Of Pens and Swords

I was at the NTC for a moment.

The NTC is 2 weeks of pure excitement and adventure, sandwiched between two weeks of hard, hard work.

The first week is hard, drawing vehicles, making sure those vehicles work, working off gigs, pci/pcc hell, making sure all your equipment works over and over again. Its worth it though, because the next two weeks you won’t sleep but maybe 2 hours every other night, taxed to the limits of what you before defined as a threshold, only to redefine it later.

You roll out of the dustbowl to the box. A brigade of heavy metal raising dust a mile high, the smell of exhaust heavy in the air. The air is electric, people are already tired, but wide awake. They’re preparing for all out combat for 2 weeks. It’s the high end of the training management cycle for the commanders, it’s the scariest thing for the new troop, and it’s a rush for everyone else, the operators of actual warfare. Everyone hates it until its over, and they can’t wait to get back out there. Well, after a shower and a shave with hot water, of course.

I was always a COLT at the NTC. It was my first experiences in large scale battlefield tactics, to sit out in the middle of nowhere, usually a farts whiff away from the Krasnovians (Opfor, Krasnov I believe is Red in Russian. It was considered bad taste to call the opfor the Red army after the USSR fell, so we called them red in another language…) but in perfect position to see the whole battle unfold.

I would see our troops setting up a defense, moving a tank platoon here, a brad platoon there, hiding a GSR somewhere, and there was usually a lost 1^st Sergeant driving out there somewhere in the kill zone, plugger in hand, wishing to god he’d have paid attention to the class the FO gave on how to work that damn thing. I would see the OpFor, pulling tarps off vehicles, doing PCI’s on the miles gear and Hoffmans, smoking, and putting the hibachi’s away. I was the god of the battlefield.

I would hear chatter warm up on the nets, radio checks with guidon calls, the ever coming Oh Shit about a scout finding a friendly minefield or someone reporting a lost M113, ‘No sir, it was here last night’…I would watch the OC’s scurry around with their flagged vehicles, and I’d wake mine up “time to work there boss, better not give me away or I’ll hold you hostage for a fifth and a steak” .

There goes the advanced guard scouts out of the red lake slot, moving in BRDM’s at a rate of speed the OC’s tell us is unsafe. I call out to Blackhawk14 in the whale gap, two badguys moving your way, 2 klicks west. Blackhawk pulls two M1’s in front of the whale in defilade. Another scout drives through the minefield, again. Someone says to just put them out of their misery.

I have a Hind-d (huey) overfly my pos. shit, they’re d-f’ing me. Time to start coding in eplrs. I hate that. I key up again, tell them I’ll probably be coyote shit in a bit, the hind circles my hilltop. At least we’re camoflauged pretty well. He finds my vehicle cached about 2 klicks away, drops smoke on it. I’m walking now. Fucker.

I look over, opfor is coming out in force. Reaper is at the end of the valley of death, already had a few of them killed the night before by to brdm’s moving in. I warned them 3 times they had not so friendly badguys moving in real quick, the CO insisted on it being their TOP. Reaper 6, this is Rooster, ya, so why is the 1^st Sergeant coming out of Indian country? Why is he driving a BRDM? Where did he get two? Rooster, Reaper, that’s the first sergeant. Rog Reaper. Two minutes later, a whoopee light starts up. 10 seconds later, a second one. 5 seconds later, a 3^rd one. The net goes nuts, who the FUCK is firing on us. Reaper, Rooster, Uh, you have two BRDM’s in your perimeter, over. The song, Don’t Fear the Reaper from BOC just going through my head. I’m sitting about 10 klicks away, but I can see them fairly well. I just giggle, beavis’s ‘You dumbass’ just on the tip of my tongue.

I call out, Reaper, Blackhawk, Rooster, bad guys driving out of Red Lake Pass, break, BlackJack14, Rooster 14, Fire For Effect, TGT number AF0106, over. Rooster, Blackjack, Negative, End of Mission, over. Blackjack, Rooster, uh, ya, wasn’t I supposed to have priority, break, say, sometime about the beginning of the morning, over? Blackjack, roger, A Bat. Took indirect counterfire last night, they’re NMC, B is still shooting fascam for defense, C is displacing, over. Rooster, roger, uh, we have MLRS right? Over. Blackjack, roger, is being fired deep missions right now, over. Rooster, roger, uh, who’s deeper than me right now, I have a few acres of badguys and haven’t seen blue in a couple of days, over. Blackjack, ya, division has rockets. Rooster, roger. Is AC there? Do we have birds loaded in vic., over? Blackjack, roger, 4 sorties -16, 500 pd’rs and guns, over. Rooster, roger, can I borrow them for a few, over. Rooster 14, Blackjack Zoomie, what will you mark the target with, over? Rooster, roger, mark them with Red lake pass as choke point, and I have put a very large cloud of dust directly over their movement, Break, combat vehicle convoy going to the Gap, approx 75 victors, break, really can’t miss them, over. FAC, Roger, 2 inbound 45 degrees west of Teiford, callsign Goat, over. Goat 1, Rooster, radio check over, Goat, we’re inbound ( I see them) and we see a convoy, is that our target? Rooster, roger, heading 270 degrees approx 25 K/hr, over. Roger, goat in.

Blackhawk, Rooster, two tanks in defilade will have contact in just a second, over. Blackhawk, roger. Reaper, Rooster, 4 sheridans moving down valley, I can see 2 brads from here, keep them there, they’re on high ground, the sheridans can’t get to ‘em, over. Reaper, roger. Then I see the two brads move off the hills to engage, both get waxed. Duh, I’ve outrun those on foot, because they can’t clime hills, moron……

What the hell is that noise…Damn, alarm is beeping again. Then I smell the exhaust and dust. I’ll hit the snooze again, get about 3 more minutes of quality Not At Work time. I wonder if they have Special K at the chowhall this morning, and the real milk…..