There was a crackle on the radio.

Everybody stopped drinking whichever of the th ree obligatory Red-White-And-Blue beers they had in their hands and somebody, th e RTO, I think, said, Its just Redcon 3 manmight wanna finish off your beers, in cas e it changes. The enlisted men in the platoon were in a long, low, rickety building made of ei ghty year old, paint peeled plywood. Holes and torn screens and screen doors all owed excellent starting points for the many types of vermin that infested these billets on Empire Range, in Panama, late December, 1989. There were about thirty cots in the dwelling. It was wide enough to allow two me n to walk abreast down its center, with those cots head to toe pointing towards that center aisle. About fifteen cots on either side. I was the new guy here. Sure, until two months ago, I was stationed here in Pana ma, right over the Canal at Fort Clayton. Then, I PCSd to Fort Polk, Louisiana an d got turned around and sent right back. I was kinda nervous about that, about be ing seen here again by some people in my old unit, but thats another story. I wasnt getting a lot of credit from the guys in this platoon yet. They didnt know me, and Id been light Infantry my last three years; this was a Mech unit. Big guns and tracked vehicles. I had no idea how they worked. I was used to bein on-the gr ound. Sure, some things always stay the same, but some things require a little thought , even when you know what youre doin. Id been here two days. I already didnt like the Section Sergeant, Sergeant Samuals . A big, black blowhard who was extensively overweight and shouldnt even be in th e Army, not with that great Buddha belly. Not in my last unit. He was just too f at to lead; yes, there is such a thing. The first sergeant, also a black-hispani c man, would have given him one shot to lose the weight and then chaptered him o ut when he failed. Its not entirely heartless, I did it. I lost 50 pounds to stay in the Army. But, he was strong, Ill give him that. Just not able to run a hundred yards witho ut havin a heart attack. He was also a coward, which Ill illustrate later. And bec ause I can do that, he hated me ever afterward. A guy leaned over to me from his cot and said, Dude, you need to suck down those beers before the Redcon goes to 2, or youre gonna lose em. I gotchaIm just tryin to put together my gear, man. I said, and I was doing just that. Id just gotten my personal equipment just hours before and was thrust into this platoon this very day. I knew no one. No one knew me. A Newbie, even if I was a Specialist and had an Air Assault Badge. Just a newbie. The guy who gave me the advice was wearing his PT uniform and had a bandage wrap ped around his right upper thigh. Apparently, he had been chucking his bayonet i nto the wooden ceiling, just above his bunk, and forgotten about it after a beer or two, the day prior. The bayonet wiggled loose and, end-over-end, described a perfectly executed Olympic dive into his leg when hed passed out that eveningthuc k! Coulda been his nuts; close call. His screams woke up the entire encampment. I heard about it on the ride over here from their Battalion Headquarters. Now, a ll bayonets were taken away from the lower enlisted and put into the arms room. I didnt even have magazines for my weapon yet. No ammo, eitherthat was on the trac ks, though. My rifle was little better than a club, for all practical purposes.

Yeah, you know we have to take all that shit with us on a sandflea if they call it. He said. A sandflea was a practice alert status. Wed all get our shit, jump on our vehicles and move out to staging areas designated by whatever the battle plan happened to be. They hadnt gone to Redcon 1 but once, several weeks before, and theyd rolled aroun d the whole area, tryin to feel out the lay of the land. The unit had been here a few months. Theyd relieved another Battalion from the same Brigade on Polk at th at time. A buddy of mine had been with that unit; Id seen him while I was still s tationed here and hed rotated through. Now, it was 4/6 Infantry, 5th Infantry Div ision. I half-heartedly took a swig of my open beer and the radioman yelled, Redcon 2! R edcon 2! And everybody seemed to freeze in place. I started to gather my equipmen t up in a rush. The guy next to me, Crawford, the self-stabber, said, Dont worry a bout it, man. We go to 2 all-the-time. And the radioman said, Redcon 1! Redcon 1! and everyone started to move. Everybody grabbed their equipment and ran out the door, towards the gun-tracks. I was the last man out with all my shit still half put together. I had no idea who I was supposed to report to. I wasnt even assigned a squad, yet . I found the heavy SSG Samuals and asked him, Hey Sergeant? Where do I go? Who d o I report to? He looked at me as if I was a tree sloth and said, Newbie. You throw your shit in the back of my HMMV and ride with us. And he turned to give something else his a ttention. There was a lot of movement in the dark there. I felt pretty useless without any ammunition, not even a bayonet! And here we were, apparently rollin into action. Jesus Christ, I said to myself, Ill die without even bein able to shoot back! I watched as vehicle crews rushed to load whatever last minute supplies ded. I watched as the leaders of those vehicles ordered their people to o critical tasks. I watched as the movement of an entire Battalion Task gan to gain momentum, like a huge, ponderous machine that has thousands moving parts. And I had no job yet. SSG Samual noticed me, again. He said, angrily, Specialist, get in the back of th e vehicle. I did. I had my equipment on and waited. What began to run through my mind were all the possible ambush areas along the route out of this range complex, where Id trained for three years, and how these guys knew nothing about where they were heading. Hell, Id been on both sides of ambushes on the road out of here dozens o f times. Theres only one road. I hoped everything really was a surprise to the Guads. Even a bunch of jokers like the Guads, La Guardia, Noriegas paramilitary police f orce, could set up a decent ambush. The vehicle started. they nee attend t Force be of tiny

