Pinball

Alright so how would someone like me get a name like ‘Pinball’. It goes like this. It was a bright sunny day in the beautiful state of California. I had just dropped the girlfriend off after a weekend camping in the mountains. We had ridden out Thursday night on my bike, a big sport touring Kawasaki designed for chewing up the miles of asphalt.
We packed a weekend’s worth of gear in the luggage saddle bags, and across the back. The camp site was about ten miles up a fire road in the Big Sur area. So on my heavy street bike, at night, with a passenger and all the extra crap I pack I rode up the mountain, sticking to the smoother parts and avoiding gravel. We picked a camp site, and strung a poncho off the side of the bike to the dismounted bags to make a tent. I brewed tea over heat tabs while building the camp fire.
A wonderful evening under a field of stars, all alone until our friends would show up the next day. It has been a glorious weekend, all the more so for reaching a new level of skill in riding on dirt roads. She had to be back at work on Monday, and I had errands to run. I dropped the bags at her place to pick up later. Close to 200 pounds lighter and thinner I was cruising home in Sunday traffic. In California the practice of lane sharing is perfectly legal, as long as it is done in a ‘reasonable and prudent manner’. As traffic slowed to a crawl or stop I would slide into the space between lanes and roll on.
Something I had done thousands of times. I turn on my hazards and my annoyingly bright headlight. It had been a weekend of great fun, great friends and relaxation. By the end of the week I would be on active duty for the spin up to deployment.
WHAM! Out of the corner of my eye comes a flash of red, and the bike is shoved to the left. I slam into an SUV, then bounce right into a mini van, Attempting to correct I loose some bits on the left as I bounce off another car, and back to the right. My foot hits the last car’s bumper, pulling off the rubber strip. My handle bars twist, the controlled breaking I had been doing becomes a jerk and the front breaks lock. The bike, and I hit the pavement.
My first ‘stack’ or crash. The first time I laid the bike down in around 60 thousand miles. Because an idiot from Arizona thought he would scare me. My foot is all streaks of pain and my shoulder doesn’t want to move like I tell it to. Thus the reason the idiot walked away, oh, he also never got closer to me than lunging range.
Bike totaled, foot thrashed, and there went my active duty tour for predeployment, and the schools that would go with it.
Later, much later, after the CHP had arrived, and the firemen. I had to call someone to get the bike. When in doubt call your mom. Well that is if your mom is as cool as my mom. But I couldn’t find my phone. I convince the cop to call my mom so she can call the cousin with the truck and trailer. The officer makes the call. Rather than handing me the phone, when he dials, he waits for an answer then says, “Mrs Newport this is officer so-and-so with the California Highway patrol.” I freak out.
The protocol for calling home after an incident requiring medical attention is well established. No matter what the hour it is the same.
“Hi mom, I’m OK. I’m at Dominican ER getting some stitches and they will give me a 25% discount if I give them a credit card number right now.”
“Hi Mom, I’m OK. My friend needs to use my car to drive someone home from the hospital mind if I crash on your couch?”
“Hi Dad, tell mom I am OK. The wheel came off the car on 17 and the tow company is on the way, can I use your AAA card to get it towed to the house?”
“Hi Mom, sorry to bother you at work, I’m OK. I seem to have run into the sink in the garage, and the frig. Everything is unplugged and disconnected.”
On the back of my helmet, is a sticker, it reads in indelible ink, “IF FOUND WITHOUT RIDER PLEASE CALL (MY CELL PHONE NUMBER) IF FOUND ON RIDER PLEASE CALL (MY PARENTS NUMBER)”
If the CHP were to find me in a ditch, or smeared down the road, the number he was calling is the number they would find.
So standing on the side of the Freeway I begin to yell at the phone,” MOM I AM OK!, JUST FINE.” The officer gives me a dirty look, then goes on to explain to her that I need to talk to her.
Taking the phone I return the dirty look, looking at the gold band on his finger I say, “How would you like your wife to get a call like that.” He appears mollified.
I end up waiting two hours for the trailer (Most insurance companies won’t tow bikes. Then go to the ER. It’s a motorcycle thing.

