Then he looked over his shoulder at the three other non-rates in the hooch, and told them, “Why don’t you lads give me and John a little privacy.”
“Yes, sir,” the three said, and happily disappeared.
“Says here you graduated first in your class in the ten-week Scout-Sniper course at Pendleton, then shot the gap directly south to Amphib-Recon school at Coronado,” Captain Snow said, looking at several pages of training. “Not even a ninety-six-hour pass?”
Jack shrugged. “Didn’t want to lose my steam.”
“Platoon guide out of boot camp, meritorious PFC. Honor graduate at the School of Infantry,” Snow went on, thumbing through the pages. “Got picked for Recon two months after showing up at Fifth Marines. Jump school at Benning, won the Iron Mike. Then off to Pickle Meadows for survival and mountaineering. And last August you graduated top of your class at Amphib-Recon. I’m truly impressed. You remind me of me. Son, you ever take any time off?”
“A week last August, when I headed to Lejeune.” Jack smiled. “By the way, sir, people call me Jack. John and Arthur, those names fit my grandfathers.”
“Roger that, Jack.” Snow smiled.
“What’s going on, sir?” Jack asked.
“You cleared top secret just before deployment,” Snow said, still thumbing through the pages of Jack’s SRB. “That’s good because I’m recruiting spooks.”
“Spooks?” Jack asked. “Like spies?”
“Intelligence work, deep reconnaissance, possible limited contact, clandestine sanctions. Special operations,” Snow explained. “I need a Scout-Sniper on my team, and Captain McBride, your commanding officer, recommended you.”
“I’m flattered, sir.” Valentine smiled.
“You’ve got your gold wings, I see, but you’re still pretty green at this business. How are you at high-altitude low-opening insertions?” the captain asked.
“Good to go, sir,” Jack said. “I love HALO. People pay fat money to do that in the civilian world, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do, Jack. We take you skydiving and don’t charge a dime.” Captain Snow grinned.
“We fixing to cross Saddam Hussein’s Line of Death, sir?” Jack said, bright-eyed.
“Some of us sooner than others,” Elmore Snow said, and looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting right now, so I need to run along. We have a top secret briefing at 1430 at the head shed. You’re on my team as of now. You be there waiting for me at 1400. I’ll introduce you to the others. Then we sit down with Lieutenant General Walter E. Boomer and some of his key staff. Got it?”
“General Boomer?” Jack asked, blinking. “Like in a little room with a real three-star general? He going to ask me questions?”
“Yes, Lance Corporal, you’re going to be in a little room with a real live lieutenant general,” Snow said, chuckling. “Don’t worry. I’ll do all the talking. If General Boomer says anything to you, it’s probably just to pat your back or shake your hand.”
“Wow, sir!” Jack said, standing as Captain Snow stood, too. “I never met a real general before. I mean, I’ve seen them in a parade, me marching past the reviewing stand. But I never met one face-to-face. He might even shake my hand? That would be very cool, sir.”
“Yup, very cool indeed,” Elmore Snow said as he left.
Jack ate lunch with his three Force Recon hooch mates but said nothing about his meeting with Captain Elmore Snow. They asked, but Valentine only gave them a raised eyebrow over a fried chicken breast that he held in his fingers, accompanied by a one-shoulder shrug and a grin with his mouth full of potatoes and gravy.
At a quarter ’til two o’clock, he stood in the parking area in front of the long building with the flagpole in front of it, sizing up three Marines who waited at one side of the walkway near the front door. A gunnery sergeant, a staff sergeant, and a sergeant.
Five minutes later, another sergeant joined the three, and they shook hands. Then all four eyeballed Jack, standing by his lonesome, in the parking lot, no car or jeep or truck or newfangled Humvee. Just a very young hard charger in desert utilities and jump boots with a flop hat pulled low over his eyes, looking at them.
The gunny said something to the others, then waved at Jack.
“You Valentine?” the gunny barked at him.
A big smile crossed Jack’s face as he waved back and jogged to the group. “That’s me, Gunny.”
“Early arrival,” the gunny said. “I like a Marine who lands on deck ahead of schedule. Makes an outstanding first impression, along with a squared-away uniform and body.”
