My squad had the three man sniper team pinned down in the gully we had backed them into. I was laying down a world of fire on them, targeting their heads in my scope and talking trash about their manhood. I capped one almost simultaneously as “Bones” popped up right behind them, shot my target and yelled “Surrender” to his partner. They both sat with their hands up as my squad encircled them as prisoners. The first blood was ours, but the third sniper had rabbited!

After a quick regroup and an ineffectual effort to radio our sister squad, we launched after the third sniper up the far side of the trench we had pushed them into and figured to take him out quick, further reducing the original ten man enemy force by another ten percent on our way to our primary objective of destroying a fuel dump. This was Mistake #1. (Note the capital “M”.) As squad leader, I was anxious to establish overwhelming numbers. I sent our point man, Vox, chasing after him and we pursued as fast as we could. We should have focused on the mission objective of the fuel dump. He had already radio’d our position. Stealth was now as useless as a stairmaster and a male trainer at Rosie O’Donnell’s place. We should have detonated and run. But noooooo, I smelled fear and chased after it. Error Numero Dos. (Language lessons are free of charge here at Tango Alpha2.)

As we crested the second hill, our point man yelled “Medic!” (Not usually a good sign. But you never know. Maybe he was just lonely.)  He was laying down in plain sight and had run into a small bit of enemy fire. (Also not a good sign and blowing the Just Lonely Theory out of the water.) We saw where the few shots came from. I figured this was our rabbit gone to ground.  Of our six man squad, two were medics. I gave a quick command and the squad snapped to defensive positions to cover the medic and gave him some cover fire as he ran over to assist Vox. (If you are keeping track, this was Mistake #3.) He was shot too. The second medic went to help them both and we tried to cover him as best we could. (Blunder Number 4 for those of you playing the home game! Tell him what he’s won Johnny!) The woods fairly well exploded with automatic fire from multiple angles as almost my entire squad was eliminated in a matter of seconds. Except me.

Oh and crap!

In the couple of seconds it took my guys to get their barrel socks on, put their guns up in the air and start their walk of shame past me and to the Dead Zone, I needed to do some fast thinking. After four sequential blunders in a row, my brain finally caught up to my fat butt and the light bulb over my head dimly glowed for a brief second. Not brightly, but enough to have a chance to get out of this. I hoped.

Dead Man Walking

One of my downed guys had to drop the satchel full of “explosives” he was carrying as they walked back toward me in a single file line, guns up. I was surrounded and as the lone survivor and needed that satchel to have any chance of completing the mission. I snagged the satchel, slipped it on as motionlessly as I could as my “dead” teammates marched in front of me. I then stood up casually, deliberately kept my gun pointed down, but walked with zero stealth as out in the open as I could, right along with them in our little gaggle of dead men, everyone’s gun up but mine. I figured with this many dead guys walking out, maybe the enemy would lose count of our little “cluster.” After about 50 or 60 yards, we passed some cover and I fell out behind a tree figuring I was beyond the range of their guns (and more than likely their vision in the forest). I had just managed to pass myself off as a dead man by just standing up and saundering dejectedly down the path in the middle of a group of dead men walking toward our Dead Zone.

Finally, we’re alone!

Now, I am alone in enemy territory, my crew dead, and I am carrying the only thing that can complete the mission. No pressure. My squad has to go all the way back to our DZ to respawn and I can see and hear the enemy forces in a semi-circle moving toward me (not knowing I am there) but flanking me all the same. And the only thing I can think is “what would Owen Wilson do in the movie ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ “? That, and “How bad is it going to hurt when all six of these guys light me up from all sides?” and “Did anybody really buy the Spice Girls CD?” I wasn’t really thinking that. I KNEW how bad it was going to hurt!

 I’ll cut this story short because it doesn’t get any prettier. I radio’d in and made my way back toward my DZ in hopes of regrouping with my newly respawned guys. I didn’t want to go too far back in that direction as I knew I was closer to the objective than they were and we were running out of time. They sent a couple of guys back to pick me up, but I had already met up the majority of our force and we were just about to assault the target… when the horn sounded. We were out of time. We lost. A lot!

Dumb and Dumber

My first mistake was losing focus of the mission objective after an initial success of a really nice teamworked couple of kills. We had humped a long way into the woods and wanted more action. The second mistake was chasing after the “rabbited” sniper. He led us right into a trap that I had actually written in our own team’s playbook several weeks before. The third mistake was sending the medic to recover Vox with inadequate cover or concealment. I should have just sacrificed the point man and backed our butts out of there. This screw up was compounded by letting the next medic go.  As much as I hate to leave anyone behind, we were in a bad position and I put the pointman and first medic’s “welfare” above the mission. “Leave no man behind” is all well and good, but accomplishing the mission and minimizing the risk to my remaining force should have taken priority. Now, in all fairness, this all happened in a matter of seconds. But the bottom line is, we got outplayed. Successfully getting myself out of being surrounded behind enemy lines was somewhat diminished by the fact that I had let my squad get slaughtered and my solo evasion would have been much more impressive had I actually gotten the explosives back to my team in time to .. you know… WIN!

Recon Who?

Now you are probably asking yourself, “Wingman, what in the wide, wide world of sports has that got to do with Recon 1?” Well, Tater, glad you asked. The “enemy” of this little life lesson was scenario team Recon 1’s Redneck Rangers and that was just the first of several schoolings they gave my ad hoc little squad when we practiced with them this last Saturday. The beatings continued until morale improved. Well, their morale anyway. Not so much ours.

Check back here in a couple of days to read more about our day with Recon 1 and their Redneck Rangers.

To be continued…