Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 06 -Clear and Present Danger by Clancy Tom

Author:Clancy, Tom [Clancy, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

17. Execution

THE STANDARD ARMY field order for a combat mission

fol ows an acronym known as SMESSCS: Situation; Mission;

Execution; Service and Support; Command and Signal.

Situation is the background information for the mission, what is

going on that the soldiers need to know about.

Mission is a one-sentence description of the task at hand.

Execution is the methodology for how the mission is to be

accomplished.

Service and Support covers the support functions that might

aid the men in the performance of their job.

Command defines who gives the orders through every step of

the chain, theoretical y al the way back up to the Pentagon, and

al the way down to the most junior member of the unit who in

the final exigency would be commanding himself alone.

Signal is the general term for communications procedures to

be fol owed.

The soldiers had already been briefed on the overal situation,

which had hardly been necessary. Both that and their current

mission had changed somewhat, but they already knew that,

too. Captain Ramirez had briefed them on the execution of

their current mission, also giving his men the other information

they needed for this evening. There was no outside support;

they were on their own. Ramirez was in tactical command, with

subordinate leaders identified in case of his disablement, and

he'd already issued radio codes. His last act before leading his

men down from their perch was to radio his intentions to

VARIABLE, whose location he didn't know, but whose approval

he receipted.

As always Staff Sergeant Domingo Chavez had the point, now

one hundred meters ahead of Julio Vega, again "walking slack"

fifty meters ahead of the main body, whose men were spread

out at ten-meter intervals for the approach. Going downhil

made it tougher on the legs, but the men hardly noticed. They

were too pumped up. Every few hundred meters Chavez

angled for a clear spot from which they could look down at the

objective - the place they were going to hit - and through his

binoculars he could see the vague glow of gasoline lanterns.

With the sun behind him he didn't have to worry about a

With the sun behind him he didn't have to worry about a

reflection off the glasses. The spot was right where the map

said it was - he wondered how that information had been

developed - and they were fol owing exactly the procedure that

he'd been briefed about. Somebody, he thought, had real y

done his homework on this job. They expected ten to fifteen

people at HOTEL. He hoped they had that right, too.

The going wasn't so bad. The cover was not as dense as it had

been in the lowlands, and there were fewer bugs. Maybe, he

thought, the air was too thin for them, too. There were birds

cal ing to one another, the usual forest chatter to mask the

sounds of his unit's approach - but there was damned little of

that. Chavez had heard one guy slip and fal a hundred meters

back, but only a Ninja would have noticed. He was able to

cover half the distance in under an hour, stopping at a

preplanned ral y point for the rest of the squad to catch up.

"So far, so good, jefe," he told Ramirez.

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