Eye of the Storm

CHAPTER TEN

“Can you send a message on this thing?” Cutprice asked.

“When you pull up a service record there’s an icon,” Norris said, taking a pull off his beer. “That connects to his Buckely so you can either send a text message or just call him.”

“Don’t use a Buckley,” Cutprice said, shaking his head. “Can’t stand the goddamned things. What if you want a particular unit? Can you look at who commands it?”

“No,” Norris said. “Because the final choices haven’t been made. But you can look who’s in the lead in points. What’s starting to happen is clustering. Like you went to your friend the Master Sergeant and bid on him. Well, if you bid on a particular company, people will start clustering around you. There’s a way to look up anyone and put a flag to see where they’re going. People see you take a particular company and a lieutenant colonel who wants to be your commander puts in a bid on the battalion. Somebody who’s looking for an S-3 slot might decide if you’re going to be in the battalion it’s going to make his headaches less. Points start going up across the board any time someone who’s got a real rep like yours bids on a unit. Guys get together and combine points to make sure they get the grouping they want. You can even add points to a guy’s bid on the battalion if you’d rather have him than someone else.”

“We’re electing our officers,” Cutprice said.

“In a way,” Norris said. “But the real problem with clustering is that you end up with some really elite units, elite companies, elite battalions, and some that are just the dregs. That’s the sort of unit I’ll end up in even if I get some points from you and just bid for a random platoon. The sort of unit where all the guys who have just enough points to scratch their way into a unit end up. That means guys with minimal combat experience or crappy evaluations, no medals, stuff like that. Whereas we might be right next to a battalion that’s filled with nothing but medal of honor winners. If you get what I mean.”

“I get it,” Cutprice said as a message icon popped up. It was from Wacleva so he opened it. “Ooo, it’s worse than you thought, Lieutenant. How do I pay you?”

“If you mean points, sir,” the lieutenant said, wincing. “You open up my service record. Norris, Andrew.”

Cutprice typed slowly and laboriously and finally got a screen.

“Third one down, sir,” the LT said.

“Damn, you don’t have many points,” Cutprice said, looking at his record. “You had a platoon. But those are a string of really sucky OERs, son.” He could figure that out already.

“I managed to overcome them to an extent,” the LT said. “And I’d whine about it being a crappy chain of command. Which it was. But I wasn’t a great platoon leader. See the points link? Click on that and it will take you to a screen where you can transfer points.”

“If I was you, I’d take all my points and try to get a good staff position rather than a crappy platoon,” Cutprice said. The transfer was easy enough. “How many do you need for a platoon?”

“At least thirty, sir, if you can spare them.”

“Done,” Cutprice said. “I’ll keep you in mind, Norris. But I’m not promising anything. When you were staff, what was your specialty?”

“Ops,” Norris said. “I did some time in personnel, but I did my best work in Plans.”

“Shoot for an assistant S-3 position,” Cutprice said. He saw a look of pain cross the lieutenant’s face. “Yeah, I know. You really want a platoon. Or think you do. Maybe to make up for what you consider to have been failure in the past. But let me give you some advice: people are good or bad at different levels. There were some kids who can handle a platoon, but are lost with a company. They tend to migrate over to Special Forces, where they can be glorified squad leaders. Some people suck moose cock as platoon leaders, but as company commanders they walk on water… Hell, they create clouds and walk on those. Some people are just best on staff. Son, last words: insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over again, the same way, and expecting a different result. Don’t be a loonie. Now I’ve got to get down to building a unit.”

“Sir,” Norris said, sighing. “I can probably help out quite a bit. And if you text the most probable S-3 and ask him to bid on me I can escape getting in one of the rat-trap units.”