Chapter 27

We all walked over to the designated gym and were standing inside when, at 1700 First Sergeant Wagner walked in, we all snapped to attention.

“At ease!”

We all rested and paid attention to the man. He walked behind a table and point for us to stand in front.

“Earlier today, Private O’Dell asked what a ghillie was. It was asked out of ignorance. Now we are going to educate him.”

He reached under the table and pulled out a box and out of the box he pulled a large black net with pieces of cloth attached to it at random places.

“This, men, is a ghillie. It will become one of your most important tools. Some say the name comes from the Scottish word “gille” which means a male outdoor servant or hunting aide. Others have said that the name comes from the Scottish Gille Dubh which means a male fairy or earth spirit.”

We all laughed.

“Don’t get crazy. It’s most likely to be the first reference since the early Scottish snipers came from the ranks of professional game stalkers. The suit is made of a black carbon fiber. Attached to the net are strips of burlap and hemp. It is designed to give the wearer a three-dimensional break-up to their background instead of a two dimensional one that the standard camo uniform gives you. Each of you will be assigned one. Do not remove any portion of the attached materials. You may add as much material as you wish depending on your mission. These suits don’t look like it, but they are expensive and they are yours for the duration. Treat them like you would your rifle. Questions?”

There were none.

“Very well. Come with me.”

He turned and headed out the door. Once outside he pointed to one of the surrounding hills.

“We will be conducting training exercises on that hill tomorrow. It is your assignment to make your ghillie blend into that hill. You have time tonight, before the sun goes down to get to that hill. Take a look at the foliage and prepare your ghillie for tomorrow’s exercise. We will meet on the training ground at 0630 after breakfast. The mess hall will be open at 0500. You will be gone most of the day. Questions?”

“What about water, First Sergeant?”

“You will be issued your full equipment after breakfast, before we deploy to the hill. Questions?”

There were none.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he began to turn and then stopped and looked at us like he was going to tell us a secret. “Oh, if you’re not too tired, you might want to get some studying in tonight.”

I walked out of the mess hall and headed to my room to make a phone call.

“Hi Paul. Everything OK?” James said as soon as he answered.

“Hi James. Everything is wonderful. Just peachy!”

“OK, soldier, what’s the sitrep?”

“Ghillie, hillside, tomorrow morning. Oh, and I scored 100.9 on the rifle range at 200 yards with the M4.”

“No shit? That’s outstanding. Now what about the ghillie?”

“My question exactly. What about it?”

“You recon the area you’re going to deploy to. Get a feel for the foliage and wind conditions. The ghillie had fabric on it to break up your profile, add to it with local vegetation for color and don’t get your ass shot.”

“Anything else? Like how I attach stuff to the ghillie?”

“There’s lots of ways, but if I told you, it would be no fun.”

“Wonderful!”

“Seriously, they are trying to get you to think for yourself. The manual can’t cover everything that can get fucked up and go wrong. You need to think about the mission and then find a way to accomplish it with the materials in the environment where you’ll be operating.”

“OK. How’s Jean and Barbara?”

“Barbara is about to pop. Jean is doing fine. She and Manny are quite the pair. No one gets close to her without Manny getting in the way.”

“He told me that he loved her and if I wasn’t in the way he’d take a serious shot at her. You don’t think that me being here on base would be considered out of the way, do you?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Would you mind making that one of the things you check on? I’ll talk to Jean about it this weekend when I Skype her.”

“No problem but I don’t think you have to worry about Manny. He does love Jean and therefore he won’t do anything to hurt her. He likes you a lot too, Paul and that’s another reason that he’ll never make a move on Jean. I’d worry more about Angel. She does like the boxed lunch.”

“Great, now I have to worry about losing my wife to a woman.”

“Not hardly, Paul.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Keep your head up and your ass down, soldier.”

“Give my love to the parents and Jean. And give Barbara a big wet kiss on the lips for me. Later.”

I disconnected the call before James could give me shit about the last thing I said and took off for the hillside. When I got to the base of the hill, I began looking around and feeling the ground, all the while making mental notes. I made mental notes about the grasses, the heights of the various vegetation, the presence of flowers or tall weeds.

I took the time to walk all the way around the back side of the hill and found it to be covered with purple flowers and no tall grasses. I picked a few and then pulled out my phone and videoed the sides I’d been looking at before I returned to the barracks. On the way back, I passed a few guys who were going to take a look at the hillside, and I nodded as I passed.