Rule number one in any motorcycle crash is that if it hit the ground, replace it. USAA is a marvelous company. In ten days I had the check to replace my helmet, gloves and jacket. The new jacket is a FirstGear Kilimanjaro. If the army listened to motorcycle companies all soldiers would be safer and warmer. The liner is fleece, and has a wind barrier in the sleeves. The fleece and my summer gloves are the only real civilian gear I brought with me.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned from this. Shit comes at you out of the blue, weather you are riding home, or doing yet another trip from one base to another. If you stay all wound up it only means you are tired when it happens. The second is that a little bit of high speed snivel gear is always useful. Last but most important, is that if you bounce off a car just once, people will call you Pinball.
And now there is one less mystery in the world.

An Early wake up

“Sergeant Pinball,” Mighty Mouse’s quiet voice does more to pull me from my slumber than if he had knocked on the wall, his usual prelude to entering my room, “get out side to the company area, and bring your weapon.”
There are few phrases that can bring an NCO out of a deep slumber faster than those. It can mean only one thing. Some one has screwed up bad. I glance at my clock it is 0830 or as near as my clock can tell me, fluctuating power does not lend to an accurate cheap clock. For most of the army 0830 is not an early wake up, but when your day often ends as the sun comes up, and all your work is done at night this is obscenely early. Some one has truly screwed the pooch.
I slap the on button to my coffee maker, and throw my legs out of my bed. “I’m on my way” I tell him and he Di Di Mau’s out of the room. I shove my feet into my boots as I listen to him poke his head into the next room. He was carrying his weapon and mine sleeps with me so it wasn’t my truck, unless Lifeguard screwed the pooch, not likely but not beyond the realm of possibility.
I had conducted a perfect three point face plant last night when we got back. Dropping my blouse on my folding chair, and sleeping in my pants. It had been misting, so I wanted a chance to get a head start on the M240 today rather than turn it in to the arms locker I had checked it out with CPL WT. Rust on a weapon is a bad thing. I briefly consider lugging the bitch with me but a brief consultation of the Army “Worst case scenario survivors book” tells me it is a bad idea. SGT Bulldog is prying himself off the top bunk opposite me, having received the same message. SGT Grandpa the third man in my room is not here, his guys were on mission when I went to sleep. I shuffle down the hall to Doc Feelgood’s room.
Doc is up and working at his computer, as the boss medic he works more normal hours.
“Doc, can you watch my ‘240 for me?” I ask, he nods and takes it from me, placing it under his chair.
Rule one for surviving a something like this is to not drawing attention to yourself. There is nothing wrong with holding onto your crew serve, as long as it is secured. Showing up with it would definitely attract attention.
I hurry out to the platoon area a step ahead of bull dog to see a milling crowd. This is a good sign, if we were in formation it would mean that collective punishment was in store. Again mentally consulting the survival guide I implement step two.
I fade to the back of the crowd, putting one layer of soldiers between me and any open space, but keeping as far from the center of mass as possible. This is a continuation of the “DON”T STAND OUT” rule. The leadership is very agitated, SSG lifeguard has his personal weapon, so it wasn’t us. I filter past him and say as quiet as possible “Doc has the 240 for me.” He nods and then heads for SSG Moto, and waits for a clear space to whisper the same in his ear.
Moto looks up and picks me out of the crowed in a second. Being a little shorter would be nice right now. He holds up his thumb with a question on his face. I return the thumb. He goes back to what he was doing. I then slide through the crowd to where CPL WT is smoking, and tell him the same. He gives me a condescending look and says “I know.” It is to be expected of an infantryman trapped with a bunch of tankers.
Step 3 says to first endure you and your buddies are covered, then look around. Moto doesn’t look like it is us, that would mean the other squad. Keeping near the rear of the rather circular gaggle I begin listening. SGT SAFRI is explaining why his driver is running out to the vehicles to get the M4 he locked inside of it last night. This might be it. A weapon left in a vehicle, that would be enough to get us all out here.
Step 4, gather intelligence. The leadership is wound up like pack starving dogs in a slaughter house. They are not going to talk. The enlisted men, trapped at the bottom gather information out of self defense. First I find Mighty Mouse.
“Remember how we found out what was going on when we were headquarters?” I ask
He nods. “Do it now.” He smiles and begins to wander around eves dropping. When there were headquarters trucks I had three guys assigned to me. SSG Caine hated that an E5 didn’t work for an E6 and would cut me out of the information loop. So I would send Mighty Mouse and Skeletor into the back of their formation to eves drop on what they told their guys. It worked, pretty well. They just got in the habit of telling me what the learned through rumor and eves dropping.
The cold was getting to me so I went to stand in the sunlight, and lit up a Nat Sherman MCD Shipped to me by an old friend.
Step 5 don’t look guilty, be relaxed. It took two puffs before the first guy talked to me. CPL IT wanders up and begins talking. Having never smoked himself, he made himself an honorary smoker by going to the smoke pits in training. He said then it was where he found out what was going on. So true.
It would seem that SGT SAFRI’s driver leaving his M4 was not the reason for this. It had been discovered just minutes ago, when we had been called out here. The issue had been an M240 found in the motor pool.
This was so very bad, so very, very bad. It wasn’t my squad, it was the other one. The offender was already in the commanders office. SSG Caine was pulled aside by SFC Big Daddy when he came out. The data fits. Now to keep from being an accidental casualty.
There is the to be expected item by item physical inventory of all weapon systems. We move to the weapons locker, I detour and retrieve my 240 from Doc, arriving just in time to slide it into the rack when WT opens the rack. Then more standing around.
Moto has gotten a coffee cup, so I fade away long enough to get a cup for myself and SGT Sasquatch. Within an hour it is SPC Thug who gives me the first news. SSG Caine is being relived, and Dozer fills in the blanks. This was the 400 pound anvil that broke the camels back. Caine had been screwing up since we got here. He will go to head quarters, and be replaced. Ultimately he did not confirm the weapons were secured when he submitted his sensitive items report. He had abused his joes and NCOs enough that no one would stick their neck out for him.
It wouldn’t have happened to a nicer man. A few weeks later I talked to an older and wiser head about the whole situation. He had trained more than a few soldiers in his career. His last words to me on the subject bear repeating.

