Author's Note: Sorry guys my time off took a little longer than planned, honestly I spent a lot of my time drinking and having a good ole time until I took off from Houston and wrecked my bike. Hence the inspiration of the title to this next series. Nothing serious, not a lot of damage done to the bike thankfully; however I did spend a few days in the hospital dealing with a broken foot. Its hard to write when you're doped up on pain killers and wondering how serious the damage would be, again lady luck saved my ass and I'm good to go.
I'll try to make this series self-existing so that the need to read "Long Road" is not entirely necessary, however new readers should keep in mind that this is a continuation of the aforementioned series. Hope you all enjoy this one, thank you for the votes and the comments.
Much love,
Aka_Mike
...
It had been a busy couple of months; training took a heavy toll on my body. I had arrived to that black and gold landscape; truthfully I was surprised that the grass wasn't colored this way since everything else seemed to have been covered with this blanket. Fort Benning had become a home of sorts for a few months at that moment in my life, one type or another training requirement had kept me in one place or another. Ranger school took a heavy toll on my body, as it did with everyone that decided to walk that path. Things at home, haha, well there really wasn't a home to talk about. I was technically single, sure Ann and I had become a couple again but because of the high amount of training it wouldn't have made sense to do anything more serious. She had driven a stake through my heart in the past, sure I had made a mistake as well, but instead of trying to talk to me she decided she needed her revenge. It took a lot of time, and a lot of company before I could forgive her.
But I think she knew the reason why I was so distant, and she went well out of her way to make it clear that she was not up to anything that would cast further suspicion on her. Since she lived in my parent's property, she spent a lot of her free time with my mother learning how to take care of a household. I was surrounded by males, and the little time I had to myself I spent sleeping, eating, or taking care of my equipment one way or another. Boot shining had become a great way for me to slow my mind down and take a rare moment to look at that long road ahead of me. I was never known to be the planning type of person; I usually flew by the seam of my pants and kept my "long term" plans to something within a few months. But when I slowed my mind down, things were much different.
This night would be the last I would spend as a student, 30 days of leave and recuperation, and then on to Hunter Army Airfield in Savanna, Georgia. I was looking forward to getting a good night's rest in a real bed next to a warm body that wasn't covered in hair and did not snore as loud as a chainsaw. As a Combat Medic, I knew that I could be placed with any of the Companies within the area, and as one of the few "tabbed" Medics in the Army, I also knew that I would be a good commodity for the Ranger Battalions. As I was gathering my few belongings, mainly uniforms and a few sets of civilian clothes, one of the Ranger Instructors slowly made his way to where I was gathering my things.
"Heard you're going to Savanna," the Instructor said, his name was Kitchen. Like all the other instructors, Kitchen had always been beyond professional with everyone. Brutal, merciless, but professional. "Not a bad place, good people there."
"Roger," I replied without stopping, "looking forward to it."
"When you get there, look up a guy: Werkman. Medic like us. He'll take care of you." Without another word, he turned and walked away. That was the reason Kitchen had taken such a liking to me: we were both Medics. He placed the tan beret on his head and moved away onto the next batch of trainees.
The shroud of the bad luck that seemed to follow me like a shadow kept up even during the next few months. During the last part of Ranger School, there was a hurricane that effectively forced training to come to a screeching halt, but not enough to force an evacuation. It was a miserable time, good training experience. When the rains subsided, the heat became almost hellish. It was suffocating. The soft land from the vicious rain and the fast evaporation of the trapped water within it made the perfect conditions for the inevitable. As we were working on one of the raids against the mock enemy, I happened to be the current Platoon Sergeant, and I wanted the assault squad to move from the south part their target. I had placed the support squad on the west part of the objective, they would have a small advantage as they would have a higher ground on the objective, and when the assault squad attacked they would be able to shift fire to prevent any accidental friendly fire but still allow them to fire onto the target and effectively shut down any escape routes.
This was my first graded position in the last phase, so far my previous experience had made it easy to receive first time passing grades, a very rare thing to see in such a critical environment. Also, my very unconventional tactics drew a lot of attention from the Ranger Instructors, but their role was more mentorship than one of creating unthinking robots. They often allowed the Ranger Students to create their own tactics so long as they were safe, and from one Camp to another the rumors of the student that came up with crazy tactics that worked all the time made it easier for both my fellow students and the RIs to listen to my wild ideas. This one was no different than another tactic I had used at Camp Merrill.
There, the objective was a small meth lab that handled distributions, and the potential for intel was great, the site itself couldn't have been better. After seeing the location up close, I turned the raid into an ambush quickly, using the assault squad to line up one side of a large dirty road that directly led into the site and using the support squad as part assault and part suppression. Coordinating with the RIs, I requested air support and instead of aiming it directly on the sire, which would've destroyed any potential intel, I had the target marked 100 meters north of the target. I had coordinated this to be the signal for one squad to open fire and with my small group we would assault from the east. This would be a quick hit and run tactic, we would run down the road and hopefully this would force the opposing force to follow them. As soon as we cleared the last man in the ambush line, they would call for a safety kill to avoid any dangerous closeness to the OPFOR personnel and their blank loaded rifles.
After the ambush, the part of the assault from the suppression squad would then call for a cease fire and move toward the buildings, taking any remaining OPFOR as Enemy Prisoner of War that would help with the intel. After clearing they could take their time investigating each building and gathering any intel necessary, all in all they would take between 3-7 minutes on site. Well within time standards. The plan worked without a hitch, a large amount of intel was successfully gathered, and I received my second first-time go in the mountains. There would be no need for a third graded patrol, and my eagerness to help my fellow students made it nearly impossible for me to fail from this school. But this time, the perfect shit storm hit us hard.
With the water fiercely evaporating, the heavy weight of the students and our equipment put the extra strain necessary for the land to give way. It did. By the time everything had settled, 5 Ranger Students and a Ranger Instructor were trapped under a large amount of dirt and mud. Quickly forgetting our situation, I had dropped all my equipment and immediately moved to the area where my squad had stood. Following their leadership, the rest of the platoon followed both me and the RIs that were at a full run. As we reached the place, I turned and pointed at a group of the other students and ordered them to return to where they had gathered their ruck sacks to secure their collapsible shovels as the OPFOR drew their own. Chaos was overridden by need. We all had stopped being cadre and students; under the circumstances we worked together to rescue our brothers before they ran out of air. After the others returned with their shovels and got to work violently, within minutes they found all 6 bodies, all unconscious but alive. Quickly, the RIs had called the Medics on coverage, while I quickly barked orders relaying the name of the equipment that would be needed: Oxygen, litters, and a few bandages to create splints. Other than a few bumps and bruises they were otherwise well enough to avoid being sent to the hospital. After making sure that everyone was taken care of, I had to walk away from the group and took to a small, quiet, and private moment where I allowed a few tears to fall.
After a few minutes, I heard soft footsteps walking toward my direction. We had been put on a safety stand down and the others were enjoying a brief break from the training in order to eat and replenish their spent calories. I recognized that these footsteps were not from a fellow student before the voice broke the silence.
"You reacted faster than the other RIs," Moyers said, he was the RI that had gone to grade the assault squad leader and had been caught in the landslide with the other students. When he came to, the first thing he asked was about their welfare, this was the first priority of RIs: the welfare of the Rangers assigned to them. "We would've been goners if you hadn't, then you made sure that the Medics had the equipment that they would need before they showed up."