Another soldier hopped into the back, right over the closed tailgate. He rolled and sat down on the bench seat across from me. It was the radioman from the bill ets, Specialist Craig. In a very southern drawl, he said, Hey States. Looks like it might be for-real th is time! I said, Cool, but I need some ammo, man. You got any you can spare? Nope. He said. That statement forever tainted my opinion of Craig. I just looked at him. Here I was, likely the best shot in this fucking company, and I had no ammo. I shook my head, looked to the front of the HMMV and asked the Section Sergeant, Samuals, Sergeant, can I get some ammo? He looked disturbed by my talking to him at all and said, Youll get some when we g et to the staging area, now shut the fuck up. That statement soured me to Samuals even more than his huge, out-of-regs, fat-as s. I was a Specialist, though, so I shut up. We drove behind a convoy of tracks and HMMVs and trucks to a location somewhere safe, I believe near Albrook AFB, for the Order. When the vehicles pulled into t he Assembly Area, I didnt really recognize it, it still being dark and having rid den in a covered HMMV, in the bed of the truck. But as soon as we hit the ground there, SSG Samuals was gone. He left no instruc tions, so I went to the various Mortar Gun Tracks and started begging for ammo. I was finally in luck and got seven 30 round magazines from a few different guys . I was so relieved. Youll never know. I was just happy we hadnt been hit enroute. These guysthis platoon, wasnt really that well trained. There are a lot of things they just didnt do, that Id seen done before and couldnt understand. For one thing, they didnt tell the lower enlisted guys anything. The sergeants we re all in-the-know, but the soldiers knew next to nothing. Thats not good. I think the sergeants thought that knowledge was powersomething like that. What t hey didnt seem to know was that the real power was in sharing knowledge, not in h iding it. In this assembly area, what should have been happening was an orders process and the information should have gone to every man in the platoon. That didnt happen at all. The Platoon Sergeant, SFC Fedd, seemed to think that something should get to the soldiers, but what he told us was not informative, it was kinda a pep talk. In i t, he told us that a lot of men were probably gonna die that night, and he didnt s ay much else. So the entire H-hour sequence was known only to the Squad Leaders and for the ma jority of the platoon, it was gonna be discovery learning.

I wasnt happy with this kind of unit at all. But, you gotta work with what you got . Find the best there, and pull them in to make something better. Everybody was on a track, including me. At least I had a home now. My squad cons isted of three guys who were cross-leveled from a Tanker Battalion, and me as th e ammo bearer, since I had no idea of what I was doing on a mechanized, 4.2 Inch M ortar system. But I could do the ammo-bearer shit. Its the least job in the squad , but necessary. Aside from providing local security to the gun track, the ammo-bearer cuts chang es (determines and emplaces nitroglycerin propellant charges on each mortar roun d) and runs poles on occupations (runs out and sticks aiming poles in the ground for the gun site to have a reference point to aim from). I could do all that. T hat doesnt change much between systems. Too easy. My Squad leader was a forgettable sergeant named Simpson. There was a driver, Fo rrester, a tall, lanky, slow talkin Gary Cooper type. There was a Hispanic dude n amed Vasquez, he was the gunner. The best man there was Forrester, and aside from me, he had the least say in wha t went on in that track. We started moving. It was still very dark, very late at night. I started to reco gnize where we were going and felt a little better. There was a back gate to For t Clayton and the adjoining Air Force Base, Albrook. They were two different ins tallations, but their back gates were only a few hundred meters apart. We were h eading up that road, but entered a side gate to a school that bordered Albrook A irfield. We entered the school property by crashing the 14 ton lead guntrack thr ough the chained gates of the school. As we entered the grounds and shot to the fence line that separated the airfield from the school grounds, a group of vehic les, trucks full of other troops mostly, and some APCs, continued on that roadwa y towards those back gates of Clayton and Albrook. I discovered, this being the first time I ever rode in a guntrack, that I didnt l ike it at all. I felt like a huge target and all those HE (high explosive) round s in the track didnt make me feel any better. Sure, Id carried the rounds on my ba ck when I was light, but not being in control of where I was going, and not being able to depend on myself for personal survival skillsthat disconcerted me a bit. Sure, riding was better than walking, but living was better than dying, too. The vehicles, our vehicles, now took up a sort of rough semi-circle and the Plat oon Leader, LT Manausa, and the Platoon Sergeant and some of the FDC personnel d ismounted and began talking in earnest in the middle of the formation. From where I stood, in the back of my gun track, I could see the Airfield beyond the fence. There was another fence a few hundred meters Northwest, in much bett er repair. That was the proper border of the Airfield. Between that and the property of the school, was a large open area. Past that and the airfield, were the buildings and housing on that airbase. I got off my gun track and sidled up as close as I could get to where the leader s were talking about the upcoming mission. It was dark, but I could still make o ut a few worried expressions on the men clustered around the map they shared. The Platoon Sergeant was saying, Im just saying that were gonna have to do it fast, if they have RPGs, one hit and well lose at least two tracks. It looks to be abou t a half mile. Thats a long way to be tracked by these motherfuckers if theyre rea dy for us. I dont like it.

