More Than Courage (2 page)

They had been deployed for six weeks plus with no downtime, no opportunity to kick back and simply rest and relax. Their area of operation and the nature of their mission required that they maintain an around-the-clock' vigilance in a harsh environment that was taxing for even the hardiest of them, physically and emotionally. The same fine grains of sand and grit that worked their way into the gears of their vehicles and the actions of their weapons also found their way into every mouthful of food they consumed, breath they took, and bodily opening left exposed.

The sand was a constant irritant. It could be tolerated. It could be joked about. But it was always there, like the unseen dangers that added mental stress to the physical duress that the desert inflicts upon any and all who reside there.

The result was an attrition that could not be stopped. Efforts to lessen the stress and gradual but steady erosion of each man's health could only do so much. Each member of the team had sufficient opportunities to rest, plenty-to eat, and medical attention as soon as it was required. But nothing short of removing them from this milieu would restore both their full mental and physical well-being. That this would not be happening anytime soon only served to accelerate the ebbing morale and growing strain that was becoming more and more evident with each passing day.

When originally conceived, the plan allowed each Special Forces recon team three days to infiltrate along a predetermined route to its designated sector in Syria. Once it was in place the unit would spend two weeks gathering intelligence, observing 16

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known terrorist training camps and, if necessary, employing their laser designators when someone thousands of miles away decided that a target required immediate attack. At the end of this two week phase, when a new team was en route the deployed team would extract itself. All of the preceding ten recon teams dispatched as part of Operation Razorback had started out following a schedule that placed them in harm's way for just under three weeks. But like RT Kilo none of them, Alpha through Juliet, had been able to stay within this schedule. Each team had its deployment extended time and time again by unforeseen operational requirements as the war on international terrorism siphoned off already scarce special operations resources to deal with other, more pressing needs. The days when a recon team's deployment in Syria was extended by a mere two additional weeks was now nothing more than a memory. Six weeks in place had become the norm, with eight not being unheard-of.

It was not knowing when they would receive the word to disengage and head back to The World that Ken Aveno suspected was most wearing on them. As he finished tending to his personal chores and prepared to turn to his assigned duties as the team's executive officer, he wondered just how much the other members of the team were being affected. Though part of being on a Special Forces A team meant that rank was often ignored, Aveno was still an officer. There were conventions within the United States Army that even the camaraderie and professionalism of an elite unit could not overcome. As with any other officer, he depended upon two things when it came to judging the combat effectiveness of those entrusted to him: his personal observation of the men and his own physical and mental state. While not quite at the

end of his rope, he could feel himself slipping and he suspected that the motivation and endurance of the others was ebbing as quickly as his own. Still, he remained confident that in terms of materiel, they were more than capable of executing their assigned duties as when they had begun their tour of duty.

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to the teeth with the best weaponry the lowest bidder could provide them. Most carried the venerable M-4 carbine, which was nothing more than a modified M-16A2. Those who had connections sported an MP-5, the weapon of choice for special ops types around the world. With a cyclic rate of eight hundred rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of four hundred meters per second, the German-designed Heckler & Koch MP-5 fired 9-mm para bellum, full-metal-jacketed rounds, with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy due to its action, which fired the first round from a closed-bolt position. In the hands of a highly trained professional it was a most effective instrument. Rounding out the category of individual small arms were 9-mm pistols as well as one good old- fashioned Remington 870

pump-action shotgun.

To augment these personal weapons, RT Kilo's arsenal included a number of heavier weapons. Among the more impressive was the Beretta M-82A1 .50-caliber sniper rifle, capable of firing standard 12.7-mm cartridges. With a ten-power telescopic sight this rifle had a range in excess of 1,000 meters, or a tad over

.6 of a mile, allowing a good marksman to reach out and touch his foe long before that unfortunate soul became aware that he was in danger. The sheer size of the slug, .5 inch in diameter, ensured that even a glancing blow was more than sufficient to ruin someone's entire day.

The crew-served weapons mounted on the unit's vehicles were the real heavy weapons. The Hummer that gave them the mobility to range far and wide also provided them with platforms for weapons that their Vietnam forebears could never have imagined humping on their backs.

Kilo Six, the Hummer used by the team commander, sported an M-2 .50-caliber heavy-barrel machine gun. Based upon a German World War I 12.7-mm antitank rifle and classified in 1921, it was fast reaching the century mark with no end to its useful military career in sight. Like the Beretta, it fired 12.7-mm balls or armoring-piercing rounds. Unlike the sniper rifle, the M-2, known affectionately by its operators as the Ma Two, had a rate of 18

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fire that was 450 to 500 rounds per minute. Newer by a full half century was the M-19 40-mm grenade launcher that graced the ring mount on Kilo Three, which was Aveno's Hummer. Capable of chunking out sixty baseball-sized grenades per minute up to a range of 1,600 meters, its only major drawback was the limited number of rounds that could be held in its ready box.

Range was not a factor for the crew-served weapon affixed to SFC Allen Kannen's Hummer Kilo Two, which was the only all enlisted humvec. Kannen, the team's senior NCO, fully appreciated what was probably the most unusual weapon for a Special Forces team--the tube-launched, optically tracked, wired-guided missile, or TOW. The decision as to whether or not to include this long-range antitank weapon had been an issue hotly debated at every level of command that had a say in the organization, deployment, and operational control of the recon teams. In the end the choice had been left to the individual team commanders.

Captain Erik Burman, Kilo's commanding officer, explained his decision to use the TOW by telling his people that when one goes wandering about in bear country, it's not a bad idea to take along a bear rifle even if it's not bear you're looking for.