“ One of the problems with a lot of leaders, small and large, is that they have not enjoyed and labored with possessing power. So they misuse it. It can be narcotic and so destructive, to themselves and others. That is why the study of power is so important.”
That should be written above the doors to every NCO school in the army.

The night

We have driven the sun from the sky and roll on through the night. The trucks are far enough from any city to have left the glow of city lights far below the horizon. A stream of white lights on the empty black desert, the moon is down and only the stars and our lights show for as far as the eye can see. I am listening to Kim Harrison’s first Hollows book on tape as I alternate sitting down in the turret and standing up like my Panzer Commander genes urge me to. Our heater didn’t work when we first drew this truck, the problem is simple, the heater core had been removed or fallen out. The mechanics say it is on back order, like everything else.
The Transmission and thin dog house between the driver and TC keep Life guard and the guest driver for this mission warm. My upper torso is sniveled up, with long underwear, and my First Gear fleece, what motorcycle gear companies could teach the army about staying warm would fill volumes.
“HEY THREE, THIS IS ONE, WE NEED A SHORT HALT TO ADJUST THE HEAD LIGHTS.” The radio crackles. Sasquatch and his minions looking up in the front are asking for a piss break.
“RODGER ONE, BREAK, ALL RED ELEMENTS SHORT HALT.” SSG Moto replies.
The slinky of trucks three or four clicks long begins to compress as each vehicle pulls up to 50 meters from the one in front of it, and turns off it’s lights. In a minute or two we are in complete darkness. The night here is not the enshrouding cloak of Fantasia. It is an emptiness, a lack, there is no moisture in the air, even in the winter. While SSG Lifeguard dismounts and waters the tires I scan the horizon through the pale green of Night vision. Left and right sides clear I take a few seconds to look up.
Millions of dots of light spread from horizon to horizon. First there is Orion, then I begin try to pick out others, Ursa Major and Minor, are all I know. Back to work I scan around. Tonight we are an all green convoy. Army Heavy Equipment Transports fill the gaps between out relatively small escort vehicles.
Truck drivers hold the 88M Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and are generally not considered the military elite. I know that we have a lot of stupid rules, but their chain of command has been smoking the crack pipe every day. They have to wear body armor to the pre-mission brief, and reflective belts while on the road. The two guys behind me are looking their tiny windows, scanning the horizon. What absolute moron orders his soldiers to wear a reflective belt in the field? I have an urge to find him and take him out with us to pull security in the empty clack knowing that he glows in the dark.
The night is cold, the weather report said in the low 30s or high 20s. It jabs at my body like a knife seeking any chink in the layers of cloth. I stare off at the stars for another few seconds before picking up my scan. It is not the perfect quiet of a desert night, the deep rumble of diesel engines provides a background noise. You never turn off your truck on the road if you can control it. With the state of our trucks it may not turn back on, or you may blow a fuse to the radio. Besides it keeps the crew warm. Back when I was a lot more junior I spent many a night cuddled up to the heat of the transmission in a hummer.
“TRUCK 3 THIS IS SASQUATCH, WE ARE REDCON 1 AND DEFCON 1”
“RODGER, ALL RED ELEMENTS CHARLIE MIKE.”
I can see the lights of the forward security element come on, then on down the road. The lights come to life, I turn off my NVGs and restart the MP3 player. A soft feminine voice is telling me a story. A woman reading to me as I roll down this blank country side. Just like my legs are warm in the truck and my torso freezes in the breeze, my mind is living in two worlds.