The Platoon Leader said, Yeah, but we dont have any other way to get there. We got ta just go balls-to-the-wall and hope for the best. I dont like it either, but I d ont see any other way. Apparently, our firing position, to cover the battalion, was on the other side o f the airfield. One of the Squad leaders walked away from the others, clearly concerned. He walk ed to his gun and started talking to his troops. They said theres enemy teams already out there, waiting. I just dont know where, ex actly. This sucks. said SFC Fedd. Manausa said, We move in 20 minutes, any way you cut it. Thats the orders. Sir? I said. He and SFC Fedd both looked at me, tiredly. Sirif you want to get on the far side of that airfield, theres another way. I said. Its the new guy. Said SFC Fedd. I spoke quickly, Sergeant, I was stationed here the last three years. If we take the road we just came in on about two miles up further, theres a gate , a back ga te onto the post. We can hook a left onto it and be on the other side of that ai rfield. Ive been there. States? Thats it, right? Show me. And he offered me the map. I showed him the back gate and the road we were just on. I pointed on the map, Im tellin you, sir, theres a gate right there. No bullshit. And he said, Youre sure? Sir, I can point it out to you. We can go there right now. And we did. LT Manausa said, Lets go. And he turned around to SFC Fedd and said, Get them ready to move and Ill be on the radioshould only be a few minutes. I got into his HMMV along with him and his driver. We tore out of the playground hed been parked in and flew out the gate. We took a left outside and onto the pa ved single lane road and accelerated North. Id never been in a HMMV moving that f ast before, the engine screamed. In no time we were approaching the back gates o f Fort Clayton and Albrook. I pointed left and yelled at the LT, Sir, thats it rig ht there! There was a sign that said, Albrook and a set of security gates chained together. Beyond that, there was a road clearly going in the right direction. The LT grabb ed the hand mike of the vehicle mounted radio and called the Platoon, Boomer 4 th is is Boomer 6 actual, initiate movement. I will be stationed parallel to the en trance and he began to describe the situation to the Platoon Sergeant. Roger, Boomer 6, were enroute. said SFC Fedd. Alright Statesafter we get in there, which way do we go? Asked the LT.

