We Are The Wolf: Wolfpack Book 1

by Toby Neighbors

  "You will have trouble with Chavez until he sees you as more than a lucky kid who was given a platoon. Why do you think this is?"

  "He has authority issues," Dean replied.

  "Perhaps not," the major said in his heavy, Italian accent. "He has three commendations for bravery."

  "I can't figure it," Dean said. "I've tried everything I know. I've shown him respect. I treat him like an equal. I've more than proven myself in our field exercises. I'm fair, I don't choose favorites, and yet no matter what I do, he still gives me shit at every turn."

  "Have you read his personnel file?"

  "Of course I have."

  "And what did you learn?"

  "That he had a tough life. Got into EsDef despite nearly failing out of school. He's been on three tours off world."

  "You have to go deeper," the major explained. "When a grape isn't sweet you must look to the roots, not the leaves."

  "What does that mean?" Dean asked.

  "We are all the product of DNA plus life experience. Your DNA gave you the tools of great leadership. You are decisive, self-disciplined, dedicated, loyal, intelligent, and creative. All innate qualities that you were born with. But not everyone who possesses these traits gets selected for service. It was your experience that gave you the self-confidence, humility, and drive for excellence that made you a prime candidate for becoming an EsDef officer."

  "Well thank you, but I don't see what your point is about Chavez."

  "I'm getting to that," the major said. "Corporal Chavez has the strength, athleticism, coordination, and discipline to be a great Heavy Armor Specialist. But his life experience has also given him deficiencies that are now causing you problems. It is your job to discover what these experiences are and help him to work through them."

  "Why is that my job? That has to be his responsibility. I should just toss him from the platoon and get a replacement."

  "That is what usually happens to men like Corporal Chavez. They are like a dog on a chain, limited in what they can achieve. He will only grow angrier and continue to self-sabotage until he is killed, or drummed out of the service, unless someone helps him."

  "That isn't my job," Dean said again, his frustration making him speak a little too loudly. "I'm not his shrink. I'm his platoon leader."

  "What do you think a leader is, Lieutenant? Any fool can make decisions. EsDef doesn't select officer candidates based on experience, but on proven character assessments. You were selected because you are, at your very core, the kind of man who can lead Corporal Chavez."

  "You mean I can handle trouble makers," Dean said.

  "No, just the opposite. You can lead Joaquin out of the self-destructive behavior he is exhibiting."

  "How? He hates my guts, and if I'm being honest I'm beginning to feel the same way."

  "That is purely emotion talking," Major Gheridelli said. "You are angry because Chavez knows how to push your buttons. And you should learn to press his instead. Let me explain. What is your biggest complaint with Chavez?"

  "His lack of respect for me as the leader of the platoon," Dean said. He didn't have to think about his answer. It was on the tip of his tongue before he had even given the question a second's thought.

  "Not his lack of respect for you as a person?"

  "No," Dean said, thinking about his answer. "I don't care if he hates me, but he has to trust me when we're in the field. He can't second guess my every move. He can't act impulsively when I'm making decisions that allow the platoon to act in concert to engage the enemy."

  "And why does this bother you so?"

  "Because he could get us all killed!" Dean said, more loudly than he meant to.

  "And you are scared of dying?"

  "Of course I am. But I'm even more scared of being killed for no reason. I'm scared of letting my platoon down. Of failing EsDef and people thinking that I really was a mistake."

  "A mistake?" the major said. He wasn't looking at Dean, and he didn't say the word mistake with any emphasis whatsoever, and yet Dean felt as if the oxygen had suddenly been sucked from the room.

  "Yeah," he said, his guard falling along with the discipline he usually maintained, even though he and Major Gheridelli had grown close enough to be friends. "I'm afraid that EsDef made a mistake selecting me and making me an officer."

  "And so, Chavez presses this button whenever you are together. He challenges you, talks about how young you are, how inexperienced you are. He plays right on the edge of insubordination and outright sabotage, which triggers your biggest fear. Think about this for a moment Dean, don't dismiss it outright."

  Dean did think about it. There was no question that he feared failure and being judged a mistake. He was still young, a month away from his nineteenth birthday. Force Recon recruits were taken directly out of high school and trained for combat. Dean had been selected for officer training and put in charge of a platoon with specialists much more experienced than he was. He wanted desperately to prove that he had what it took to lead his platoon, but he was still untested in battle, and the doubts in his mind plagued him almost constantly.

  "Now, you had a happy childhood and loving parents. You grew up without fear or want. You were probably told that you could accomplish anything."

  "If I worked hard enough," Dean said, his mind spinning with revelations.

  "So you work hard. You have one of the best work ethics of any officer I've trained. But what if you have overlooked a crucial step. Perhaps your role isn't to win battles and coerce your troopers into a deadly performance. Perhaps your greatest job is to create situations where the men and women who follow you develop the confidence to set their talents free. What if instead of trying to achieve a predetermined level of unit preparedness, you focus instead on proving to each specialist under your command just how good they really are at their job, and how great they might actually become."

