A Hymn before Battle by John Ringo

Author:John Ringo [Ringo, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion
Published: 2000-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

25

Fredericksburg, VA Sol III

1342 August 4th, 2002 ad

The first part of the trip from Fort Benning, Georgia to Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania was a nightmare. Without a second drill sergeant, Pappas had run himself ragged keeping track of the recruits. PFC Ampele and Drill Corporal Adams became his right arms, chivvying the distracted recruits, who were seeing “real life” again for the first time in fourteen weeks, back into line. He felt less like a platoon sergeant during those two days than a cowboy, and he swore that when he had the troops back under his thumb in barracks they were going to pay dearly.

The entire trip was by bus, and it seemed that the driver insisted on a break every fifty miles. Since the bus had an on-board latrine, for most of the first day Pappas kept the platoon on the bus, but at last they had to debark for dinner. Since Line and Fleet Strike troops were entirely volunteer, the military propaganda machine had let itself go quite thoroughly and the recruits in their gray and silver battle silks drew the locals like honey. Pappas found himself deluged with questions, most of which he felt compelled to answer. Suddenly he realized that he could only count twenty or so of his forty troopers and swore when he realized that most of the missing troops were from the notorious second squad.

He had thought about breaking up second squad three or four times but each time he talked himself out of it. The problem with second squad was that they were about as good as they thought they were. In every training class the members learned the lessons spot on first time. Second squad members never fell asleep, their equipment was always perfect, their details were always done on time or early. They scored higher as an average than any but two or three other individuals in the company. It was one of those unfortunately rare occasions when a group in the military was uniformly competent and capable. Unfortunately the squad leader, PFC James Stewart, as charming a rogue as ever a young maiden could hope to meet, was quite possibly the Antichrist.

Shortly after the basic training group arrived inspections of the company and several companies around revealed increasing amounts of hard alcohol in the possession of recruits. While it was impossible to completely cut off the flow of illicit liquor in basic training usually a bottle would turn up once every few weeks in a training battalion. Suddenly several were being uncovered every week. Intensive interrogation of the frightened recruits could not reveal the source; the bootleggers were using dead drops.

A recruit would place an order at any one of innumerable locations. Small slips of paper along with the payment were slipped into a crevice in the barracks wall or in the bathroom or in the bleachers. The next day the bottle would appear in the recruit's equipment locker or he would find instructions on where to pick it up.

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