Chapter 24

12:15 Wednesday, July 31st, 1991
La Pila de Ladrillos
Medillin, Antioquia Colombia

The Brickhouse was an interesting Colonial home, a mish-mash of many architectural styles. In his explorations when he wasn't working, Ruben found the odd corners in the place fascinating. Keeping away from some of the hired help was a priority of his, and he quickly finished his reconnaissance of the terrain, cataloging places of refuge and places to avoid.

One good place was the exercise room. Not quite a gym, it had only a single shower, and one of each type of the finest exercise equipment that the cocaine money of Jorge Ochoa could buy. Señor Ochoa found Ruben on the elliptical ski machine. While amused that Ruben would dare enter Jorge's private exercise room, he assured Ruben he was welcome to use the equipment at any time.

Today, both were in the small gym. Ruben pedaled on a stationary cycle, and El Patròn, fully dressed, waited for Ruben's attention.

"Señor?"

The older man looked pensive for a moment. "You could help me, Señor Aragon." That was a thing about him that Ruben liked, he was always formal and polite to Ruben and Joachin, but not always to the hired help.

"You have but to ask."

"I am concerned. My amante, my mistress, she will stay here for a few weeks while I travel." Ruben knew better than to ask where. "I need a good man to watch over her, protect her. It should not be difficult."

"Of course."

"Here, take this. It's small, so you can carry it all day. I thought about finding something newer, but I think this will suit you." Ochoa placed a wooden box on the weight bench by the door. "It's a Czech pistol, in thirty-two auto. It doesn't hit hard, but it will never misfeed or jam on you. There's fifty rounds. If you can find the time, you should find some more cartridges for it, get used to shooting it."

Ochoa left the room then, while Ruben stared at the box, exercise forgotten.

14:30 Wednesday, July 31st, 1991
Room 2760 B4 NCO Academy Bldg
Sightseeing Rd, Ft Benning, GA

Sandy sat in a combination desk/chair, reflecting on the Army in general, and her role within it in particular. Earlier, there had been the typical welcome speech. Another Small Group Leader (SGL, the term for the cadre at the school) then spoke at some length on the course giving to the students what they were willing to take out of it. Sandy believed strongly she'd been the recipient of many things from the Army, and that she'd been lucky enough to pay attention when the opportunity had come.

Sandy learned about what the cadre expected from her for the next four weeks. She nodded at the mention of the APFT (Physical Fitness test) first, and then heard about the map reading and the land-navigation test, the leadership and counseling training and evaluations, the written examinations. She learned she would lead PT formation at least once during the four weeks, and that there were some opportunities for free (personal) time near the end of the cycle. She and the other students were warned the consequences for missing a formation or class would be dire, however.

She nodded inwardly, amused at herself for agreeing with the Army on what should be taught to NCOs.

Still, Sandy was concerned that the kind of hand-holding that happened in Basic and AT to get the maximum number of students through would happen here. Though, she did wonder if the NCO Academy here at Benning might not be one of the more stringent to pass. Not for the first time, she wondered why she was at Benning, and not a closer-to-Huachuca facility.

After the welcome speech, they were free to stow their gear in the two-person rooms in the barracks. Sandy had heard horror stories of inspections and 'grounding' objects in the Naval Academy from Lieutenants Brophy and Rudolfs. Both solemnly, having sworn they were telling the truth, told of sweeping the floor with yardsticks edged with masking tape, to catch dust bunnies, and 'grounding' oddly shaped objects so that they lined up with the edges of an object such as a desk drawer. They told her stories of taping folded underwear and balls of socks in place in the wardrobe drawer so that they made a neat display when inspected.

Now, when the SGL told the class they had twenty minutes to stow their gear, Sandy raced up the stairs, and found her room. She quickly unpacked her already-folded clothing, and neatly arranged her socks and undergarments, so no straps or labels showed, in small arrangements in the drawers. Her uniform accoutrements were in a small plastic box that she centered on the bottom of the hanger compartment, and then hung her uniforms – class A and B to the left, coats, then blouses, then pants, all spaced a fingerwidth apart. BDUs went to the right, the ones with pinned-on rank (regulation) to the center, the ones with sewn-on tabs (non-regulation) behind. Her web gear (Load-Bearing Equipment, or LBE) went in the bottom drawer, as neatly as she could, and her Kevlar helmet between her boots and the wardrobe on the floor. She rolled her ruck as tightly as she could. When the call came to fall out and draw sheets and blankets (as if anyone needed blankets in Georgia in July) she was ready.