Sir, just follow the road about a mile and youll come out with the Air force housi ng area on your right and the airfield on your left. Past that, I dont know where you want to set up. I said. He grabbed the hand mike again and called the platoon, Boomer 4, this is Boomer 6 actual, when you get to my location, halt the lead vehicle next to my location, over. Boomer 6, roger, out. said the platoon sergeant. I could hear the tracks coming. Then I could feel them. Theyre only 14 ton vehicl es, but thats a lot for herefor this roadway. They came around the heavily woodedor jungledcorner and stopped dead next to the H MMV. The LT jumped out of the vehicle and talked to the Squad Leader, gesturing wildly at the gate and jumped back into the HMMV. The gun track pivoted and accelerated through the gate, taking the right side ga te and framework with it. It drove about fifty meters inside the entryway and st opped. The LTs driver gunned the vehicle and we chased and passed the lead gun t rack as the others began to follow. We pulled well ahead as the LT scanned every thing he could in front of us and checking out his lensatic compass every few se conds.. Everything that just happened, from the time I talked to the LT back in the scho olyard until this moment might have taken 15 minutes. We were on-track, is all I could think. But he still seemed to be in one hell of a hurry. I dont blame him. It would take a few minutes to get the platoon set once he found a firing positio n. That is, for us to take missions, wed have to occupy a firing position; that t akes at least 4 minutes, at least, for a hip-shot. An emergency mission. The road had dense jungle lining both sides, but now, after a minute, it opened up and before us, on the left, was the airfield. On the right, airmens housing. T he road was sitting on a fill, that is, the airfield was down slope on one side, the housing downslope, on the other. The LT was looking at his compass in the direction of the airfield. He saw a pat h leading down towards the housing side and told his driver to stop the vehicle. He directed him just past that path, a double tracked access way, it looked lik emaybe for maintenance personnel. We parked and the LT jumped out of the HMMV as we just began to hear the approaching whine of gun-track engines. The guns broke out of the woodline and the LT started waving them to him. The first guntrack slowed as it approached him and he gestured down on the housi ng side of the berm that the road was on. He also directed towards Panama City a nd the airfield, both the same direction, indicating the guns general directionof-fire. The squad leader of number 1 gun shot down the slope. The other guns followed. It was a good choice in a firing point, I thought. Ther e was defilade and the gun line was hidden from the bad guys business side. Of course, they might just have seen us drive in. I think they did. Six 107mm Mortar gun-tracks rolled into that location and all pivoted so that th eir ass-end faced the direction of fire. They were all on-line. They were only, maybe, twenty meters apart. Far too close, tactically. Ideally, the platoon should have been spread across about 350 meters from one-gu n to six gun, with the others in-between. Or they should have been staggered, li

ke a great big W. Theres a lot of ways of emplacing guns that arent always used, bec ause of what seems like the necessity of the moment. But, the LT and the platoon only had scant minutes before missions might start coming. He wanted the platoo n up. SSG Samuals lumbered out of his HMMV and began walking up the side of the slope to a central location where all the guns could sight him so they could all be lai d in; set in the precise, nonnegotiable Direction of fire. He stood at the top of the rise now. This is something he didnt have to do, either. The gunners on each track could ha ve slipped their scales and sighted in on him elsewhere. So that he wasnt exposed, and the ammo-bearers werent exposed, to the enemys line of sight. But he didnt. Its a technique used by troops that have been in or prepared for com bat and a lot of guys are scared to do it, for fear of fucking up their readings and shooting out-of-the-box. It honestly just takes practice. Anyway, there we were. If you stood on the road, aligned center to the platoon, were it parallel to you below, youd see SSG Samuals in the middle of the grass, not far from you, with an aiming circle (it looks like a surveyors tripod) sighting in on each guns sights and him yelling gun data to each gun. The crews then are working to align the guns to the corre ct direction, to within one mil, or 1/6400th or a circle. There are men parallel to the gun line, one man per gun (the ammo bearer) on lin e with SSG Samuals, waiting for the guns to sight on them, after Samuals is comp lete, and they must stick two aiming poles, 100 meters and 50 meters, on line wi th the gun sight, as the gunner looks through the sight and guides him on where they belong. The gun cannot shoot otherwise, not an adjusting round, anyway. Wou ldnt be legal, or prudent. Probably kill the wrong people on that second round. So, at least seven men are standing around while the rest are in their tracks pr eparing to fire, once theyre set. This all takes only a very few minutes and is practiced all the time. Once the second pole is stuck, the ammo bearer runs back to the track and helps the crew prepare for missions. Theyre waiting, though, for SSG Samuals to give the guns their deflections (data) . Its dark, but then, as soon as I grabbed my poles, the explosions started to happ en. And tracers started flying in our direction, just above our heads, which were co nsiderably higher up than the rest of the platoon, which was several feet below us, down the small hill. I couldnt really see much y. I could barely make out s on my gun track, because minutes, with instructions except the outlines of the tracks, a hundred meters awa the Aiming Circles location. I had been keeping my eye the gunner should have been signaling me for several to stick, cant and move forward with the close-pole.

But nothing was happening. So Im still standing out there. The explosions are getting closer; I can hear the m on the airfield. The tracers are getting lower and on-line with my platoons pos ition. If I reached my hand up high, a round would possibly pierce it. And they get lower still. I begin to crouch, waiting for my gunner to signal me. Ive been maintaining noise discipline until now, but the rounds are falling ever cl oser, so I yell at my track and flash my red lens at them. No response. I stick my pole and run to where SSG Samuals is with the Aiming Circle, to find out the deal. I dont see him. I see the Aiming Circle. Its about four feet tall on top of a tripod. The cover i snt on it, so I know the section isnt laid or ready to fire. The tracers are getting even closer, now. I crouch as I continue toward the Circle. And I finally see SSG Samuals. Hes laying on the ground, under the Aiming Circle, with his hands covering his he ad.

