Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

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Wurzburg Army Medical Center
Wurzburg Army Post
West Germany
03 December, 1987
1330 Hours

The snow was blowing when I stepped out of the door. I stood for a second, my field jacket in one hand and my softcap in the other, closing my eyes and feeling the wind and the brush of snowflakes on my face.

It felt good to be out of the hospital, to feel the wind on my face, to smell the outdoors instead of triple filtered air run through the positive pressure system the hospital used.

"Bomber!" The yell made me turn, opening my eyes.

Specialist Kreutz was walking toward me, with a big grin on his face and a cigarette in his mouth. He slapped me on the shoulder when he reached me.

"Good to see you up and around, man," He told me.

"You too. How ya been?" I asked.

He tapped his collar, grinning ear to ear.

His Corporal rank was gone, replaced with the triple chevrons of a Sergeant. I grinned and tapped my collar, which just made his grin get bigger.

"Holy shit, this new CO, I mean, goddamn," The big man said. He dug a pack of Camels out of his pocket and popped them open with his thumb. "Want one?"

"Oh yeah," I told him, taking it. He lit it for me and I inhaled gratefully. Goddamn it had been awhile since I had a cigarette and it tasted good.

"Not looking too shabby for someone who took two in the chest and one in the head," Kreutz said, waving me over to the bench. "Sit down, let me catch you up. We gotta wait for your family to get back anyway, hero."

I nodded. Made sense why he was here. Probably Colonel Henry had left him behind to make sure I didn't wander off on my own or get confused. I sat down as Kruetz walked over to the pillar he had been standing by, picked up a six-pack of Budweiser from behind it, and came back. Before he sat down he handed me one and I twisted it open.

God, it tasted soooo good.

"They sent my wife back to the States when all this shit went down," Kruetz told me. I just nodded. Made sense. He grinned at me. "Fucking Henley wasted the dude who was assigned to me, and I heard they had some big fucking SOG dude and his crew here killing fucking KGB all over Western Germany, so I didn't eat a bullet like you."

I laughed at that. "Serves 'em right," I told him, and took a long drink off the beer.

"Anyway, I heard you got on-post housing from PFC Smalls, so I told Sergeant Wicker that until you can get your own car, you can borrow my wife's," He told me. He raised his cigarette up to his mouth, blocking the view to his mouth with his hand, and murmured: "In the trunk, under the spare, is your operations orders."

He exhaled smoke and leaned back.

"Man, you've missed all kinds of shit," He told me.

"Like?" I asked, looking around the parking lot out of habit. Last time I'd been near the parkinglot of a hospital, about forty ass kicking country boys had arrived to take me and Ant back to his family's farm by force.

"So, first we find out that Henley got jumped, only he took the pistol away from the guy and flat out killed his ass with it, then it starts rolling in that about twenty of us got killed," He cracked open a bottle of Bud and leaned back on the bench. "Then this big fucking Special Forces dude shows up. I seen him, this dude was huge, man. Had a whole bunch of snake eaters with him. This Ess-Eff dude sends all our dependents packing, sends his men to collect them and shit."

I just nodded.

"Then, Colonel Henry, Major Miner, and Sergeant Major Stanford show up, only they're all wearing E-5 and E-6 rank, all lurking around the company and shit. Not asking questions, just listening to people bitch. Then they started showing some of us orders, swearing us to secrecy, and asking how the unit's been running," He grimaced, "I flat out told him that we could have our legs blown off, and Group would have us crawling through the mud on our stumps six hours later."' He shook his head. "Then, they take over the unit, and the shit hit the fan."