When the President gave the corps its marching orders every officer from the High Commander down to the company commanders knew in their bones that the result would be utter chaos. And they were right. With no time for the staff to prepare any of the units and with the units effectively backwards to the way they should have been arranged, the night had been an unending madhouse.
The platoon had just heard a valid report that the Fiftieth Infantry Division had less than seventy percent of its vehicles in the correct location. This after what would have been a simple five-mile road march if they had driven directly from their laagers in Quantico.
Unable to determine precise points for every unit to move to and through, the Corps had been forced to give general orders to the subordinate divisions along with a general axis of movement. These were the orders that the divisions then transmitted to their subordinate units. They had had varying success.
Some divisions, notably the Thirty-Third, had tried to give every subordinate battalion its precise destinations and axes of defense using the correct and proper codes for such vital information. The result had been utter confusion on the part of the battalions. Through simple errors inherent in any complex unpracticed endeavor — especially when undertrained communications personnel were attempting to use necessarily complex encoders and decoders — battalion commanders found themselves with orders scattering them all over the map. In some cases the orders had them outside of the continental United States. Several commanders referred the obviously incorrect dispositions to the brigade commanders, who should have been detailing their tactics in the first place. The brigade commanders tried to contact the division for clarification.
In the midst of all of this the corps’s communications protocols changed, not all the correct protocols were transmitted to all the units and suddenly half the corps was out of communication with each other.
The mortar platoon had three of its five fighting vehicles in what the platoon leader was fairly sure was the right place. After switching back and forth on their PRC-2000 radio they finally established contact with the platoon sergeant and the first squad track. The same method finally got them in contact with the company net; the company commander’s RTO was flipping around to the old and new frequencies trying to find its units.
The information from the company was mildly encouraging. They were in more or less the right place. Some of the company’s line platoons were in more or less the right place. And the company commander was fairly sure that he would be able to contact battalion “soon.” A request for refueling and chow, however, was answered with an unsettling “we’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Now fairly sure that there were some gun-bunnies — riflemen that is — between them and the Posleen and fairly sure that they knew where they were and where the gun-bunnies were, they were preparing for their first taste of war. All they had to do was set up to fire, an exercise that should take a maximum of twelve minutes according to Ground Forces Standard. Keren had been digging for over a half-hour, waiting for word that the platoon leader was ready to lay the guns “in-parallel.” Until that was done, control orders from the Fire Direction Center would be meaningless; the guns needed a starting point to work from.
“You know, I like Lieutenant Leper. I mean…” Keren tossed another shovel of dirt out of the fighting position he was digging next to the mortar track. He might not need the hole, but if he did he knew he was going to need it bad and in a hurry. Most of the platoon thought he was an idiot.
“Can it, Keren.” Sergeant Herd knew he had the best gunner in the battalion, maybe in the division, but he also knew he had to keep him firmly in check.
“No, really, he’s a nice guy and he tries hard…” continued the specialist. He tossed another shovelful of dirt out of the hole, and looked around to see if he’d hit anyone with it. No. Damn.
“What,” snorted Sheila Reed, the ammo bearer and track driver, “you think you could do better?”
“Shit, I know I could do better,” Keren responded, tossing the next shovelful higher. A drift of the wind caught it and threw dust onto the rest of the crew lounging on the track. His chocolate face creased as they cursed him.
“Go out there and do it, then,” said Tom Riley, the assistant gunner.
“Fuck no, Sergeant Ford is out there. You know what a bastard he is.”
“Fuck Ford,” said Herd, suddenly interested. “He can do Fire Direction, but anybody that can punch numbers can do that. Do you really think you can lay in the guns?”
“I can tell what their problem is from here,” Keren said, throwing the D-handle shovel out of the hole and dusting off his hands. “They can’t get the deflection head leveled up. It’s not like a one-twenty, where you only have to level side to side. A deflection head you gotta level all the way around.” He hoisted himself out of the hole and looked at his squad leader.
“Go on. Tell Ford if he has a problem to take it up with me.” Sergeant Herd knew the specialist was probably right. Having volunteered before the invasion was ever heard of, the gunner had been in the service six years already and knew his way around a mortar platoon far better than anyone but the platoon sergeant. If he said he could get the platoon laid in he could get them laid in.
Keren pulled his sleeves down and settled his cap on his head. Regulations called for wearing the Kevlar helmet at all times in the field, but his Kevlar was in the track — where it did some good keeping you from banging your head — and that was where it was gonna stay. Since most of the men and women in the platoon were wearing BDU caps he fit right in. Those who were not wearing BDU caps were wearing either floppy brim “boonie” caps or were coverless. The only people in sight with Kevlars on were Lieutenant Leper and Sergeant Ford. On the other hand Keren’s LCE with his pistol, ANCD and food and water did not leave his body.
“Okay Zippy,” he said, referring to Riley by his nickname, “get ready to lay that bastard in.”
As he neared the pair Sergeant Ford turned and glared at him. “We don’t need your help, Keren, so get lost.”
“Already am Sergeant, happens any time I leave the barracks. Sergeant Herd told me to come over and see if I could be of assistance.”
“Sergeant Ford,” said Lieutenant Leper, “maybe you could go and see if you can reestablish communication with battalion TOC.”
Ford glared at the specialist and stalked off towards the FDC track.
“Specialist, I seem to be having a little trouble with leveling this up. I’ve watched Staff Sergeant Simmons any number of times and I thought I knew how but…”
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Keren said, tactfully. “These things are a real bugger to level.” He grabbed the leveling knobs and centered them, then looked at the bubble and stomped one leg of the tripod down. Using both hands he manipulated all three knobs, two at a time for a few seconds and spun the sight around.
“Direction of fire is twenty-eight hundred, right, sir?” he asked.
“Twenty-eight hundred mils, right,” said the confused lieutenant, looking over his shoulder to ensure that the recalcitrant bubble was in fact centered. To his amazement it was. “How the hell did you do that so fast?”
“The same way you get to Carnegie hall, sir.” The specialist manipulated the head to twenty-eight hundred mils and spun it towards his track. “Two gun aiming point this instrument!” he shouted.