The Finishing School by Dick Couch

Author:Dick Couch [Couch, Dick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-52372-3
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2009-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

At 2215, I'm on the beach with Warrant Officer Mike Loo waiting for Task Element Alpha. Later on, the other student task units will approach the beach a few hundred yards away in search of their pilots. There is a dull blanket of light overhead from the moon above the clouds. The surf is moderate—three to five feet—and the air is chilly for San Diego, fifty-five degrees. This evolution taxes the full complement of the SQT staff. There are nine CRRCs on the water and forty-seven students. There have to be safety boats along the route and off the beach. There is also a matter of the actors: the role players who serve as friendly agents and downed pilots, plus roving sentries—some of them on four-wheelers—patrolling the beach.

“This is a hard evolution for them,” Mike tells me, “not so much technically difficult, but they're getting tired. They don't get a lot of sleep this week, and because it's training, the mission timeline is compressed. We want them on the water or in the water. There's a lot packed into this week. And they didn't get a whole lot of sleep during their Combat Swimmer Course, either.”

Following the PLO briefing, the student downed-pilot rescuers loaded their boats onto a landing craft for the long transit out to sea to begin the FTX. Each boat, including motor and gear, weighs in at something over five hundred pounds. The students had to manhandle them aboard the landing craft and then, after a three-hour transit, launch them in a seaway well offshore. Many hours later, after the students have been cold and wet most of the night, they will have to haul the boats back aboard the landing craft for the trip home.

“And, they're mentally tired. Out at Camp Billy Machen they were shooting and blowing things up and learning all kinds of new things. There were new challenges for them during Combat Swimmer, but even in the CSC they can only have so much bottom time each day. In the MAROPS course we try to challenge them with a variety of nav problems and different mission scenarios, but it's still cold, wet, miserable work. Yet it has to be done. And they'll do it again and again when they get to the teams.” We watch as four dark forms tumble one by one from the surf some fifty meters up the beach. They form a four-man file and scurry across the sand into the beach grass and ice plant. “Excuse me,” Mike says, “but I better get to work. I'm the friendly agent for this task element.”

Warrant Officer Loo strolls up the beach between the breakers and the berm line. He's wearing a wool overcoat and a baseball cap. Cautiously, two forms approach while the others wait out of sight. The three confer on the beach for a few moments. Loo is taller than the two students, and I can see him pointing with his arm. He walks away, and the two raiders fade back into sparse vegetation.

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