The Mission Got Fucked Up

"You will be the warrior ant," said the general in the green camouflage combat gear. The black beret was sideways on his head. The flaps on the shoulders were highly decorated by blue, yellow, and black decorations. The two young corporals were standing at attention and eyeing the topographic map. The tent shook lightly in the wind. A heavy diesel truck accelerated in first gear outside.

"While the main forces will focus on the river banks to tie down their movements, you will go for their command post. Our friend general Perkins from the Navy is probably hiding out in the open land back here. There are numerous small stands of trees, where he can hide. Because of the open country, he will be able to spot any approach and escape. However, you will go all the way around the operating theater. You will slowly approach each stand of trees from the far side, where he won't have a spotter."

The young corporals took eager notice. The other team leaders were patiently waiting behind them to take their orders for the training battle. All the rifles had bright orange markers to point out that they carried no real bullets. A laser pointer was mounted at the tip. Everyone was wearing a harness with sensors that would detect a laser signal. The general looked a little childish with it, as if he were a baby dressed in a harness to be carried around or leashed to the wrist of a parent. Nobody found the image funny. The generals spit was flying.

"Here, here, and here is where I would send my reconnaissance troops, if I were Perkins. So, you, my warrior ants, are going to go around these points through the most forbidden terrain, where they will least expect you. See right here is a swamp. You will drive your Jeep through that god damn swamp. The snorkel on your Jeep better be ready. And if the water is up to your noses, you will keep driving that Jeep through that swamp. Is that understood, warrior ants?"

"Yes, sir."

The private with the handheld video camera pointed the lens straight in their pale faces. The video of the entire combat exercise would be played over and over by command at West Point. Booker's face with the white buggers in his eyes would be looked over by rooms full of officer trainees. Cormac's fresh razor cut would be about three inches large on the projection in the classroom.

Both were eager to get out of the presence of the general and the camera. They knocked their heels together and saluted their flat hands next to their temple. Then, they jogged through the tent flap that served as a door at a casual pace. The corporals behind them stepped forward and bellowed a stout: "Ready to take your orders, general."

Half-hour later, they were sitting in their green camouflage Jeep. The top was taken down. A tall antenna poked ten feet into the air. They had their helmets strapped tightly. A yellow band blocked their path down the dirt road into the forest. Two PMs with blue ribbons on the arm and blue helmets patiently held the yellow band. They were the referees for fair play.

A red signal fare shot high into the air. It curved high. The red fireball glowed brighter. Smoke followed it. The sun was barely coming up. The dawn was lifting in the backdrop of the flare. The PMs let the yellow band drop. A helicopter spun up the main rotor behind them at base camp. Booker hit the gas hard. Pebbles squirted out from under the tires. The helicopter rose up behind them. The heavy boom drowned on their ears. Cormac held the map folded precisely with one hand. The other hand held the black radio to his ear: "Warrior ant is moving out."

The drive was quiet. The battalion had moved in a different direction. It would have almost been a quiet ride through the forest, if Booker hadn't hot metaled the gas. The dirt tries were sliding in the turn. Every dip in the soft road pushed the Jeep low. Cormac had to hold on tightly to the map, where his thumb followed their trip. Every turn was marked on the map. A good navigator always knows the exact position at any time. Both had to lean into the car to avoid the roll bars hitting their head, when the car was swinging around wildly. Bang, another big tree root gave the shocks something to eat.

"Slow down," yelled Cormac over the roaring engine and driving wind whipping every flap on the car. "We are fifteen clicks in. That's a hill up there. The general said that we should expect opposition reconnaissance to have parachuted in and taken up position. The swamp funnels all traffic into the next sector to the road beneath the hill. So, they'll be watching that road tightly. The general said to make a left here and drive through that swamp."

A finger of the swamp had reached through the forest right up to the road next to them. An alligator was lazily floating with only his black eyes looking in opposite directions. The green crust of his nose poked above the water. Fallen leafs from last fall were still resting on the swamp surface and rotting.

"Jesus, we should have brought real guns with those damn gators," said Booker. The white meat head soldier stood up in the car. His torso was over the roll bars to get a better vantage point. "Does the fucking general realize that there is mud at the bottom of that swamp? Those tires will get stuck before we are half way in."

