Duty, Honor, Country       by: Brandy Dewinter

 

Chapter 1 - Tradition?

The lines of uniformed bodies stood patiently in sunlight brightly magnified by reflections from the acres of concrete ramp. They had little choice, orders were orders. Private Sanford "Sandy" Beech, a nineteen year old recruit in the infantry regiment, swayed a little in his position near one end of the second rank, almost nodding off despite the sweltering heat and the constant irritation of sweat dripping into his eyes and trickling down his back. Unlike some of his colleagues in uniform, Beech was reasonably well educated. He hadn’t been able to afford to go to college, hence his current "job". But he had been blessed with parents who challenged him far beyond what public schools required. At least, they had until they were wiped from the earth by a drunken driver, another contributor to his present situation. As he stood there feeling the sweat make his uniform gradually disintegrate into a shapeless mess, he was reflecting on the history of this particular military drill and how useless it was in today’s army, a thought that had been coming to him more and more as they waited.

Infantry inspection in ranks had started out when regiments were raised and paid by their colonel, who was in turn paid by the general (or more often prince) who had raised the army. The general would inspect each man to make sure that the count claimed by the colonel was correct and that none of the men were blind, or too diseased, or too crippled. It also helped if each man had at least some sort of weapon and either the colonel or the general would have to solve that problem for the ones without. In time, when movement of blocks of men became part of tactics, forming and holding lines became an important military skill and a precise formation became part of the inspection criteria. By that time, uniforms within a regiment had become standardized though each regiment was unique. The general’s inspection in that era was to ensure that he could recognize the regiment’s uniforms well enough to direct it properly. That, in conjunction with the military obsession for order and discipline, led to inspection for neatness and a high boot polish, items not really helpful in combat except as an indication of willingness and discipline to follow orders. That willingness was indeed a military virtue, but standing for over an hour in the hot sun on a burning plain of concrete was hardly a vital combat skill. And now, uniforms were standardized army-wide, weapons were issued from government arsenals, tactics were based on highly-flexible formations and training would weed out the physically inadequate. All of which made inspection in ranks either uselessly boring (to those who couldn’t or didn’t use the time to think) or actively irritating (to those who did). Beech would rather have been challenged by some sort of combat exercise if he was going to get hot and sweaty anyway.

Finally the troops heard the whopping sound of an approaching helo. Sergeants surreptitiously glanced down their ranks to make sure none of the soldiers were turning to gawk at the clattering machine, but the unit was well-trained and held formation properly. The Blackhawk sat down a hundred yards in front of the formation in a shower of dust and gravel from the supposedly clean ramp and dirtied up the once-spotless uniforms even more thoroughly. The Colonel stiffened into a correspondingly even more rigid posture at this additional insult to his men, but he, too, was well-trained and held his place until the swirling rotors flattened out and quit pushing air and dirt around. Then he stepped forward to the doorway as it slid back.

From where the men stood in formation it wasn’t possible to make out the insignia on the first man out of the helo, but it was clear that he was wearing neat but not new camo BDUs, softened by wear into a cooler and much more comfortable uniform than the formal Class A uniforms of the regiment. He was surprisingly small, inches shorter than their colonel, and slender. In addition to the more comfortable uniform he was wearing bright aviator sunglasses, a violation of enlisted uniform standards that was another irritation to the men squinting in the sun. They forgot about him in the next instant, however as he turned to help the other VIP occupant of the helo. She, even from a hundred yards away decidedly she, needed the help. Her tight, short skirt and spindly high heels made even the short jump down from the helo an impossibility without aid. Six hundred men from the regiment would have volunteered to help her down in a heartbeat, five hundred and ninety six because they would have done almost anything to get close to such a gorgeous creature, and the other four to keep up appearances with their straight comrades in arms. With that woman around none of the men were paying enough attention to the officers to notice the quiet argument that had begun even as the woman was helped to the ramp, but their attention was jerked back to their own Colonel when the surprising order barked out.

"All men, remove your jackets and stand easy."

Now, that was a surprise. In the first place, you never took your jacket off for an inspection, and in the second, stand easy? Inspection in ranks was always done at attention. What was going on here? Officers, Beech snorted to himself. They never make sense. But, like the other men he removed his jacket and hung it over his arm. While the troops were shuffling about the camo’d officer and his lady companion were making their way to one end of the first rank. For this formal (at least it started out formal) inspection the men had been arrayed in order of height, with the shorter men on the ends and the tall ones in the middle. The inspecting officer actually examined the first men he came to, looking them over carefully and making comments to the woman. A few were asked their names, a semi-surprising event since generals sometimes did that as a means of demonstrating interest in the men being inspected, however false or transient. Surprisingly, though, in these cases the woman wrote the names in a small notebook as though it actually mattered.

