2/19th Special Weapons Group Barracks
Restricted Area - Western Germany
Early Winter - 1986/1987
Day: One of Incident

Rear Detachment was drawn up while the strutting martinet they'd left in charge walked back and forth in front of us in his Class-A uniform, and the rest of us stood at attention in our Class-A's waiting for him to get done with his lecture on just how Rear-D was going to be run.

"...not having any of you fuck this up..." he was blathering. I was only paying half-assed attention to him, instead checking the faces of the other eighteen people around me aside from Bomber, Nagle, the LT, and Sergeant Tee. Bomber stood on my left, Nagle in between us. He'd arranged us into 5 man "squads" (which was like half the fucking size of my squad) and put what few NCO's there were in charge.

...Assholes...

"...check in at 2100, and CQ will be doing bed checks at zero hours, formation every morning down here at zero six for PT." He stopped and turned to face us. Only thing worse than an ROTC butterbar was a shiner (1st LT, a nice shiny silver bar to replace the hunk of butter. Most of them seemed to spent a lot of time shining it on their softcap) with a bright new rank pin. He tried glaring at all of us, but it looked more like he had to take a leak real bad then anything else.

"Everyone will stay in their rooms, unless I personally authorize a switch in rooms." He said, then nodded at Staff Sergeant Terrance. "Go ahead and assign them details from the list I gave you." He told him. T saluted him, which he seemed pleased about, and we all watched as he returned the salute then walked away.

"All right, guys and girls, the Lieutenant has some barracks maintenance he wants done. I'm going to divide you up by squads to go ahead and handle it." T said. "First squad?"

"Here, Sergeant." I snapped out.

"You, Specialist Nagle, and Specialist Bomber are to report to his office." He told me, and Bomber groan beside me.

That was never good. I didn't know jack or shit about the LT, except since he'd shown up right after the roads got cleared for about 72 hours and everyone abandoned us to go on Christmas leave he'd been nothing but a Grade-A asshole. Some Worst Cav fucker with a serious attitude that seemed to say "We did it differently in First Cav..." right before he gave some retarded suggestion that fucked everything up.

I hated him with a passion.

Formation broke up, with people getting assigned jobs that were vital to national security like buffing the first floor hallway or scrubbing the tile in the stairwell to get the stains out of them (HAH! Fat fucking chance!) or taking inventory and readiness inspection of... the chairs in the day room.

"What do you suppose LT Wondurbar wants?" I grunted.

"Probably wants to know if Nagles tits taste as nice as they look." Bomber suggested.

"I'm going to kick you in the balls." Nagle snarled.

PFC Kebble was sitting behind her desk, sneering at us when we walked into the orderly room. She was sitting there in her Class-A's, showing off the AAM's and ARCOM's she gotten for sucking dick above and beyond the call of duty.

Oh, yeah, and losing everyone's paperwork.

Only thing dumber than an orderly room clerk was a tanker.

"Acting CO in?" I asked, unnecessarily. It was fucking snowing again. Ain't none of us were going anywhere.

"I'll check to see if the Commanding Officer." She said, her voice all sweetness and light. I restrained an urge to lean over the desk and punch her in fucking face. I couldn't prove it, but I knew she was the bitch who'd falsified the paperwork on us. Her sweet little smile while I tried to straighten everything out and the nasty little smirk she got when she thought I wasn't looking told me that.

She picked up her phone and slowly dialed the number, taking her sweet fucking time like the numbers kept shifting and she hate to wait for the randomization to finish. Her nails, easily an inch in length, were painted bright crimson, with a rhinestone on each one. By contrast, Nagle's nails were chipped, blackened, and she avoided fingernail polish unless it was the weekend or we were going on leave.

"Sir, Corporal Stillwater and his men are here to see you." The emphasis she put on the word and the way she looked at Nagle let us all know what she thought of Nancy.

Fuck. You. Whore. Nagle mouthed, then made a little O with her mouth and pushed her tongue against her cheek a few times.

"I'll tell them, Sir." She said sweetly, her face hard and eyes smoldering with hate. She hung up and looked at us for a long moment. "He said he's ready to see you."

Nagle opened her mouth and I grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her along with me. "Just leave it." I put my Class-A envelope hat into my left hand, thumb along the crease, knocked three times on the door and waited.

"Enter." Oh boy! I was being let into the promised land! I opened the door, marched neatly into the office, and stopped two paces from a chair that was at the front of the desk and facing the desk, came to attention, and saluted, holding the salute.

"Corporal Stillwater, PFC Nagle, Specialist Bomber, reporting as ordered." I stated, staring at the window behind him.

It was blank white. The snow was over it by about 10 feet.

He stared at me for a long time, making me wait, before finally returning the salute. A petty way of letting me know who was in charge. He had my Smith file and my PRP report on his desk, along with Bomber's and Nagle's. They were spread a hand width apart, each Smith File rotated just enough that we could tell it was our PRP report underneath it.

They were supposed to be secure documents. The PRP file was the Personnel Reliability Program file, a mandatory little piece of Cold War Bullshit containing everything from how we liked to fuck to who our teacher was in 3rd Grade, along with mental health analysis and all that fun stuff. It was supposed to be Eyes Only and required a special side clearance to be able to read. The Smith File was the notes that the CO took on you during your time in the unit. The PRP file was kept in the vault in the supply room, the Smith File in the CO's safe. At least he didn't have the Top File, which was the First Sergeant's file on you.

