Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [160]
Perhaps the busiest soldiers in 915 are the commo sergeants. They have to program and test the radios that they’ll be jumping with into Pineland. Nine-one-five will take in a single PSC-5, which will be their primary SATCOM radio, and one PRC-137, which will serve as their FM-ALE link for their periodic situation reports. They’ll have one PRC-119 to serve as a mission-support radio and handle intersquad traffic. The 119 is to function as a base station for the six PRC-148 MBITR tactical or squad radios. The team will also have a KL-43 and two toughbook computers. They’ll train the guerrillas on the 119 and 148 radios. The commo sergeants also prepare backup radios for on-call resupply in case the radios they take in fail or are damaged during the insertion. All of them have to be loaded with crypto and tested.
Amid the planning and gear preparation, there are briefings by the forward operating base personnel on rules of engagement, current intelligence, logistics, public affairs, and tactical deployment issues. These briefings are exercise related and real world—especially regarding public affairs. Robin Sage is a big event, and there are reporters out in the field wanting to talk to soldiers, and the Phase IV students are instructed on how to deal with them. There are also scenario-related briefings. One is with a Pinelander who recently came out of the area of Pineland that they will be going into. Another is with a Special Forces sergeant who was in Pineland on a JCET deployment two years ago. These scenario briefings are conducted by the officers and the 915 team sergeant, Tom Olin. Nine-one-five works well into the nights, with the team members averaging about four hours of sleep.
“There’s so much to do,” Sergeant Olin says, “and so very little time to get it all done. There are so many details to attend to. We’ll be out there fourteen days, and everything has to be front-loaded—what we take in and what we’ll get through aerial resupply. Sometimes it overwhelms you. Then you have to get out your planning lists and start working the issues one at a time. The guys are starting to zone out, but they’re still getting things done.”
The briefback is scheduled for the third day of the four-day planning and preparation window. By late afternoon of the second day, Captain Santos and his team have their planning largely complete and are starting to rehearse for this final mission briefing. Santos and First Lieutenant Kwele will handle large portions of the briefing, and Sergeant Short will deliver the intelligence summaries. For the MOS-specific portions of the briefback, Tim Baker will address weapons-related topics, Daniel Barstow will speak to engineering, Andrew Kohl, of course, will discuss the medical portion, and David Altman will brief the communications. Tom Olin is on for weather and logistics. By early evening, the 915 briefing team is in full-on rehearsals, while the other members of the team continue to prepare equipment.
Just before midnight, I get a call at our cabin from a friend of Miguel Santos. It seems that his wife is in labor and Captain Santos is about to become a father. Santos and his wife had planned for him to be absent for the birth and had flown his wife’s mother over from Germany several weeks ago to be with her daughter. Nine-one-five is in isolation and the briefback is scheduled for 0900—a little over nine hours from the time I got the call. And yet Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg is only forty-five