The Stories of Bravo Team

"He gonna' be okay doc?" "Yeah, he'll be fine; he sure is a lucky bastard, that's for sure." "Yeah, no shit." I opened my eyes, all I could see was a bright white light. I was on something soft, laying on my back, a bed. Shit, I'm at the ICP. My vision started to fade back into colors other than white. I propped myself up. "Alex is it? You're one lucky SOB. Look here for me." I looked at him, he had a medic's cross on his left shoulder, and he shined a pinpoint light in my eyes. I kept looking forward. "You're eyes look alright. Okay, I'm giving you a clean bill of health. Go easy on him Nick, he'll be shaken." I turned over to Nick. "Wh- what happened?" "After you patched up that guy from Delta team and stumbled outside, you took a bullet from a PLA sniper to the head. You're lucky you're helmet absorbed the blow otherwise you'd still be laying facedown in the dirt next to that chopper. The bastard waited until we were on in the open to get us, but he didn't kill anyone before I got to him. Came close though." "What about the combat run? Did we capture the outpost?" "No, but we killed the two PLA teams that were on patrol, Alpha and Echo took care of another patrol that they found. So overall, we didn't succeed no." ... "Casualties?" "Foxtrot team was completely wiped out, along with half of Delta, and the pilots from KR-31 and 51. That makes 10 deaths. Also we had two guys from Charlie wounded, along with you, and that guy you patched up from delta. 10 dead, 4 wounded on our side. We shot 9 at the crash side of KR-51, and Alpha and Echo got four more so we killed 13 at least." "Okay, so it was mission fail, but we faired better than them." "Like hell we did. ... The doc said you're battle ready, and I'm gonna' hold him to that, so get you're gear. We're going out for patrol." "Alright" I got off the bed I was on, and grabbed my backpack and rifle. I was already dressed in my combat uniform, after all this was an ICP, not a civie hospital. If you weren't shot in the legs, they weren't going to give you new pants; if you weren't bleeding from the chest, they weren't about to issue you a brand new shirt. I went over to the supply closet and grabbed a new helmet. Mine had a big indent in it, I was so thankful for that indent. After this I walked out the door of the building; it was one of the only two buildings with air conditioning, a heater, and automatic doors in the entire compound. The other one was control. There were only five buildings, but the entire compound was huge. It had the ICP, (a nice one story square hospital building with sixteen beds) Control, (Also called C squared or C2. I've never been in there, but I've heard it's basically just 10 meeting rooms, 9 small (can accommodate four people) and 1 large (can accommodate 18 people.) From the outside it's just a huge one level circle with no windows) the Garage, (has 16 Humvee's, 8 M1117's, 4 M1A1 Tanks, and 10 HH-60 blackhawk helicopters) the ammo dump, (A square building containing ammo ... and lots of it) and it had the barracks. (a two story building that had two wings: 16 beds per wing per story) So overall, the place probably took up the size of 9 square New York city blocks. I was walking towards the Garage when I saw Nick, Marcus, and Cole (the other three guys in Bravo squad) standing near a Humvee talking. Once I got close they all gave me a good look. "Pretty close out there huh Alex?" "Close for me, you got to stay up with the medic and kill time. Same for you Marcus." "Alright, alright. I'm just givin' you a hard time. But still, next time, you get to stay back." "Hey, cut the chatter. I just got word from C squared. We're on patrol duty as of two minutes from now. Let's mount up, and get Oscar-mike." "Got it nick, I call turret!" Shouted Cole. "I got the wheel!" Followed Marcus. Nick got in shotgun, and I got to be turret support, better known as the window licker. I'm okay with it though, I'm still new here. "Bravo-one, this is Delta-one, come in over." "Delta-one, this is Bravo-one, what's up Tai?" "Just wanting to say good luck out there, don't buy yourselves any FNG's" "We've only got one Tai, and he's already got a wound under his belt." "You're lucky, that little firefight yesterday cost me two, and they're both green as grass." "Things happen, how's Delta-three?" "You mean Delta-two, back on his feet as of tomorrow. I gave him my congrats on his promotion." "Yeah well, I just hope he doesn't get promoted to Delta-one" "You and me both man, you and me both. Anyways, good luck out there. I expect you all to come back in one piece, or at least using your own feet" "We'll do our best Tai, Nick out." With this the gate opened and the other Humvee came in, we left as soon as the road was clear. "Bravo-one, this is Control, come in over." "Control, this is Bravo-one, we have good read over." "Golf team is in, and you are out. Be aware that two soldiers from Team Juliet haven't been seen or heard from since yesterday's firefight. Over." "Got it, solid copy control. We are Oscar-mike. Bravo out." We followed the road for about 50 meters (that's really all it extended outside the base) and then he just went to the standard 1,000 meter perimeter. Patrol is boring, cruising around at about 5 miles per hour, looking out the window for basically nothing. And doing that for about eight hours, so if you really want to drive in a huge circle 10 times for your job, patrol is the place to be. Then again, it's better than combat. We got about five hours into the job (playing CDs most of time, rotating positions, and at one point even playing card games) when suddenly we saw a flare go off about 150 meters off the road. "Look alive guys, possible contact!" "Control, this is Bravo-one, we have possible contact, stand by for more info." We turned off to the right and headed straight towards the flare. We got to about 25 meters away when Nick told Marcus (who was driving at the time) to stop the car. We all got out, and took up positions, slowly walking towards the flare. We walked to the flare, when we heard: "Hey! Over here! Help!" We started running; odds were that that was someone from Team Juliet. We found two soldiers about five meters past the flare, one bleeding from the head and unconscious, and the other bleeding from the leg and unable to stand. Nick went over to them. "Marcus call this in! Cole get back to the truck and get a medkit. Alex, you're on point. Hey soldier, where you from." "Control, this is Bravo-two, we have found two soldiers, they're our MIA's from team Juliet. We are requesting to CAS-EVAC them back to base." I was too far away to hear Nick or Cole talking to the other soldiers, and I couldn't hear control on the radio, so I just had to listen to Marcus. "Negative control, this isn't suitable land for a helicopter MED-EVAC, no clear LZ can be found. I say again, we are requesting permission to CAS-EVAC the two wounded." ... "Negative, no other contacts have been found." ... "Alright, solid copy control, Bravo-two out. Nick, we've got permission for the CAS-EVAC." "Alright, let's get these guys in the truck." We helped the one with the injured leg hobble over to the Humvee, while as two of us had to carry the other one over. Once we were all in (Luckily the Humvee seats six, four in Bravo, and two from Juliet) Nick stepped on it. He did a Texas-U-turn, and was cruising at least 44 miles an hour. We were back at the base in five minutes. After we had gotten them into the ICP, Nick went to talk to the surgeon lieutenant (the guy in charge of the ICP) "We found them 2.5 klicks into the patrol route, he doesn't remember much, just being separated from his team and shot out of nowhere, but you might be able to get some intel out of him." "Okay, thanks Nick, how's your FNG?" "Alex's doin' okay. He hasn't complained once all day, in fact he's been better behaved than the other two." "Good to hear, have him come to me if he says he's got any pain in head ... or anywhere for that matter." "Will do, thanks doc." I'm better behaved than the other two. I kind of already figured this but still ... that's cool to hear. Well after this we went back out on patrol for another 150 minutes, even though nothing happened. Oh well, war is 93% boredom, 7% fear.