Sergeant Samuals! I yell. Sergeant Samuals! Is the section up? Whats the deal? Ive bee standing out here for-like-fifteen minutes? He mumbles something into the ground. What? I said. I aint getting my head shot off! I heard him say. Shit. I said. Shit. And I realized that I couldnt do anything. I didnt know how to operate an Aiming C ircle. Thats usually the section Sergeants job and they held that stuff close to t he vest. Damn. I said. Im goin to my track, Sergeant. Go. He mumbled into the dirt. I ran down to my gun track. I reach for the door, and its locked. Locked. Bullets start to ricochet near me. I have no idea where theyre comin from. I crouc h and look around and bang my rifle against the back hatch of the track. Hey! I ye ll, Hey, open up! Its States! This is what I hear from the over side of the door, as bullets ricochet around m e; Vasquez yells back, No way, man! I aint openin that door. I only got a month til I ETS and Im outa here! Shit! I say. More bullets whiz past me. I still cant see where theyre comin from.

I look down, I know theyre comin from behind me, so I figure Ill her side of the track. I crawl under the back of the vehicle, which od cover from small arms fire, by the way, and I come out the front I look up and see Forrester sitting there, eating an apple, back to the track.

just get on the ot is pretty go of vehicle. the front of

He looks at me and smiles. He says, in his low, friendly drawl, Guess they locked you out, too. Jesus Christ! I said, What kinda bullshit is that? What kind of unit is this? I looke d around. I was now squatting next to Specialist Forrester on the front side of the track. We were number 3 gun, halfway in the sheaf or line of guns. In front of the line of tracks, which were only about twenty meters apart, was a group of m odest homes, usually inhabited by Airmen of one kind or other. Base housing. The first house was only about 75 meters away. As I looked toward those houses, to my left were two more gun tracks, the furthe st being about 50 meters away. To my right were three more, the far one, 6 gun, wa s about 80 to a hundred meters away. All of them looked locked up tight. Even the FDC track looked closed for business, and their ramp was usually down. I could see an occasional soldier around some of the tracks, but I was thinking about security. No one was watching out for bad guys. Nobody. I looked at Forrester. I said, you know, they locked us out because were takin a li ttle fire, but they arent even watchin out to see if anybody creeps up on us? I me an, I would, if I were a Guad. They aint thinkin very far, but theyre fucked up. What do you expect? said, Forrester . I wasnt too surprised he was a little disenchanted with his platoon right now. There wasnt a single leader in sight. OKthen we have to look, man. I said, Stay put, Ill be back. I ran down the gun line, first, to the right, to six gun. I didnt find anybody th ere. I turned around and hit five-gun and found a soldier sittin on the side of t he track. I motioned for him to follow me, and he did. I hit all the guns and fo und three more troops and brought them all back to Forrester. There were occasio nal tracers flying overhead and some ricochets, but none of it seemed well aimed . It seemed kinda random to me. This is what we need to do, guys. Until these people get their shit together, we need to keep an eye on things. Im gonna go up to that tree there and I pointed to a tree at the top of the slope, on the far right side of the gun line, about 150 o r 200 meters away. and Im gonna look and see whats goin on out in the airfield. When I get back, we gotta set up some security. I finished and nodded. They all nodded b ack. I ran straight across the slope, crouching lower and lower as my head got closer to being on-line with the top of the rise. I could hear explosions and small ar ms fire, tat-tat-tatting at a distance. I could hear the deeper, slower use of . 50 cals, too. But it was all elsewhere, not right here, which was kinda a relief. The last twenty meters, I was level with the top of the rise and got down on the ground and high-crawled to the tree. I scooted myself up to its base and along i ts left side, My legs and feet pointed away from the tree and down toward the pla toon, a good six-to-ten feet lower in altitude than I was. I still couldnt see wh

