On Days Like These

On his way back home, from his squad-mates funeral. Capt. Gilchrist was feeling quite pensive. Of all the things that could have been the cause of death for a soldier, in any army, LCpl. Davies had succumbed to COVID-19. It didn't help that his entire squad had been caught in a counter-attack on the Northern border of Syria and Iraq.

Task force Theta, a joint operation with the Green Berets, JTF2, and the SAS. With the RAF and USAF providing CAS and intel. With the objective to mark and destroy an ISIS strong hold on the border with Syria. On the banks of the Tigris. Task force Theta had an overland insertion. While their counterparts and colleagues were making their own way to their objectives. No one planning the operation wanted to do a water insertion, well they could have, but jumping out of a plane and into a shipping lane was not their idea of fun.

Things went well on their way to the objective. A HAHO jump at 2200 local time. Air time for about 30 odd minutes. Put the team roughly 2 kilometres Northeast of their objective. An hour of marching later, they had infiltrated to overwatch positions.

Each individual squad had just set up rotations, radio discipline was breached. His unit was on the right flank when the call from an UAV operator came in.

"Heavy movement towards right flank from three directions. 6 o' clock, 8 o' clock and 12 o' clock."

Capt. Adams Green Berets "In relation to"

UAV "Looking at objective"

Capt. Gilchrist "Hostile?"

UAV "Well they're not running to give you presents. I can't pick up much on thermal. But...looks like they're armed."

Command "Task force Theta, be advised that you have hostiles inbound. Task force Omega ran into trouble and had to exfil before objective. We have lost initiative. Your call"

Capt. Green JTF2 "Time to intercept?"

UAV "ETA 40 minutes. We can slow them down but we're out numbered. Any use of force from the air will be deemed hostile by Syria."

Gilchrist "So the intel gathering objective is a no go. Can we take out hostiles?"

Command "You have an idea, speak up. We need to secure our assets ASAP."

Gilchrist "We exfil...slowly. Launch an ambush of our own. Whittle down their numbers. And get the Iraqi Air Force to bomb the compounds. BDA might be able to gather something. Right now we got nothing."

Command "Sierra 13, I will take that under advisement. Foxtrot 9, Echo 4, how copy?"

Green "Workable plan, but we still need exfil."

Adams "Affirmative, secondary exfil. Setup ambush on path to primary."

Command "Authorized. Task force Theta. Abort primary objective. Exfil to secondary."

Green "Ack"

Adams "Affirmative"

Gilchrist "Affirmative"

Gilchrist "Alright boys, disappear"

<nods from squad members visible>

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The run to primary exfil took 10 minutes. The location being chosen for clear line of sight in all directions, proximity to primary objective, and clear landing zones for the CH 47s.

Theta set up perimeter. A LMG team from JTF2 was setting up when the sound of a rocket going off broke the focused silence of the night.

"Incoming!"

All units hit the dirt. The CAS that was on standby opened up, now that they were under fire from unknown sources.

The RPG hit 15 to the right of Capt. Gilchrist. Him and 3 other soldiers from his unit were wounded and out cold, before anyone fired a shot.

They woke up in the medics tent in a temporary FOB, 100 kilometres from Duhok international airport.

The after action report stated the projectile flew erratically and impacted the ground. This threw up dirt in the direction of travel of the projectile. The shockwaves of the explosion were dispersed to the side and that and a lump of dirt is what knocked out Capt. Gilchrist and Sgt. Lewis. Cpl. Spears and LCpl. Davies got it worse. They were hit with the shrapnel from the rocket projectile and were currently in surgery. As soon as they're OK. Theta is to RTB.

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Back home Damien Gilchrist, 29 years of age, sat down with a scotch and a cigar. A man with a taste for finer things in life, lived modestly so he could experience the finer things the world had to offer.

He joined the British Army after completing mechanical engineering from Cambridge. 2 years of Sandhurst and 2 years Officers qualifications and training. 2 years of service before going for SAS selection. Completing it, and getting selected. A year of what can only be described as hell, and he was second in command of a squad.

He had a 2 combat tours as a regular, and a few ops with the Regiment. He has served well up to this point. So it can be expected he was taking his first operation as a squad leader quite seriously. This was only his 4th op as a squad leader. And now one of the men under his command was dead.

He smoked and drank half a bottle before passing out in his sitting room.

He would not wake up there.

A well dressed man on a balcony across the street snapped his fingers. And walked away. Disappearing into the evening fog.