War Stories 8

[ikar]

One night I was putting in some time at the armory, (I led such an exciting off duty life)and we decided to get our two Illegal .50 caliber guns ready for use. All we had to do is drag them from the locker they were kept in, pull the back plate off, oil and reassemble, put in the barrel, set the gap, remove the barrel, tag what went with which and put them away. In theory, all you have to do is grab the matching tags, mount the weapon to your armor, put in and lock down the barrel, and you're set.

During this operation, there was a knock on the steel issuing doors. The armory NCIC looked out and opened the door. I was told to grab a box of the new 40mm grenade flares we just got in. The customer left and I went back to my Project.

Sometime later another knock. I got it this time. Now they wanted two more boxes of flares and a box of H.E. rounds for the 174 launcher. I had to ask what was going on. It seems we had some people pinned down in a field between the perimeter fence and the clinic. I stuck my head out the door and saw flares coming down about 1/4 mile away. He then asked for some slap flares too.

I finished up my project as fast as I could and since I lived very close to the action, about a block I headed home that way, hoping to see what was going on.

When I got there, the whole area was surrounded and they were using flares and our new Xeon light set of I.R. in an attempt to find our guests. By now the field had caught fire and some of the guys started to pull back to the other side of the street.

I headed home and got some sleep because day shift comes early. The next day was Guardmount, we were briefed on the previous events, including the incident.

THey didn't find anyone, but did find a couple burned up bicycles and a couple other things. SOmehow they got away.