When the . . was he really a general? He wasn’t wearing any rank insignia. . . reached the taller soldiers he seemed to lose interest, walking quickly past. Only at the other end of the first rank, once again comprised of shorter men, did he seem to pay attention. Beech waited in the second rank, near one end due to his 5’7" height. When the . . . general . . . got to him he stopped and looked him over very carefully. Beech couldn’t quite make out the whispered comments to the woman, but her eyes met his for a second and showed approval. If Beech could have figured out what she liked in him, he could have sold it for a week’s pay to the men around him, but her eyes showed only a hint of amusement to go with her approval, revealing no particular interest.

"What’s your name, soldier?" the general asked in a smooth voice devoid of the expected parade ground rasp.

Snapping to attention, awkward while holding his jacket, he shouted, "Sir! Private Sanford Beech! Sir!"

At the general’s nod, the woman wrote it down in her book and they passed on. Was it his imagination, or had that vision of feminine loveliness actually smiled at him when he barked out his answer? Oh, please come back and smile at me again, say something to me, inspect me in ANY way that you want, Beech silently prayed, but the group moved on. The rest of the inspection proceeded in the same mysterious vein, close attention only to the shorter soldiers, particular attention to the ones like the general and Beech who were slender, virtually ignoring anyone even approaching six feet in height. In less than fifteen minutes, though they had waited in ranks for almost two hours, the inspection was over. The Sergeant Major barked out an order to put their jackets on again and come to attention, then gave yet another inexplicable, or at least unexplained, order.

"The following men will report to Hangar 12 immediately," he announced, then began to read from what must have been the list made by the woman.

Beech heard his name called along with about a dozen others and proceeded to the hangar. The rest of the regiment was dismissed behind him and the strange inspection was officially over.

A dozen men, plus or minus a few, seemed lost in the enormous hangar. In keeping with the sacred army tradition of "hurry-up-and-wait", they stood around aimlessly. Beech noted that one of the men in the group was one of "them", a homosexual. As far as Beech was concerned consenting adults could do whatever they wanted in private, but that philosophical position didn’t help him when he tried to figure out how to react to "them" personally and so "they" made him uncomfortable. He certainly didn’t want to encourage "them" and tried to keep interactions on a proper, professional, but distant basis. He also never let one get behind him in the shower. That was part of the problem. Adults could do what they wanted in private, but in the army there was no privacy. None of the other straight men among the dozen in the hangar wanted to get too close to the one . . different . . man so there was a clear space around him, another problem in an organization that depended on group cohesion and camaraderie. Beech noted that his nameplate read, Fox, and that triggered a memory that his name was Tim, or Jim, something like that.

Next, Beech looked for some more acceptable object to occupy his mind while they waited and saw two MPs hulking by the door to some sort of office in the hangar. But the big MPs also made him uncomfortable. They all seemed to have this sneering, angry attitude, sort of a "Just give me any excuse and I’ll ram my billy club so far up your ass you’ll taste it" arrogance. In his mind they were all bullies. Who’d want to go into that sort of specialty anyway? Beech had seen his share of bullies. He’d always been short and slender, and no one would ever call his features "rugged". In high school, he had faced the unpleasant choice of wearing his hair short and looking like a wimp, or wearing it long like everyone else and looking effeminate. He had chosen long hair, eventually liking the feel and swing of it enough to let it grow below his shoulders. It had caused him problems, though, with honest, sincere people mistaking him for a girl throughout his life until the army took care of his hair length choice for him, along with most other choices. Unlike the kindly mistakes his appearance caused, bullies had always called him "sissy" when they didn’t call him worse things. In true "self defense" he had investigated martial arts. Beech had soon found out that his hands were too small and bone structure too light for real karate, unless he wanted to build calluses so heavy he wouldn’t be able to bend his fingers. However, he found in aikido the style he needed. It focused on using an opponent’s momentum against them rather than on striking attack. By the time he graduated from high school, no one was calling him sissy any more, at least, not more than once.

His reverie on Reasons To Hate Bullies was winding down when one of the MPs called out, "Attention!"

The call was echoed with, "At ease," so fast none of the troops had time to complete the motion. Turning around, they saw the general and his lady friend entering the hangar. The tapping of her delicate heels echoed in the open space, unimpeded by more than the faintest breathing from any of the spellbound men within the room. Even the striding general made no sound as he glided with surprising grace across the floor of the massive building.

