A state of disobedience

Pickup Zone (PZ) "Treasure," Oklahoma

The faint nimbus of the rising sun was only just beginning to peek over the low Oklahoma hills to the east. A mild southern wind carried little dust on its breeze, and virtually none into the eyes of the Army teams overseeing the loading and departure of a battalion of PGSS "agents" towards Fort Worth.

The helicopters themselves, however, kicked up enough dust to be an annoyance. It was an annoyance to which the Army was long since used, however. The soldiers shrugged it off.

Not so the PGSS. Unused to helicopters at best—most of them, they snarled and choked as they neared the birds designated to take them by "chalk"—strange Army term meaning one load for one helicopter, so they had found out—to their landing zones.

The snarling was only about half due to the dust, however, or perhaps a bit less. Mostly they were frightened. They'd never been recruited, armed, organized or trained for this kind of mission. The last several weeks' intense training under qualified Army instructors had made good some of this lack—albeit not without some friction between the two. Still, the idea of close combat in buildings—the worst and deadliest kind of combat, so their instructors had told them—had not been high on their list of reasons for joining up.

With a circle of hands and a pointed finger the ground teams signaled their helicopters to take off into the wind.

Other battalions waited to load as soon as their transport returned.

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