The only RT Kilo Hummer that did not have an oversized weapon protruding from it was Kilo One, which belonged to the two-man air force team headed by First Lieutenant Joseph Ciszak. Instead of a ring mount and crew-served weapon, Kilo One's hard shell was adorned with an array of antennas and a small satellite dish. Ironically, it was this innocent-looking vehicle that was responsible for all the devastation that RT Kilo had managed to rain down upon their foes during the past six weeks. The members of RT Kilo were hunters in every sense of the word but they did not do any of the actual killing. None of them had fired a single round since they had crossed the Turkish-Syrian border.

Rather, it had been Lieutenant Ciszak and his collection of high tech radios connecting him to his fellow aviators that did all of Kilo's killing. Using all the wonders of modern electronics and his trusty handheld laser designator, Joe Ciszak was able to employ MORE THAN COURAGE

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the full spectrum of conventional munitions available to the United States Air Force. Were it not for the need to provide security and locate hard-to-find targets, the Special Forces A team would have been totally superfluous.

In and of itself this impressive array of weaponry and comms equipment had no real value. The most accurate firearm in the world is worthless unless it is used by someone who possesses both the training and the motivation to use it. Military history is replete with accounts of lavishly equipped armies being humbled by ragtag forces that won through a triumph of will and courage.

The United States Army itself has seen both sides of this coin, once at its birth when it faced the best-trained army in the world, and later in Vietnam when opposed by a foe who refused to yield to logic and the cruel mathematics of attrition. It is the willingness to soldier on and do one's duty in the face of daunting odds and seemingly insurmountable difficulties that often determined who is victorious and who is vanquished.

So the question of a unit's morale, even when made up of elite warriors, is always of the greatest importance. Lacking a definitive means of measuring this critical element and suspecting that the other members of RT Kilo were suffering from their protracted deployment in much the same way as he was, Ken Aveno found himself worrying how his state of mind was impacting those around him. Perhaps one day, he told himself, he would find a surefire away of steeling himself against the slow, subtle corrosive effects of sagging morale. Perhaps" when the twin silver bars of captain were pinned to his collar they would shield him from that demon and give him the strength to be the sort of soldier that everyone expected him to be. Until then he would have to muddle along, executing those duties that were assigned to him as best he could and keep morale from robbing him or his unit of its ability to carry on.

Climbing from the shallow hole that he had spent much of the day in, sleeping when the heat permitted, the executive officer of the small A team stretched his five-foot-ten frame for the first 20

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time in hours as he continued to look around. There was not much to see. Each of the team's humvees was hidden under tanandbrown nets. It never failed to amaze Aveno how the squiggly strips of material laced through the squares of the knotted nylon nets managed to hide something as large as a Hummer and those who operated it. Yet he knew that from a surprisingly short distance, a net that was properly set up blended in nicely with the surrounding nothingness of the desert. From even farther out, the nets and Hummers tucked underneath them simply disappeared, just like Team Kilo.

Shaking off his lethargy and anxious to get started before the faint light of early night was gone, Aveno chugged forward. As the XO he was charged with the maintenance and logistical affairs of Team Kilo. This required that he check each of the team's specially modified Hummers on a daily basis to ensure that they were being maintained in accordance with established standards and ready for that night's operations. Unlike unit morale, this task had established standards and procedures that could be measured and relied upon. In the process of overseeing maintenance, he was also expected to keep track of current levels of ammo, food, fuel, and water. After six weeks this drill had become second nature, as routine as the setting sun. In fact it had become so routine that the young first lieutenant found he had to guarci against complacency.

Each member of Recon Team Kilo was a professional in every sense of the word, men who had been in the army long enough to appreciate the reasons behind Aveno's precombat inspections. Yet it still irked some of the enlisted men to have someone poking and prodding every nook and cranny of their vehicle and equipment day in and day out. They were after all the creme de la creme, the best of the best, professional soldiers who expected to be treated as professionals, not rank recruits. Only through quiet diplomacy and an occasional threat was Sergeant First Class Allen Kannen, Kilo's senior NCO, able to keep their tongues in check.

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Still, not even he could stop their every effort to let Aveno know just how much his daily inspections irritated them.

On approaching each Hummer, Aveno would call out to its driver, who was usually tearing down a camouflage net or checking out his humvee. The men assigned to the Hummer would greet him with whatever subtle sign of resentment they thought they could get away with. For his part, Aveno ignored this as he set about following a script that had been burned into his memory from repeated use. The routine never varied.

First, he unscrewed the cap of all water cans hanging on the side of every vehicle in order to check their contents. Then he'd crawl inside each door, pulling out any opened cases of MREs tossed in the rear and counting the riumber of meal packs remaining inside. After inspecting fuel gauges, and drawing dipsticks during his examination of the engine compartment of each Hummer, Aveno would drop to the ground and crawl under the vehicle checking the suspension. Everything had to be touched by him to confirm that every Hummer was functional and in order.

Only the crew-served weapons, inspected by the commanding officer himself were ignored during this obsessive daily ritual that caused Kannen to secretly nickname Aveno Captain Queeg.

If Aveno reminded the enlisted members of the naval officer who commanded the USS Caine, then their commanding officer was without question the team's Captain Ahab. It had been the only other officer assigned to RT Kilo, Lieutenant Ciszak of the U.S. Air Force, who had graduated from Notre Dame with a B.A.

in English, who first made this comparison. One night, while he was waiting to direct an air strike, Ciszak turned to his driver, Airman Jay Jones, and commented that Captain Burman's single minded dedication to duty, aloofness, and drive to accomplish every mission regardless of difficulty or danger reminded him of Melville's fictional captain, a processed man who prowled the seven seas on an endless quest. Amused, Jones shared this observation with his fellows, who immediately started using nautical 22

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terms whenever possible, including calling out "Thar she blows!"