I took First Sergeant’s words to mean that there was something in the manual that I would need to know about ghillies, and I should get it into my head. The manual said that the ghillies were most effective when made from local vegetation and that the more it looked like the surrounding foliage or rocks or whatever, the better. As I read, I went through the list of things I saw on the hillside. I lay on the bed, reading and making mental notes until about 2100. I heard taps and then I closed the book, turned out the lights and got under the blanket.

Just before I fell asleep, I said a prayer for Jean and then for me. I knew that if I was home, I could protect her, but I couldn’t do the job the same as James, or Barbara or even Dom and Manny. After my training, that would change.

The alarm on my phone went off. I tossed off the covers and got up, walking over to the dresser, I turned off the obnoxious noise and unplugged the phone. I grabbed a towel and headed for the latrine and then the shower. I was never one to take long showers. For me it was always get in, get wet, get soaped, rinse, get out. It didn’t change when I got into the Army.

Getting out, I dried and headed for my room. As I did my morning routine in the latrine and shower, I went over the notes about the ghillie and the hillside I’d scouted the evening before. I was formulating the plan for the ghillie while I walked into my room and decided to not shave this morning. If I had to add facial camo paint, it would help to have a little growth. And that was just about what I had ... a little growth.

I looked around to police my room. I didn’t want to get the reputation of being sloppy and I didn’t know how often they did inspections. When I opened the box of trash bags I’d bought, I found a bunch of twist ties. Since I’d found nothing in the manual about attaching items to the ghillie, it was worth a try.

Shorts, socks, t-shirt, uniform were soon donned and ghillie in hand I was on my way to the common room. I had time before breakfast, so I took a run out to the hillside again and looked at it in the morning light. The colors were slightly different in the morning light, but the wind still blew and made the tall grasses wave. That settled me on the two options for the ghillie depending on the side of the hill I was attacking.

Running into the mess hall, I’d caught my breath by the time I finished going through the chow line. I loaded up on eggs, sausage, fruit and orange juice. Taking my place at the table everyone looked at me.

“What?” I asked a little out of breath.

“You been out doing your own PT, O’Dell?”

“No Cox, I was getting ready for the day. I’m not one to sit back and let people like you get one over on me.”

That shut him up for the time being. I checked the time and started shoveling the food. I’d just finished the last of my meal and was heading to drop off my tray when Rog approached me.

“Man, what did you do to piss of Cox this time? He is outside fuming and pacing back and forth. He looks like he’s ready to kill something.”

“I did nothing, except ignore him and not fall for his bullshit. You ready for the hillside?” I asked with a knowing smile.

“I guess,” he said and then he looked at me and tipped his head to the side a bit.

“You know something! I haven’t known you that long, but you’ve got that look. I can see it in your eyes. What you got?”

“You’ll have to wait and see. Too bad you’re not my partner.”

“Son of a...”

The voice of the First Sergeant sounded out.

“Fall in!”

That voice was always loud and clear and Rog and I were already in place. The unit fell in immediately. Not thirty seconds later reveille sounded and we just so happened to be facing the flagpole. We all immediately snapped to attention and saluted as the flag was raised. When the bugle call ended the sergeant commanded us to stand at ease.

“Now then, this morning we will deploy to the North side of this area. There is a hill there. You will carry a full pack and your M4. You will be assigned to teams of two and your job will be to make it to the top of the hill undetected. Top shot will partner with bottom shot. Number two will team with the second from bottom shot and so on. You will be graded on your progress up the hill, your ability to use your ghillie to the best advantage, and your ability to work as a team. Questions?”

I raised my hand.

“O’Dell?”

“First Sergeant, how long do we have to prepare our ghillies and how do we attach things to the ghillie. I found nothing in the manual to answer that last question.”

First Sergeant Wagner looked at me and got a little smile on his face. I thought I was in for another hard lesson but instead he spoke to the rest of the unit.

“Did anyone else read the manual and if so, can you answer O’Dell’s question?”

No hands went up except mine.

“Let’s make this a little easier for you soldiers. Did anyone else read the manual last night?”

All the hands went up.

“Bullshit! OK, who wants to tell O’Dell what the manual says about attaching items to the ghillie?”

Again, no hands went up.

“O’Dell the manual doesn’t tell you how to attach anything to the ghillie. That is to be learned this fine morning by trial and error on your parts. Experience is a great teacher. Those of you who get it right won’t get shot in the ass! You have one hour to get with your teammate and devise a successful plan. That will include setting up your ghillies and reporting to me at the command shed to the East of the hill.”

