The FO Officer

I have one of you readers to thank for this story. Said reader sent me a mail and pointed out that I was on story number 99. I had to go on my page to believe it. This story is to thank everyone who has read any of my stories, from the nice comments to the ones that would really like to spray graffiti over them. I've reached that milestone of 100 stories, stunned and amazed in equal amounts.

Now that I've posted this, it gives me a bit of time to figure out what I'm going to post for number 200. Please enjoy your read, I always enjoy writing them.

To my two special friends, who have looked after me all these years, thank you so much. To my beta readers who always seem to point and laugh, you're the best. To ALL my past editors, wow, we made it. Also my friend vcwriter17b, who did the final edit, truly one of the best I've worked with.

*******

Weapons were cleaned and inspected, an automatic process for us all now. Word came down that I was needed in the Command tent. I handed my weapon over and dismissed my men. They went to their own tents to rest up and be ready for mealtime. I walked the walk of the exhausted, the frustrated and most of all, the walk of a person who was one man down.

Even now, a week had past and yet I still see Collins in my mind's eye. He stood up. The fucking idiot stood up, when he should have crawled backwards out of the potential line of fire. I even went to shout at him, when the shot rang out and a hole appeared in Collins, the shocked looked still on his face as he slumped to the ground.

What followed was a chaotic scene of getting a dead man and his kit out of a now hostile zone and onto a helicopter while fighting a staged withdrawal at the same time. When they turned up, the gunships made the difference and bought us the time we so desperately needed to get Collins and the now, two lightly wounded onto the helicopters and back to base. The finger pointing started almost immediately, brought to a halt by the written reports from every man on that patrol.

Even as the command tent loomed ever closer, my thoughts always came full circle. I needed to get out, before I was pushed out.

*******

I knew that yell. "Brendan, could you step in here, please?" I still knocked politely and entered. When the boss calls, you do.

Two officers stood by his desk, staring at me as I came in. One officer did that up and down look. The sneer soon followed.

His eyes never left mine as he said to my boss, "I'm sorry Colonel Phillips, I expected something ... different..."

When he didn't get a rise out of me, he tried the direct route. "How old are you. Private?"

I knew what he was doing, the dick was so transparent. "Twenty-Six next birthday and its Staff Sargent, Sir."

His shocked looked soon disappeared. His head did that up and down thing on me again. Once again, I knew what was coming.

"Forgive my manners, Staff Sargent, but since you aren't wearing any rank, you can appreciate my confusion."

My boss took the shrug of my shoulders as my only acknowledgment and told me that I was to be the guide for this FO Officer. That's when I stopped dueling with this idiot. I'd come across these people before. I admired their bravery and well as their stupidity. As a Forward Observation Officer, this guy found targets for artillery miles behind them. As technology became more available, the task of the FO Officer largely disappeared. After all, it's less expensive if a drone gets shot down than when an artillery officer gets cut off and captured or killed. However, there were times when a human had to be involved.

The dick of an officer unfolded a map, placing it on the table and waiving me over. I was waiting for the command to sit, like I was his pet fucking dog. As he told me where he wanted to be I felt a chill climb my spine. Those mountains were crawling with the bad guys.

"I was there with my troops a few days ago, we left as the bad guys showed up in numbers. You need to pick a different spot."

He watched me for some reason. I'm not sure why. Unless he read the action report, I wasn't going to be more forthcoming. The dick officer seemed to look on my recommendation as a challenge to his authority. He pulled out six pictures taken from a drone a few hours ago which showed the mountain looking deserted. The bad guys had appeared to have bugged out. Even so, it still left me feeling that if they left, what's to stop them coming back any time they wanted too.

"You're a rather insubordinate soldier, even for a Staff Sargent."

This time I stood and looked directly at him. This nonsense had gone on long enough.

"Well, if it will make you feel better, Sir, when we get into a combat zone, I will make it a point to salute the officer at every opportunity."