"Let’s all go into the briefing room, shall we?" he asked. A courtesy of course, since a request from a general compelled obedience almost as irresistible as the ultimate motivator, an order from a sergeant.

"Make yourself comfortable," the general ordered. The group which had seemed so small in the huge hangar now crowded the small office as though their numbers had been multiplied several times over. There were enough chairs, though, once the general and the woman walked to the front of the room near a speaker stand.

"I’ve asked you all here to offer you a chance to volunteer for a special, vitally important mission," he began. "It is very highly classified and will involve significant hazard and personal discomfort. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a recruiting pitch, but I must emphasize how crucial this is to the security of our nation and the safety of our people. I will also tell you that I will be part of the team. I don’t consider this an impossible assignment, but it will be more difficult than anything you have ever done."

Not much of a recruiting pitch, indeed! All of the soldiers were more than familiar with the time-honored adage never to volunteer and this seemed like as good a case as any for following that tradition. One of them spoke up.

"What’s in it for us, General?"

"I’m not a general," he corrected the man. "I can tell you that I am on special assignment with orders from the President himself and can effectively outrank any general around. That is an indication of how important the President considers this mission. My own rank and background are classified. Only those who volunteer will be told. Now, as to your question. Nothing. If we succeed, you will never be able to tell anyone what we accomplished. You won’t get promoted. You won’t get medals. There’s nothing in it for you except the knowledge that you’ve helped in a mission so critical it may mean the difference between life or death for millions of people. Or it may not. We’ll be trying to avert a danger that may not even be real. However, we think it is real, terrifyingly real, and we must do what we can to protect our country. The question is, do you want to be part of that ‘we’?"

Sometime during that hopelessly depressing speech, Beech had partially tuned out the "general". The woman had finally removed her sunglasses and Beech realized she had brilliant green eyes to go with her corona of auburn hair. He felt himself falling into those eyes. He had only seen eyes that clear and deep green in one other situation, whenever he looked in a mirror. They captivated him, providing a linkage to the beautiful woman that began to tickle his mind with fantasies of other closeness, other sharing. Her eyes had roamed the group impartially at first, but his staring drew her gaze to him just as his gaze was trapped by her. Those emerald jewels showed a hint of amusement at his open admiration, but also a hint of . . . what? . . . desire? Did he imagine it or did were her eyes sending a message of personal request to volunteer for this ridiculous mission? What could possibly be so important?

Beech pulled his eyes away and looked at the camouflaged officer again. He hadn’t removed his sunglasses. They were decidedly non-standard, almost wrap-around and completely hid his eyes, even his eyebrows. His voice was still smooth and soft, his message still hopelessly tied to outdated patriotic concepts.

"I’m not going to use the ‘duty’ phrase to get you to volunteer. I want you to understand that we will be asking you to do things that are far above and beyond the call of duty, at least, of the duty you already owe by joining the army. Once you’re part of the team, your duty to your teammates will be greater than any ever required of ordinary soldiers. You can withdraw now with honor intact. No stigma will be attached to those not continuing from this point. Your country needs you, though, your friends, your neighbors, even strangers. Will you help me help them?"

What did motivate soldiers like these? In olden days, the hope for glory could make men take incredible risks, but the officer had ruled that out. Duty to comrades was a powerful force, elevating ordinary men to extraordinary levels that they knew were not strictly required of them. A soldier’s sense of duty was part of what separated him from civilians, even when no sergeant was watching. The "general" had carefully ensured that the men knew their consciences could be clear on that issue, though. Honor? The type of honor that mattered was always internal, regardless of who was watching. Just why had they joined the army in the first place? Was it always just another job? Did they want to find out what they were made of, measured against a standard that civilians couldn’t even understand? Country. The general had certainly pushed that button. Was it enough?

The slender officer who was still "the general" in the minds of the men nodded unobtrusively to one of the MPs at the door, who immediately hollered, "Attention!"

With conditioned reflex the group of men jerked to their feet. The general quietly said, "All right. Those who are not going to volunteer may leave now."

