Chapter 9: Sniper School Friday 07 September 2007

Khudabah, Pakistan — Evening of day nine

I feel like hell today. Those damned scorpions did a number on me. I've spent all day with the chills and nausea when I'm not passing out. The only good thing is, I guess I smell so bad and look so sick, the fuckers don't want to come near me.

They feed me again tonight, and I have all the water I want. I guess they don't want me to die; at least not yet.

Only the thoughts of my Jens and determination to somehow escape and get back to her keep me alive...

Kaneohe Bay Hawaii — Friday Day Six

Ah, another day in paradise. O'dark thirty. I was wide awake with my arms around Jens, her back snuggled close to my front. I could tell by the way she was breathing that she was still asleep. It was a little embarrassing when I first woke up; I had my left hand on her breast. It sure did feel good and I wanted to leave it there but figured that I'd better move it before I got into trouble.

I'm amazed I didn't go crazy with all the changes in my life during those six days. Things had moved at an unbelievable speed. I'd shot the best group of my career, fallen in love with Jens, my new spotter, met the General and his wife, received their blessing, and gotten engaged to Jens.

If everything didn't feel so right, I'd have been worried, but this all felt so natural ... It felt as if I'd been waiting for it my whole life.

I'd never been happier.

Jens stirred, starting to wake, and I nibbled on her neck, "Good morning, my love. How did you sleep last night?"

"Mmmm, I like it when you nibble on my neck. How about if you nibble on these, too." Jens moved my hand to her breast.

I moved my hand away. "Sorry, my dear. Those are off-limits for right now."

"You're no fun," she replied, pretending to pout.

"Well, if that's the case, I had better get up." I started trying to get out of the bed.

Jens grabbed both my arms. "Oh, no, you don't! If I don't get all the "benefits" yet, at least I want some good cuddling."

I squeezed her tight. "How is this?"

"Much better," she purred.

She turned towards me and I looked into her beautiful violet eyes, amazed that I was lucky enough to have found love with such a beautiful woman, and I kissed her lightly at first and then with greater passion.

When we finally broke the kiss, we were both breathing hard. "Wow," Jens said. "That was better than a cup of coffee!"

"Are you ready to go kick DI Anderson's butt again today?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah." Her eyes sparkled. "This is going to be so fun. let's get ready." She jumped out of bed and headed towards her bathroom. Hmm, perhaps I've finally found a way to get her out of bed without a fight. I jumped up and headed into my bathroom.

Ten minutes later, I walked into the kitchen and Jens was hard at work making breakfast. I slipped up behind her.

"I hear you coming, so don't even try it, Mister," Jens said. "It'll be a cold day in hell when you can sneak up on me." She turned around, and we shared a long embrace followed by an even longer kiss.

"What's for breakfast, my love?" I asked.

"I made us some hard-boiled eggs, sliced up some cheese and summer sausage ... and of course, toast with honey. You do love your honey, don't you?" she asked, the corner of her mouth curling upward.

Ah, another variation on the honey joke from the other day. I played along. "Oh, yes, I love my honey ... I love to nibble on it and feel the juices in my mouth as I swirl them around."

It was Jens's turn to be slack-jawed. She didn't know what to say, so she took my breath away with a hot, sensuous kiss. "Wow, I think I need to change my panties, you have me so hot and wet," Jens breathed. "Maybe I'll just go commando instead." she winked. We both laughed and sat down for breakfast.

The day began with PT, as always, and Jens's plan for the sniping exercise rematch against DI Anderson's platoon would take two hours to set it up.

We left the Humvee at home and ran to the gym to warm up our muscles. Friday so that meant the second workout for back, biceps and forearms, and as usual, we did five one-minute sets of each exercise with a one-minute aerobic component in between. Jens was really starting to get into "Ben's boot camp." She even said she had some ideas to make it even better.

The first back exercise was the same as Tuesday, bent leg dead lifts. Nothing works better for the lower back. For the second one, we did bent-over rows with our heads on a table. To finish off the weighted part of the back exercises, we did bent-over dumbbell flies just like Tuesday.

To start the functional exercises that day, we did alternating one-arm pull ups. Next, we worked the horizontal ladder bars, and of course it degenerated into a chicken fight on the last set. I won by wrapping my legs around her and pulling her off the bars.

Jens had us do the "sun salutation" from yoga. She was surprised when I knew it without having to be coached. I guess she didn't know that my ex-girlfriend was into yoga, and she taught me about it at our apartment. I sure as hell wasn't going to tell Jens that's where I learned it; she was plenty sore already about my ex-girlfriend.

The climbing peg board completed the functional exercises.

Next, Jens coached us through the three warrior asanas from yoga.

For the biceps we did two exercises with dumbbells: single-arm concentration curls, and standing hammer curls. I did finger pushups for our forearm exercises, and Jens did the mop-handle weight exercise from Tuesday.

Jens wanted to finish off with Tai Chi, but I vetoed it and started teaching her Capoeira. She loved it and did very well with the first few movements.

"How was your workout today, my love? Are you as sore as last Tuesday?" I asked her.

"I really like Bens' boot camp, but I like Ben and Jens's boot camp like we did today better," she answered.

"I liked the changes that you made. I noticed they were more stretching and more CQC moves. The kettlebells were a great surprise. I want to do more with them." I tossed her a towel.

"I'd like to start adding in some Semper Fu weapons work in the evening. You do know how to use a katana, don't you?" she asked.

"You caught me. How'd you know that I don't practice with weapons much?" I replied.

"I read up on Capoeira since I saw you use it the other day. It's the best hand-to-hand combat style, but it has an almost total lack of weapon usage. If you're going to be my Marine warrior, you need to learn how to kill as well with weapons as you can with your hands. Besides, I can't wait to beat your butt with a practice katana." She smiled, but her eyes told me she was serious.