He actually looked like he was going to take a swing at me, until the woman officer next to him placed her own hand on officer dick's arm. He shot her a look but she seemed to have some sort of calming effect on him. I guess I'd saved my court martial for another day.

Our attention once again went to the map on the table. "We chopper to this point and walk the rest. The fact you've been here a few days ago is why we came here. We need to be on that mountain before daybreak."

His hand swung an arc indicating the area he needed to be able to see when the sun came up. It was bang in the middle of where I was when I pulled my people out the last time. I had a really bad feeling about this job.

When he went into timings, I looked at my watch and figured I had about an hour to pull my shit together. After making my excuses I left them to talk officer stuff and went to get ready.

*******

Even from behind they looked like they were ready for anything. That nagging feeling came back and perched itself firmly on my shoulder. None of the hardware these two carried was official standard British army issue, shoulder rigs held side-arms tight under their arms so I could only see grips and MP5's. Almost nothing these two wore was standard issue, maybe the boots perhaps? Something was amiss with this picture, that was for sure.

"Something wrong, Staff Sargent?"

Officer dick was staring at me, staring at them. "I guess I don't shop at the same armory you two do, Sir."

Both took a sideways glance at each other and smiled, any comeback was put on hold by the noise of the helicopter arriving. It was escorted by an Apache gunship that hovered above the camp. We boarded and the helicopter made a rapid climb for altitude with the gunship joining formation on its wing. You can't hold a conversation on a helicopter that doesn't include either shouting yourself horse, using a headset that the whole crew gets to listen in on or using sign language. So they got stuck in with using their hands as I watched. This gave me more time to study them.

They clearly have history. The sign language was at a speed that I found difficult to keep up with. It looked like they were talking details of this mission and since they gave no indication they wanted my input, my curiosity as well as my interest switched off right about then.

Both have seen combat before -- that was a given by the way they carried themselves. Yet, every time I thought I was getting a handle on these two, the point of understanding moved just the little further away.

Being outranked didn't bother me. I was comfortable with my rank I had little chance of moving up because as my boss liked to say. "As a leader of the men under me, I'm rated as exemplary. But to those ranked above me, my attitude stinks".

A realization came to me, it sat next to me and shared its secret. When it did I looked at both of them again with even greater interest. Neither one of these were FO Officers. I couldn't be a hundred percent sure but I doubted they were SAS either. I'd met a few from the regiment, and every one of them, you would think that other than spending time in a gym, you would think nothing of them passing you in a dark alleyway.

To those of us living a normal life, they were just as ordinary as us. So that left me on the very edge of 'who the fuck are you'?

Still asking myself the question on my observation of these two left me with more questions than answers. The Helicopter tilted slightly and both stopped using sign and their hands went to every strap and buckle within reach, pulling and testing. The answer to my question would have to wait, for now anyway.

I had figured out one thing: despite the rank on both their shoulders, he wasn't in charge, she was.

When the helicopter felt like it was dropping like a stone, all three of us tensed. On touchdown, we left at a crouch and found cover. The pilot started to power up and the helicopter pushed power back into the rotors and lifted off and quickly disappeared with his friend, leaving in a different direction from where they came. Within seconds the silence grew to the point that even the insects ignored us.

Officer dick stood first with the woman officer close behind. He pulled out his map while I slipped on my night goggles and whispered that they should follow along. I gave it a minute or so and looked behind me, they had spaced themselves out with the female officer in the middle. That's when I smiled to myself. The formation ticked another box in my opinion that she was the boss here, not him, regardless of the rank both had shown back at camp.

The full moon made the going easier and we made really good time. We still took a knee when one of those self-preservation feelings screamed in my ear. I was to lead them to the vantage point Officer dick needed and leave me alone they did. At one point I actually had to look behind me to see if I had lost them, my concentration level had lowered to a place that my thoughts said check. So I took a knee. Once the insects grew to ignore us and I was comfortable that all was peaceful out there, I slowly stood and moved on, casually glancing back, relieved that my court-martial for losing two officers on a battlefield also would have to wait for another opportunity.