She made her bed, complete with hospital corners, folded the blanket and laid it on the bottom sixth of the bed, and began to relax. And then she saw her roommate's half of the room. The coffee-skinned woman watched Sandy, and tried to emulate some of what she'd done, but instead panicked, throwing her gear into the wardrobe haphazardly. With an inward sigh, and a friendly smile, Sandy went to show her how to make the bed and arrange her wardrobe.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" her roommate asked.

"No," Sandy admitted frankly, "but it's neat, and it'll be quick to redo to however they tell us to do it. And it's shipshape, that'll get us both points. After they poke into our stuff for a while, see if we're hiding anything, and don't find anything, they'll leave us both alone."

"I'm Merry Overhold," the other woman volunteered. "Merry, like Merry Christmas."

Sandy smiled again, and gave her name and unit. "You're a reservist, right?"

Overhold smiled and nodded, grateful for a regular army friend to shepherd her through PLDC.

They got Overhold's bed and hangers squared away, but not the wardrobe, before it was time to eat. Sandy learned that Merry was a schoolteacher from Atlanta and was in the Georgia National Guard to help pay off the student loans she'd run up.

Later that evening, as Sandy lay in bed, she reflected how grateful she was to have a normal, everyday person like Merry in the midst of the upheaval around her. Smiling, she was thinking of Ben when sleep claimed her.

22:10 Friday, August 2nd, 1991
Ft Benning, GA

Sandy was glad she'd chosen to go back to Huachuca before going to PLDC, and hadn't taken the extra leave before reporting. She'd found all of Ben's correspondence-course books while pre-preparing her personal effects. She unabashedly tore the relevant pages from the books to take with her. She defined 'relevant' as something in the PLDC syllabus Hauptmann had given her. Since the correspondence course was one for generally-promotable Specialists or Corporals (from E4 to E5), there was a certain degree of correlation in the material two of the books contained to what she'd need.

"Merry, look. We'll study the course material in these correspondence course pages for the map reading and land-navigation course, because those are up first. When we do the other leadership stuff – the counseling, in particular, we'll read from those books the night before." Sandy was exasperated.

After the APFT that morning, Merry was despondent. Though the woman was slender, she wasn't particularly strong, and didn't score well on the PT test. Her strongest suit was running, her weakest pushups. Now Sandy had a hard time getting Merry to participate in anything, the woman was sure she'd fail out of PLDC.

After a little cajoling, Sandy managed to get Merry to look at the book. She was confident the book was understandable, written as it was for the lowest-acceptable-common denominator for the Army, and Merry was far from stupid. Overdramatic, slightly depressed, and flighty, yes. Stupid, no.

Sandy showed her how to plot an azimuth angle, the angle on the compass to follow to get to a point. They talked about the methods the book described covering how to measure one's stride length and propensity to drift to one side or another of an intended line of march.

Merry began to catch on, and when it became understandable to her, seemed to enjoy the exercise. Sandy hoped that if it were fun in the barracks room, it wouldn't be stressful under the watchful eyes of the SGL and rating Sergeants.

Sandy then worked with Merry on her pushup form. The girl kept trying to bend at the waist and only push her upper body up, until Sandy got exasperated enough to get the two pushbrooms from the closet down the hall. Unscrewing the broom handles, she slipped them up Merry's BDU legs and out her collar.

It took only one attempt for Merry to finally understand why so many of her pushups weren't counted in the APFT.

Sandy extracted a promise from Merry – every time she came through the barracks-room door, without fail, Merry would do five pushups and five situps.

When Sandy returned from restoring the brooms to their closet, Merry seemed a lot brighter, as she finally left the earlier failure of the day behind.

In fact, Merry was so upbeat, she asked Sandy for some private time. When Sandy showed her confusion, Merry stared at her for a long while, at first incredulously, and then with a growing puzzlement. Sandy returned it with a patient, querying look.

Merry shook herself, finally. "You're a contradiction, girl. You're so smart and got everything figured out, and then you just don't get some things."

Sandy waited her out, and Merry just shook her head. "Alone time, Sandy." She wiggled her fingers, and hugged herself, and then Sandy understood.