"Damn, woman. Won't you ever stop analyzing me and trying to make me better?"

"Nope, never. Not when it could mean the difference between life and death for you. I told you I want to grow old with you and have lots of babies with you. The better warrior you are, the more likely that you'll grant me my wishes," she said with her eyes twinkling. "Let's get moving. We have a tactical plan to put into place."

We jogged home, and Jens made us a bowls of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, excellent as always. I thanked her multiple times and started to clean up, but she stopped me with a hand on mine.

"My dear, let me do that. You can start loading the gear in the Humvee," Jens said.

We had a crapload of gear this time — two full Alice packs each — but it was all approved under the rules of engagement. Before, when I'd done knife-only exercises, my attitude had been that I was going to die, so just "kill" as many people I could before I got killed; and that's exactly what happened to me. Other than our win yesterday I'd never known of another win. We had all felt we were basically cannon fodder. Jens had changed my attitude about this with our win yesterday and with the tactical plan for today. Yesterday had been a relatively easy win for us; today was going to be devastating and even easier. After seeing what Jens had come up with, I was sure happy that she was on my side, and I made a promise to myself never to get her pissed at me.

Jens drove to the exercise area again. "Close your eyes, honey, and visualize our plan. It's imperative that you remember everything about it so you don't fuck up. Let me know if you have any questions." We pulled into the training area at 1145. The exercise was scheduled to start at 1400. Jens had Major Lapworth check all our gear so that it was approved.

"Son of a bitch," Major Lapworth shook his head. "I've a good idea of what you are doing with all this gear. I'm going to lose so much money; I bet you'd lose today."

He didn't know the half of it; this was going to be a slaughter. "Shit, after yesterday, anyone would be a fool to bet against Jens," I answered.

Major Lapworth replied, "It was hard to find people to take bets that you would win today. The only one I could find was the bartender at the NCO club. I bet he has fifteen thousand dollars in bets for you two winning. He's going to be rich tonight."

"Actually it's closer to sixteen thousand five hundred," I corrected, "And his cut is ten percent."

Jens gave me a shocked look. "You bet that much money on us?"

"Of course, my love; there's no way that your plan is going to fail. You know how it is — Marines always want to bet on something like this, and no one was willing to bet that we would win. Not two days in a row. After you came up with the tactical plan, I knew we would win. While you were in the bathroom, I called the bartender and told him to take all bets up to thirty-thousand dollars with even money odds. Once word got out, they were having a hard time keeping up with the bets."

Jens hugged me. "I can't believe that you trust me that much."

I held her there. "Why not? I trust you with my life. I forgot to tell you, I'm giving you all the money from the bets, you did all the work and you deserve it."

She started to argue with me, so I whispered in her ear, "Think of all the sexy negligees you can buy with it."

She blushed. "We need to get moving or our plan will fail."

We finished with ten minutes to spare and walked out the entrance to say our hellos to DI Anderson and the platoon. They looked really serious today.

Jens reached into her pocket and pulled out another thong, twirling it around her finger. "Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in. So, DI Anderson, how about another little bet today? I still have my thong and that picture. You must have a new Smoky Bear hat by now." She laughed.

"I should, Jens, but I already have a big bet with the bartender at the NCO club. That fool was taking even money saying that you two were going to win. Even if yesterday wasn't a fluke, we're ready for you today, and it won't happen again," answered DI Anderson.

"A thousand dollars is a lot of money to lose." I said looking at DI Anderson.

He stared at me, and his eyes narrowed. "How do you know how much I bet?"

"I heard at the NCO club last night no one would bet that we would win. After Jens came up with our tactical plan, I called the bartender and told them I'd cover all bets up to thirty-thousand dollars. It's a shame that we could only get about sixteen five in bets." I replied.

I could tell he was shaken, but didn't show it to his troops, like a good drill instructor.

Jens turned to Major Lapworth. "We only need a ten-minute head start today. We're taking off now; send in the cannon fodder anytime after ten minutes." The game was on.

We sat up in the trees in our ghillie suits and watched the carnage unfold.

The first thing we did was tape down the transmit key on our tactical radio. This jammed the platoon's tactical communications. They would now have to communicate by shouting to each other.

The platoon was being much more cautious, but not cautious enough. The lead scout wasn't paying attention and triggered our first trap; it was a 'swinging spiked log' that took out the middle five people in the platoon, including DI Anderson. Jens was so excited, she could hardly stay quiet; she'd wanted to take out DI Anderson first and had noticed he was always in the same general area of the platoon. There was no hope now for the platoon; they didn't have enough experience to deal with all the other traps.

The whole training area was filled with simulations of different types of natural booby traps. There were so many that I had trouble remembering where they all were. That's why Jens had told me earlier not to 'fuck up.' Nothing is worse than forgetting where your booby trap is and getting killed by it. Jens had a vast knowledge of booby traps from all of her studies and put it to good use. Her tactical plan had us sitting up in the trees all day watching the traps do the work for us.

The platoon continued on down the trail, but the lead scout was paying much more attention. He found our next trap,

made sure the rest of the platoon came up and saw it, started around the trap on the side of the trail, and walked right into a punji pit. When he hit the bottom, it triggered the next trap, a swinging branch with spikes. Because the troops were all bunched up, it took out five. Fifteen minutes into the exercise and the platoon was down to four.

The other four decided they'd had enough of the trail to bushwhack it. That was the best decision anyone had made all day. They made it to the lake and spent about five minutes looking around. Finally one of them saw a snorkel, and they all charged into the water shooing at it. Of course there was another trap under the water, and it took out the last four, and the exercise was over. Jens's plan had made it too easy; we didn't even have to pull our knives.