The Bunker, Ch. 13

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Welcome back folks! Kevin Ansen is training his men for ‘just in case’ while they are standing guard at the Bunker perimeter while their families get inside. If you haven’t read the preceding twelve chapters, I would recommend you do so.

As always, all characters engaged in sexual activity in the story are over the age of 18.

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The Bunker, Ch 13 — Training Days 1 you just need to do it for all three rounds.”

He looked pensive for a moment, then nodded. “Ok, I think I got it sergeant. Thanks.”

I nodded and walked away from the firing line. While we’d been talking, new men had taken up positions to get their rifle zeroed before the pop-up range. The RSO started up his sequence of announcements leading up to firing.

This time Tadiola waited ’til most men were on their second round before he fired. In a steady rhythm, he put all three rounds in a nice tight ring. When the lane NCO checked, they fit along the circumference of a nickel. Perfect. Tad looked relieved as he walked back to his firing position. He made the adjustments to his sights and got three rounds in the silhouette in the next firing order. As he walked back to gather his gear, you could see his smile from space. Next stop, qualification range.

He made it through the first time at the qual range with a respectable 29/40. The surprise was The Great White Hunter, Karl Hoskins, who zeroed in quickly, but took three cycles to get through the qual range. The distant targets were not his friends. One of the veterans, Ricardo De La Fe, offered to stand behind him and shoot some of his targets. I dissuaded him from that course of action. When Hoskins heard about it later in the week, he was furious. I made sure they weren’t on the same fireteam.

BRM took us right up to lunch time. We moved off the range to a staging area with seating. Kolson organized Hot A’s for both sections. Pot roast, mashed potatoes and green beans. Not a bad pull. The men sure enjoyed it. Half thought we were eating MRE’s during training. Little knots of men eating and talking spread about the area. Several groups were Kolson’s men, or mine, exclusively. A fair number of others mixed it up. Once we finished though, the two squads separated for an hour and a half.

I grabbed a small bag of supplies I’d set aside and sent my men to a shaded area not far from our chow point.

“Take a seat anywhere boys.” I reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of tubes, tossing each one to a man, before diving back into the bag for more, until everybody had a tube. The small inset pocket had three more tubes, one of each type.

“Each of these tubes has a different color paste on each end. One light color, one dark color. The purpose is to camouflage your face and hands. To do this you need escort bayan beşiktaş to break up the pattern of light and dark on your body or deceive the mind’s attempts to recognize the shapes of the human face.” I gave a quick lesson on the two approaches to face camo and then had the men break into pairs.

The veterans all took a new guy partner. The pairs with no veteran were practically leaning over to pay attention to the tips the old hands were dishing out. It took more than half an hour to get everyone marked up. Then we talked about incorporating natural flora into our personal camouflage. We also talked about the dangers of natural flora. Weapons camo and rucksack camo got several minutes of their own attention.

“Hiding in plain sight with camouflage is never going to be perfect. Another tool you will need is cover or concealment. Can anyone tell me the difference between the two?”

The veterans clearly were giving the others a chance to show some initiative as they remained quiet. Then the young brown-haired kid, must barely be eighteen spoke up.

“Uh, cover can stop bullets, concealment just keeps someone from seeing you?”

“Correct. Cover can protect your ass even if they know you’re there. Concealment’s one use is keeping them from knowing where you are. And if they spray and pray, you’re fucked if you’re behind concealment instead of cover. Don’t get me wrong here, concealment has value, but you need to quickly find cover.”

“Now, we’re going on a little walk in the woods. Single file. Stick with your fireteam, team leaders at the head of your file. Anytime you hear an explosion, you have three seconds to get yourself behind cover or concealment. I strongly recommend cover, boys.

We had just enough time to walk down a trail I’d found on the map leading from our chow area to the next training station. At four separate points, I tossed a small device similar to a cherry bomb that made a lot of noise, but nearly no sparks. The first time, half the section was still scrambling at four seconds. Six were still up and moving at five seconds. I expressed my displeasure, and we kept moving. At the second bomb drop, only four were still up and moving at the three second mark, and they all took up cover within the next second. They were getting better quick. All had picked reasonable cover. At least they were taking this shit seriously. The last two stops, everybody was down behind good cover in less than three seconds. I noticed that after the first two, the men were actively scanning the surroundings for cover as they walked.

The trail ended at a small training station where base medics would teach Field First Aid techniques. Henry Gonzalez, one of my men, was a former Army medic who was istanbul escort currently a paramedic for his local department. The base medics roped him into their cadre, which only helped highlight Henry to the men. That would be important if they ever wound up needing his services.

