My new squad was led by Staff Sergeant Salvatore Agnelli, who despite the name had blonde hair and looked more German than Italian. In my fireteam, I lucked out, and both Agnelli and I knew it. Privates Chen and Baker, and Specialist Sanchez, were all veterans of Nigeria, and Sanchez had served briefly in Korea before that. Greg Chen was an ABC from suburban Maryland, he had to explain that ABC meant American Born Chinese, since I had no idea what he meant. Jeron Baker was raised on a farm in Alabama, which he was immensely proud of, and he was immensely grateful to get away from. And Pete Sanchez was from eastern Kansas, his parents had a small farm but his mother worked as a nurse and his father at a car dealership, their farm not being big enough to provide a living for a family. Their previous sergeant was now a staff sergeant, leading a squad in 2nd Brigade. We got off to a great start when none of them made a Barney joke, or asked about or seemed in any way curious about what I'd done the first time I saw a Ruhar. They'd read all about it, it was ancient history, and it didn't mean squat now. The four of us got to know each other in drills and combat exercises over the next week, I was collapsing in bed each night completely exhausted, and I hadn't been happier in a long time. I had a great team, and we were honing ourselves for battle with an enemy that had threatened our home planet. What we needed was a real mission.

Eight days after my promotion to sergeant, our brigade received orders to deploy. I’d been scrambling to get up to speed for the next war game, Operation Razor, in ten days. We got the news from Captain Teller, who assembled the company in an empty hangar on the edge of the base. He stood on a platform at the far end, with us crowding forward to hear him. “People, we have an opportunity."

Chen groaned and whispered "BOHICA, man." Bend Over Here It Comes Again was a popular saying in the Army, especially when an officer said we had an 'opportunity'. It usually meant we were getting screwed one way or another, hence the time-honored expression.

Teller waited a moment for the inevitable murmuring to die down. "We have an opportunity to put our new toys into action, and do something useful in this war. UNEF received orders, we move out in two days and a wake-up. First Brigade is going in with one British and one French battalion. UNEF is all in on this one, everybody's going. The whole force is bugging out over the next two weeks.”

A guy in the front spoke up. “What’s the mission, Captain, we gonna kick some rodent ass?” The question was asked with deadly seriousness.