A point man never does more than an hour. If he's really good, you could probably get two out of your point man. It was just into my third hour that we achieved our destination. They hadn't pushed me to go faster. They watched my lead and did everything I asked them to do. These were most definitely experienced officers.

*******

The cave entrance was about forty feet above the valley floor. A goat track did a slow path up towards and past the entrance and then wound itself further up the mountain. They took covering positions while I entered and checked the inside. Nothing had changed other than the remnants of a fire that had been used to keep those using the place after we left warm. Once satisfied that we were indeed alone, I waved them in. Thirty minutes later we were resting under the female officer's orders. Officer dick was on his belly looking through his scope. Occasionally he would cross reference with his map in front of him and then talk grid references into his radio. Within a couple of minutes' shells landed on what I can only assume to be the grid reference he had just given.

She prodded me in the side. I inwardly smiled to myself, thinking if that's classed as assault upon an enlisted man.

"What's up Staff, you seem a little distracted."

"I lost a good man up here, ma'am." I wasn't going for the sympathy vote, just honesty.

She was silent for a moment, then added. "A fellow soldier I assume, not an officer?"

Nodding and pointing in a direction just to the left of officer dick's position. Private Collins was twenty years old and on his first ever tour. "We had been up here for close to two hours, I was rotating the troops to keep them busy and not let their minds wander. Collins stood up, rather than crawl backwards and keep low. He went to talk to his friend behind him when the shot rang out. Collins spun and dropped to the floor of the cave."

That same vision once again played itself out in my mind. I immediately called for a helicopter withdrawal and fought a battle with the bad guys as we withdrew to a place where the choppers could pull us out of the mire with the gunships covering us. My boss read my report on the action and even praised the fact that I only had the one fatality. To me, one was one too many. He understood and told me to get some rest.

The woman officers voice pierced my thoughts. "Don't take this the wrong way, but one man can't make that much of a difference, Staff Sargent."

As I looked up, my thoughts dissipated and both the officer and I locked eyes on each other.

"With all due respect, Ma'am. I beg to differ."

The staring match lasted but a few seconds, before the woman officers eyebrow rose slightly. "Would you care to perhaps give me an example, Staff?"

My calm clawed itself back. I really had to be more careful around these two.

With a smirk on my lips I said. "That would depend on your security clearance, Ma'am."

The woman officer almost bent double with laughter, before she quickly realized where she was and placed her hand over her mouth. Even officer dick stopped giving grid references into the radio and looked over his shoulder at the woman officer leaning against the cave wall, now with both hands over her mouth.

Officer dick went back to the job in hand and my attention then went back to the woman officer.

She was still smiling at something I had said. "I can promise you Staff Sargent, that my security clearance is in fact, a few more notches up the ladder than yours."

It sure seemed she was throwing out some sort of challenge.

So I shrugged my shoulders and told her that I had a cousin, also in the army, but in a different regiment. "He told me of the day the devil came to visit and brought his minions with him."

The woman officer sat up straight, her eyes intently watching me. "Kenton Barracks."

I was slightly surprised that she caught on so quickly, but continued. My cousin was guarding the gate to the Barracks along with six of his friends. One moment they were all sitting around relaxing because it was just another day at the office, then it all broke loose. Sergeants shouting, people grabbing webbing, body armor and running to the armory, then all being told that none of this was a drill.

"They were all told of an imminent threat to the Barracks, but not to them. It was directed at the wives and children of the Unit. He and his team were at the gate allowing the armed Police with the families in their care onto the Barracks, then a single car pulled up."

The woman officer sat open mouthed as I continued to tell of that evening as my cousin told it to me over a beer about a year later, when my own regiment had rotated back to England.

"I will have to clear something up right now Ma'am. My cousin and I go way back; we literally grew up next door to each other. He tells me everything just as I do him, but the one piece of information he had never shared is what happened that day."