Beech was ready to leave with the rest but happened to glance at the woman one last time, one possibly fatal time. Her sparkling green eyes were made even brighter by incipient tears. Though there wasn’t a single specific change from the gentle amusement of before that Beech could have pointed out, her expression was now worried, afraid that the entire group would leave. Beech found himself falling into the bottomless depths of those eyes instead of moving for the door, until finally he realized that only three of their original dozen remained in the room and the door was being closed behind the exiting MPs. And that he was one of those three. So was the homosexual soldier, Tim Fox. That made Beech even more uncomfortable because he knew in his heart he always thought that "they" wouldn’t be as brave as "real" men, despite the history he knew of the sacred band of Thebes. Yet here this "person" sat, volunteering for a hazardous mission without apparent reward. The final volunteer was a blond soldier Beech knew only as "Carp", a nickname from the "Clumsy Carp" character in the comic strip. He had a reputation for being really hard working, really motivated, and really clumsy. His nameplate read Anderson, but that didn’t trigger any further memories for Beech.

"Excellent," smiled the general. "Please, sit down again. Let me be the first to thank you for your patriotism. As of right now, you have all earned a nice letter of commendation from the President himself. It will be placed in your personnel file and I expect it will make a difference when you come up for promotion, or for consideration at a special school you want. Congratulations."

Then he continued in a much less pleasant tone, though his voice was still somehow soft and smooth, "But as of right now you also have one last chance to back out, no penalty, no questions asked. You’ll still get your letter. However, we are about to give you your first briefing. Once you receive it, you will be held to the strictest standard of secrecy you can imagine. If you ever breathe a word of this, I’ll see that you’re thrown under the worst stockade in the military, and you’ll never come out. You’ll be passed your food through a hole in the wall, and the orders to the guard will be that when the food is untouched for 10 days in a row, the hole will be sealed. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m joking. If you don’t think you can maintain that level of secrecy, leave now."

None of the volunteers left, but all looked decidedly uncomfortable, wondering even more what they had gotten themselves into. Beech’s eyes had again been drawn to the woman, but when he heard the general’s threat, he whispered to himself, "The man in the iron mask." She understood his comment, knew that he understood the reference, and smiled at him. This time there was no doubt. She had certainly smiled, and certainly at him. What could they ask him to do that was too terrible for that sort of reward? When it was clear that none were leaving the general regained his pleasant smile and stood up, quickly motioning the men to keep their seats.

"All right, let me introduce myself and my companion. I actually am a General, General Merlin. I lied to those others because we never tell anyone outside our circle anything that might give them even a hint of our mission, or of the people involved. My permanent rank is major, but the President has promoted me to two-star rank for the duration of this assignment. It should come in handy when we deal with administrivia and bureaucrats. That’s besides the authority I have as his representative, which is also real. My lovely companion is Constance McLean. She’s what we call a subject matter expert, for part of your training."

"Over the course of the next year, more or less, we’ll be training you in several specialized skills for the mission. You’re not the only regiment we’ve recruited from, but you have had the best response. With your additions, we now have enough to enter full-time training. We’ll turn you into masters of unarmed combat, with agility you wouldn’t believe is possible. We’ll turn you into master thieves as well, with skills in lock-picking and alarm neutralization. More than any of these, though, you’ll have to learn to disguise yourselves. Each of you, from the time we reach the base, will form an entire new persona, one unrecognizable to your best friends. That is the key to this mission. Connie will help you in this area, and I am a testimony to how effective her skills are."

With that the officer stood up, removed his wrap-around sunglasses, and pulled off his beret. To the absolute shock of the three new volunteers, the "general’s" eyes were as beautiful as any woman ever born. High, carefully-shaped brows highlighted luminous blue eyes, themselves framed by long dark lashes and shining pearlescent shadow. As he pulled the beret away from his head, blond curls cascaded down around his shoulders, bobbing softly as they settled into position.

"You will need to be able to disguise yourself as women to accomplish this mission. That is why we chose only those who have a slight build and are relatively short. Further, you will need to be beautiful women, sensual, desirable, totally believable. I won’t tell you just why, yet, but it is as important to this mission as any other skill you will learn. It is also the most highly classified part of your training. As of now, you are committed. If you wash out of the training, you’ll be put in a deep hole until the rest of the team completes their mission. One of the key mission objectives is that the target never know we were there. If word gets out that the US Army was training female impersonators, our entire mission is compromised, not to mention any team members who are still in place. Do I make myself clear?"

The soldiers were too amazed to speak, but that question was so standard following formal orders that their automatic responses took over and all nodded. Their mouths hung open, their eyes bulged out, but they nodded.

"Right," said the general as . . he? . . tucked his long hair back under his beret and replaced his mirrored sunglasses. "Let’s get moving. The helo is standing by."

 

(continued in part 2)

 

 

*********************************************
© 1998 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.