It’s in final edits now, and I’m shooting for the end of the month… Here’s one more teaser chapter…

Boredom

Aaron fidgeted impatiently as he waited for Captain Ragsdale to come in. After two weeks of basically sitting around, Aaron was afraid this was going to be another ass chewing for something one of the troops did or didn’t do, depending on who saw what.

Bagram had been bad enough, with all the Air Force weenies and their petty BS rules, but he was quickly beginning to believe they weren’t so bad compared to Herat and the spit and polish ‘at the flagpole’ as it was called. There were way too many suspicious civilian characters that seemed to have free rein to go anywhere in the compound they wanted to, and all the Marines were jumpy, to put it mildly.

Then there was the whole incident with McKenzie and the civilian, which had been blown totally out of proportion anyway. Just because McKenzie had decked the guy after catching him in his room, and held him at gunpoint until the ANA dudes arrived, there shouldn’t have been anything but pats on the back. But finding out the guy was ANP who was investigating or so he claimed, some BS about women in the rooms… well, consider the mind boggled.

Over the last week and a half, they had been studying the various FOBs in the AO . They’d come up with two that were the highest probability where they would end up, based on the team makeup. One was FOB Apache, northeast of Herat up near the Turkmenistan border on the ring road about two hundred kilometers from Herat. The other was FOB Lightning, which was just south of the Turkmenistan border but only about sixty kilometers from Herat. After looking at them and talking to guys that were shuttling in and out for meetings, FOB Apache sounded like the better deal, even with the logistics issues.

They had checked and re-checked their gear, repacked their equipment into easier to manage loads, and drilled daily as much as they could. The familiarization courses with the Afghans had been good follow up for the training back in the states, and they were getting comfortable with the translator, Ali, who had been assigned to them. He was from Kabul, had gone to school in England, and had been a computer technician before everything blew up.

Finally, the captain came in and Aaron popped to attention. “At ease, gunny, take a seat.”

Aaron got almost all the way seated and his brain finally caught up with what the captain had said. “Gunny? Are you shitting me, captain?”

Ragsdale smiled. “Nope, you’re on the list, and it apparently came in before we left, but the word never got passed. Your promotion is this month. And I have one more bit of good news: we’re getting the fuck out of here! They’re heloing us out to FOB Apache tomorrow afternoon. We’re turning over with Det Charlie out there, and that’s where we’re going to spend the entire deployment. No floater duties for us.”

Aaron leaned back in the chair. “Well, I guess that’s good news, but I’m concerned about the issues Gunny Plath from Charlie raised last week when he was here. Apparently, the ANA folks up there are pretty good, but the ANP not so much. I like the fact that we’ll be separated from the main part of the FOB for security, but I don’t know how to play the ANA and ANP sides.”

The captain replied, “Well, by ear is probably going to be how we start. The Italians haven’t done much up there, just the minimum provincial reconstruction team stuff. Rumor has it a det from the Hundred and First Airborne is going to come up to assist in the next couple of months. We’ll take over the GMV s Charlie has up there, but we’re taking all new weapons up. Seems there is a significant dust issue which has caused reliability problems on the 50 cals, 240s and the 7.62 mini-guns. Did McKenzie get certified for JTAC and get his callsign yet? He’s the critical link in our ability to talk to and task the air assets. And we’re damn sure going to need that!”

“He’s back over there this morning. Something got screwed up in the paperwork, I think having to do with him being a staff sergeant rather than an officer like they’re used to seeing with Marines. Hobgood’s got all his EOD gear set up, and he’s getting as much spare demo as he can, but I’m not sure we can get it on the helo. Parker and Sands are ready to go on the intel side, they’ve been buried in the SCIF with the S-2 for the better part of a week and a half, getting into the intel stream and picking out players for both FOBs,” Aaron said.

He leaned forward. “Doc Hardy and Doc Wells have all their kit in order and they’re already to go. Comms is good to go, weaps and snipers are good. And it’ll be good to get out of here. I guess I need to ask what are you going to do with me?”