“Back in high school, my football coach said we operate on Lombardi time,” Jack said. “Always be where you’re supposed to be fifteen minutes early.”
“This ain’t high school football, but I have long admired Vince Lombardi,” the gunny said. “Lombardi time. Good ethic.”
“This it, Gunny?” Jack asked.
“This what?” the gunny answered.
“The team. I thought there’d be more people,” Jack said.
“Just us five and the skipper, far as I know,” the gunny said.
“Any idea what we’re doing?” Jack asked, and looked at the other sergeants and felt a little out of place being the only non-rate.
All four Marines laughed.
“Oh, I do love fresh meat,” the staff sergeant said, and spit a hefty brown stream of Red Man tobacco juice into the green leafy boxwood shrubs planted in pots by the white-metal building’s dirt porch area bordered with white-painted rocks.
“I suspect whatever it is will be exciting,” the gunny said. “Captain Snow has a reputation for leading missions that scare the ever-living dogshit out of you.”
“But we all come back alive.” The staff sergeant grinned through juicy tobacco teeth.
“That’s what matters,” one of the sergeants said, and the other sergeant, a black Marine, nodded.
“Roger dodger,” the staff sergeant said, and spit.
“Works for me,” Jack said. “What missions? Like in Beirut?”
“No, not that far back,” the black sergeant said.
“Colombia,” the staff sergeant said. “Chile, too. Drug-interdiction operations. Gunfighting cocaine cowboys in Medellín barely a month ago.”
“Oh,” Jack said.
The gunny eyed him boots up, then looked him in the eyes.
“Pure virgin soul, my guess,” the gunny finally said. “Ever kill a man?”
Jack looked him in the eyes, considering how to answer.
“By your hesitation, maybe you’re not the virgin I imagined?” the gunny said, then smiled big.
“Naw,” Jack drawled, and looked at his feet. “I’m the virgin, pure as driven snow.”
“That’ll all change soon enough,” the gunny said, and put his arm over Jack’s shoulders and eyed his mosquito wings with crossed rifles.
Elmore Snow stepped out the headquarters front door, gave the five Marines a look, and they followed him to a conference room. As they walked inside, the captain closed the door.
“Gunny Ambrose, did you take care of introductions?” Captain Snow said, laying down several folders and reaching in his pocket for something.
“No, sir.” The gunny shrugged. “Thought we might have to throw the minnow back if he didn’t check out with the crew.”
“He check out?” the captain asked, holding whatever was in his pocket now clenched in his right hand, and looking at Jack as if he had second thoughts.
“Oh, sir,” Jack said, worried, “I’ll work extra hard. You guys do what I joined the Marine Corps to do. I trained hard for this, sir. I know I’m a non-rate lance corporal, but I’ve been in the zone since August, and Captain McBride said he would get me promoted once I got settled in the company.”
Elmore Snow laughed, and Gunnery Sergeant Raymond Ambrose gave th
e captain an elbow for spoiling the gag.
Jack smiled, too, and looked sideways at the gunny, who just shook his closely crew-cut head.
“You’re not throwing me back then?” the lance corporal asked.
“Well, Jack,” Elmore said. “I require all people on my team to at least hold NCO rank. We don’t have room for anyone without a blood stripe.”
“Like I said, sir, I’ve been up for promotion since the end of August,” Jack tried to explain. “I should have gotten promoted months ago, but with my PCS move from Pendleton to Lejeune, and just getting my feet on the ground at Second Force Recon, it just hadn’t happened. Not anybody’s fault, just the way the chips fell.”
“Good for you, Jack. Not anybody’s fault. That’s what I wanted to hear,” Captain Snow said, and opened his hand, showing the young Marine a set of black-metal corporal chevrons. “Captain McBride said he planned to promote you at the company formation on Friday, but with you dispatched out today, I get the honors.”
The captain then looked at his crew. “Form up a formation. Gunny, you will assist. Lance Corporal Valentine, front and center.”