"Booker," Cormac found something exciting on the map, "there is a side creek hitting the swamp. It's coming down a steep side slope. The lines on the topo map are close to each other. With a little luck, the current will push all the mud aside. There might be river rocks at the bottom. See, the creek exits right here. It's like a tight belt around a fat man. The swamp stretches out on both sides. Yet the current only passes this middle section here. If we navigate this right, we might cut through the swamp. Perkins is never going to expect us to do that move."

Booker let himself fall back into the seat. The heavy, black army boot punched the gas pedal. "You my friend are a glory hound!" Cormac smiled smugly.

Sure enough, behind the next turn was a little wooden bridge. Underneath it gurgled a happy creek with clear water. Big river rocks lined it. A bird happily sang. Wildflowers were growing at the boundary. Booker carefully eyed in the direction of the hilltop. They should still be under cover of the trees and not have ventured too close to be spotted. The recon team wouldn't shoot them straight out. They'd call in a kill team to avoid leaving their position. The Jeep would be taken from sniper fire an hour or so after they had been spotted.

Cormac drove the Jeep slowly down the side of the road. The tires grappled onto a big rock. Two tires spun freely in the air. The locking differential had been engaged. The fulltime four wheel drive had been put into low gear. The exhaust happily burst out of the black snorkel exhaust that was attached to the windshield.

The tires slipped, skidded, and gripped. Slowly at 1 mph, they drove down the creek. The car would sometimes slip two inches on the smooth, algae covered rocks. Occasionally, the skid plates underneath had to take a sharp hit from a tall rock, when the tires slipped into a hole between rocks. The water wasn't too deep, about the depth of the oversized tires. It took real patience advancing that slowly.

After fifteen minutes, they hit the swamp entrance. A vast, flat expanse of swamp stretched out. Dirt leaves covered the brown water. As Cormac had predicted, there was a clear finger penetrating into the slow molasses. The water rippled forward. At the edges, the streaming water was fighting against the standing water, creating waves and twirls. Three hundred yards ahead were mangrove trees. That's where the creek had to exit again.

Cormac stood up. He peered over the windshield. The roll bars hit him violently on the side as the tires were climbing onto rocks underneath and falling off other rocks. The earlier wide band of clear water increasingly narrowed. The band did a side twist to the right. "One touch more right," yelled Cormac trying to keep the car as close to the center of the clear band as possible.

150 yards in, the clear band narrowly hugged the car. The clear had turned into a light mud brown. The tires were no longer violently struggling over rock. Soft mud covered the bottom easing every drop. The RPMs had gone up increasingly to fight against the resistance of the mud. The bottom had deepened to the point, where the water was being pushed onto the hood and ran off to the sides before it reached the windshield.

"I can't see the fucking creek anymore," yelled Booker.

"It's still there. I see it faintly. I don't know if we are going to make it." Cormac shook his head.

Even if faintly, Booker's gas foot could still feel that there was a path forged by the light current. Whenever he wavered a little bit off the path, he felt the exacting sticky nature of death trap mud. He had to roar the engine harder. Momentum was the only thing that carried them. Any stop now and they wouldn't move again. Cormac was tense trying to describe the curls of color that he spotted in the water as best as he could.

100 yards from the mangrove trees, Booker suddenly accelerated as hard as he could in a last ditch effort. The tires spun empty a second later. Booker quickly let go before digging the tires in. They were stuck in a swamp. The cable in the winch would reach 30 yards at most.

The water slowly crept higher on the hood, crawling toward the highest point near the windshield. That was a bad sign. They were settling in deeper. Both of them were stunned. They didn't dare moving to avoid making things worse. The brown water found the lower edge of the window. Little drops were coming through the door cracks of the car that were meant to be water proof for rain, not submersible.

Cormac was too embarrassed to radio in their debacle. Then, they both saw the glint flash from the hill top. The recon binoculars had spotted them. Both of them rushed out of the Jeep. They swam through the swamp in freestyle. Dead leaves clung to them. Mud washed over their head. It was an instinctive flight of prey. They had left the radio and laser rifles in the Jeep.

They punched it hard toward the mangrove trees. They found the exit creek. It was a little river. They paddled hard. The current swept them up. Multiple little creeks must have collected together. This river was rather powerful. It was quite a rush. The white water took them.

"Fuck, this water is faster than we can run. Let's take it."

With the adrenaline, they could not feel the cold water. They took the swift water safety position with their feet ahead to brace against any rocks that the river might smash them against. In a way, it was fun like a rafting trip. Standing river waves were smacking their faces, when they passed through. If they could make it 10 miles, they might make it out of the search radius of the kill team.