ere the rounds comin in to our location could be coming from. I looked out at the airfield. I wish Id had binos or some kind of night vision device, but I could see some of what was going on. The tree was at the top of the hillside, like I said, but it was also just on th e border of that single lane road that came in through the back gate. The blackt op was only about 15 feet wide and then there was grass, cut short (thank God th e Airforce leaders were such anal retentive area-beautification fags) and I coul d see the tops of a couple hanger-like structures and that famous airfield. The tops of those buildings were only a couple hundred meters away. The airfield began just beyond them. I could see tracers lancing across the field, parallel to our gun line. I could see some seemingly random fires burning, not crazy fire s, small ones. I saw an explosion about 500 meters away, maybe a mortar round, I dont know. And in the distance, I could see what I figured was Panama Citys gener al area; there was a lot of flashing, gauzy lighting going on there. There must be a good fight happening there. I saw one of our gunships shooting 20mm down towards the city. The light tracing of that gunfire seemed to go on forever. I wouldnt want to be a bad guy out ther e. Except for the automatic fire happening on that Airfield, I didnt see anything cr azy coming our way, but I couldnt even tell if the guys shooting were ours, or Gu ads. Daylight should be coming soon, maybe in another hour or two. I very deliberately visually inspected everything, making my eyes take a prepare d course, so I could report what I saw, if I needed to. Left flank to right, and back again. I turned over onto my back and looked back towards the platoon, and five soldier s were all in the prone, unmoving, nearly at my feet. I was immediately annoyed. I scooted down the few feet to be amongst them and said, Guys! One fucking grenad e! One, and all the guys whore out watchin for this platoon are fucking dead. They looked at each other and started to spread out. No. I said. You. And I pointed at one kid and motioned him forward, next to me. I se t him where Id been watching. I told him to keep and eye on the buildings beyond the roadway and the slope on the other side. I told him to flash his light like a crazy man in my direction if he saw anything that looked weird or like the ene my. I told him if any Hispanic looking guys in uniforms that didnt look like ours crested that hill in front of him, that they were likely the enemy and that he should probably kill as many as possible. The gunfire would bring the rest of us to him, and I planned on another guy being able to give him some good cross-fir e from the left flank. I told him Id be back. I rolled down and started running b ack toward the cover of the front side of the nearest track, taking the other fo ur guys with me. I found cover for all of them and gave them directions on where to watch. SSG Sa muals was no longer under the Aiming Circle, but I had no idea where he went; pr obably, the FDC track. I made rounds to all of them one more time, before I started looking for the Pla toon Sergeant. I went to the HMMVs of both the PL and PSG. Empty.

I went to the FDC track. Its an M577, a large, tall, aluminum-armored box on trac ks with a whole slew of antennae sticking off it. I banged on the rear hatch doo r; no answer. I remember thinking how impossible this seemed. How insane. Daylight was beginning to break, and with it, the silence from my leaders. I had just finished a round of checks on the guys on the four points of our peri meter and was leaning against my gun tracks front, the trim vane, when I heard th e squeak-creak of a track hatch begin to open, then another and another. The top track hatches allowing the Mortars to be put into firing configuration w ere all opening up. I actually saw soldiers pushing them all into position. Lock ing them down. The FDC track dropped its back hatch. Orders came out of the FDC via SSG Samuals, Get ready to lay in! And he walked, sa untered, in his chubby way, to the aiming circle. Aiming point this instrument! he yelled. Aiming point identified! each gunner intoned as they drew up their sights on the a iming circle. And things progressed from there. We were preparing to take missions. I went to my track and told my gunner, You and me, sport. When the shit is over and done wi th, Im going to beat your cowardly fucking ass. It wont be here, but itll Be. And I ran out to the aiming poles to lay in my gun. All was prepared and the ammunition was getting readied. Our maximum charge was identified and each round out was cut to that propellant level. The order to cut ALL ammunition and place it outside the tracks for a quicker feed to the tubes was given. Thats a lot of ammunition. Thats a lot of ammunition on the ground, outside the track. Each round weighs 35 to 40 pounds, theres over 80 rounds per track. Missions still seemed about to begin. It was getting hot out. The heat in Panam a is no joke, any time of year. Everyone was ready. Everything was poised on the edgeand BOOM! Not 300 meters to our south. A mortar explosion. A round impact. Everyone stoppe d doing whatever they were doing. Shit, I thought, and looked at the ammo. Shit. There were boxes loaded just with the excess nitroglycerin charges everywhere. About two minutes went by BAWOOOOM!! Another mortar round, not 200 meters to our North. Shrapnal whizzed overhead. We were being bracketed! Bad guys were bringing the rounds to us. Shit!

