Once a senior NCO reaches a certain rank, all the positions are technically equal. Obviously, however, there is a certain prestige to the Command Sergeant Major position of, say, Third Army as opposed to Third Brigade, Fourth Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado. But the higher prestige positions do not necessarily go to the sergeant majors with the most time in grade or combat experience, but rather to the sergeant majors who are willing to expend the political energy or have the patronage and desire.
The current Sergeant Major of the Army was Command Sergeant Major Robert McCarmen. Sergeant Major McCarmen was a contemporary of Sergeant Major Mosovich and they had both come up through Special Forces. But, whereas Sergeant Major Mosovich was always somewhere overseas doing something odd or unmentionable, with few exceptions Sergeant Major McCarmen had been at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (5th and 7th Groups), Fort Lewis, Washington (1st Group) or Fort Carson, Colorado (10th Group) except for training missions. He had, however, deployed for Grenada, Panama and Desert Storm. Somehow, despite the fact that these operations had involved minimal real combat for special operations personnel, with a few glaring exceptions, Sergeant Major McCarmen had amassed an impressive set of medals. Silver Star, Bronze Star with V device for valor in combat, and even the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award for courage in the military pantheon. Each medal was fully authorized and if the citations were a little vague, well, what could be expected for a "Black Warrior." The fact that the citations were all written by commanders with whom the sergeant major had a close and warm relationship was beside the point: it had to be your commander who made the commendation and McCarmen always interacted well with his officers.
His many citations and his ability to interact smoothly with senior officers and politicians had garnered him the most coveted position of any Army NCO: Sergeant Major of the Army, Top Dog of the whole Big Green Machine.
At the previous year's convention, Sergeant Major Mosovich, Command Sergeant Major of Fifth Special Forces Group in a virtually unadorned Dress Green Uniform and Sergeant Major McCarmen, Command Sergeant Major of the Army, in a medal-bedecked army-blue Dress Uniform, had happened to enter an empty elevator together, both somewhat in their cups. When it reached the ground floor, the Sergeant Major of the Army, some eighty pounds heavier than Jake Mosovich, was unconscious and bleeding on the floor and Sergeant Major Mosovich was seen to exit the elevator shaking his right hand as if it hurt.
"Yeah, I guess I told him that, Jake," said General Trayner, mollified, "but I told building security to inform me when you arrived."
"Well, General, General Taylor indicated that it was pretty important and the way he said it made it sound like maybe this conversation never happened. So, since building security logs entry and exit . . ." The scarred NCO shrugged.
"You slipped the Pentagon security net?" asked the Vice Chief of Staff, storm clouds building in his eyes.
"Well, you did say it was black," said Mosovich, stretching out the kinks. He had been sitting totally motionless for the last three hours. If he had been a spy, it would have been tedious but fruitful. It was amazing what generals would discuss, assuming their words were not being overheard. Jake was not sure what the bottom line was, the general had not talked about that directly, but the conversations clearly indicated that something large was afoot.
"Not that fucking black," the general growled. "God dammit Jake, this is too fucking much. I covered for you last year, but watch your fucking step."
"Roger, General, sir." The NCO continued to smile slightly, obviously unrepentant.
The general dropped his anger as ill-spent and laughed. "You always were impossible to discipline, you little fuck." He rubbed the tip of his nose and shook his head.
"Yeah, and you were impossible to train, even as a snot-nosed LT." The NCO smiled again and got up to make himself a cup of coffee. The general invariably had the best coffee in the Army, a result of having spent a year doing cross duty with the Navy. Jake poured himself a cup of the excellent concoction and took a deep and satisfying whiff of the aroma. A sip confirmed that it was the general's usual excellent brew.
"So, what's up?" he asked cocking an eyebrow and recapturing his seat on the couch.
"Well, the shit has well and truly hit the fan, Jake. Have you ever gotten wind of the ULF projects? They ever rope you in?" asked the general, taking a sip of his own java.
"Unidentified Life Forms? Yeah, they were nosing around for a special unit back in, what? '93 or '94? Some dumb fuck gave 'em my name and I went through the stupidest series of psychological evals in history. I get paid a hundred fifty bucks a month extra to jump out of airplanes so naturally one of the questions is `would you jump from a high place.' Jesus." He sighed in exasperation. "Shrinks."
"Where do you stand? Do you think they're out there or not?" The general might have thought he had a poker face in place, but Jake had played too many poker games with him not to see the signs.
"You must know something, or we wouldn't be having this conversation," said the NCO, not rising to the bait.
"Yeah, well, we need a special team. You won't necessarily lead it; that will be decided later." Trayner pulled out a purple file folder, elaborately enwrapped in Top Secret tape. "About seven to ten, various specialties, to perform a covert insertion in a hostile environment with hostile indigenous forces to do order of battle and terrain assessments."
"You can't get that with overhead, boss? And where in the hell are we going to send a team against `hostile forces'? We're currently at peace, miracle of miracles." He wiggled his finger, indicating that the general, sir, should stop being coy and hand over the file. He could smell the mission and it smelled dangerous and interesting, two attributes that always caught him. For all his bitching about running open-eyed towards danger, if he could have walked away from an adrenaline rush he would have gotten out of this business a long time ago.
"We . . . can't get overhead. There's coverage. And the where is in this folder," Trayner said, waving it back and forth as if to waft it under Jake's nose. Trayner knew Jake's weakness of old.
"Okay, drop the other shoe, General. What's it got to do with ULFs?" Jake sometimes felt that he was the proverbial terminated cat; curiosity was definitely going to kill him someday.
"Ahem, let's just say you're not the sneakiest son of a bitch in town anymore." The normally somber general smiled. "Himmit Rigas, now might be a good time." With those words, the wall to the right of the general's desk unfolded into a four-limbed being, its skin color rippling from the thin green stripes of the wallpaper to a uniform purple gray. The arms that had been stretched upward to the ceiling slowly slipped to the floor until it was in a quadrupedal stance. It now appeared to be an equi-limbed frog with four eyes, one set on either end, and two mouths, one on either end. There was a complex honeycomb formation above the mouths and between wide-set eyes; it could have been an ear or a nose. The skin continued to ripple as the being flowed forward and raised one of its paw/hands in an obvious invitation to shake. A box strapped to the wrist/ankle began to speak in a high tenor.
"You are remarkably still for a human. Do you know any good stories?" it said.
This moment would come to many people over the next few years. Each would deal with it in a defining way. For the first time in the history of mankind, people would know without doubt that man was not alone in the universe, that there was other intelligent life in the galaxy, and would look on the face of an alien being. Some would react with fear, some with friendship, some with love, each response as diverse as mankind. Sergeant Major Mosovich simply stretched out his hand in return. At the touch of the alien paw, his adrenaline gland shot a leemer, defined by the military as a cold shot of urine to the heart, into his system. The proffered appendage was cool and smooth, covered with a fine coating of silken feathers. Jake carefully controlled his breathing and voice. "Thanks. You're not half bad yourself. How long have you been there?"