  Dean was dumbfounded. The advice of his mentor didn't just hit home, it resonated deep within his psyche. He had been trying to drill his platoon into a predetermined state of readiness, perhaps because it was the easiest metric to gauge, or perhaps because he'd been taught to do so, but either way, he suddenly realized he could do so much more.

  "How do I do this?" he asked. "How do I help people to see how good they really are?"

  "That is for you to determine. I'm just a strategy and tactics professor. You are the leader of men, Dean Blaze.

  Chapter 29

  “Change of plans, platoon," Dean said, addressing his troops in their barracks. It was 0600 hours on Monday morning and Dean could see that many of the specialists had gotten almost no sleep, some were even shaky from their weekend liberty excesses. "We're going on a field exercise. Full armor, I want weapons ready, and full off world gear. This will be our last training event before taking a little time off before deployment. Get moving people, I want everyone at the air strip at 0700. Get chow, if you can stomach it, and get your gear together."

  Dean turned and walked briskly back to the debrief room followed closely by Staff Sergeant Ashley Mercer. She was a good NCO and kept the platoon on track. Dean felt like he could trust her with any mission objective, but he still didn't really understand what made her tick. When Dean went through the CCS training at Coronado the veteran trainees were anxious to help him. Mercer, on the other hand, regarded him with cold calculation, following orders but offering no real support. Dean knew he couldn't depend on anyone to run his platoon for him, but he would have liked to connect with Mercer on a deeper level.

  "You're changing the training schedule," she said once the door to the debriefing room had closed.

  "That is correct."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "It's my prerogative," Dean said. "But since you ask, I feel we have accomplished as much as we can doing the same drills over again. I don't think one more week on the range is going to improve our marksmanship or timing on formation changes. I want to get everyone off the base and into a different environment. I want to sp
end time with the platoon in the field."

  "And that will improve platoon metrics?" Mercer asked.

  "No, I doubt it will. But there is more to building a healthy platoon than just hitting the targets."

  "I don't think it would hurt McCal to have extra time on the range," Mercer insisted. "She does fine in simulations but under pressure she's shaky. Bennett is still a little slow on his feet. Perhaps clumsy is a better word. And Lee lacks discipline. He's getting soft and slow."

  "What about Chavez?" Dean asked.

  "Corporal Chavez gets his shit done. He's a little headstrong, but he's solid under pressure."

  "I agree, and yet he undermines my authority."

  "He'll come around when it counts," Mercer said.

  "Perhaps, but I don't like the thought of entering a hot zone with someone who doesn't trust me. I think your assessment of the platoon is exactly right, which is why I'm taking them into the field. It's time we built a little cohesiveness in this platoon."

  "If you say so, Lieutenant," Mercer said.

  Her tone wasn't disrespectful as much as it was skeptical. Dean had noticed that his staff sergeant preferred to do everything by the book. She was excellent at her specialty. Dean had even sparred with her, trying his best to find a weakness to exploit before she broke down his defenses or took him down and caught him in a submission hold. She was an expert marksman, and deadly with the Kukri fighting knife she carried. The one area she struggled with was improvisation. He could sense the slight hesitation before she responded to an order that was not what she expected. It was almost as if she were trying to guess what he would do before he did it, and when he got creative she struggled.

  "I do, and I appreciate your hard work getting this platoon ready for deployment. It is reflected in my performance evaluations."

  Dean had already eaten and he'd made the appropriate requests for the change of training schedule over the weekend. All that remained for him to do was to gear up, make sure that his platoon had everything they needed, and get out to the airfield.

  An hour later they were airborne. Dean could link his TCU into the transport's navigation systems and onboard camera feeds. He let the landing camera video play in the upper right hand corner of his face shield, and below that was the navigation display. He could see the map from their starting point at Bayview to their destination deep in the jungle of Central America. A bright yellow line displayed their heading, while a pulsing blue dot represented their progress.

  Many of the troops slept as they flew, which was understandable given that there were no windows to look out of, and nothing to keep them awake in the gloomy interior of the transport. Their battle helmets could link to their tablets which had the ability to play media, music, and games, but controlling the tablets was sometimes problematic. Most of the specialists opted just to play a little music through their helmet audio systems and rest while they could. It was, in Dean's opinion, a wise move.

  The flight south took most of the day, and the shadows in the jungle were growing long when the transport landed and Staff Sergeant Mercer ordered everyone out into a defensive perimeter around the landing site. Dean took in the richness of the jungle foliage as he trotted off of the ship. He knew there was no danger, no enemies to fight, no actual combat exercises planned, just a long hike through rough terrain. And, Dean hoped, a chance for him to connect with the members of his platoon on a deeper level than the chain of command. He wasn't looking to make friends, but he was looking for opportunities to instill confidence, pride, and loyalty in the platoon.

  As soon as the transport ship lifted off Dean called his troops together. "Listen up. We've got a long hike ahead of us. Most of it through unbroken wilderness. I want everyone at their best. Our goal is to get from this landing site to LZ Bravo as quickly and efficiently as possible. I want everyone on full alert. There is no telling what we may come across on this exercise. Use your heads, designate targets, communicate. We have one hundred sixty clicks to reach LZ Bravo. It's going to take a lot of work, but that's what we're trained to do. Do not, I repeat, do not fire your weapon unless I give you the go-ahead. This is a recon mission, no need to stick our nose in it if we don't have to."