SFC Fedd started to screamPut the ammo back in the tracks!! and he jumped in his HM MV and LEFT. The FDC started up his track and LEFT! The LT got into his HMMV and LEFT! The gun bunnies were frantically throwing their rounds into the tracks. It was u n-fucking-believable. About halfway through this upload another round landed abo ut 150 meters to our Southwest. They hadnt called a Fire For Effect yet, thank Go d. They didnt have a perfect bead on us yet. But it sounded like it was another b ig mortar, not a toy. Long minutes loading the tracks. Men were screaming curses at the leaders and we re dreading their enlistments, thats for sure. I was busy capping tubes and tossi ng rounds up to Vasquez and Forrester, like a lunatic. Lune-a-fucking-tic. I hav e never felt more exposed to enemy fire, ever. I have never felt a greater dread that I was going to be blown to shit any second. Ever. Fear motivated every man outside the tracks. I honestly was hyped. I wasnt so muc h scared yet, as I was desperate to get the track loaded and get on it; so when it happened, and Vasquez told me to get in, I was shaking from adrenaline overlo ad. I pulled airguardsecuritywhile we moved, pointing my weapon over top the hatches as I aimed at potential target areas. My chest and upper body exposed. I have n ever been more desperate in my life, before or since. Never. I felt like the big gest target, with a great, fat Bulls eye painted on my fucking Kevlar. Moving up the road, we heard another round impact where wed just been. It seemed to take forever for us to find the PL and PSG, about a mile up the roa d. The tracks pulled into what looked like a construction site and took up a tem porary perimeter. There was a port-a-john off to one side. I told my squad leade r I had to take a shit and it was the greatest effort of my life to walk to that shitter and step inside without falling. I opened the door, stepped inside, put the lid down on the shitter and sat down with my head in my hands and got my shit together. It took me about two minutes to stop shaking and I was out again. After that, I was good. Just needed a minut e. Being a mortar on the outgoing side is definitely better than being on the recei ving side. That night, elements of our Battalion stormed La Comandancia and rescued America ns held captive there. Strategic targets were destroyed or captured all across the isthmus. Ten thousan d Airborne troops were dropped on Noriegas head and he had taken residence in one of his command centers, while psyops played heavy metal music at ear-piercing l evels right outside, waiting for him to appear and tell them to knock-it-off. At dual-guarded gates, when H-Hour hit, the American soldiers at those entryways turned to their Guad counterparts and shot them through the head. Guads at gates trying to stop tracked American vehicles were run over most perfu nctorily. We were told to go and support the Scouts at one location near Amador. Amador wa s Guad barracks and military post. Id actually landed inside there months before in a Blackhawk, with the rest of my unit at the time, and the orders were: kill

everything, if they shoot one round at us. We landed right outside their barracks. They did not shoot. They didnt even come out to play. We flew away. Damn. Anyway, our unit was therethis new unit. They pulled their tracked vehicles up to their billeting area and pulled out the loudspeakers and bull horns. They (We) offered the Guads inside their billets the chance to surrender. They d id not reply. The buildings were two story and beautifully built in the Spanish-south American standard, with red clay shingles and outside terraces that surrounded each floo r. White stucco walls and heavy wooden doors. They were connected and arranged a s semi-circular dwellings, shaped like huge Us and our tracks stood at the opening of that U. When the Guads continued to be non-responsive, fifty-caliber machine guns atop e ach track exploded into action and walked the beaten zone of their rounds into the heavy, first floor double-doors of each building, turning them to splinter-like shrapnel. Simultaneously, AT-4 rocket launchers were fired into the walls near the windows of these buildings. The rockets would pierce the walls and explode i nside the buildings. After this initial barrage, the Guads inside these buildings that were still ali ve, all surrendered. One thing I noticed working with the Scout Platoon that did this, their NCOs wer e always with their soldiers. Always. That was so different than my new platoon it was scary. Scary for my fellow junior enlisted. Scout NCOs felt a sense of ow nership toward their people. The Mortar NCOs did not. These things all came to shape a lot of my own philosophies on leadership. They drove some of my behavior. Anyway, The Scout NCOs pulled guard with their soldiers. The Mortar NCOs did not . Our NCOs pulled 4 hours of radio watch and then had 16 hours off. The soldiers pulled 4 hours on, 4 hours off. It was a bear, after several days o f no-sleep. While I was on guard, we had a few occasions to take prisoners. I remember once, during this time, finding a guy acting suspiciously near my pos t. I apprehended him at gunpoint and called the command. A HMMV was sent to my l ocation, with an additional guard and a relief for my guard post. He was to be taken for interrogation. I really dont understand the either apparen t or feigned confusion on the part of prisoners in situations like this, cmon Clearly, theres something resembling a war going on. Would any innocent bystander w alk around armed men from another country, who are in uniform, and act suspiciou sly, sneakily, surreptitiously? Would you? Or would you just stay the fuck home? I would keep a low profile, myself.

