Chapter 2: Advanced Training Jade Style

April 19, 1994

The men had just entered the chute packing hangar. The transition from the dark outside to the brightly lit building’s interior hurt the eyes. It was way too early in the morning to be packing parachutes. Half of the men needed another couple of cups of coffee, just to wake up!

They stopped just inside the hangar staring at the mess there. This was normally the most orderly and clean area on the entire base, but not this morning. Parachutes were strewn randomly around on the floor.

Even looking at them from a distance, it was clear that not a single parachute had been packed properly. There were bits of parachute fabric sticking out from the tight confines of the canvas packs.

Sword Miquel stood in front of the soldiers. “Gentlemen, we jump in two hours. Get to work.”

He walked off to the side to watch. One of the soldiers went over to a pack and picked it up. It fell to the floor when the strap he had grabbed broke. The whole room stopped and stared at the pack which was now lying on the ground at his feet. This was not the kind of sight that instilled confidence in parachute equipment.

“Oh, shit!”

Sword Miquel smiled and said, “Set that one, aside and pick another one.”

“The pin is bent on this one.”

“You might want to get a new pin,” Sword Miquel said.

“The lines on this one are frayed.”

“You might want to get new ones.”

“The canopy is ripped.”

“You might want to get a new one.”

“I think moths have eaten through the canvas pack.”

“You might want to get a new one.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Nope. I’m just weeding out the incompetent,” Sword Miquel said. “It’s pretty easy, this way. They just become a red splotch on the ground.”

“Oh, shit!”

“I’ll leave you to your work. There are others who are in dire need of training,” Sword Miquel said.

He turned and walked out of the packing hangar.

Sword Miquel stood in front of the soldiers lined up at the shooting stations. He was between them and the targets a hundred yards from the firing line. The Gun Range Safety Officer was glaring at him. People were not supposed to stand where he was standing.

“Your Gun Range Safety Officer voiced concerns that my training exercises might kill someone by accident. He thought it was a joke when I told him that only an even number of people would die out here because I would kill anyone who kills someone on the firing range. He stopped laughing when he realized I was serious. If you shoot someone, I will shoot you. If you shoot yourself, I’ll shoot you a second time just to keep the count even.”

Everyone nervously laughed. They weren’t sure he wasn’t serious.

“Your Gun Range Safety Officer has informed me that you are not allowed to run with a loaded weapon. I have, as a result of my discussion with said Gun Range Safety Officer, changed this training exercise to take into account his concern that I might get two or more of you killed. You are not to run with a gun regardless of whether it is loaded or not.

“This is a simple exercise to improve your shooting ability under the high stress environment of a battlefield.

“You should take note of several items. There is a rifle on a rack in front of you. There are ten rounds of ammunition on the ground next to the rifle. Fifty yards behind you is a white line. There is a cleaning kit on the ground next to the rack.

“When I give the signal, you will run as fast as you can to the white line and back. You will pick up the rifle and one round of ammunition. You will load that round of ammunition into the rifle and you will fire at the target. Upon firing, you will eject the spent shell, leave the breach open, return the rifle to the rack, and then wait for the spotter to show you the result of your shot. He will hold up a red dot over the bullet hole.

“You will repeat that cycle until all ten rounds of ammunition have been fired. You will then clean the rifle and put it back on the rack.”

The looks on the faces of the soldiers was one of horror.

“I will demonstrate,” Sword Miquel said while walking back to the firing line.

Once there, he looked down at the rifle, then at the ammunition, over at the target, and then to the white line. He took off at a run for the white line. This wasn’t a little jog, but a full out run. He reached the line and returned at the same pace. He reached the firing line, stopped, picked up a round of ammunition and grabbed the rifle. He loaded the rifle in one smooth motion. Without lifting the rifle to his shoulder, he pointed the barrel at the target and pulled the trigger. He ejected the spend shell and place the rifle back onto the rack with the breach open. He turned to look down the range. A red dot was held over the bull’s eye.

He repeated the cycle for the next nine rounds of ammunition, hitting the bull’s eye each time. He was barely breathing hard on the last cycle. He dropped down to the ground and started cleaning the gun.

“That is how it is done,” he said while still cleaning the rifle. “You will do this exercise three times a day until you get all ten rounds in the black ring. Then we will work on your time.”

“Are there any questions?”

“Did you really fire that gun without aiming?”

“I aimed. I just aim in a different way than you’ve been taught,” he answered.

He checked the barrel of the rifle. It wasn’t clean yet, so he ran another cleaning patch through the barrel.

The Gun Range Safety Officer shouted, “I will personally skin anyone who I catch shooting a rifle in the same way as Sword Miquel. You will fire your rifle in an approved military manner. Is that clear?”

Everyone shouted, “Yes, Sir!”