Elmore handed Ray Ambrose the chevrons as he took a red-imitation-leather-covered hardback folder with a gold Marine Corps emblem stamped on its face from a guard mail envelope and opened it. Inside, under a clear plastic sheet, lay Jack’s promotion warrant, signed by Lieutenant General Walter E. Boomer, Commanding General, United States Marine Forces Central Command and First Marine Expeditionary Force.
Gunny Ambrose barked, “Attention to orders!”
Captain Snow then began to read the warrant:
“To all who shall see these presents, greetings: Know Ye that reposing special trust and confidence in the fidelity and abilities of John Arthur Valentine, I do appoint him a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, to rank as such from the First day of January, 1991. This appointee will therefore carefully and diligently discharge the duties of the grade to which appointed by doing and performing all manner of things thereunto pertaining. And I do strictly charge and require all personnel of lesser grade to render obedience to appropriate orders. And this appointee is to observe and follow such orders and directions as may be given from time to time by Superiors acting according to the rules and articles governing the discipline of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
“Given under my hand at United States Marine Forces Central Command, First day of January, in the year of our Lord 1991.
“Signed, W. E. Boomer, Lieutenant General, United States Marine Corps, Commanding.”
Gunny Ambrose took the right collar and Captain Snow took Jack’s left collar. They removed the lance corporal chevrons, handed them to Jack, and together put the steel pins on the backs of the chevrons through the uniform-collar material. Then, together, they drove the pins down hard into Jack Valentine’s collarbones.
His eyes lit up with the sudden sharp pain, but he held his position. Then, one at a time, the staff sergeant and two sergeants took turns pinning on the stripes. As they drove them in the collarbone, they also added a swift punch with their knees across the new NCO’s thighs, pinning on his blood stripes, too.
“Welcome to our wonderful world of fun and games,” the gunny then said. “Gunnery Sergeant Ray Ambrose at your service, Corporal Valentine. On the team, I go by Mutt, like a mongrel dog that doesn’t care whose ass he bites. Anyone outside the team calls me Gunny. That clear?”
Jack nodded.
Next up the staff sergeant introduced himself, still smiling tobacco juice and swallowing it. “Staff Sergeant Walter Gillespie. On the team, I’m Hacksaw.”
“Sergeant Kermit Alexander,” the black sergeant said, and shook hands with Jack. “Call me The Frog. Not just Frog but The Frog. Dark green like a frog, but not just any frog, I am The Frog. Got it?”
Jack laughed. “The Frog, I got it.”
“Cory Webster,” the other sergeant said, giving Jack his hand. “Skipper named me Habu. Okinawa Japanese for snake. I’m an oh-three-twenty-one slash eighty-five-forty-one, same as you. You and I will be primary Scout-Snipers, and these other nonshooting knife fighters will work as our spotters. Kermit The Frog runs with me, so Hacksaw’s your problem.”
Jack looked at the staff sergeant, grinning a nasty smile at Webster, oozing tobacco juice between his teeth, sucking it back and blowing Habu a kiss. “Bro, you just wish you had a problem like me when we get in the shit. Don’t forget who pulled your pork out of the fire in Medellín, when you and Dirty Harry got bushwhacked by that Escobar crew.”
“Yeah, bro, I owe you. I don’t forget,” Habu said.
“Fuck it, dude. Comes in a day’s work,” Hacksaw said.
“Ray, help me with this,” Captain Snow said, unrolling a tactical map with several clear-plastic overlays on it and fastening it onto a display board at the end of the conference table.
“That’s Iraq,” Jack said, seeing that the overlays had red, blue, green, and black markings on them.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Staff Sergeant Gillespie said. “Where’d you think we’re going, Disneyland?”
On the display board, next to the map and overlays, Elmore Snow pinned six color eight-by-ten portrait photographs of Iraqi officers.
“High-value targets?” Jack asked.
“They are the targets,” Elmore Snow answered, stepping back and giving the display a good look to see that everything appeared straight and presentable for General Boomer. Then he looked at his crew. “Gather round, gentlemen. I don’t want any gasps or whining while I brief the general. So I will give you a quick one-two-three before our audience arrives.”
“Fuck you, Elmore, nobody’s whining,” Hacksaw guffawed.
