Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [174]
Chissom grunts his approval, but Santos knows he’s missed an opportunity. An aerial resupply, while a technical evolution, is relatively straightforward—unless they get compromised. He knows he could have allowed a G to lead the operation while his men attended to the communications and technical issues relating to the airdrop.
Captain Childers and I drive out to the pasture drop zone to watch the evolution. This is a blind drop, which means that if the signals are in place at the right time, the resupply aircraft makes the drop with no communications. Brian Short has made a linkup with Justin Keller, and they’re in position and waiting. The drop is made, but there are problems with getting the recovery team quickly to the pallet and getting the stores safely off the drop zone. Then the auxiliary driver with the pickup truck is late coming back for them. When he finally arrives, the driver wants a portion of the supplies, and a heated debate takes place on the edge of the drop zone. “Look, pal,” Brian Short tells him firmly, holding his weapon at the ready, “we work for Colonel Chissom. You take us back to the camp, and if the colonel says you can have some of these rations, then we’ll give them to you then.”
At the G base following the resupply mission, Captain Childers gives them a critique of the operation. “Keep your briefings simple and gear the briefing to the Gs. They have to understand what’s going on. And so does the colonel. Stop using grid this and grid that; grid coordinates don’t mean anything to these people. Did you notice Colonel Chissom always taking off and putting on his glasses? He doesn’t see too well. Point to the map and use the terrain models. Also, you did this with two briefings, one for the recon element and one for the recovery element. It should have been a single briefing. The recovery team is there to mark the drop zone and hump the gear off the DZ, but the recon element has to be prepared to mark the DZ and handle the drop if the recovery element is late or gets compromised. An aerial resupply mission may look easy, but it’s not, and it has to be done right. This is not some huge DZ at Mackall or Bragg—it’s some barley field or a pasture you’ve never seen before. You have to check it out for security, and verify that all the data you had going in is still valid. Then you have to make your calculations and set up the markers in a tactical environment. And when the bundle hits the ground, you have to quickly deal with it. This is a very important skill set. If you can handle a blind drop with no commo here, then you will have no problem in Afghanistan, Colombia, or wherever. Within a year, most of you will do this for real, and I mean with real bad guys in the hills watching you.”
After the others disperse, Childers calls over Miguel Santos and Tom Olin. “Your guys are doing a pretty good job, but their briefings need more polish. I know you’re busy and you’re tired, but make your team leaders come to you for a practice session before they make their mission briefback. They’ll do better with a practice, and you can help them with any problems. And you should know what they are going to say before they say it in front of Chissom. Oh, and another thing. Cross-loading. Your guys are pretty good about cross-loading equipment on a mission, but have them cross-loaded here in camp and when they’re out on security. They have to be ready to move and support each other in a fight at any time, OK?”
“Roger that, Captain,” Olin replies.
“Only delegate the cross-loading assignments to your weapons sergeants,” Childers says. “They should be on this. As team sergeant and team leader, you are both too busy to be dealing with that.” Captain Childers leaves them, and Santos and Olin are joined by Patrick Kwele to review the security rotation and the morning’s training.
“It’s always something,” Olin says, “something we forgot or something we could do better.”
“Always,” Santos replies