Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [168]
That afternoon, during what should have been the Ra-haa period, Sergeant Brian Short, coming off security duty, finds Captain Santos.
“Hey, sir, something’s up. I went to get one of the Gs for security relief at 1500 and he wasn’t in his tent. I checked around, and they are all gone. Their gear and their hooches are still here, but the Gs have all bugged out.”
Santos and Olin begin to look around and quickly find that Short is right. They can find neither Colonel Chissom nor Sergeant Major Johnson. Santos considers this, then turns to Olin.
“OK, I want half the guys on security while the other half pack their gear and get ready to move out quickly. Then trade out; I want the team ready to move on a moment’s notice. This may be some kind of test, or it may be that there’s some kind of a threat in the area. At any rate, we have to be ready to fight or get the hell out of Dodge.”
Nine-one-five quickly gets ready to move. Then late that afternoon, the Gs begin to straggle back into camp in twos and threes. Finally, Colonel Chissom and Sergeant Major Johnson return to the G base. It seems that Colonel Merced told Chissom in private that the location of the camp may have been compromised and that there was the threat of a raid by a Condor strike element. The fact that the Gs quietly left without telling the Americans clearly says that they still don’t fully trust them. Santos tells Chissom of his disappointment, but the colonel passes it off as an internal security issue.
That evening, Chissom tells Santos that they are going to act on Merced’s intelligence and ambush a Pineland security squad that will be in the area. He asks Santos and two of his men to go along as observers. Santos accepts and offers the assistance of one of his SAW machine gunners to help with the ambush. They leave the G base on foot a few hours after dark—three Americans, Colonel Chissom, and five of his Gs with the two OCEs and myself trailing along behind. Halfway to the target area, Chissom stops to brief his men on how they’re going to arrange the ambush. The intelligence has the enemy moving along a disused railroad track. Chissom wants his men arranged on either side of the track to take the enemy soldiers in a crossfire.
“Uh, if I may, Colonel, may I offer a suggestion?”
“What is it, Captain?” Chissom says irritably.
“You may want to stagger your men on either side of the track, or better yet, put them in an ‘L’ formation so you won’t be shooting at each other.”
“This is the way we do it—the way we’ve always done it. Why do you want us to change our tactics now?” The colonel is clearly upset.
After a heated discussion, Santos is able to show them the potential for fratricide in an opposing cross fire. Chissom grudgingly concedes the issue, but he’s clearly resentful. The small force continues the mission. They patrol for another hour to the target location. Shortly after midnight, a five-man squad of the Pineland Army comes up the tracks and is cut down by the guerrilla band. On Santos’s recommendation, Chissom put the SAW at the foot of the L with an excellent field of fire. It’s a textbook ambush and the enemy solders have no chance, and go down in a hail of blank automatic-weapons fire. In spite of the tactical success, things go sideways. As the Gs strip the dead enemy of their weapons