Kombat Kids - 28. Be Vewy, Vewy Quwiet, Weaw Hunting Wecon

It was the last Sunday of April and the meeting of the Unit had been over for two hours, as soon became their habit, Keener and Matt were sitting at the bar in Chaney’s Inn. Well into their forth or fifth beer, or maybe it was their seventh or eighth beer, what the fuck,..... over, who kept count anyway. The men had been discussing the Unit and how well everything was going when the door opened and in walked Delbert Prince, dumber than dirt and twice as ugly.

Eddy, Chaney’s bartender came out from behind the bar and got between Delbert and the two men sitting at the bar. In a calm quiet voice Eddy spoke to Delbert; “You gonna have to leave Delbert, you got a restraining order on ya and they were here first. Don’t make me call the police on ya, they’ll drag you down to the county jail and lock ya up, so do us both a favor an leave quietly, please.”

Delbert smirked at Eddy; “Sure thing Eddy, I don’t want to cause no trouble, I wouldn’t a stopped in if I’d a known they were here.” Saying that, Delbert turned and left the bar.

Back behind the bar, Eddy wiped the sweat off of his face with a piece of paper towel and let out a breath of air. He didn’t mind seeing Delbert get the shit kicked out of him; it was the damn mess he always made when Matt or Keener made him go outside.

Up until Delbert entered the bar, Matt and Keener had been talking quietly to each other, Eddy knew it was too good to last, Matt proved his last thought when he heard; “Hey Eddy, can you tell me why Marines wear a round hat on a square head?

Looking at the clock on the wall behind the bar Eddy sighed, it was only 9:30, he still had two and a half hours before the bar closed; “No Matt, why?”

Matt chuckled; “Shit man I don’t know, I was hoping you could tell me.”

Before Keener could respond to Matt’s opening shot Eddy called out; “Time, last call.”

Keener got indignant; “You can’t do that, it’s only 9:30.”

“Oh yeah I can, I ain’t paid enough to listen to your lousy jokes. If you want to sit here and drink, no problem, BUT, No, More, Jokes.”

Matt looked at Keener and then turned to Eddy; “OK, OK, you win, how about another round.”

When the beer was served Eddy asked; “How you boys getting home tonight, if you want anymore to drink after this round, I need you to give me the keys to your truck.”

Matt and Keener smiled at Eddy; “No problem little buddy, Tommy Martin’s gonna pick us up when he gets off work at midnight. We had James drop us off here so we didn’t have to worry about leaving the truck in the parking lot over night.”

The two friends sat at the bar drinking quietly until closing time, Eddy let them wait inside until Tommy showed up. Naturally they had one more beer and bought one for Eddy so he could sit down and relax for a few minutes before doing his closing routine. Around 12:20 Tommy stopped in front of the bar and parked his late model ford Explorer in the parking slot nearest the front door, entering the bar he walked over to the three sitting at the bar; “Hi guys, how they hangin?”

Matt and Keener looked up and smiled, Keener said, “Hangin low, ready to go.”

Tommy sat on the bar stool next to Eddy; “They been giving you a hard time tonight Eddy?”

“Naw, I had to threaten to cut them off once, but they quieted right down.”

Matt puffed up and said; “Yeah ya did, God’s gonna get you for that.”

Keener asked Eddy; “How bout givin us one more round so’s Tommy can wet his whistle?”

After getting them all a beer, the four men sat quietly talking until the beer was gone; “Thanks Eddy, we’ll be seeing you later.” With that Matt and Keener followed Tommy to his car. While they were waiting for Tommy to open the doors of the Explorer, a shot rang out, followed by a grunt from Keener who fell to the pavement. The shot was rapidly followed by seven more, while no one else was hit; all the windows in the Explorer were blown out. After the third shot had sounded, Tommy was crouched down by the rear of the truck was returning fire with his Glock 40. Then there was quiet, Matt was lying on top of Keener trying to shield him from the incoming fire with his body and heard an engine start, then the screeching of tires as a pickup hauled ass away with no lights on. Tommy was in the process of reloading his Glock with a full magazine and was unable to get a shot off at the escaping truck.

