Page 49 - 100 Hours to Destiny

the COs back on chow, but you and I both know that the CO is the type of
Marine that waits until all of his troops are fed first, unlike some recruits
from Arkansas that push their way to the front of the line…as if they are
privileged, you know…. Like the CO’s driver…. Like last time we were eating
the tray rats, and somebody said, “uh, uh, uh…. Hey Witch, serve me first!
I’ve got to go stand watch all by myself.” Everybody within earshot chuckled.
Suddenly Terry Davis sounded off, “Alright you two morons pipe
down… the CO is ready.” Upon hearing that remark from Sgt Davis, I shook
my finger at Mitchell….signaling that “you ain’t heard the last of this yet.”
And of course, Marcus nodded his head as if to say, “we’ll see…we’ll see….”
Suddenly Captain Pollard began to speak…. It was 0900 sharp….
The Marines of Delta Company were focused on every word Captain
Pollard had to say. As I looked around there was no doubt that every man
felt as though what the Captain had to say could reflect on that Marine’s
survival. This was deadly serious. We had trained so very long and been
through so much together, that right now this was the all-important
message. Our job was to pay attention and absorb this vital information.
The Captain began with a statement of time hacks and coordination
of phase lines that we would encounter as we traversed into unknown
territory. The Captain was laying out the road map that Delta Company
would follow. It gave me great confidence to observe the entire crew of
American Hero be so well versed with the makeshift map on the ground;
after all, it would be these Marines leading the way into the Invasion. This
map was a scale mock-up approximately 15’ x 20’ long, and the Captain’s
crew had taken great effort utilizing on-hand terrain features to represent
obstacles. I was impressed with the presentation. I listened on and on as the
briefing described the exact path we would be taking. As I listened to Captain
Pollard my mind took me to these places that he described, not yet seen. My
vivid imagination created instantaneous scenes as I put action to the words
spoken. Trying somehow to win each phase line against a mysterious enemy.
There were many phase lines described, and the ground model looked
immense.
The succession of phase lines began at the first breach site with
“knife” yet there were seven more to go. Combat confrontations at each of
these waypoints were expected. There was “Cutlass”, then “Rapier”, then
“Yellow”, “Rifle”, “Hitchcock”, “Pistol” where we would leave Task Force
Ripper and reattach to Task Force Shepard and last but not least the final
phase line “Wilson”. We would end our march in a platoon V and the TOWs
would fall to the bottom of the V formation with Capt Pollard leading Delta
Company.