But, hell, I sort of needed permission.
See, there's this thing. Generally, it's best to do it and ask forgiveness. Especially in the military. Except when it comes to clear and unquestionable violation of regulations. Sure, I could ask for a lawyer but I might as well ask for a last cigarette if I let Graham start broadcasting as an "embed." There was a process.
(Okay, the girls had been a violation of regulation. If it had come up, I was debating the lawyer or the last cigarette. They're both bad for you but cigarettes kill you slower, less painfully and are cheaper.)
I wasn't going to ask full permission, mind you. I was going to present it as a fete accompli. But sending anything out needed some sort of stamp of approval.
Turned out it wasn't as hard as I'd thought.
Brigade S-3: No, we don't have any help to send you. Would you like to call back again when we have some?
Bandit: Bandit.
Wassup?
Know that drop I asked about? Reporters. Skynet. Murdoch. Embed. Kill them? Nobody know.
Shit me?
Shit not.
Be back.
In the meantime, I got my satellite/commo . . . I got the geek.
Here's what we're gonna do . . .
Boggle. No fucking way!
Authority. Boss. Bad dog!
Oh, then "No fucking way, sir!"
Did before.
Geek babble saying "No fucking way, sir! Other simple. No way. No how. No can do. Nada. Zip. Nichts. Nein. Nyet. Impossible."
Don't talk geek. Do.
Try.
There is no try.
That is geek-speak, sir.
No. Because there is no do or do not. There is only do. That is Army-speak.
In the meantime Graham had a chat with his chaps.
You might wonder, as I often have while driving a combine or worrying that some Afghan who knows this terrain much better than me is going to hear or see me sneaking up on his lines not that I've ever done that, how a scene in the news is actually shot.
Here's how it works. There is normally a four-man crew. They have a mobile system that can move the video, live or "canned" (prerecorded) back to the studio, home-office or that place in London. (Which, I found out later, was still in business but now owned by the BBC. Sigh. I suppose it's better than the Saudis.)
The crew consists of the reporter ("the dummy" in news-speak), a sound-man who is almost invariably between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six, has acne that he covers with a scraggly beard and in his off-time is a world-reigning champion at God of War, the cameraman, often on his second career, who is between twenty-three and fifty and whatever his age is developing a beer gut, and the producer, who is either a former dummy or a female "communications major" from a school to the left of Lenin. The producer is, in either case, generally to the left of Lenin or his or her bosses wouldn't let him or her be a producer.
Six is a bit odd.
In the case of Graham's chaps, the producer was a former dummy from the BBC. Never a star dummy (as in a ventriloquist's dummy) he got into producing and jumped to Skynews for the better pay just before the Plague. Nice chap. Bright. Amenable. Ambitious. Which was the card I played.
The sound-man was 22, developing a gut, had a straggly beard and was a world reigning champion at HaloV. I know because I tried to play the bastard in deathmatch and despite the fact that he had the good grace not to respawn camp he waxed my ass so hard I gave up the game in disgust and have never played it since.
Camerman. 28. Second career. First career was British Royal Marines. Six years. Did a stint in Basra. Thought he'd see how Iraq was shaping up, don't you know? Wasn't Para. Silly of me. Better out a fucking plane than bobbing around on a small boat!
He had a beer gut. He looked as if he could chew railroad spikes. I eventually realized that he was wasted on England. He needed to move to Texas.
The other two?
Half-trained camerman and a guy who was sort of thinking about getting into the sound business and could sort of run the equipment. Sort of porters. Sort of supernumeries. Sort of spares "in case."
Sort of dead weight?
Former SAS. (Special Air Service. Brit version of Delta.) Former SBS. (Special Boat Squadron. Brit version of SEALs.)
Told you Murdoch was a character.
Of course they didn't have weapons. Didn't do with reporters old chap. Until I bundled some out along with spare gear and told them to rig the fuck up.