Sure she was blushing furiously, Sandy gathered the pages from the correspondence courses on the mapping exercises, and fled the room, saying that she'd be back ten minutes before lights-out.

The fire faded from her cheeks by the time she made it down to the barracks lounge on the first floor, and patiently began explaining the exercise to the PLDC students there.

08:10 Saturday, August 3rd, 1991
Harmony Church Orienteering Range
Ft Benning, GA

SFC Denny "LT" Taylor (nicknamed 'LT' for his physical somewhat-resemblance to Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants) watched the blonde. Yesterday, he watched her score 300 on the APFT, and seemingly not break a sweat. When the coffee-skinned girl, Overhold, hadn't done well, the blonde frowned, then talked to her and kept the girl from breaking down.

He nudged SFC Walter Smith, the newest member of the SGL cadre, and subtly indicated the blonde with his chin. For whatever reason, in the instruction portion of the class, there had been fewer than usual dumb questions, and a few halfway-intelligent ones. After the lecture portion, the students mapped their points and named their azimuths confidently, and each had trotted into the woods. As they had returned, several gathered to talk to the blonde, thanking her and telling her how they did. This caught his attention, and SFC Smith nodded, to indicate he saw it too.

Casually, Taylor made a note of it in his small pad.

15:20 Sunday, August 4th, 1991
Ft Benning, GA

Sandy gathered her socks, underwear, and a roll of quarters. She threw them into a laundry bag. Merry looked up and immediately copied Sandy, rushing to get shoes on, in order to follow.

Sandy didn't look back as she trotted across the parking lot to the barracks compound down the street. Earlier in the week as they jogged in formation past these barracks, Sandy read the sign that identified it as a training barracks for ANCOC (Advanced NCO Course, training for E7s/SFC and some E6/Staff Sergeant to be trained for E8/Master Sergeant). She figured that, in her PT uniform, no one would question her doing her laundry in this barracks.

She correctly figured there would be laundry soap for sale in the laundry soap dispensers, rather than them being empty. Sandy gave Merry enough quarters to operate the washing machine, and poured soap into her machine for her.

Merry obviously had questions. Sandy had hoped to leave her behind, so she didn't speak. Instead, she sat down against the washing machine with her 'white' load in it, and began to study about NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) gear inspection. Wordlessly, she passed the pages to Merry as she finished them.

Ten minutes later, Sandy and Merry had transferred their whites to a dryer each, and Sandy began doing pushups. Merry sighed, and rolled her eyes, but matched Sandy for twelve pushups.

"You're getting better," Sandy said, quietly. Merry nodded.

Sandy held Merry's ankles while she quietly counted out twenty-four sit-ups. Merry returned the favor for Sandy's one hundred.

When the dryers buzzed, Sandy and Merry folded their clothes carefully, and stowed them in the bottom of the laundry bags carefully.

Leading the way, Sandy left the barracks and headed across the parking lot. A figure detached itself from the smoking gazebo outside of their barracks.

"Oh shit," Sandy breathed, but didn't slow down.

"What?" Merry asked.

"What I didn't want to have happen."

SFC Taylor stopped them as they approached their building. "Students aren't allowed to leave the barracks area, Specialist."

Sandy nodded. "I didn't leave the barracks area, Sergeant. I went to that barracks there, and used the laundry facilities." She pointed at the other building.

Taylor didn't look away. "Why?"

Sandy smiled, slightly. "To do my laundry, Sergeant."

The other did not look amused. "Why there, Specialist?"

"Because unattended laundry gets lost, Sergeant. And if I'd stayed in this building, I would have had to answer someone's questions, and been pulled away. And because whatever is not expressly forbidden is authorized, and that building there," she pointed again, "was not expressly forbidden."

Taylor smiled at her. "And the other Specialist?"

Merry spoke up, surprising everyone. "I followed her, Sergeant. I trust her judgment."

SFC Taylor moved out of the way, and waved them on. "Carry on, Specialists."

16:45 EDT Tuesday, August 6th, 1991
Ft Benning, GA

Ben stood in line inside the chowhall as usual. He'd done the 10 pull-ups on the bar before the entrance. He'd passed the door, and made it inside, as the line advanced, slowly.

