David And Jessi Ch 01

Storytellers note: Those of you that may have read my other effort (s) at this already know that I am not a writer and do not claim to be. I do continue trying to be a storyteller and I hope you can enjoy the telling of this story. It is a total fabrication of my mind. It never happened. Probably never will, but just in case, all persons are above the legal age of consent in all states and nations. As before, I am not writing a story about sex, mainly because I don't want to write a sex story. The fact that I don't know how has absolutely nothing to do with that decision. Please post any and all constructive comments and criticisms as they will surely help me to be a better storyteller in the future. I do want to thank those who posted such nice comments on my first story. Thank you for taking the time to read this offering.

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David Allen Scott was an unusual man in most all ways. Quiet and unassuming. Reserved and yet always willing to step up and assist anyone in need, whether they were in need of financial assistance, physical help, or simply moral support. Named after his paternal grandfather, he was proud of his name. While some called him Allen, he preferred his friends to call him David saying there were to many Allen's around these days, and the world needed a few less to make things run better. He always said that Mr. Scott was either his father and grandfather, both of which were long gone.

David's paternal grandfather had been one half Ute Indian, and a descendant from some of the last true warriors of the era and from that area of the US. David's grandfather had taught him the old ways as a boy, teaching David everything he possibly could about the land and its inhabitants. He was taught how to move silently through forest and rocks alike without being seen or heard and how to live off the land if necessary. 'One with nature' you could call it. The Utes had lived in the mountains and deserts of the Four Corners area since the 1800's and were familiar with all types of terrain. David learned well from his grandfather and could survive hardships and move almost like a ghost through an area, regardless of the terrain. He also became proficient with various weapons and including knives and bows and arrows as well as guns of all sorts.

David had lost both his father and grandfather in an auto accident when he was 17, leaving him devastated and almost alone. His mother finishing raising him and his older sister by herself, never remarrying saying she would forever be married to his father. They found several scholarships and made a few student loans to get David's sister through college and working as an RN at large local hospital. She helped her mother a little with money when she could after she graduated and started work.

David was an excellent student making straight A's all through high school and had several scholarships offered to various colleges and universities. However, none seemed sufficient to sustain him in school without a job or large student loans, so two weeks after graduation from high school when David turned 18, he surprised everyone when he enlisted in the army, thinking he could serve a few years, see part of the world, save some money, help his mother, and then use the GI Bill to get his education and then use it again to finance a house if necessary later in life.

Being as intelligent as he proved to be on the myriad of tests every recruit has to take, he was called in for counselling and shown several indoctrination films about different areas of study, mostly voluntary types, meaning dangerous. In the end, he made application for two difficult schools; first, Officer Candidate School, which would give him a commission as a second lieutenant, then on to Special Forces Training to be an Intelligence officer after the completion of his training. He would spend almost the next three years in one school or another, then serve a four-year commitment to the military being posted somewhere in the world and generally in harm's way as it is called in the military.

After he completed basic infantry training and advanced infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was moved to the OCS unit on that same post where he helped train new recruits for a short time while waiting for his OCS class to start. Few people know that even as a private, once you start OCS, you are promoted to the temporary rank and pay of a buck sergeant as there are some expenses for social functions that would occur, plus constant haircuts and a boxcar full of boot and brass polish would be needed before graduation and uniforms after graduation. That temporary promotion also gave them legal rights and status as they also worked helping the training of new recruits until their OCS class started as any order given to a recruit would then be a "lawful order from a non-commissioned officer," making it a crime to disobey that order. With the pay increase, he was able to send his mother a little extra money each month.

David knew going in that there would be an extra ordinary amount of harassment and plain old bullshit to put up with as the cadre was trying to break and weed out those who were weak and deemed unfit to command or even serve with highly trained special operations troops. This would be especially so for him because of his young age and lack of a college degree. With a determination and effort second to none, he led the whole class at every turn and was given the distinction of being the honor graduate. His mother and sister were there to proudly pin his new insignia of rank, the shiny gold bars of a new shavetail second lieutenant. He was given a week off before his report date to Fort Bragg, South Carolina, for the start of his Special Forces training. While there, even though he was a commissioned officer, he was treated virtually the same as all other recruits as once they became a team member they all had to have the same training and skills and know they could depend on each other when it got "hairy out there."

Where the rank issue did come into play was in David always being assigned leadership positions and he had to learn how to plan and then lead the other team members on various types of missions. It seemed like he had to work twice as hard to get it all done, but get it done he did. Every Green Beret must have at least two specialties and David's was intelligence and weapons. He was also well trained in first aid, but not nearly as well trained as the medics going through the course. They could almost pass for surgeons on the outside.