The Mission Pt 2: The Prep

The Mission Pt 2: The Prep

A cavalryman lived on his horse, this is where the line ‘First the horse, then the saddle then the rider’ came from. To watch a movie you would think that we spend most of our time on mission or training how to engage the enemy with direct fire. We spend most of our time getting dirty checking the vehicles. Tom Clancy has made a lot of money writing about the exiting 1% of the time. Reality is that soldiers are engaged in a constant battle against time, elements and wear and tear on vehicles. Sometimes we win.
The morning of a mission I try to sleep in, and stay up late the night before. If you roll at night the mission always stretches into the early morning, and sometimes past dawn. So I roll out of bed and hit the showers around 1030 or 11. Then go to breakfast. The only time I eat actual breakfast is when I am still up from the night before, and that is disturbingly often. Then I get into the Combat Vehicle Crewman coveralls. This has lots of zippered pockets that are both large and easy to get to. It is the exact opposite of what a fobbit likes in a uniform. It is shapeless, comfortable, practical and looks like crap.
At breakfast We eat big, shoveling calories in out mouths with reckless abandon, as we know we will miss dinner and maybe midnight chow also. Then we cram those big Beautiful Pockets with energy drink, V8 and Gatorade and waddle out the door, trying to look inconspicuous. We are supposed to get that stuff issued for missions, but it always seems to be low when we get there.
Out to the motor pool where we mount weapons, and check the trucks. Mechanics go up and down the line checking our work and fixing anything that can be in the short time allowed. Everything must be loaded, checked, tied down and arranged here. Our first couple of times we took way to long to complete this part of prep, now we are hanging out, smoking and joking for ten minutes before we have to leave to test fire the machine guns.
Out the gate to a giant test fire pit and every crew served weapon pops 10-20 rounds into the pit. The only way to make sure your weapons work with machineguns is to actually throw some lead down range. Sometimes one of the trucks will throw a stuffed animal in there as target practice.
Test fire complete we roll over for the intel brief. We have a good intel officer, he lays out all the things happening on and near our route. It takes a lot of work for him to put it together for a mere 20-30 minutes of presentation. Since we are almost early to this brief we conduct our ritual. The RipIt shot gunning. If we have a new person with us SSG Moto conducts a five minute block of instruction. First you hold the can on its side with the pop opening down. The ever present knife is used to cut a hole near the bottom the bigger the better. Then as a group we put out mouths over the cut holes, stand the cans up and pop the tops. This results in a large amount of high sugar, high caffeine content carbonated beverage being poured down your throat.
It is a great way to start the night. So far we have been at work for 4 or more hours and not left the wire. After the Intel brief the chaplain who is at every mission departure gives a little prayer for those who want it, and we go out to pick up our charges for the night. The foreign national truck drivers would make a teamster cry. They are corrupt, difficult to control and drive trucks sometimes literally held together with duct tape and bailing wire. The are also determined to make each mission and will repair, tow or jury rig any truck in the convoy that breaks down. The absolute most versatile of convoys.
We inspect the trucks going with us, then roll out the gate, our vehicles taking up places in front of, with in and in back of the convoy. It is five hours since we first showed up at the motor pool and the night is just beginning.