Tommy holstered his pistol and ran inside the bar to find Eddy on the phone, at the first shot he had called 911; “If you haven’t already asked, tell them we need an ambulance, Keener took a round, I don’t know how bad it is.

Running back outside he found Matt holding his shirt to Keener’s head, it looked like when he went down, he smacked his head on the bumper and cut it open pretty badly. When Tommy started checking the rest of Keener over to see where he had been shot, he found a big bloody spot on his ass, Tommy pulled a first aid kit out of the back of the Explorer and applied a compress to the wound and pressed it firmly to try and staunch the bleeding.

Eddy came out of the bar to see if he could help, Matt asked him to call his brother and tell him to meet him at the hospital. While he was talking to Eddy, he heard a shit load of sirens coming toward them from several different directions. First, two Sheriff Patrol units slid to a halt near the rear of the Explorer, the deputies immediately bailed out, shotguns at the ready taking cover behind their vehicles and watched the surrounding area; “What’s going on Tommy?” asked one of the deputies, still facing away from the two men trying to help the one lying on the ground.

“Someone just shot Keener Webb, then hightailed it out of here to the west down old 12, all I could see of it was that it was a pickup, no make, color or plate.”

As Tommy was briefing the two deputies, three more Sheriff Units and a Highway Patrol car arrived, followed shortly by the ambulance. The Paramedics quickly took over and started working on Keener, he was still bleeding from the gunshot wound and the scalp laceration when they put him on a gurney and shoved him in the back of the ambulance. Not even hesitating, Matt jumped in the back with him and the ambulance moved out towards town and the hospital.

Tommy briefed the newcomers on what had happened and what he knew of the vehicle that took off after the shooting stopped. Just as he was finishing his briefing, James Bateman drove into the parking lot, slamming his pickup into park he bailed out and ran up to Tommy; “What’s going on Tommy, where’s Matt and Keener?”

“Matt’s OK, Keener took a round and cut his head open when he fell to the ground. Matt went with him to the hospital in the ambulance that left just before you showed up.”

James was practically vibrating; “You got any idea who did it?”

“No James, I returned fire, but I don’t think I hit anything. Whoever did the shooting was about a hundred yards out over there.” Tommy pointed down West State 12. “All I could make out of the vehicle was that it was a pickup, the Highway Patrol Forensics Unit should be here anytime, maybe they can find something.”

James nodded and got into his truck and headed to the hospital. He parked near the Emergency Room Entrance and went immediately to Triage. The nurse on duty took him in to the area where he found Matt watching as Doctor Davidson was working on an unconscious Keener, James saw that Matt’s T-shirt, arms and hands were covered in blood; “Matt, are you OK, that isn’t your blood is it?”

Matt looked at his older brother and shook his head no; “No, this is from trying to stop the head wound from bleeding, I’m OK.”

“Come on Matt, Doctor Jeff is taking good care of Keener, let’s get you cleaned up.” For a second or two, James thought Matt was going to argue with him, and then he nodded and followed his older brother to the nearest washroom. It took Matt ten minutes to get cleaned up and when they got back to the Emergency Room they found Keener awake and in obvious pain. Keener had been stripped out of his clothing and lay completely naked on the gurney; the only thing covering him was a big bandage on his left ass cheek. Doctor Davidson was in the process of sewing up the gash in Keener’s forehead.

Matt started shaking; James took him by the arm and led him outside. Taking deep draughts of air into his lungs he stood there for a few seconds then ran over to a trash bin and vomited. Matt kept heaving until he had nothing left in his stomach, and then heaved some more. When he was finished being sick James pulled him in to a hug, Matt started crying; “Jesus Fuck James, I could a lost him back there, I couldn’t do anything man. I don’t know if I could go on with out him, I love him so much and I couldn’t protect him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

James took off his long sleeved shirt and put it across Matt’s shoulders, Matt continued to sob and James continued to hold him close letting his younger brother cry it out of his system. After about fifteen minutes Matt pulled away; “Thanks Bro, I’m sorry about breaking down like that.”

James nodded and led Matt back into the Emergency Room. Doctor Davidson had finished working on Keener and was completing some paperwork. Matt went over to see Keener and James went to talk with the Doctor; “How’s Keener doing Doc?”