Ragsdale said, “Well, since I’m apparently going to be on a short leash at the TOC , Gunny Mayhew is going to bump up to team lead, and you’re going to fill in as team chief. I’m not cutting you loose just because you got promoted. we’ve spent the last six months working up as a team, and we’re going to make this deployment as a team. Since Gunny has been tied up with HQ since we got here, you’ve been the de facto team lead anyway. But this does mean you’ll have to give up the sniper role, put Baker as the primary and Doc Wells as the spotter for right now.”

Aaron hung his head. “Roger all, captain. If there’s nothing else?”

“Dismissed. And congratulations.”

***

48 hours later, FOB Apache

Gunnies Plath and Mayhew, along with Aaron, stood in the dirt by the rock-filled HESCO bastion looking at the four GMVs they were turning over. Mayhew said, “Damn, Dave, these things are pieces of shit. What the hell did y’all do to them?”

“Well,” Plath replied, “this isn’t exactly a friendly environment. We’ll do a fam drive tomorrow down to the village, and you’ll be able to see what some of the issues are. There is exactly one street in the village these things actually fit down, and other than Ring Road, you’re pretty much driving in the dirt, unless it rains, then you’re in mud up to your ass. At least we had decent weather and could get air cover. I feel for you guys, ‘cause the Air Force won’t play if they can’t see you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get Navy or Marine air if needed. Make sure your JTAC brings his GRG tomorrow, I’ll put him with Hester so they can get a visual turnover while we fam the area. Last thing you want to do is call air on the wrong place.”

Mayhew and Aaron nodded as Aaron continued to scribble notes in his wheel book. Mayhew asked, “Who else do we need up?”

Plath replied, “Bring one of your docs, we’ll show him where we’ve been doing the MEDCAP at the little clinic they have. Once you get out of the main village, you’re going to see lots of smaller, poorer villages and compounds. My intel folks are giving yours the up to the minute on which ones we think are friendly and which ones we think are Taliban controlled. Bring your HUMINT guy too, now that I think of it.”

Mayhew replied, “We can do that. Whatta you think, Dave? One more day and kick you guys loose?”

Plath shrugged. “Depends on the captains and HQ. I do want to keep a couple of folks and ride with you on the first couple of patrols, but yeah, bunking like we are just ain’t hacking it. And don’t bother bitching about the food either. The contractors do what they can with what they get on the lifts or convoys. My troops should have turned over the stash of MREs we’ve accumulated. Hope y’all like the choices. If you’re a pork fan, you’re shit out of luck though. Apparently, they aren’t allowed to ship them here. A case or two a week are the baksheesh to keep them from killing the contractors when they go looking for fresh stuff.”

Everybody just shook their heads, knowing this kind of stuff went on, but was always ignored by the higher ups, until something happened, and then everybody down the chain got shit on.

***

A week later, with Alpha now the sole team at Apache, they started settling into the routine of daily patrols. Aaron and Mayhew started a rotation where each of them was in the TOC one day, then patrolling the next. Aaron still got the shitty little E-7 jobs, one of which was a daily inspection of the GMVs and MRAPS due to the sand issue. If one didn’t do a daily preventative maintenance check on anything with lubricant, it was destined to freeze up at exactly the wrong time. Same went for weapons. Everyone cleaned their weapons daily, and if they’d been on patrol, they put new batteries in every second patrol.

Aaron thought belt and suspenders? Probably, but if we get hit at night, every light is going to be important. I better get another three cases of batteries for each system on the way here. Mac’s settled in at JTAC. Doc Wells has stepped up. Hell, the whole det is taking it up a level from where we were. It’s looking good! Thank God!

The first three patrols went off without a hitch, and the whole team started to feel more comfortable working with both the ANP and the ANA. The ANA guys were much more competent than the local Iraqi military Aaron had seen in Iraq on his last tour, and he was working with Ali to get a good rapport going with the young lieutenant that was leading most of the patrols. His biggest concern was their vehicles had for all practical purposes no armor, and the troops had very little in the way of protective equipment.

After he’d mentioned it to Captain Ragsdale, it had been pushed up the chain, and come back down as a hands off. No favoritism could be shown without causing problems between the ANP and ANA.

Aaron and Gunny Mayhew had talked after each patrol, and come to the conclusion that neither of them really trusted the ANP at this point.

Aaron’s second biggest worry became boredom as the days turned into weeks, and would turn into months. Boredom and complacency had killed more soldiers since time immemorial than damn near anything else except war.