Bits fall off

There is an attitude I developed in riding motorcycles, ‘bits fall off’. The important thing is how you handle things falling off. I have had visors, bit of fairing, spare helmets, and even my luggage fall off on the road. Any piece of equipment subjected to long use over the road will have things break. The military takes this to an extreme. Only one of our vehicles was designed to for the role that we are using it for. The others are over weight, over age and over used, much like some of the crew members.
To compensate we take extra measures to catch problems before they start. At least an hour before each mission is spent inspecting the vehicles and our mechanics work every day to keep up with the stuff we break. Still thing stop working. Then there are things that are entirely operator error. In my case it was my big fat ass.
Rolling down our standard road, the wind chill dropping the temperature well below freezing I am huddled down in my turret behind the armored glass. Occasionally I pop up like a giant prairie dog to do a quick complete scan. I left my warmest gloves at home because I was in a bit of a hurry. My mistake that I pay for with cold hands and fingers. We had two additional passengers for this trip. I will call them Mechanic and Medic, mostly because that is what they were.
Some early excitement had us on edge a little so I was scanning back and forth using my little joy stick. Someone pops a parachute flare off in the distance. I swing the turret over to get a better view. Now my seat hangs inside the hull of the hummer. It is essentially two straps with a piece of padded wood. This was nit designed to be used on this vehicle. I spin to look over the back deck, and pop my head up. Then reach down to unfuck the cord leading to my headset.
I report the Distance, Direction and Description of what I see to SSG Lifeguard. He tries to report it up to SSG Moto. No luck, radio is not working. I try to send the report up directly, no luck. Mechanic tries, again no luck. Mighty Mouse tries, and again no luck. We now commence trouble shooting the radio, which is mounted between the front seats. Life guard and mechanic check the boxes our head set hook into. Then the setting on them. Then they go to the radio, checking to make sure its setting are right. Everything fine so far. Life guard begins to hammer away at his battle text messenger while mechanic looks for his flash light.
The vehicle has not stopped or slowed down, Might Mouse continues to roll like nothing is happening. I look down, the only problem could be is the connection between the radio and the antenna. The radio sends the signal to an amplifier and the amp sends it to the antenna mount. I look back to ensure both antennas are still there. Yep still there.
What we need to do is take the antenna wire and plug it directly to the radio. The wire is not long enough to reach the radio because it is tied up so we have less loose wire to get tangled up in. After a brief conversation we come up with a plan.
I will remind my gentle reader that all this was done on bumpy Iraqi roads, at night. I stand up on the seat, wedging myself against my hatch and my gun, while pointing over the right front side. Mechanic slides out of the seat behind the driver and all the way up to the radio. With one hand Lifeguard and I hold flash lights. Mechanic has to crawl up over the radio mount with a Gerber multi tool and snap the zip tie holding the extra wire. Then he has to pull it down and plug it into the front of the radio. Life guard then has to adjust the radio to work in the new configuration. Think of it as installing a stereo system, in the dark during a small earth quake.
Then mechanic slides back and belts in, and Lifeguard checks the radio. It works. Like I said bits fall off, the secret is not to get excited, trouble shoot the problem and fix it and Charlie Mike or Continue Mission. That three of us have been fighting military radios for years, gave us a bit of an edge.
Now I have to get the new antenna cables, and install them, because our Battalion commo hasn’t figured out how to make the time to do their own job.
The reason for the failure, my fat ass hit the connector as I swiveled to look over the back deck.
Especially in the military…. Bits Fall Off.

