Clear and Present Danger (1989) by Tom - Jack Ryan 02 Clancy

Author:Tom - Jack Ryan 02 Clancy [Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 02]
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-12-20T02:03:02.125000+00:00

17. Execution

THE STANDARD ARMY field order for a combat mission follows an acronym known as SMESSCS:Situation; Mission; Execution; Service and Support; Command and Signal.

Situationis the background information for the mission, what is going on that the soldiers need to know about.

Missionis a one-sentence description of the task at hand.

Executionis the methodology for how the mission is to be accomplished.

Service and Supportcovers the support functions that might aid the men in the performance of their job.

Commanddefines who gives the orders through every step of the chain, theoretically all the way back up to the Pentagon, and all the way down to the most junior member of the unit who in the final exigency would be commanding himself alone.

Signalis the general term for communications procedures to be followed.

The soldiers had already been briefed on the overall 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 downhill 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 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 following exactly the procedure that he'd been briefed about.Somebody, he thought, had really 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 calling 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 fall 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 rally point for the rest of the squad to catch up.

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

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