An expression of bewilderment, or even defeat, covered Yari’s face. Trying to put on the best spin possible, Wade pointed out, “It’s still very early in the training session. You might want to consider opting out of the class by calling your NSA director or explaining your situation to the training commander here.”
By that time, Yari had become sullen and unresponsive.
“Sleep on it tonight. You can make your decision before going in the field tomorrow. There’s no disgrace in opting out of a class you never intended to take.”
He wondered if Yari would be paired with him for the next exercise. For all his weird tendencies, he had grown on Wade. He was becoming like a kid brother, and Wade didn’t want to see him expelled from an exercise or physically harmed. And Wade knew some of the hostile Special Forces guys and the instructors would have little mercy on him.
The next morning the men attended a briefing about the upcoming field exercise. Yari said nothing at breakfast about dropping out of the class, but was clearly discouraged and moody.
Only a few moments remained before he could drop the class. Once the exercise started, there would be no way to quit or change teams. Unless Yari was on Wade’s team, he would be in the woods on his own. Wade felt the exercise would break Yari if he became isolated or was part of a hostile group.
The cache, as it was called, was a no-weapons exercise, but still dangerous, as teams were buried in isolation throughout the 180,000 acres of Fort Benning. It was easy to get lost or injured. Wade visualized disgruntled Special Forces soldiers running Yari in circles for their own amusement. But the two had already had their discussion about Yari dropping out the previous evening, and Wade didn’t feel he could push the subject further.
At the end of the briefing, pairs of four-member teams were assigned to face each other in the cache exercise. Much to Wade’s surprise, his team included himself, Max, Charlie, and Yari. Upon hearing the team make-up, each glanced at the others before turning to hear the instructor recite the rules of engagement.
Yari seemed excited, and Wade felt somewhat relieved. After the briefing, the team assembled. Wade was quickly elected by the other men to lead Red Team in the exercise.
It didn’t take long before Wade gave his first directive. “I want to go around and have each of us briefly describe our combat and surveillance experience. Let’s start with Charlie.”
“I was on several night raids and recon missions in ’Nam, where my team navigated hostile terrain and known enemy positions.”
Max was quiet and reserved. He didn’t like talking about Vietnam, but had a great deal of combat experience that would serve this team well. “I served as a lead in my unit and was on point for a lot of recon missions in ’Nam. I also headed several of what we called live-fire missions.”
Charlie inquired for clarification, “What are ‘live-fire’ missions?”
“We adopted the enemy’s tactic of hiding along well-traveled trails in ambush. We usually wiped out entire teams of Vietcong before they knew what hit them. I was also on several sniper kill missions.”
Wade added to Max’s comment. “Didn’t you also get accepted for Special Forces training?”
Max was holding his head down, avoiding Wade’s gaze. “Yes.”
Everyone turned to look at Yari. He was pale and in awe of his team’s experience. “I don’t have any experience in either combat or surveillance.”
The next morning each man received an envelope containing maps, training objectives, and rules of engagement. Red Team’s opponent was Blue Team, who was assigned the defensive position. Wade’s team was on offense, which meant they had to capture the caches without being caught by Blue Team.
Rules of engagement seemed simple, on the surface. The winner on offense was the team that obtained the most caches before getting caught by the opposing team. The defensive team’s goal was to capture the offensive team before they completed their mission. The winner on defense was the team that captured the offensive team with the fewest number of caches in hand.
However, the simple instructions didn’t reveal much about the complex strategy needed to successfully deploy offensive and defensive team tactics.
Pairs of opposing teams were spread over a wide area to reduce the chance of contact with other groups in the exercise. Multiple quadrants within the Fort Benning territory were laid out on the map as boundaries. Crossing a boundary meant team disqualification, which would appear on one’s training record. The five caches were spread out within the assigned territory boundaries.
Defensive teams were provided with the general area of the cache, but not the cache’s specific location. Offensive teams, on the other hand, knew the exact location of the hidden cache, but didn’t know where the defensive team would deploy their observers. The only way to know was to conduct recon missions.
Red Team’s first recon mission produced a sighting of only one Blue Team member, which was disconcerting to Wade.
“We have to do this again and expand our search area. We know too little about where Blue Team is deployed. We can’t approach the caches until we know where the other team is positioned.”
With maps in hand, Wade broke their boundary down into numbered sections based on the location of the caches and the location of the single Blue Team member sighting.
The search area started with the cache located farthest away from Red Team base camp. The second mission for Red Team proved more productive, identifying all but one member of Blue Team. As the sun began to set over Red Team’s base camp, the men marked the map locations of all the sightings from the second mission.
A circle of gathered rocks enclosed a small fire, offering both light and warmth against the chilly night air. Wade summarized the second recon mission findings.
“Blue Team’s deployment tells us they’ve assumed that we’ll approach the caches in a certain order. So if, we pursue the caches in a different order, some should be available for the picking. But we have to be careful Blue Team doesn’t change their observation postings.”
A discussion of a plan to counter Blue Team’s positions continued among the group. Pointing to the newly marked map, Max summarized his observations.
“Stations 3 and 4 each have two men. They’re leaving Stations 1 and 5 open, but you have to cross the exposed dirt road to get past Station 3 to reach Station 1. They’re almost daring us to take that route. We have to get to Station 1 or 3 a different way.”
Pointing to an open area between Station 3 and 4, Wade suggested an alternative. “If we create a diversion in this location, it might draw Blue Team off their stations.” The approach needed more thought to avoid being captured. Late that afternoon, Wade’s team discovered that two caches remained unmanned, and they could be easily obtained without being seen. Wade called the team together to review their next strategy.
“We have to assume Blue Team believes that all three caches are still in place. If they believe any one is missing, they’ll redouble their lookouts to cover the remaining ones.”
“Why do you think they still believe all caches are in play?”
“Because they have a man covering a spot where the cache has already been taken. We have to assume the worst case scenario in our planning until we get confirming recon information.”
The small campfire helped take the chill out of the night air. It was after midnight on the second day of the exercise. Red Team joked and relaxed, in high spirits, recapping their day after having achieved four of their five objectives — capturing caches without getting caught by Blue Team.
Wade was concentrating hard on getting to cache 5 undetected. Everyone except Yari was sitting or lying on the ground, unwinding from the past two days’ events. Wade was sitting with his back against a large tree, making small notes on their area map.