So, when I saw this guy sneakin around my guard postand I mean sneakinlike a kid sne akin up on his friends playin hide-and-seek, I called my Sergeant-of-the-Guard (SO G) and snuck up on him. I about scared the poop right out of him. Maybe he did p oop a little. Manos arriba, mi amigo. I said from behind him. He jumped a little. His shoulders slumped. We were behind the corner of a building near my guard post. I had maint ained a low profile when I saw him playin Spy-vs-Spy and used the available build ings to cover my location and get right up on his ass. I shoved him against the wall and pushed down on his shoulders with my left hand , while I stuck my weapon up to the back of his head. He went to his knees, facing the wall. I motioned him to quiet himself, because he seemed excitable. Oh well. He was about my size, dark haired and a little worse-for-the-wear looking. His p ockets, he was wearing blue polyester slacks, seemed stuffed with something heav y. He had on a flowery-pastel looking touristy shirt, but that was a common styl e here. Wait, I said, Esperamos. And we did. An open-backed HMMV rolled up and Specialist Craig hopped off and ra n over to me. SPC Crawford was on the back of the HMMV. I told Craig, Thats my pos t right there and he cut me off. I know. I know. He said, testily. Craig was like an old man whose been interrupted while in the middle of a championship checker game. I told him, Fine, fuck-you-very-much. And I pulled the prisoner to his feet and led him to the HMMV. In it went the pr isoner. We had cuffs of no kind, so I motioned him harshly to the floor and set my feet on the back of his legs. I made him place his hands behind his head. It was gonna be a rough ride for him. Crawford said, Why do you have to treat him so rough, man? Its a fucking War, dumbass. What if he wanted to knife you or something? Check his pockets, Ill make sure he stays still. And I tapped the man on the back, got eye contact and made a stay-still gesture, pointing a V with my left hand from my eyes t o his face, Im-watching-you. I pointed my rifle at his face. He stayed still. Crawford pulled his pockets ins ide out and found about ten rolls of quarters in them. He held them up for me to see. I said, He probably just looted that shop next to the guard post. Thats what Im gue ssinbut the guys at Battalion can figure him out. Crawford continued to have that Im-sorry expression for the prisoner. I gave him a little Hell, Lookevery guy whos out doing the wrong thing right now, w hen things are really dangerousdo you think they should be trusted? Treated like a regular citizen? Theyre tryin to get somethin for nothin, man. At the very least, theyre criminals. Shit, we can turn this guy over to his own cops, eventually, bu t hes a thief, at least. Dont even fuckin doubt that hed cut your throat for twenty bucks, cause he would. The dude on the bed of the HMMV smiled at me. Look at him. Il

l bet he knows exactly what Im sayin, too, motherfucker. And I stepped a little har der on the back of his leg, making the guy wince. Crawford looked a little chastened. I said, Whats important right now isnt this guy, its watchin out for your buddies and doin the right thing. Were not taking anything from this guy, except his Time, un less he gets really fucking stupid. Like if he tries to jump outa this vehicle I made him look at me, the Panamanian, an d continued, Then Id have to shoot him. Muerte. Matador, motherfucker. The HMMV sped along towards the Battalion Headquarters. A lot had gone on in the last couple dayswhen I got to the Headquarters area, I h eard some of the rumors floatin around. I knew that they got Noriega. Id heard that theyd found huge quantities of cocaine and cash and voodoo shit, paraphernalia, in his big house out on the causeway. The same house I know Postoak and Hogan had tried to get into the year before, to have a couple of beers with Noriega. Theyd done it on a lark, just to be able to say they did. Theyd ended up in jail for a few hours. I heard that there was a lot less money laid out in that house after some of the troops went through it, but a lot of protective masks seemed to have been lost, leaving large, empty containers on a lot of soldiers at the time. Id heard that one of the platoon sergeants I knew from my old Unit had executed a bunch of DENI agents, just lined them up and mowed them down against the wall of their building with an M60 machine gun. Id heard d saved a cover and , I think that Cabacar, a guy from my last unit, along with another kid I knew, ha bunch of civilians under fire in a parking lot downtown, by providing actually snatching them up and carrying them to safety. The kid, Davis his name was, was wounded in the leg.

There was a guy they called Alphabet whod been shot in the head after hed jumped in with the 82nd, whod been left for dead, who survived because the AK-47 round glan ced off his K-pot and just knocked him out. One of our own people, CPL Perez, wasnt so lucky, and a round penetrated his K-po t and killed him, instantly. A lot of information. Everything was buzzineverybody was busy. We dropped the pri soner off with the S-2 fags and sorta hung out until some of the Senior Sergeants started to look at us like we were potential slave labor (which we were) and we un-assed the AO and returned to our own CP.