Sword Miquel put the assembled rifle back on the rack. He stood up and said, “He’ll skin you after I’m done shooting you dead.”

The first set of soldiers ran through the exercise. Not one managed to hit the target on the last cycle. They were breathing too hard to hold the gun still. It took them a bit of time to recover enough to begin cleaning the rifles. With as many soldiers as there were, they only managed to perform the exercise twice that day.

The men were lined up waiting to board the planes for a training jump. They were wearing their freshly packed parachutes and looking very nervous for some reason. They were checking, double checking, and triple checking their equipment. It was as if they didn’t quite trust their equipment.

Sword Miquel walked out onto the tarmac carrying a long bamboo stick. Every eye followed his progress. More than one man studied the bamboo stick, wondering what it was for. It looked threatening.

“Gentleman! This is a bamboo stick. It is eight feet long and two inches in diameter. The last four feet have been split into eighths.”

He swung the bamboo stick. The eighths spread out like a fan. It made a nasty sounding swoosh and looked positively evil.

“It will play an important role in today’s jump. I will let the use of the bamboo stick be a surprise.”

There was a lot of grumbling on hearing that. The soldiers didn’t think they were going to be too happy about the surprise.

“Today, you will practice jumping into an urban environment!”

“What?!”

“I knew it. He’s trying to kill us.”

All of their past jumps had been into a nice grassy field. They had lots of room to land. The ground was level so it made the landing pretty easy to control. An urban environment meant buildings. Hitting a building would kill them.

Sword Miquel said, “Fortunately for you, the base commander would not let us build a real city in the middle of your jump practice area. There are nice wide streets for you to land in. They are covered with a white powder so that they are easy to spot on your approach. Land there.

“He did let us put up a temporary eight foot tall fences, to represent the buildings. You do not want to land inside a fenced in area. You do not want to crash into the fence. If given a choice, I suggest missing the fence. Hitting the fence will hurt.”

A low groan echoed across the tarmac.

“I’ll meet you at the landing zone!” Sword Miquel said before walking off while swinging the bamboo stick.

“We’re gonna die.”

Fifty paratroopers were suspended fifteen feet in the air. Each of them was wearing a parachute harness that was attached to a cable above their head. They were fully loaded with all of their jump gear. They were just swaying in the breeze. From the expressions on their faces, it was pretty obvious that they weren’t happy to be there.

Below them, an equal number of paratroopers were standing around with open parachute packs by their feet. They were looking up at the guys suspended over their heads. Young men being young men, they couldn’t resist teasing those who were hanging down, about ‘pinata practice’.

There were two ambulances parked over to the side. Somehow the presence of the ambulances wasn’t as reassuring as one might think. One might have been reassuring, but two ... that suggested physical harm was a given.

Sword Miquel walked up and looked at the men hanging from the cable. He smiled at them. They didn’t smile back.

“Gentlemen! You have jumped from an airplane. Unfortunately, your parachute did not take you all of the way to the ground. It got caught in tree or a power line or something equally as inanimate. It happens.

“If you just release your harness, you will fall fifteen feet. Considering how loaded down you are with gear, a fall from that height will definitely break a leg or two. You are to figure out how to get down without getting hurt.

“Have fun. I’d stick around, but I have to get over to a landing zone.”

One of the men who was hanging down shouted after him, “You’re supposed to tell us what to do.”

Colonel Naff did not look happy, probably for the simple fact that he wasn’t happy. He had been hearing bad things all morning. He’d heard that someone had sabotaged the parachutes and that his men had spent the entire morning repairing them. One of his men had collapsed on the firing range. On the drive out here, he had learned that another man had broken an ankle after falling fifteen feet. On arriving here, he discovered that someone had built fences all over his landing zone.

After asking one of the men standing beside an ambulance, he discovered where Sword Miquel was located. It took him another couple of minutes to find Sword Miquel in the middle of one of the fenced in areas.

Sword Miquel was swinging a bamboo stick back and forth.

Storming over to the Jade Warrior, Colonel Naff shouted, “What did you do to my landing zone?”

“It’s a pretend city,” Sword Miguel answered.

“This is our landing zone.”

“I know.”

“Get rid of it!”

“It’s a little late for that,” Sword Miquel said.

“Why?”

“There are the planes, now.”

Colonel Naff stared up at the sky just in time to see the planes disgorge paratroopers. He watched hoping that all of the parachutes opened correctly. Much to his relief, they did.

Sword Miquel said, “So far, so good.”

“They’re going to crash into the fences.”

“That’s the idea,” Sword Miquel said.

“You’re gonna kill all of my men.”

Sword Miquel said, “Not yet.”

The first man who had jumped out of the plane was approaching the ground at a fast clip. Even from a distance, they could hear him screaming.