The doctor looked up from his paperwork and said; “He’ll have a sexy scar to match the ones on his other cheek, and he’ll be on crutches and limping for a month or so. We did some imaging on his skull and his hip and we couldn’t find any damage to the bones. He lost a hunk of meat is all, it could have been a lot worse if the bullet impacted an inch or so nearer the bone. We’ll keep him here for a couple days. Right now he’s hurting pretty bad, he suffered a concussion when he hit his head on the way down and we aren’t going to allow him to sleep for eight to ten hours.”

James thanked the Doctor and went over to Matt and Keener; “Hey Keener, nice ass.”

Keener blushed scarlet and, with some difficulty, shot James the bird.

Shortly after, Keener was moved to a private room and Matt stayed with him the entire time he was in the hospital, only leaving him for a quick shower or a bite to eat in the cafeteria. The three days he was in the hospital, he had a constant flow of visitor’s from the unit as well as the local police and military CID personnel. When he returned home, he was ordered to bed by the Gunny and told to stay there until the doctor told him he could move around. Once again Matt was with him, bathing him, feeding him and taking care of his bodily needs. Keener was embarrassed with all the attention he was receiving from everyone and was worried about Matt. One of the few times Matt wasn’t with him, James was and Keener told him of his concern about Matt.

James sighed; “While you were still out in the Emergency Room and after Matt got finished puking his guts out, he told me he didn’t think he could go on if anything happened to you, he said he was in love with you and felt bad about not being able to protect you.”

“When I get out of this bed, I’m going to beat the fuck out of him; you know what that big dumb son of a bitch did when I was lying on the ground after taking that round? He was lying on top of me, shielding me from the incoming we were taking, if that’s not keeping me safe I don’t know what is.” Keener started crying then, crying for the mental pain his lover was suffering, crying because he loved Matt with all his heart and crying because he couldn’t say or do anything that would convince Matt that he couldn’t have done anything else than what he had done to safeguard his lover.

James ran his hand up and down Keener’s back trying to comfort him, letting him know that he understood.

After spending four days on his stomach in the house, Doctor Davidson allowed Keener to start moving around, but with strict orders to refrain from lifting or walking too far. By the first meeting in May, Keener was about ready to go out of his mind with the forced inactivity. Even Matt was about ready to strangle him for his constant bitching.

After the posting of the colors and the morning briefing, James called Phil Martin and David White over; “How you guys doing.”

Phil smiled; “Fine James, what can we do for you?”

“Keener is on limited duty and I need to have someone take over his job as armorer, he suggested you two. Do you think you can do it?”

“Sure no problem. If we run into a problem we can ask the Gunny or Sergeant Babcock for help.”

James smiled; “Good, thanks for helping him out, he’s been going out of his mind because he can’t do anything and is worrying about weapons maintenance. If he tries to do anything, I expect you to get with someone, The Gunny, me or Matt to pull him back, OK?”

“We’d kick him in the ass, but then we’d be back a square one and have to start all over.” Phil laughed

“Scram, you rotten little dirtbag.... I mean why don’t you fine young gentlemen go to the arms room and get started, hmmmmm?”

Phil and David rendered James a salute just shy of insolence and ran to stairway laughing.

Arriving at the arms room, they found the door open and Keener leaning on his crutches, standing over a disassembled AR15; “Yo Kee, what’re ya doing Dude? I mean James just told us you were supposed to be on limited duty, like not doing anything, nada, zip, zilch....”

Keener looked at the two boys; “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard ya, I ain’t doin nothin. I’m just checking this 15 out; Bart said he had a couple of misfires with it and I figured I’d replace the firing pin.”

David looked at Keener sternly, well as sternly as a fifteen year old could look ad an adult male; “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that counts as doing something, which is the opposite of doing nothing, am I right, huh am I right?”

“Fuck, you guys are as bad as Matt and James. Give me a break here bud, I’m going crazy not being able to do anything, you two of all people should know how I feel.”