The water shot over a small waterfall. They dropped six feet down. Shocked from the sudden submersion on the landing, they realized that it wasn't safe. They crawled to the edge of the water. Both were shivering with blue fingernails. Their faces were white. Points of bright red skin peaked out.

"Do you have a map?"

"I have no fucking clue where we are. The river did all of these turns."

"Fuck, we have to explain how we got the Jeep middle in the swamp. The general's plan depended on us. Say hello to a month of latrine cleaning."

"Let's be resourceful. There's got to be a map around here. Perhaps, there is a hiking parking lot with a map. Or, we find a bus stop with a map. Let's say that we orient ourselves, get on a public bus, and then crawl up on Perkins by foot. He'd never expect us on foot. He'll be looking for choppers and fast moving vehicles. We won't cover all the tree islands. However, we can perhaps get lucky with the one that we pick. Everything is forgiven for the winner." Cormac squeezed thick strings of water out of his fatigues.

They got up from the ground that was darkened by their water discharge. They marched up the river slope to find a paved road. They jogged down the road at a comfortably swift 5 miles per hour tempo. The day was pretty nice actually. Warm sunlight filtered down the bright green tree leafs. Birch trees were glad to soak up water from the river. A squirrel chased up a trunk. The rapid heart beat warming up the cold limbs felt good.

There was a little white house on the side of the road. Farming equipment was on the yard next to it. A flower basket was under the window. 3621 Cricket Road was written on a shingle. Booker knocked on the front door with the little quaint window in it. His fist hammered actually. An elderly gentlemen with a white, neatly trimmed beard opened the door slightly behind a golden lock chain.

"How may I help you, soldiers?" creaked the old man.

"As hard as it is to belief about a solider, we are lost." Booker smiled big.

"You don't happen to have a map or venture to give us some general directions?" smiled Cormac.

"You are on Cricket Road. The base is 50 miles down that way."

"See we are middle in an exercise. And we are looking for the enemy."

"You are the sorriest soldiers that I have ever seen. My son is a Marine."

"Ay, we Army guys are more tough than smart. You wouldn't be able to help us out, would you," pleaded Cormac knowing that making the old men feel superior would butter him up.

"That's right! An old man like me has to show you lackeys how it's done."

The old man disappeared. The door locked. 30 seconds later, he re-appeared with a forestry map. Cormac got a wet twenty out of his pocket and bought the map on the spot. "No change," barfed the old guy firmly.

They weren't too far off. The river had carried them in a good direction. If they'd cut through the forest for a mile, they'd reach another road. That road would lead them straight to the closest cluster of trees. Given the height of the sun, that would be their only bet to make a difference in the training exercise.

And so they went. When they hit the edge of the forest, they crawled in the ditch next to the road. The putrid water and garbage that collected there made it little fun. Fast civilian cars raced past them on the road, easily going twenty miles faster than the speed limit. Unbeknownst to the civilians, they were the warriors that were stalking the twenty trees half mile away.

The ground rumbled as another eighteen-wheeler approached. "I hate the drag wind running down my back, when they pass," complained Booker. "Better than some yahoos deciding to take photos of us," replied Cormac. The noise of the heavy engine grew unusually load. "Those civilians sure maintain their trucks poorly," added Cormac.

Then dirt crumpled onto their backs. There was a sudden darkness. They turned around in the ditch. The firing gun of a tank reached across the ditch. The tire tracks were perched high above them. The tank had come to a screeching halt. The green helmet appeared from the turret hatch.

"Booker, Cormac, what's the fuck are you doing in front of my fighting vehicle? And where the bloody fuck is your Jeep?"

The two corporals stood up and straightened their clothing. The entire main force was standing behind the lead tank, pending to cross the road. Nine tanks, five trucks, three lightly armed vehicles, and the general's Jeep were idling. All eyes were on them.

"Uh, the Jeep? We lost it. It's gone at the bottom of a swamp. We were going to ambush that stand of trees over there."

"Where are your service weapons, soldiers? Were you going to strangle them with your bare hands?"

"Well, we hadn't figured that out yet. Maybe, we could have stolen one of their guns."

"Do you honestly believe, you would catch the opposition with their ass hanging out, gently laying out their weapons to take a sunbath?"

"If you put it like that, it makes it sound really bad."