The Mega base

If there is one thing Iraq is not short of it is space. Vast spaces of land that the locals are more than happy to lease to us at reasonable rates. Add to that a now deceased dictator with a penchant for building airbases in the middle of nowhere and you get the super base. Located on former Iraqi Air Force bases, they don’t lack for space. You can get lost on these places. I have gotten lost on these places.
We roll on to the base and drop off our charges, fuel up and dump the body armor. Now to find food. Riding through this place I can tell we need to watch our steps. I understand, wearing a reflective belt to jog, work out. These guys are having to wear reflective belts at night, in ACUs. It is not like there is a lack of lights, you can see the glow of the base from well below the horizon, hours before you reach the gate.
The worst of it is the rules. There are rules posted everywhere, no earphones anywhere. Reflective belts required after dark. These places have police forces and people who spend their time enforcing the rules. There are even civilian contractor traffic cops with radar guns.
This I made worse by the huge number of Non-Tactical Vehicles. This is mil speak for civilian, stateside cars, that are prohibited from leaving base. The only reason for these vehicles to be here, imported at government expense, so that senior personnel don’t have to walk. The circular irony here is that I have never had a close call with a tactical vehicle. It is hard to miss the dozen plus tons of steel rolling down on top of you. I got bumped by a pickup truck backing up coming out of finance once. Then there is the PX parking lot and squealing tires. More dangerous than out on the road.
So we take off the head rags and balaclavas, and swagger into chow, sans reflective belts. The chow is good, but we don’t idle long. Back to the trucks then to transient housing.
The billets for transients here is better than my room. More room and all the heaters/AC work. I don’t even think about going shopping, shit, shower and shave, then pass out. It isn’t until the next morning when some strange NCO wakes me up that I realize that something is wrong. SGT Linebacker, and his crew are in the barracks, so it Mighty Mouse, but for some reason SSG Lifeguard is not here. I inform the strange NCO that I am not on his mission and begin to wake up.
Thirty minutes later SSG Lifeguard shows up. It would appear that there was a minor miscommunication. There are Transient Barracks numbers 1-20something, and then there are Cheeseboxes number 1-20something. Linebacker, and I had not known this. SO we simply wandered into some other unit’s barracks, and passed out. That other unit didn’t know who we were, but also simply passed out.
As we begin to roll out and head home I spot the ultimate indicator of the Super Base, a street cleaner, like a mud zamboni cleaning the streets. Is this really what we need here?
Away from the Super Base, away from the thousand and one rules and NTVs trying to kill me. Simply the road.

The road more taken

Rolling down another dark hi-way, the wind in my face. The intel brief said the temperature would be around 40. The gunners bundle up, the crews inside bring a jacket. SSG Lifeguard has complained about the heat down inside the truck before. Until the summer gets here he gets no sympathy. With Might Mouse on his four day pass we have a guest driver still, Sgt Zohan. All three of us deployed together last time. The energy level is so high you might be able to power an LED with it. This is the more dangerous route.
We get occasional small arms fire and once a week or so something blows up. Stay alert, stay alive. We scan and chat, I switch between NVGs, and the naked eye and occasionally gripe about wanting a thermal viewer. I might as well wish for a tank while I am at it, and I do. I miss my tank.
A bright flash up ahead reflects off the low thin clouds.
“You see that?” Lifeguard asks.
“Yep, looks like someone got hit, you want to ask the magic box what happened?” I ask, flipping down my NVGs and continuing the scan.
“Working on it.” He replies and begins tapping on the screen, trying to get some information from the satellite system. There is some mumbled derogatory comments from the TC seat as I scan the near and far distance. More lights fill this landscape. The NVGs reveal more but cause eye fatigue, you can only use them so long before you get a headache from focusing at different distances with each eye.
“Zohan, did you see some red stuff with the flash, kinda like tracers?” I ask.
“Yep, but nothing in the air.”
Tracers bounce, I don’t know if ball (lead) rounds bouce, but the burning marker rounds usually bounce into the stratosphere if they hit before burning out.
I keep scanning. Nothing out here but us chickens.
Life Guard gets the info. One of our sister company’s convoys was passed by a smaller faster unit, and they found the IED, no casualties.
We wait for a unit to clear the scene then move on south. Our ride along for this trip, SFC Big Daddy, pokes at SSG Moto to see if he is doing his job. Moto is always doing his job.
At the other end, as we sit and eat a midnight meal Moto, Lifeguard Zohan and I are sitting together. Normally the four of us don’t, I usually eat with the enlisted types, and the SSGs are gathered up by senior NCOs and officers. Zohan manages to switch up where he eats regularly. We get to talking. Earlier today we ran across another soldier who worked with us on the last tour. We look around and realize there are only six of us left who went with this company last time. Out of over seventy troops who went with the company last time only six are left. Seven if you include Doc Mom.
In only a few years, guys transferred, or got out, or just dropped off the face of the earth. It gave me a pause. I look at Moto, and say, “Next time you better be a platoon sergeant.” He just smiles and the conversation moves on.
My father used to teach a class to officer candidates about fear. The most important factor in controlling fear is knowledge. Knowing what to expect, or who is to your flanks, and what they are doing mitigates fear, or at least its effects.
One of the reasons they call us the Prozac squad up at battalion. Of course it might also be the easy leadership of our Squad Leader, but he might hear about it and I wouldn’t want his head to swell.