Blind Eyes, Black Hearts - A GWOT Story (On Hold)

Chapter 5, Part 1 - Over the Hills and Far Away

Chapter 5

Over the Hills and Far Away

Platoon Dagger 2, 1/75th Rangers

Both Daggers (Dagger 1 and 2) had patrolled the valley’s length, and they did not find anything except some abandoned shacks and potential sniping positions. The two platoons did what they were told: Dagger 1 patrolled the Northern end, and Dagger 2 patrolled the southern end. Goodwin and Salvade, both their men tired from the march, decided to pull back from the field and return to Camp Robertson several miles west.

The return however, was when everything got fucked up.

***

Rick led his men from the front, standing in front of the platoon-wide wedge formation. Rick was at the head of the platoon, and formed up with the reinforced 1st Squad. SGT Paul Cortez’s 2nd Squad was on his far left. Staff Sergeant Henderson was right behind him in the wedge and he remembered that Sergeant LaHoye was behind Henderson.

The area around them was a rather dense box of thin-trunked trees and on their left was a steep ridge in which the enemy could ambush them, and with perfect artillery and small arms coordination, could annihilate his force. But they didn’t have all that, right? Rick noted this and told his men to ‘watch the ridge on the left’ because the worst thing that could happen now was a full-scale ambush from that advantageous ridge.

The platoon stepped on dead and fallen leaves as they moved through the forest. The woods reminded several soldiers of their homes or their vacation villa, and this particular area reminded Corporal Harnettson of his uncle’s sawmill in Wisconsin.

“Damn” He said. “This place looks like where I came from.” He had a southern dialect in his speech.

“Nah, I’d have to disagree, Hexon.” Kindmill, who was right in front of him in the wedge formation. “Trees are too small, and ain’t no cute forest girls from the nearby highschool bein’ ‘round.” Kindmill, too had a southern accent, despite living on the Canadian border.

“Nearby highschool? Oh! You remember the time when we banged that girl from Nixon High? Hell yeah. Did that by the forest and nobody goddamn knew what the hell we was doing!” said Harnettson. “God damn.” Harnettson’s squadmates that were near him laughed, with those who were a bit too serious on stuff only grinning.

“Fucking Hexon” a ranger said, and Harnettson, trying to imitate his drill sergeant, went on. “Who said that? Who dare say that to me!” the squad laughed. Even though the jokes were sometimes daft and dumb, Dagger 21 was always a happy group of men. And happy meant high-morale.

Then Sergeant Henderson went into the radio. “Guys better keep focused. We got a potential ambush on a ridge less than 200 meters on our left.”

“Roger that, sir.”

The platoon kept walking for around a hundred meters until PFC of LaHoye’s team, realized some kind of weird piece of metal popping out of the ground. While Harnettson kept making the squad laugh, Munro was half-dead worried whether that was an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) or not. The Private First Class, just right behind Big-eyed Harnettson, tried to ignore the piece of metal springing out of the ground, and kept walking.

He thought of it as they advanced a mere 25 meters from the IED, when suddenly the ground behind them shook with an explosion. What Munro saw earlier, was an IED.

Rick asked on the radio after the blast, in which no one seemed to be harmed. “We all okay?”

Team leaders checked on their team members. They were all okay.