Free Hunter's Heart by Rita Henuber Page A

“and none of ’em are making friends.”
    “Enlisted and officers?” he asked.
    “ Yeaph. Assholes one and all. They came in bragging about how they were going to show the Navy how it’s done. Show all the special operators who was the best. You guys,” he said, turning to look at them, “would soon be showing them respect.”
    He and Bambi exchanged glances. Great. This was not going to be pretty. They worked with other branches of the military from around the world in training and real world ops. The way you got respect was by fitting in and doing the job very well . Working hard and playing harder.

    Their Army compatriots wasted no time starting the shit. It began with small bumps and trash talkin’. The trash talkin’ ended pretty quick ’cause nobody can out-trash talk a SEAL. They all have master’s degrees in trash talkin’. Then Army got pissed they couldn’t get their goat. What really sent them ballistic happened at the beginning of the second week. Their lieutenant found out the man he’d be liaising with, Bug, was an E7 NCO. An enlisted man. Not an officer. SEALs—officer and enlisted alike—go on deployments together. In a battle, a bullet or bomb doesn’t make rank distinctions. Units work and train together, regardless of rank, so they are all at the highest performance level. Senior NCOs are schooled in leadership positions for battle and DDD—dreaded desk duty.
    Many times units don’t display their rank, using only nicknames. This was one of those times. The Army lieuie got in LT’s face in the common room. When he was done cussing, spitting, calling off a list of what he was going to report to his CO, and letting everyone see his hairy ass, LT quietly laid into him.
    “So you know,” LT said, standing tall and looking down at the man who was a good five inches shorter, “I’d love to go before a review board and explain how your unit has wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars coming to training late and unprepared, slowing down units that are ready to participate. Go for it.”
    Army’s face turned purple, his mouth moved but no words came out. LT started to turn away then stopped. “One more thing, so you know. I think going into a battle with you or any of your men would be like committing suicide.”
    Damn. The room went real quiet. That was the worst insult you could give an infantryman. LT turned his back on the man, walked over to the boom box and cranked up the tones. That ended that. Army slithered out of the building.

    Nights they weren’t training, they joined up with the 10th and SOAR guys at an establishment outside the front gate—the Crossroads Bar—where thousands of their brethren had hoisted a few. It was a revered middle-of-the-last-century place that smelled of sweat, stale beer and testosterone. Sagging wood floors covered with sawdust and peanut shells, held beat-up pool tables. A 40s jukebox that only played decades-old music, had been repaired by patrons for no charge, dozens of times because they didn’t want to see it go.
    The yellow-brown patina of the walls attested it was one of the last bars in the country where you could smoke. He’d never had the balls to touch a wall. If the establishment wanted to hang pictures, nails wouldn’t be necessary only slight pressure against the years of sticky smoke build up. No one on the team smoked cancer sticks but they did enjoy a good cigar and it was nice to light up without the PC police coming after them.
    The place made their living from the military and they were pretty tolerant of crap the men pulled. But, the Army kept pushing the limits. That morning a SOAR crew refused to take a couple of the pukes in their helo for training. The men were still drunk from the previous night’s drinking and the crew considered them non-functional and a danger to others. That was reported.
    The incident reflected on their officers, as it should, and on up the line to the colonel—who, must have given the officers