Thunder had no one with formal medical training. Well, not quite. They had an oral surgery assistant from Galveston and a veterinary nurse from just outside Enid, Oklahoma. Both were undergoing extensive training to get up to speed. Lots of reading, with some hands on the week before and the week after this mini-bootcamp. They were also included in the training cadre, for the same reason as Henry. They just looked a bit less sure of themselves as they ran the men through the ‘Control Bleeding’ task. Honestly, they did a good job of it. None of the pros saw reason to correct them and the men paid attention and got checked off on the task in good time.

The CAT was something new to me. The idea of a tourniquet a soldier could apply one-handed — to themselves, if necessary — sounded great. Tourniquets were apparently less risky than ‘back in my day’ when they were a last resort of ‘lose the limb or lose your life’.

Then it was on to carry techniques like the classic fireman’s carry or the four-hand seat carry. The last item of the day was improvised splints for treating fractures. They were thorough — they even included splinting a broken finger. Granted, those hurt like hell, and I should know, I’ve had one, but my mind was more concerned with fractures of the legs and arms. The medics of course covered those completely. They gave specifics on differences for fractures above or below the knee on the leg and likewise for the arm. They were adamant that traction should not be attempted unless in possession of a proper traction splint, which we were not being issued.

Training ran past six. It was productive though. I’d just as soon none of today’s skills be needed. But, I think the men absorbed the lessons well. As we progressed through the day, I noticed a seriousness on every face. Even as the men joked with each other, there was an underlying current that kept everyone grounded, focused on learning. Just in case.

I took a longer route home so I could stop off at the Class Six. I got a bit of sticker shock when I saw the price of the bottle. Red was a little cheaper, but that wasn’t what Kolson asked for. I’ve heard there’s other label colors, but none were on the shelf here. Guess they’re out of a serviceman’s price range.

I left the bottle under the floorboard when I locked the car and walked up the driveway. No use forgetting it when I left in the morning.

Coming in the door, I found Levon, Bel, and Shaunice scattered about the front taksim bayan escort room watching tv. It took barely a second for me to recognize one of my all-time favorite series playing. I noticed Gabby and Kiki in the kitchen before I took a seat in the armchair. On the screen, the station commander was angrily addressing a man that had just tried to abduct his science officer — and best friend — from the station.

“We can change it if you want,” Levon offered. “This just started.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve watched this many times. Excellent series, it’s one of my favorites.” I ignored Bel’s derisive snort when I said ‘many times’. Okay, so I probably watched the whole series through about three times a year.

“Really? But the main guy is black.”

“Doesn’t matter if he’s black. The character is well written, and well-acted. I enjoyed watching him. His blackness was not the defining quality of the character. Lots of us who aren’t black identified with him, saw him as our avatar in the Star Trek universe.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “At his core, he was a man in a tough career that had been dealt a horrible personal blow, trying to figure out fatherhood and job and who he is and how all of those interplayed as he starts this new, demanding duty that he has to get right, or a lot of people suffer.”

“So, you admire him?”

“Captain Sisko is an excellent fictional role model for anyone, but especially young men. One of the intriguing parts about DS9 was that it was grittier than the original series or TNG. They had thornier problems that often took more than one episode to fix. The people weren’t perfect, but they made a perfect team. They didn’t always like each other, but they worked together for a noble cause. Lots of good lessons in that show.”

Levon settled back into the couch. He was watching the show again, but it was obvious there were big thoughts running around behind those eyes. I would love to veg out, watch the show and spending time with the older kids, but I needed to check in with other members of my family.

I rose from my chair and headed towards the kitchen. Passing behind the couch, I gave Bel a kiss on the top of her head. Shaunice had a yearning look on her face watching me, so I kissed her crown too. I was worried I may have misinterpreted and jumped the gun, but she relaxed back into the couch. I proceeded into the kitchen.

“Hello my lovelies.”

Gabriela and Nicole turned to me with soft grins and light blushes. Nicole molded her body against me with a warm hug.

“Dinner needs another twenty minutes. I had hoped to have it ready when you came in, but this electric oven is not as hot as it claims to be on the dial.” Gabriela informed me.

“Yeah, they tend to have that problem, especially when they’re ten or twenty years old.”

“Oh, is that why you have so many younger models in your entourage?” The way Gabby fluttered her eyelids as she spoke gave away that she was just teasing. I still narrowed my eyes, but there was a smile beneath them. She couldn’t contain her jest for long and started laughing.