escaped. What more can they want? Become Houdini?”
“Probably something high speed,” Roland said. “Maybe some advanced weapons training?”
“Did you hit your head in St. Louis?” Mac asked.
The truck came to an abrupt halt, which sent them tumbling along the steel floor.
“Get your asses out of there!” An imposing figure wearing a green beret was standing to the rear of the truck, arms bulging under the rolled up sleeves of his camouflage shirt. His uniform was soaked, but he was obviously one of those guys who espoused the theory that the human body was waterproof, which was true, but tended to ignore misery.
The four team members all wore “sterile” cammies. No rank, no badges, no names. Just a number on a Velcro patch on their chest. That had started Mac’s complaining as they flew in. When the army took your name and gave you a number, it usually meant something not fun was getting ready to occur.
“Dickhead,” Mac muttered, voicing what they all thought as they exited the back of the truck.
“You gentlemen are late,” the dickhead said. “My name is Master Sergeant Twackhammer.”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Mac said in a low voice.
“What was that?” Twackhammer demanded.
“It’s on his shirt,” Roland observed, immediately bonding with the fellow large human being. “Hey, Master Sergeant Twackhammer. How’s it going?”
“Shut up!” Twackhammer shouted. “Your Selection began yesterday. I don’t know who pulled strings to get you in, but I’m going to be watching you.” To emphasize the point, he put a finger just below his left eye and pulled the skin down. “You gentlemen are late to my course and that makes me very, very upset.”
“ Your course ?” Mac said.
Twackhammer started yelling, getting them moving through the supply hut to get field gear; then they were out of there, into what was now a downpour, and over to the Nasty Nick obstacle course, where mud-covered Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) candidates were being put through the grinder.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Eagle said as Twackhammer slid them in line.
So they began the mile-long course, hitting the obstacles every so often, all of which seemed made of a lot of rope (vertical and horizontal), a bunch of mud-smeared tunnels, and lots of wood configured by a mad carpenter making a person jump, leap, shimmy, and climb up and down and sideways.
“Ms. Jones must be really pissed,” Kirk said as they completed another obstacle and were forced to wait, as a backlog of students was in front of them, all of them facing a wall that had them stymied.
“Get to the other side!” a staff sergeant was screaming at the candidates.
“I think Moms might have been the one who suggested this,” Eagle said, trying to scrape some mud off his fatigue shirt, a futile effort. “I doubt Ms. Jones even knows what the Nasty Nick is.”
“Yeah, but how is this supposed to help us?” Mac asked.
“Get to the other side!” the staff sergeant’s voice went up an octave as the bewildered candidates clawed, jumped, and fell off the vertical face of the eighteen-foot-high wooden wall. There were no handholds, just a single tantalizing rope that hung down four feet from the top and was knotted on the bottom. Realizing they couldn’t reach the rope on their own, the candidates began working together, trying to build human pyramids to get someone to the rope.
No such luck.
Eagle sat down on a fallen tree, watching with a bored expression. Mac, Kirk, and Roland joined him. Across the muddy path, glaring at them through the rain, Twackhammer suddenly appeared.
“What are you girls doing?” he screamed. A major was next to him, his green beret soaked and drooping on his head. Everyone in Special Forces agreed that a beret was the most worthless of headgear. Hell, Girl Scouts wore green berets. The major was quiet, watching, observing, and they knew he was the one who could wash a candidate out
“Probably something high speed,” Roland said. “Maybe some advanced weapons training?”
“Did you hit your head in St. Louis?” Mac asked.
The truck came to an abrupt halt, which sent them tumbling along the steel floor.
“Get your asses out of there!” An imposing figure wearing a green beret was standing to the rear of the truck, arms bulging under the rolled up sleeves of his camouflage shirt. His uniform was soaked, but he was obviously one of those guys who espoused the theory that the human body was waterproof, which was true, but tended to ignore misery.
The four team members all wore “sterile” cammies. No rank, no badges, no names. Just a number on a Velcro patch on their chest. That had started Mac’s complaining as they flew in. When the army took your name and gave you a number, it usually meant something not fun was getting ready to occur.
“Dickhead,” Mac muttered, voicing what they all thought as they exited the back of the truck.
“You gentlemen are late,” the dickhead said. “My name is Master Sergeant Twackhammer.”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Mac said in a low voice.
“What was that?” Twackhammer demanded.
“It’s on his shirt,” Roland observed, immediately bonding with the fellow large human being. “Hey, Master Sergeant Twackhammer. How’s it going?”
“Shut up!” Twackhammer shouted. “Your Selection began yesterday. I don’t know who pulled strings to get you in, but I’m going to be watching you.” To emphasize the point, he put a finger just below his left eye and pulled the skin down. “You gentlemen are late to my course and that makes me very, very upset.”
“ Your course ?” Mac said.
Twackhammer started yelling, getting them moving through the supply hut to get field gear; then they were out of there, into what was now a downpour, and over to the Nasty Nick obstacle course, where mud-covered Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) candidates were being put through the grinder.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Eagle said as Twackhammer slid them in line.
So they began the mile-long course, hitting the obstacles every so often, all of which seemed made of a lot of rope (vertical and horizontal), a bunch of mud-smeared tunnels, and lots of wood configured by a mad carpenter making a person jump, leap, shimmy, and climb up and down and sideways.
“Ms. Jones must be really pissed,” Kirk said as they completed another obstacle and were forced to wait, as a backlog of students was in front of them, all of them facing a wall that had them stymied.
“Get to the other side!” a staff sergeant was screaming at the candidates.
“I think Moms might have been the one who suggested this,” Eagle said, trying to scrape some mud off his fatigue shirt, a futile effort. “I doubt Ms. Jones even knows what the Nasty Nick is.”
“Yeah, but how is this supposed to help us?” Mac asked.
“Get to the other side!” the staff sergeant’s voice went up an octave as the bewildered candidates clawed, jumped, and fell off the vertical face of the eighteen-foot-high wooden wall. There were no handholds, just a single tantalizing rope that hung down four feet from the top and was knotted on the bottom. Realizing they couldn’t reach the rope on their own, the candidates began working together, trying to build human pyramids to get someone to the rope.
No such luck.
Eagle sat down on a fallen tree, watching with a bored expression. Mac, Kirk, and Roland joined him. Across the muddy path, glaring at them through the rain, Twackhammer suddenly appeared.
“What are you girls doing?” he screamed. A major was next to him, his green beret soaked and drooping on his head. Everyone in Special Forces agreed that a beret was the most worthless of headgear. Hell, Girl Scouts wore green berets. The major was quiet, watching, observing, and they knew he was the one who could wash a candidate out
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