Killed in Action - A Spy School Story

Chapter 23: Horn of Africa

Camp Lemonnier

Djibouti

July 13th, 2019

1715C

Jawa POV

People don't normally eat breakfast at 1700 (5:00 PM), but when you set your work schedule around hours of darkness, then you're going to turn into a night owl. As such, I was chowing down on military-grade eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and coffee in Camp Lemonnier's mess hall.

Camp Lemonnier, for those of you who don't know, is in Djibouti, an east African nation that is a strategically important location as it is at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, near some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Plus, it's a bridge between Africa and the Middle East. But for the purposes of my task unit, it was the headquarters and main operating base of Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA).

My unit—Task Unit Cougar, composed of SEAL Team 4's Echo and Foxtrot Platoons—had been deployed to carry out counterterrorism, anti-piracy, foreign internal defense, and even limited humanitarian operations. And yes, I understand the irony of sending SEALs—the special operators most notable for their special recon and direct action (i.e., kill/capture missions) capabilities—to support humanitarian work, but hey. Maybe it was a PR stunt due to the amount of bad press the SEAL Teams were getting... no matter whether it was deserved or not.

Ironically, the Marine Corps—America's abused pitbulls—has probably done more good for the world than the Peace Corps and Doctors Without Borders combined, I thought to myself with an internal laugh as I considered my task unit's directives for this deployment. Was it a hot take? Absolutely. Would it get me canceled on the Internet? Hell yeah. Did that mean I thought any less of the humanitarian organizations? No, I thought they were a good set of dudes and chicks. They had their purpose... but so did we.

"So, what do you think, Lieutenant?"

Yanking me from my thoughts was my task unit commander, Lieutenant Commander Terry Briggs, a no-nonsense SEAL officer known for his bluntness and general disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations (emphasis on the "unnecessary..." he wasn't pro-drug legalization and he considered traffic/motor vehicle violations as real crimes). Behind his back, many had nicknamed him "Tater," "Potato," or simply "Spud" due to the fact that he was from Idaho and his head looked like a potato... plus, he was so bald, I'd swear on my life that I could see my reflection in it. "Well?"

I tried to save face with a lie. "Sorry, sir. Drifted off. Was thinking about a way to get some SDV (SEAL Delivery Vehicle) training done... y'know, since some NSWG-3 (Naval Special Warfare Group 3) guys are augmenting the Navy ships off the coast. Waters are clear, so it'd be good to practice... just in case."

"That's a good thought, O'Shea, but focus on the task at hand. Now, I know you're biased towards Echo as their AOIC (assistant officer-in-charge), but which platoon do you think should handle the escort duty next week?"

Right, the escort duty: United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) wanted a SEAL platoon to perform a personal security detail (PSD) for a World Health Organization convoy that was rolling into Ethiopia to assist with a cholera outbreak... how exactly the United fucking Nations, of all entities, was going to be useful was beyond me, but orders were orders, and LCDR Briggs had to choose a platoon to get stuck with this jackassed one-month PSD while the other platoon got to actually do SEAL shit.

Common sense would dictate that the WHO should simply hire private military contractors—who specialized in PSD—rather than rip a SEAL task unit in half, but the former was out of the question for some stupid reason. I obviously didn't want my platoon to get stuck with PSD... we're SEALs, not the Secret Service. But I had to admit... in the few missions we'd run, Foxtrot was just a little cleaner. Not that we weren't on top of our game, but Foxtrot unfortunately had more experienced guys.