline, and I remember handing Roach the red ammo can and explaining what to do with it.”

“Yep,” Wilbur ‘Roach’ Laracha, verified. “You told me it had a belt of mostly API and if the rag heads were about to capture the six, Selena was to blow our horn, and I’d light the mother up and hit the deck. I put the can of hell right where I could find it in a hurry.”

“I kinda remember everything as being monotonous and routine until Selena braked for a dog. That’s it! I’m blank after that,” Richard continued.

“Yeah, well the dog died, but it saved our titties. A motherfuckin’ IED blew out a pit where we’da’ been,” Selena told him, “and we started taking rounds – AK-47s mostly. Then an RPG passed over and you went hyper.”

She pointed at a short, chunky individual and nodded.

“You remember I was trailblazer? Well, my Hummer was on its right side,” Herbie Wells chimed in. “I could hardly hear, and Willie was out cold, so I reached and cut the engine. I climbed back and laid in the turret to see what I could do with Ma. We were locked left, so she was facing up, and I had to release. When the turret rotated, I couldn’t get shit for elevation and my traverse was really limited. Habudabi were popping up all over the place, but they were firing to our rear, not at me.”