  They formed ranks, everyone switching on their low-light cameras and viewing the jungle through the camera in their battle helmets. As night fell, the animals were little more than glowing eyes, peering out from the cover of the thick foliage. Dean felt as if the platoon were on display and his nerves tensed as they started their journey.

  For three hours they followed a jungle road, keeping an easy pace and staying alert. It was not a leisurely stroll, their armor worked hard to compensate for the hot, humid conditions, but it was not a difficult journey. The road was little more than a set of parallel tracks through the jungle, but it was level and without obstacles. When they came to a river, Dean called for a halt and they made camp.

  Their field rations were simple protein wafers and they had full hydration bladders filled with the amino punch that was standard across all EsDef facilities. Staff Sergeant Mercer split the platoon into shifts of three, each group taking a two-hour duty standing watch. Dean made sure that he stood with the three HA specialists that included Chavez. He didn't talk to the others, although he heard their chatter over his TCU. Then he slept, as best he could in battle armor on the sodden ground, holding his flechette rifle to his chest.

  The next morning they left the riverside slightly after dawn, making their way carefully over the gurgling water via the larger boulders scattered within it. The water wasn't deep and there was no danger that the current could sweep anyone away, but they used caution just the same. The road turned away from the direction the platoon was headed a short way past the river, and Dean decided to cut through the dense foliage rather than veer off course.

  Chavez was smart enough to know that he couldn't make comments in his battle gear without being heard, so instead he made gestures, thinking that Dean didn't see him. But what few members of his platoon realized was that Dean could keep a camera fixed on any one person and view them on a small screen on the visor of his TCU. Dean saw Chavez twirl his finger beside his head in a gesture to indicate that Dean was crazy, but he ignored the insult. Dressing Chavez down wouldn't solve their differences. Nor would making him feel like he was constantly being watched, even though he was.

  Dean was still struggling with how to reach the belligerent HA corporal when he decided that each of the members of his platoon should describe their favorite memory from childhood.

  "Adkins, you go first," Dean said, as they made their way around a massive tree that was covered in thick, green lichen.

  "Sir, yes sir," the big HA specialist said. "Favorite memory would have to be playing football in the state championship game. I was an offensive lineman, usually left tackle, but the strong side defensive end had been eating our lunch the entire first half. So coach asks me if I can make the switch to right tackle. My only responsibility would be stopping their defensive end. Our quarterback was banged up. The running backs were scared. I got in the game and the first play of the third quarter I put that big defensive end on his ass. He kept running at me and I kept hitting him as hard as I could. He was fast, and tricky, but all I had to do was stop him and I did. We won that game by three points, best night of my life. Got laid, too!"

  There were catcalls and jokes, but it was a good story and a great start to getting his people to open up.

  "Sergeant Cox, what about you?"

  "My grandmother used to make the best Christmas dinner," he said. "Most folks be making ham or turkey, my Grams would cook a goose. I never knew where she got a goose, probably better that I didn't. It was so juicy and good, I would eat until I was almost sick. Candied yams, collard greens picked fresh, corn with peppers, and fried okra. It was a feast. And she made the best damn yeast rolls, too. The whole family would come, aunts, uncles, cousins. We would just camp out at Grams’ house, the kids sleeping on the floor, the parents fin
ding any piece of furniture big enough to sleep on. She had one tiny bathroom and we rotated through there all day long. I miss that. Oh, and peach cobbler with homemade ice cream. That's how we get it done in the South."

  "Sounds delicious," Mason said.

  "My mom made pecan pie," Bennett said.

  "You big lugs can't think about anything but food," Ipsish said. "My favorite memory was traveling to Casablanca with my parents. I grew up in the country, and the city was like a completely different place. It was so crowded, and there was so much to do. Even late at night the streets were bustling. There were strictly religious women still dressing in traditional clothing, with hijabs and veils. I saw skyscrapers next to hovels, and homeless people side by side with businessmen in suits. It was the most amazing trip, and it opened my eyes to the world. I heard different languages for the first time. It was the last trip we took all together before my parents split up."

  "Don't get sappy," Chavez said. "At least you had parents."

  "Your turn, Corporal," Dean said.

  "Alright. I got memories, they ain't all bad. My moms worked for the fat cats in Mexico City. She cleaned houses and she got most of our clothes from the stuff her employers were getting rid of. My favorite memory is this one time I got a shirt that some rich kid had bought at a concert. It was for some dipshit band I never heard of, but when he saw me in it he screamed at me and demanded I give it back. My mother was embarrassed, but not me. I took the shirt off and threw it on the ground. When the kid went to pick it up I kicked him hard, right in his ass. He fell down, started crying. I was laughing and my moms was swearing at me. She thought she might lose her job, but I knew better. That spoiled kid had been given everything he had in life. He didn't care about that shirt, he just didn't want me to have it. He wouldn't tell anyone that I hurt him, he was too proud, too arrogant to think that a street kid like me could get something over on him. That's my favorite memory, jeffe. Kicking that kid's ass, literally."