So far, the course ran true to the promise the word "Basic" in the course title made – this was Basic all over again. Ben had been thrown into a mixed bag of soldiery for a platoon – some were just out of Basic, and some were retreads, 'recycled' soldiers that were coming through for the second (hopefully complete) time. Of those, some had flunked the PT test, some injured themselves slightly.

But Ben had come in 'special', and paid the price, being in-processed with these soldiers. This thought had run through his mind on more than one occasion.

It ran through his mind again, a moment later as the fucking idiot Yahoo from West Fucking Virginia decided now would be a good time to flip the cap off the head of his asshole buddy one soldier behind Ben. The cap flew through the air to fall on the floor. The cardboard-reinforced brim hit edge first, audible over the sounds of trays and fans and soldiers doing KP.

The Sergeant fucking Airborne Black Hat on duty lost his fucking mind. Ben knew this was so, because the Sergeant was kind enough to tell the whole platoon this. "What in the Goddamn fuck do you think you're fucking doing, Private? You've gone and made me lose my fucking mind, Private! How the fuck am I supposed to train you without a fucking mind, Private? No, Private! Don't fucking answer me, just fucking drop!"

Dropping was assuming the front-leaning rest position, and then doing pushups until told to 'rest' or get 'on your feet'.

Ben thanked God that the Black Hat didn't think he had done it. The Black Hat was yelling at, for good reason, the soldier without a cap, and the soldier behind him. However, this put the screaming mouth next to Ben's ear, causing an unpleasant ringing sensation. Ben ground his teeth but didn't move. Even this screaming wasn't enough, as the Black Hat ordered the whole platoon, right there in the chow line, to 'drop'.

Fuck this, Ben thought, as he immediately began pushing. I could be with Sandy. I could have taken this course with other soldiers that actually have time in grade. I could be on Huachuca. But then Ben pictured Sandy clearly in his mind's eye. Then Ben was surprised at the determination he felt.

Tomorrow was more training on the Swing Landing Trainer, a device, Ben was sure, designed to break ankles. Only a week and a half more of this, Ben repeated, fervently.

06:35 Friday, August 9th, 1991
Ft Benning, GA

"A reminder. One week from today we will march out for our FTX. In your syllabus are listed the exercises necessary to complete the FTX, as well as the skills tests that will be conducted."

Sandy nodded, it made sense. The one-on-one evaluations, held under the guise of coaching for 'counseling skill improvement' would follow after the Field Training Exercise (FTX) completed. The formation was dismissed, and Sandy made to leave for breakfast.

"Specialist Sparks, over here." Turning, Sandy was surprised to see a member of the cadre she didn't know, a Sergeant First Class, beckoning to her. As she closed, she saw three other soldiers with the SFC.

"You four will be the logistics cadre for the FTX. Decide amongst yourselves who will be transportation, quartermaster and supply, training, and operations. Ops will execute the objectives of the training exercise – the skills training and planned exercises. Training insures all the students complete each activity. Supply feeds us and gets us blanks, blank suppressors, MILES gear[1], paper, consumables. Kinda like members of the headquarters staff. Got it?"

Sandy and the others chorused, "Yes, Sergeant."

Three fast games of 'Scissors, Paper, Stone' later, and Sandy got to choose second, much to the amusement of the SFC. The first Specialist surprised Sandy, choosing Supply, what appeared to be the hardest job, but Sandy got to choose Operations.

Sandy asked for, and received a listing of the stations and activities of the FTX, and a listing of the cadre available to run the activities. During breakfast, Sandy calculated out the number of stations and how much time each was likely to need, plus time to move between the stations. From there, she was able to block out a basic schedule. Before the first classes of the day, the four got together briefly. Sandy had them all copy the block schedule down.
During lunch, the four met again, and tried to put together the activity names and locations, plus the cadre needed for each. The Transportation Specialist began working up timetables and routes and number and type of trucks, the Supply specialist made notes of who to call to get which gear, and the Training specialist began working on naming blocks of students. Sandy told him this was the easy part of the exercise for him and that the hard part would come when he had to insure each student completed and passed the exercises. With a grin from her and a groan from him, she pointed out this would likely involve remedial counseling.

Merry and Sandy finished chow quickly, and rather than sit and socialize, they'd made it back to the barracks to set up their study room, with photocopies of the correspondence course book's pages for the impromptu class. Sandy's small entourage had grown, and now topped out at ten, just under half of the training platoon.