In point of fact, the entire scenario was part of Robin Sage, a nineteen-day field training exercise (FTX) and the final phase of the eighteen- to twenty-six-month-long Special Forces Qualification Course taught at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. The name Robin Sage was derived from Robbins, a nearby town, and from the man who had developed the exercise, Colonel Jerry Sage, one of the school's original commanders.

The exercise was conducted throughout fourteen counties and put operators through a grueling series of unconventional warfare situations in which they had to rely upon every aspect of their training, from mission planning to execution. Robin Sage was the final exercise before graduation and assignment to one of the operational Special Forces groups. To the men taking the course, passing the exercise meant everything.

But they had to make it past Scott Mitchell first.

Being the G-chief, Mitchell had already made it clear to the detachment commander, Captain Fred Warris, and the warrant officer, CW2 Baron Williams, that this was his show, and those guys had initially argued over that. Out there in the real world you sometimes had to trust the local chief you'd only known for a month, because if you didn't, you'd never get the job done. What's more, sometimes you had to let him lead because it was his fight and his honor at stake. That was difficult for many operators to accept, men who thrived on being in control.

Robin Sage training also incorporated the experiences of real-life soldiers like Mitchell, who had designed this particular scenario based upon an experience he'd had in Eritrea. The young Captain Warris was about to be overwhelmed.

Mitchell's breath grew shallow. The truck was about twenty meters from the trigger line now.

Close enough.

He burst from cover, ran onto the road, and began firing wildly at the vehicle, screaming at the top of his lungs, "For my father! For my brothers!"

Behind him, Warris began hollering, "Jawaad, what the hell are you doing? Come back!"

Mitchell kept firing, his paintballs exploding on the windshield of the truck.

Warris hollered even louder, "Jawaad, get back here!"

The truck's driver threw it in park and hopped out, along with a passenger: both OpForland soldiers armed with rifles. They dropped to their bellies and began returning fire, paintballs whirring past Mitchell, who was grinning to himself.

G-chief Jawaad had screwed up the entire ambush.

The ODA team and the guerrillas were supposed to lie in wait until the truck hit the trigger line, at which time one of Jawaad's men would toss a smoke grenade while a simulated claymore exploded, tearing apart the vehicle's front end.

Mitchell had, in his own way, just welcomed his students to Unconventional Warfare 101, where no battle plan survived the first enemy--or friendly--contact.