“Your packs have everything you’ll require to successfully complete this mission. The question is will you know it?”

He looked around the unit and then dismissed us loudly. I walked over to the truck carrying the packs with Rog and found both my pack and my partner. He was one of the guys from the last table and was standing there looking for a pack. He saw me coming.

“You’re O’Dell, right? I’m Tyler Cartright. I’m the bottom guy, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Wrong attitude, soldier. This is Rog. He thought he was bottom man. He’s not anymore.”

“Cartright, listen to this man,” Rog said. “He’s young but he’s hell on wheels with an M4 and he thinks ahead.”

“Thanks Rog. You better go find your partner and hit the hill.”

Rog took off and I looked at Tyler.

“Get your pack and come with me. I don’t know that I got all the answers, but at least I’ve got a clue. Last night I took a look around the hillside.”

“Me too.”

“So, you saw that one side is purple flowers and the other tall grass?”

“What? No, I didn’t walk around the hill.”

“Guys who didn’t look around are in for a rough day. The wind is always blowing so the tall grass is always moving. We might need to do a quick change of ghillies looks on the fly.”

“Damn!”

I took my pack and quickly went through it. My attaching question was answered when I found nothing at all that would make attaching extra materials to the ghillie and the twist ties in my pocket suddenly felt like money. I took off for the far side of the hill with Tyler close behind. I stopped and looked at the hill and its slope.

“What do you think?”

“I think we’re all gonna get shot in the ass. If we make up the ghillie with long grass and get assigned to the flower side, we’re fucked. Same the other way.”

“Then we have to be ready for both. Let’s tie flowers on the one side of the ghillie and the grass on the other. Then we just have to flip sides and we’re ready to go hunting.”

“Damn, O’Dell, that just might work. We got nothing to lose. I figure the first time out the goal for the sergeants is to get us all shot in the ass. Let’s piss’em off.”

“Let’s.”

I began picking flowers and instructed Tyler to pick a mess of real long grass. We proceeded to use the twist ties to tie flowers to one side of our ghillies and long grass to the other. I figured then all we had to do was find out which side of the hill we were to attack and then turn that side of the ghillie out.

An hour after the briefing, the First Sergeant assembled the unit.

“There is one more thing before you start. Before you can scale the hill, you will need to hit the ditch. There is a water filled ditch around the hill. You will need to get through it, wearing your ghillie before you can start up the hill. There will be parts where you will need to be underwater for an extended period. The instructors will be watching you and if they think that you would have been detected getting to the hill, you will be stopped.

“After you have finished the creek, you will be sprayed with water to clean off the mud and to see if your ghillie held together. If your ghillie is shit, you will get shot in the ass on the hill. This is the instructor station. Your packs have camel-backs fill them. On the odd chance that you don’t drown in the creek or get shot in the ass, you will need water when the sun gets high. Your teams have been assigned; you should have come up with a strategy to get to the top of the hill without getting shot in the ass.”

“Excuse me First Sergeant,” one of the guys asked. “You keep saying we’re gonna get shot in the ass. Really?”

“You will have thirty seconds after the starting whistle before the instructors begin looking for you. They have paint ball guns and will shoot you when they see you. Your mission is to get to the top without getting shot.”

He then called out each team and sent us to a starting position indicated by a small booth with a number on the roof.

“O’Dell! Cartright! Get to position four and begin moving on the whistle.”

“We got this,” I said to Tyler as we put on our ghillies, grass side out and headed for the creek.

It was rough. The water was moving and deep in spots and shallow in others and at one point it ran under an obstacle and we had to swim under it with our ghillies, packs and rifles. We snaked over tree stumps and did our best to not be observed by the instructors. And the entire course was nothing but reddish brown mud and muddy water. Then came the hoses.

We climbed out of the creek and took our places and got hosed. Before that Tyler and I checked to see if anything had fallen off our ghillies. We decided that they had stood up well and we proceeded to the water hoses. The ice cold water was a contrast to the almost hot, muddy water we’d just crawled out of.

The water was forceful and I just knew it was going to blow everything off of our ghillies. We did our exercises, all under the watchful eyes of the instructors. Suddenly the water stopped. I quickly grabbed Tyler and turned him, checking his ghillie. He did the same afterwards for me. I thought we were in pretty good shape the flowered inside of the ghillie didn’t take too much of a beating.