By the time he graduated, he had been promoted to First Lieutenant and after graduation, he reported to the Special Operations Command Headquarters in Afghanistan. After his orientation and acclamation period he was sent to a small unnamed village in the mountains of Afghanistan. There he and his new team were supposed to fulfill several duties. The first being to form a friendship with the local tribal chief and warlord in hopes of enlisting help and gathering intelligence information from them, and to assist the tribe anyway they could and to help teach them fundamental things like hygiene and also provide medical help whenever possible. The only problem was that you never knew if the person you were helping was friend or foe as so many were Taliban members and the general consensus was that you could never trust anything a Muslim said to you.

Without going into detail, suffice it to say that his new area of responsibility was barren of anything an intelligent human might want. Nothing but cold, wind, rocks, caves, and steep mountain passes and trails filled with ambush spots the Taliban seemed to know quite well. They should, he guessed, as they had been fighting one war or another in these mountains for thousands of years. Numerous firefights with Taliban Insurgents had broken out at various points and in different locations, but none of them had been considered a major battle. It seemed as if it did not matter where his team went or how quiet they were, the bad guys, as they were called, were waiting on them when they got there. David got to where he thought the Taliban had a better intel network than the army did.

David had been in Afghanistan for almost 9 months when one afternoon he got word from a young Afghan girl that a group of men were hanging around a couple of caves part way down the other side of the mountain they were on. David thanked her and gave her a candy bar and called the information in to his headquarters. He was told to scout the area and see what resources the Taliban had at the site. His team would have to do it as all the surveillance drones were tied up with other commitments.

David assembled his team and quietly appraised them of the situation and said their task would be to ease down the mountain part of the way and then wait for darkness to set in before trying to sneak on down to the cave area so they might be there at first light to see what forces the enemy had there. They assumed the normal single file and random style of descent with team members splitting off to the sides when possible to reduce the number of available targets in one spot.

It was a well thought out plan and was executed perfectly. The only problem was that about 200 battle hardened Taliban had not stayed around the cave. Instead, leaving 20 or 30 there as decoys for the little girl to see and report on and for any surveillance drones to watch. The larger group was well hidden further up the mountain in deep rocky gullies and behind or under various rocks and outcroppings. After night fell and David's team again started down the mountain they found themselves in the middle of what looked like half the Taliban in Afghanistan. In just the opening seconds, a quarter of his team was killed by the gunfire raining on them from many locations in the ambush and resulting crossfire.

Another quarter of the team was wounded. David himself was hit numerous times in his extremities but he continued to direct the fight and even organized a small counterattack that cut the Taliban group in half making it easier to dispatch them. David was in constant communication with his headquarters and was trying everything he could to keep his men alive until the rescue helicopters and gunships could arrive. When the gunships arrived they called for their location and David had to give a "Danger, close!" warning meaning to shell everything in the area as their position was in imminent danger of being overran. It looked like all Hell had broken loose when the assorted weapons of the gunships were let loose on the area. When hostile action had stopped, the gunships departed to a holding area, with a couple paying a visit to the original target—the cave to see what havoc they might cause there.

Replacement forces were brought in and a sweep of the area told the tale of the fierce fight that had just taken place. David was later informed that his team of 12 men had killed or caused to be killed close to 150 Taliban and wounded many others, with more causalities happening around the cave area thanks to the information David had supplied.

Out of the 12 men that had gone down the mountain, 4 were killed, 3 seriously wounded, 3 lightly wounded, and the final two looking like they seemed dazed with the "thousand-yard stare" they both had. David and the other two seriously wounded were first treated at a battalion aid station and then flown to a field hospital somewhere near an airport for a flight to a military hospital in Germany for more surgery and treatment.

David's mom and sister were notified of his wounds and were told that he would be transferred from Germany to Walter Reed in Washington in a week or two to start recuperation and therapy before being placed on convalescence leave to recover at home, having to report to a local military or veteran's hospital for checkups. Both his mother and sister were at Walter Reed when he arrived and were able to stay for a few days. David sent them back home after thanking them for being there, telling them that he would be home with them shortly, for several months, so there was no need to spend all the money to stay in the high rent hotels in that part of Washington.

After he had been at Walter Reed for about a month, he was getting ready to go home for his rehabilitation leave when he was notified to come to the hospital auditorium at 1 PM that day. When he entered on his crutches, he found his mother and sister there waiting for him with smiles on their faces, and a large group of senior Special Forces officers and other highly ranked officers. Someone called "Attention" and everyone snapped to attention and looked towards the podium on a small stage. A four-star general later identified as the Chief of Staff for the U S Army took the podium and said that David had caused quite a stir with his actions in "Indian Country" as it is called, and that the typists and copy machines had been busy for a couple of days trying to get all the orders finished and that they had 4 separate sets of orders to read and picked up the first set. "Attention to orders" he began reading the order giving David the promotion to the rank of Capitan. David's Mom and sister pinned his new insignia of rank on his shoulders.