Graham had a powwow with them. I had a powwow with them. The only slight balk was the sound-man who started babbling geek.
I don't speak geek. There is no try. There is only do.
Cameraman? Grin.
"Oh, bloody yes, I think."
SAS? SBS?
Sleepy-eyed stares.
I'll take that for a rousing applause.
Producer?
"This will either make us all bloody famous or out on the street or possibly both . . . I'm in."
They were going for the "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission." I still needed permission.
I had a call.
It was a lieutenant colonel. It was my new battalion commander.
I didn't know him. I pieced some stuff together later.
He wasn't a mech-head. He was light infantry. Airborne and Ranger to be precise.
He'd been transferred to the Corps G-3 shop for his "staff" time. It had to be done, no matter how good you are. They make you do staff. Especially if you're any good at it.
Look, there are probably guys who can only command. I don't know any. Every good commander I've ever met was good to excellent as a staff guy. The reverse is not true. That is, a Fobbit is a REMF is a Fobbit. They may be great at staff, but they cannot lead for squat.
I wish they'd learn to weed them out, better. Last BC? I hear he was great at staff. Lousy at command.
Anyway, this guy was, I found out later, an absolute fucking genius at staff.
As a commander?
"So here I sit. With two companies of line trying to play nursemaid the insane and one I can't affect, at all, under a former assistant S-4 with . . . scattered reviews on the other side of the world. What say you?"
"Not much you can do from there, sir."
"For or against?"
"We do intend to make it back, sir."
"I've seen your intel analysis. And the analysis of your analysis which wasn't actually bad. And now you're telling me they have Javelins. That is a badness thing."
(I pulled some of these from archive. He actually said that. "A badness thing.")
"We will continue the mission, sir."
"Sorry about the scouts. Get me their names and I'll write the letters. If there are any to write the way things are. But you've got enough on your plate. Look, I've got a meeting with the division commander in a bit. New battalion commander and all that. Hail, fellow, well met. Screw that. I don't see why we can't get some sort of air support for you. A damned news company flew in reporters. Surely we can get a B-52 or a B-2 or something overhead! Some damned support! This is just silly."
"Thank you, sir."
"Yeah. Well, I'm not going to joggle your elbow. Good luck and good hunting and all that. Now go dooo that voooodoooo that youuuuu do so welllll!"
Screen blanked.
Holy shit.
Screen came back up.
"Oh. By the way. You just made major. And you've got an okay on the embeds. See ya."
Screen blanked.
Holy shit.
I couldn't figure out if my new battalion commander was a nut or what.
I found out fairly quick.
Graduate of MIT no less. IQ so high he should have had a fucking nose bleed. Spells geek with a capital K. Geeks rarely can command for shit. Infantry don't speak geek, geek don't speak grunt. Me grunt. No speek geek. That worried me when I saw it.
Captain of the MIT football team. I didn't know MIT had a football team.
Former Ranger company commander.
Passed Delta Qual and training. Went "over the wall."
Rotated out as LTC for lack of slots. Longest running field grade officer in Delta history. No notations on that but turned out later he'd been a "squadron commander," Delta's version of a battalion.
Went to Corp G-3 for operations.
He's already on the colonel's list but the Corps commander has a problem. A battalion so fucked up that you can't even call it mutinous. They're just playing whatever rules they want to play because their commander's having a nervous breakdown and everybody has been watching it in slow time. Know you haven't been here long but you seem like the kind of guy could get this battalion going again. Oh, and one of the companies is the guys over in Iran. What do you say? Help me out, here.
Guy's evals didn't walk on water. He walked on the fucking clouds and angels sang around him. His superiors seemed to be writing that they really didn't deserve to be evaluating the messiah.
Nobody was that good.
He was that good.
Was our luck turning?
He couldn't effect diddly except maybe air support. We were facing an unknown but large enemy force ahead and they had anti-tank weapons that were state of the fucking art.
Our luck was turning.