They were supposed to be for the commander of the unit only. I just knew he was going to spend the day down here reading everyone's file.

...Asshole...

We waited, he should have told us to stand at ease, or invited us to sit in one of the chairs, it was common courtesy.

A shiner never bothers with that, and First Cav probably didn't do it that way.

"You might be wondering why you are in here..." He started.

...You want to fuck me?...

"There are certain... details... (dun dun DUH!) I want to discuss with the three of you that I have found in your files." He smiled, and it wasn't a nice one.

...Nope, you want to fuck us...

"Take a seat, Corporal," The LT said, waving at the chair in front of his desk. He looked at Nagle and Bomber, "You two stand over there, against the wall, at Parade Rest.

Shit. This was going to be ugly.

"Is this an official inquiry, sir?" I asked.

He curled his lip at me, opening the PRP folder. I noticed the seal was broken and wondered if he was even going to get in trouble for that. "I'll ask the questions."

"I wish to invoke my," I started.

The LT slammed his hand down on the desk, his face turning red. "You still sit there in silence unless you answering my questions, Corporal!" he barked. I felt myself turn red too.

"Sir, I object to," I started again.

Again he slammed his hand down on the desk, but I kept speaking.

"Your language and request," he slammed his hand again, "a lawyer and my Article-31 rights."

His face was purple, and I figured he probably thought he was intimidating me.

Fuck him. I'd fought the best the Soviet Union could throw at us right here in this building, I wasn't scared of some First Cav...

My rage fell to ash, leaving me feeling empty and hollow.

"You will only speak to answer my questions," He snarled.

"Yes, sir," I could resist tweaking him, even if I felt nothing.

He waited a moment, then nodded. He looked down.

He asked me to verify my birthday, my SocialSecurity Number, my place of birth, my home of record, then began to ask morequestions.

----------------------

"Fucking asshole." Nagle snarled as we headed up the stairs. "I oughta stab his ass."

"Who the hell does he think he is asking me that?" Bomber growled,slamming a fist against the top of the railing and making the whole thing vibrate.

"He's just a goddamn shiner. Let it go." I said. I was still angry enough I was shaking. "Fucking Cav shithead. This ain't the World, this is goddamn Hell's Icebox."

"Confined to our rooms until further notice." Nagle snarled."We'll be ready to kill ourselves before a week is out." She snatched open the door to Titty Territory and stomped through without a word, leaving Bomber and me to head up the stairs to the third floor.

"Think we'll have time to hide our contraband?" Bomber asked when we pushed through the door and into the hallway. We hugged the wall so we didn't get in the way of the guy stripping the floor with a buffer and the green stripping pad. He nodded to us as we went by.

"We'll need to work fast." I told him. I opened the door to our room and Bomber headed to the dresser right off the bat, grabbing bottles."Leave some of the open ones, he knows we drink." Bomber nodded and grabbed a chair so he could climb up to the wall lockers set into the wall. I pulled unlocked and pulled open the top drawer of my 3-drawer chest, grabbing out a handful of my knives. I left the ones that didn't matter that much,making sure I grabbed the Russian bayonet and my Gerber, then moved over to the fridge, laying down on the floor. Bomber had pushed up the top of the wall locker and was setting the alcohol on top of the locker next to it. I reached back into the fridge and felt around till I found the gap above the compressor and began shoving my knives into the space. Barely enough room for the five ofthem, but better than nothing.

"Grab my uniform, I want to change real quick, it'll look like we were wasting time." I told him. He nodded and grabbed my keys, pulling open my wall locker and pulling out a fresh set of cold weather BDU's. They were ironed and creased, nicely starched and hardly worn. I always kept 4 sets of BDU's for garrison separate from my work uniforms. First trick I'd learned.

We hid what we could as fast as we could, then hid stuff we didn't care about in the obvious places. Under the mattresses, in our laundry bags, at the back of the bathroom cabinet, under our bed. Places any dipshit knows to check.

Not finding anything would make him suspicious.

We'd barely gotten dressed when the door opened up.

Bastard didn't even bother to knock...

Sergeant Tee followed him in, giving us an apologetic look at the breach of etiquette. The way he strutted into the room just pissed me off. He spent time checking the room for dust (HA! Fat chance!) then tossed the place, dumping out laundry bags, digging through our wall lockers, and opening up the mouthwash bottles to sniff them for alcohol. (Please, a real pro mixes vodka and cherry jello in a strawberry shampoo bottle... amateur)

"Why haven't you thrown this jacket away?" He asked at one point,standing in front of my civilian clothes locker. He was holding the sleeve of my old Levi jacket, holding the cuff between his thumb and forefinger with an expression of distaste. The sleeve was stained with old faded blood.

"Souvenir, sir." I answered.

He pulled it out of my wall locker by the hanger and looked at it. It had been stitched back together, but it was obvious that it had been cut apart at one point. Under the jacket was a T-shirt that was bloodstained. He made a noise of disgust and tossed it on Bomber's bed, then swept his eyes over the pictures I had taped to the inside of the wall locker.

Moving to Bomber's personal locker he stared for a long time at the pictures on his locker before giving it a cursory once over and walking back into the main room.

The whole time we'd stood at parade rest at the end of our respective beds.

"The two of you don't have a room mate?" He asked, somewhat unnecessarily, since the third bed was stripped.

"No, sir." We chorused.

He smiled again, and I felt my stomach drop out.

"That's perfect. That solves one of my problems neatly." He told us,that nasty smile reappearing.