Next was orders signed and ordered by the Secretary of the Army awarding him the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on the mountain that night. After the Secretary of the Army pined the medal on his chest and shook his hand and saluted him, his Special Forces commander took over and read a set of orders from Special Operations Command awarding David a Silver Star for his actions in an earlier battle along with a Bronze Star for actions in yet a different engagement. He was also given two Purple Hearts, one for wounds on that night, and another for a light wound he had almost forgotten about that occurred during the same action that earned him his Bronze Star. David's mother and his sister were both very proud of their hero, but also very shocked and saddened that David had had such a rough time while deployed such a short time and that they had known nothing about it until then.

As soon as the award ceremony ended, David was released from the hospital to start his recuperation leave at home. He was told to report to the Veteran's Hospital about 50 miles from his home as it was his new assigned medical facility and that they would arrange physical therapy for him someplace near his home while he was on leave. The army had made flight reservations for them all for their return home so there was no cost to any of them.

When he asked his Mother if she needed any money to help pay for her trip, she laughed at him and said, "You did not really think I spent all that money you sent me did you?" and told him there was several thousands of dollars in an account in his name at their local bank as now that she was alone at home, she did not need as much money and was able to actually save some of her own pay. This got her a hug and kiss from David.

Once home David got to thinking of all the down time he would have and decided to try to use it wisely and talked to the local university and it was decided that with his experience that if he could put in one year on site and one year on line, that they would confer his bachelor's degree on him and that would allow him to pursue his desire for a masters and an MBA. He wondered how he would be able to do this while still in the Army. The online part would not be a problem but he would have to make application to the Army for permission to attend the school fulltime for several months. He knew this happened quite often and would inquire about the process the next time he went to the VA hospital. The only problem would be if the army demanded he serve more years on active duty for them granting him permission and authorization to attend classes at their expense.

David threw himself into his studies and excelled, especially with the online classes, which he completed at an extremely fast rate. At Christmas break the following year, he was given his degree and immediately enrolled as a master's candidate in forensic accounting and studies in advanced computer programing. His goal was to be able to design and market software to make it easy to find and prove the theft and hiding of funds, especially embezzlement and attempts to avoid federal taxes. One of the reasons for this particular quest was the generous rewards given to those who identify tax cheats and notify the IRS about it meaning the opportunity to get untold millions in reward moneys from them over time.

His MBA would allow him to run his company and move it into the future as having cutting edge technology instead of being just another software company. Good plans, now he just had to make them happen.

During his online schooling, David was healing physically and feeling better every day and was wondering about his military future when he was told by his VA doctors that he had to be examined by regular army doctors for a status determination. After he was examined by the army doctors he was told he was going to be retired as his one injured leg was a tad shorter than his other giving him a slight limp and that it would theoretically always be just a little weaker, making him unsuitable for military service. He would be given a 40% disability rating and between that and his two purple hearts he would get full medical help from VA for the rest of his life plus a monthly pension from the Army for his disability retirement plus he would always be known as a retired army officer and a Special Forces officer at that.

David was quietly discharged and rather than live with his mother, he rented a two-bedroom townhouse near campus that had the facilities he wanted, namely a quiet place to study and do his work and research in the second bedroom he had set up as his office. They also had a small gym and exercise room for the residents along with an outdoor pool.

David had never had a serious girlfriend or a relationship with any woman except for his mom and sister. He just never had time nor anyone he was interested in getting to know any better than casual. He had had sex several times but it was always of the bought or one-night stand variety. His mom was anxious for him to marry and present her with 2 or 3 grandchildren to spoil, but he kept telling her it would happen when it happened, but that he was way too busy to even think about it right then.

David finished the first year of his master's program and had already developed the program he wanted. He had to finish debugging it and then some final testing, but it was working well right then and there. He had taken it to a security company and presented it to Thom, the owner of the security company, who fell so in love with the idea of both the program and the untold millions that could be made both from the sales and from the reward money paid by the IRS and by the FBI for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons guilty of just the kind of crimes this software would find, that he proposed forming a new company and partnership with David as the designer and himself as the marketing man. The designer's name and information would have to stay hidden for a long time as there would surely be crooked lawyers of all sorts and people out there with the sole purpose of stopping the issue of the software or stopping the designer before he perfected and marketed his software. So many different types of dangerous people were involved when it comes to millions upon millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and the possibility of life in prison to boot. Organized crime and drug dealers would sure enough not want to see the program hit the market. Certain Labor unions would not want to see this program sale. Some attorneys and insurance companies and other forms of illicit business types would hate to see this become available. Corporate executives were more than equal at trying to hide money. They thought it might even be very likely for someone to put a contract out on him to prevent the completion and publication of his software.