We resumed with our pre-board preparations—and sure enough, within five minutes Commander Smith was getting in our knickers. He told us he wanted us to go in fully suited up, Kevlar body armor and all.
I raised my hand. “Look, sir, none of us are acclimated to working at 7,000 to 12,000 feet elevation. We’re already carrying a pretty heavy load.” In addition to our weapons, we would also be carrying breachers and explosives, in case we had to blow ordnance or breach our way into a cave. “Plus we have to hump twelve klicks just to get to where the op starts,” I added. Rather than insert directly at the mouth of the cave complex, we were going to insert a good distance away, under the cover of darkness, to reduce the chances of being compromised, and then hump the distance silently to our destination. “We’re in mountain country, and if we overload ourselves we’re going to be a wreck by the time we get to the site.”
This was not a classic direct action mission, where you fast rope down and
Boom! you’re on target. We were going to be patrolling twelve kilometers out—that’s about seven and a half miles. When you carry a heavy load for that long, your situational awareness starts to shrink. At first you keep yourself acutely tuned to everything around you, but after a while your attention starts to flag. Soon you’re just staring at the next footprint in front of you. I’d seen it before. In GOLF platoon and sniper school I’d learned that for a reconnaissance mission like this, it makes a lot more sense to pack light and go fast.
Smith wasn’t budging. “No, this is my command, and everyone wears armor.”
He was already making tactical decisions for us—and he’d just made a bad one. Chief Dye and a few other guys sided with me, but what could we do?
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