Phil blanched at Keener’s last statement; “Yeah we do, but if I remember correctly you were one of the guys who made sure neither one of us did anything until our doctors said we could.” David threw his two cents into the pot; “Yeah, and you guys were right, if we hadn’t followed orders, it woulda taken a lot longer to get better. So we’re going to give you a chance to hightail it outta here before we call the Gunny.”

“Aww you guys suck, you know it?”

David and Phil chorused; “Yep we sure do, and we’re proud of it.”

Keener threw the rag he was using on the table and left the arms room, grumbling under his breath about kids, assholes and other things that made his life unbearable.

While Phil and David were working their way through the Unit’s firearms and fitting them with Miles Gear laser emitters, Gunny Mcnaughten was working with his two fire teams. The Gunny has selected the 20 boys carefully and had been training with them during the month of April. Today they were setting up an ambush out in an arroyo about a klick west of the house, as he watched, the two Squad Leaders were supervising the placement of the laser Claymore’s that Steve Petersen had built for them. The Claymores had been spray painted a light tan and then the desert MarCam pattern had been hand painted on them by several of the more talented boys of the unit. So far, Steve had constructed eight of the prototypes from material he had purchased from Radio Shack and several different electrical and electronic supply houses in the Moreland area. Matt and James had provided funding for their development and construction, originally the brothers had tried to pay for them and had told Steve he didn’t have to pay them back. After throwing a fit, saying there was no way in hell they would get away with not being paid back, and then threatening to pull ‘his’ claymores out of service, the brothers agreed to receive ten per cent of any net profits realized from the future sales of the simulators. The devices, like the real thing, were simple to use, effective and reliable. JJ Townsend and Doug James, the two Squad Leaders for this ambush, along with four other Squad Leaders had been trained extensively by the Gunny on the use, capability and camouflage of the devices.

The Gunny had left it up to the two Squad Leaders to determine the location of the ambush and the placement of the ‘Claymores.’ Gunny would have chosen another location to spring their first ambush from, but decided to see what the boys would do if everything fell apart. Failure can be a good learning tool, even if it sometimes bruises tender egos. As this was a training exercise, the Jumpers would jump on a pre-set LZ near the western edge of the property shortly before sundown and then march in for their attack on the compound. The seismic sensors from two klicks from the house to the western boundary fence had been deactivated; the first knowledge the ambush team would have was when they hit the two-klick sensor line.

The boys had a total of eight Claymores to use during the exercise, and they had to determine the location and how many of the mines they would use. The jumpers, while still using their colorful jumpsuits, were now dropping with jump bags; the jump bags contained their rifles, extra ammunition, Kevlar and LBE harnesses. Once their chutes popped, the bags were released on a 30-foot line to dangle beneath them so the extra weight wouldn’t cause them problems when they landed. It was about an hour and a half before the Jumpers would be inbound and the two fire teams still had one more location to prep.

The gunny thought to himself; “Well shit, as much as I want to tell the boys that they’re on their ass for the next ambush site, I guess I got to let them make their own mistakes. What the fuck, maybe they’ll get lucky on one of the other two locations, I woulda picked them if I was setting this up, oh well we’ll see.”

When the Claymore’s were in place and armed, JJ asked the Gunny to inspect their positioning. Gunny did a walk about of the ambush site and took notes that he would use in the critique of the exercise at its completion. The attack and the defense of the compound were to be run by the squad leaders; none of the adults were involved except as safety observers.

Back at the compound, a series of prepared fighting positions around the western side of the house had been constructed by equipment donated by English Heavy Equipment and manpower supplied by Beck Construction of Yakima. The fighting positions were basically trenches the LAV’s could drive into so their M60’s could be used while not exposing the main portion of the vehicle to incoming fire. This effectively masked most of the vehicle’s Miles Gear sensors from anti-armor fire.

After the two fire teams returned to the house when the third ambush site was prepped, the Squaddies ate a hasty meal and then stood down to await the attack. All of the magazines and ammunition to be used had been inspected to ensure that only blanks would be available, six different adults had checked to insure this was the case; they were taking no chances on an accident occurring. The Squaddies were issued six 30 round magazines each and were told to aim not spray, because when they were out, they were out. The boys were also told to scavenge ammunitions from any of the others who were hit in case they did run out, which wasn’t likely to happen. This ambush would be over in a matter of minutes, especially if the aggressor force (the Jumpers) used one of the prepped routes to the house.