Captain Snow shook his head. “That’s why you have so much time in grade as a staff sergeant, Walter. And you’re lucky to hang on to that rocker. You’ve got no couth.”
“I wipe my ass with couth every morning,” Gillespie said, and paused before he added, “Sir.”
“How come the skipper don’t call you Hacksaw, or the gunny, Mutt?” Jack noticed, and queried the staff sergeant in a low voice.
“Captain Snow?” Hacksaw said, not bothering to lower his voice, not caring that Elmore Snow heard him. “Well, he’s an officer and a gentleman first and foremost, so nicknames aren’t his bag. And he’s a Christian, above all else. The man prays at dawn like an Arab, bowing toward the rising sun, and on his knees at night like a child, praying forgiveness for all us sinful jarheads.
“He called Gunny Ambrose a Mutt one day, when brother Raymond nearly chewed the arm off a cocaine gunslinger on a back trail in Chile. They were going at it hand to hand, when we come up on them. Gunny trying to disarm the scoundrel of his .45, and keep from getting shot in the process, so he just started biting the shit out of the poor bastard. Got hold of his arm and made the blood gush. That’s when the poor fucker turned loose and Ambrose killed him with that .45. Captain Snow said, you didn’t have to kill him. You’re nothing but a Mutt. We started calling brother Ray the Mutt after that. It really works on him, too, don’t you think? Block head, big jaws, chewed-off ears like a pit bull fighting dog. He is the Mutt.
“Other than that one time, Skipper never uses nicknames. We do. Except for himself, Gunny does the naming. He’ll come up with something cute for you. Just wait.”
Jack looked at the gunny. “Any ideas?”
Ambrose shrugged. “Give it time, little brother. You’ll do something or I’ll see something. It’ll come.”
“Yeah, like that joke about the Indian chief who named all the village children.” Kermit smiled. “When a baby is born, I name them after the first thing I see.”
Hacksaw laughed. “Why you ask, Two-Dogs-Fucking?”
“At ease, gentlemen,” Captain Snow said. “Here’s the skinny. The six faces you see are the top Iraqi field commanders of Saddam Hussein’
s elite Republican Guard. We see one of these men, we take him out.”
“Where are we going that we might see commanders of the Republican Guard?” Cory Webster asked.
“Once President Bush raises the flag,” Elmore Snow began, “we’ll launch on a night insertion. High-altitude low-opening drop. Military free fall fifteen grand. Deploy your parachutes below a thousand feet and above five hundred, your discretion. Night insertion, we’re coming in black.”
Gunny Ambrose looked closely at the overlays. “Which color are we?”
“Green, of course,” Elmore said.
“That puts us well up the crotch of where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow south,” Ambrose said, tapping the map. “What’s this city? Hillah? Like a hundred klicks south of Baghdad?”
“A hundred kilometers exactly, Gunny,” Captain Snow said. “Saddam Hussein has his summer palace there, overlooking the ruins of Babylon, and the new Babylon he has constructed over the top of the ancient city.”
“Told you his missions would scare the dogshit out of you,” Hacksaw mumbled to Jack, giving him a hard elbow.
“We are the forward eyes and ears of the command element,” Snow told his men. “Eight teams of Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and Marine Force Recon will deploy to strategic forward positions. Primarily deep reconnaissance, target acquisition, and laser guidance for the air campaign, but contact is authorized if we see one of these six high-value targets. Kills must be absolute. No wounded ducks. And we will remain invisible. Dying or being taken prisoner is not an option. We have no realistic egress until friendly forces move well forward. That could take a while.”
“Fuck me to tears, Skipper,” Habu let go. “We lose Dirty Harry in that shit outside Medellín before Thanksgiving, and I thought that was bad. Sir, this is insane bullshit, just to put it bluntly. You said to not hold back our opinions anytime, so that’s my opinion. We saw it coming in Colombia, and Leroy paid the price. Now we’re all gonna die.”
“Quit your fucking whining, Habu. Ya didn’t want to live forever, did ya?” Hacksaw said, and laughed. “Go ahead, Skipper. You know sister Habu. He’s always got a shit weasel up his skirt.”
Terminal Impact Page 50