She nodded her head, urging me to go on.

"The guy in the car handed two ID's over to my cousin and the office ran both through the list. The woman was the last of those on the list going on the helicopter that was inbound. They passed them through and within minutes, the devil arrived."

When I routinely looked over at Officer dick, even he was looking back at me, it seems his FO work was done.

There isn't really a strategy designed to defend your own barracks. I mean, who in their right mind would attack a place that has over six hundred plus solders in it with instant access to guns and live ammunition, not to mention armored vehicles. Yet it happened. When the Klaxon sounded the car immediately stopped and reversed between two of the buildings. My cousin ran to the car as the driver got out.

"My cousin was the leader of the team at the gate and this one man stood next to the car in civilian dress and calmly told my cousin what he needed him to do. My eyes went to both officers for a moment before I continued with my thoughts.

"My cousin was barely keeping his own team together and here was one man dressed as a civilian in the middle of a shooting war, as calm as day, ordering the now landed and loaded helicopter off the ground and also taking responsibility for the female in his car."

This time I looked only at the female officer. "Ma'am, one man made a difference that evening, he watched a situation deteriorate before his very eyes and took responsibility for the female he had in his car. Despite the fact she was at that very moment, surrounded by over six hundred armed soldiers."

I left the woman to her thoughts. Mine were on my cousin. When the dust had settled and the Unit had been disbanded, he told me that the Colonel of his regiment had told admin to secure the building used by the Unit and never allow anyone in there again. A year later the regiment was up for transfer to another barracks. The Colonel made a personal plea to a few well-placed people in the Ministry of Defense and Kenton Barracks became the permanent home for my cousin's regiment.

To each and every soldier of my cousin's regiment, they had fought the enemy to keep possession of it. Kenton Barracks was going to be formally recognised as this regiment's permanent home. Other than training exercises and peace keeping etc. they would never leave it again.

I watched the women for a moment, then officer dick. Both had something on their minds. I let it rest, it was probably way above my pay grade.

Officer dick interrupted my thoughts.

"We're done here, Staff Sargent. Thank you."

Something about his voice had changed. I felt sincerity in his thanks. I felt it may be better just shrugging it off. We pulled our stuff together and waited for dusk, I took over at the entrance to the cave while the two officers went into a whispered huddle at the far end. These officer types seem to love to talk. Once again gauging the lowering sun as well as scanning the surrounding area while I still had the remnants of daylight, I turned my head towards them and let them know we would be leaving in fifteen minutes. Both automatically looked at their watches.

The helicopter picked us up almost two hours later and both officers held a debrief with my boss before quickly leaving in their own vehicle a few minutes later.

*******

Life got on with itself. I still took patrols out and made reports on what we saw. Happily, I didn't lose any more men.

It was two months later that I once again knocked at the door to my CO's office. His adjutant called me in and I made my parade sergeant proud, right up to and including my salute.

The adjutant slid a file across the CO's desk. "You're being transferred back to Barracks, Staff Sargent Howard. Once there you will remain on camp. You are not officially confined to camp, but if you attempt to leave at any time, the gate house guards are under orders to jail you until we see fit to release you."

Regardless of whatever wing of the armed forces you may join, you will get used to daft orders as a way of life. Right at this moment, this would rank as way up there in the stupid category. My regiment was due to leave this place in three months' time and I'm being sent back early, and unofficially confined to barracks. Yep, you have just got to love the armed forces.

Twelve hours later, I was packed and my kit stowed in the back of the vehicle taking me to the airport. An hour later my ass and a hundred other forces personnel were airborne and heading back to England.

My kit and I were picked up from the R.A.F base within an hour of landing. Another hour and I was stacking my personal shit against the admin block wall back at the camp when my ass got dragged into the admin building to see the admin officer. He was as shocked as I was that I was even here. We shared bemused looks for a moment, then he dismissed me and told me to get something to eat and rest up. His parting words, "Let's see what tomorrow brings."