Gunny didn’t know who was having the hardest time waiting, the boys or the adults. The boys knew what they had to do, but it was the first time they would be involved in an exercise and like all young men who had waited for battle from the beginning of time they were afraid. Not for their lives, but that they would screw up.

The adults were worried because while there was little chance of anyone getting hurt, but the chance was still there. They wanted it to be over with, they wanted their kids and their kid’s friends safely back in the Unit’s environs.

JJ remembered a joke he had heard his father tell, actually it was a true story but at the time he thought it was funny. During the early days of manned space flight, when Alan Shepard was making the first sub-orbital launch, he was heard on the radio praying; “Dear God, please don’t let me screw up.” Since then the words he spoke have come to be known as the ‘The Shepard’s Prayer’, and used by many people from many countries and religions.

Sundown came and went, the boys donned there gear, made sure their rifles were empty and on safe, and then headed up to the ground level to await the call to action. Sundown had been at 19:37, it was approaching 22:00 when Phil Martin came running out of the house; “JJ, Doug, they’re coming, they just hit the two kick line.”

Doug asked; “What line are they taking, you got a bearing on them?”

Phil quickly held out a map; “Looks like you guys are batting fifty, fifty tonight, the jumpers are heading this way by two separate routes. Looking at the map, JJ and Doug could see that one of the groups would hit one of the prepared ambush sites dead on, while the other group was heading down a route that had been thought to be too difficult to follow at night.

JJ and Doug talked it over quickly; Doug would take his fire team plus three members of JJ’s to the unprepared route and try to catch them coming in, JJ would head for the prepared site and take that group under fire. If everything worked out right at the prepared ambush site, after the aggressors were rendered ineffective, JJ would reinforce with his available troops.

The Unit Commander for the exercise, Tyler English and his XO (Executive Officer) Justin Tannonligua, would remain with the armor. The reason Tyler and Justin were designated as the Unit Commanders was that they had the most experience with the LAV’s and the vehicles would remain in over watch position to backstop the two fire teams in case the aggressor force or what was left of it got as far as the effective range of the LAV’s M60’s.

All remaining Squaddies would take up defensive positions at the entrances to the house. The Aggressors had entry codes for the house that were on a forty five second delay to simulate the setting and detonation of explosive charges, once in the house the aggressors would have to fight their way to the third level vault door and blow it to be declared the winner of the exercise.

JJ and Doug got their troops together, JJ assigned three of his Squaddies to supplement Doug’s and both fire teams headed off to their ambush sites. Justin in the gunner’s hatch of GhostRyder 25 to the right and Tyler in GhostRyder 35’s to the left, once again checked that the ammo they were using were blanks and charged (loaded the first round into the firing chamber) the 60’s and then waited to see what would happen.

At about the same time they heard the detonation of the artillery simulators going off to the right, in front of them and rifle fire from both the left and right. Justin signaled Tyler to remember their safe fire zones and made ready to engage the aggressor forces. The rifle fire on the right slackened off and then stopped. However, the firing from the left continued, the screams of Miles Gear alarms could be heard from both the left and the right more so from the right. Suddenly the Miles Gear alarms on GhostRyder 35’s were starting to register hits from small arms, Tyler saw the muzzle flashes of the aggressors and took them under fire with his 60, Justin maintained an over watch of the right side in case any of the aggressor forces had made it through the prepared ambush. Tyler continued to fire in three and four round bursts, pining down the attacking forces, and then it was over.

After JJ’s fire team had eliminated the aggressor forces in his assigned area, he led his Squaddies, the five that survived the firefight, and took the aggressors from their flank. This action allowed the three surviving Squaddies from Doug’s fire team to hit them from the rear. Over the sound of the alarms from the Miles Gear the Gunny could be heard over the loud speakers yelling; “Cease Fire, Cease Fire, Unload All Weapons, Now Cease Fire.” At 22:43 the “First Battle of the Bateman House’ was over, Defenders 1, Aggressors 0.