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.When you finish that if you're mm enoughto finish that you will return to Fort Bragg and go through Special ForcesPage 98 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltraining.It is the toughest training in the world, and I will be personallysurprised if you can make it.But if you do, your actions here will be wipedfrom the books.If you don't, you will spend the rest of your military serviceas a cook's helper in the most remote place that can be found to send you.""Yes, sir." "That's all? You can't even say Thank you, sir'?" "Thank you,sir." "Sergeant Major! ""Yes sir.""Take this piece of garbage out of my sight.Put him in a Class A uniform.Take him to the airport.There will be a ticket to Fayetteville, N.C." waitingfor him at the Piedmont counter.""Yes, sir," the sergeant major said.He took Geoff Craig's arm and led him outof the office.Colonel Lowell came out of Colonel Sauer's lavatory."You think that was necessary, Lowell?" Saner asked."I felt like I waspulling the wings off a fly.""Yes, sir, I think it was," Lowell said."Thank you.""Why Special Forces? Have you got something nasty planned for him at Bragg?""Oh, I think Snake-Eating 101 will be nasty enough in itself, Colonel," Lowellsaid."The truth of the matter is and I wouldn't want Mac to hear me say it ina perverse way and from a distance, I rather admire what Hanrahan is doingdown there.""You obviously know Hanrahan well enough to call in a favor Colonel Sauersaid.It was a question.I served under him in Greece," Lowell said."I think he's right""I'm not sure I agree with the theory of elite troops," Saner said."That depends on the defmition of elite troops," Lowell said."If that meanssuper troopers, trained to the nth degree, who are then sent in as assaulttroops and damn the casualties, neither do I.""Then, what are they?""Hanrahan objects to tying the Rangers in as part of the Special Forcesheritage," Lowell explained."The Rangers were trained to accomplish the mostdifficult missions without regard to costs.He says he's training his peopleto stay alive, so that when he's finished training them, the army has too muchinvested in them to have them get blown away while charging up hills through aWilly Peter* baimge, shouting Follow me!""Follow me!" is the motto of the Infantry School.But Colonel Saner decidedthat an officer wearing four Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross,and the Combat Infantry Badge (Second Award) was entitled to make light of itif he so chose.As a matter of fact, Saner had often thought that the functionof a junior officer or noncom leading troops in combat was not to get out onthe point himself.He would be quickly blown away there, leaving his troopsleaderless.His job was to keep himself alive so that he would be in theposition to make the painful choice of which of his troops was to assume thepoint and probably get himself killed."Then what are they supposed to do?"Page 99 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Train and command indigenous forces," Lowell said."The equation is simple:For every indigenous troop bearing arms for his country, one less American hasto pick up a weapon.One of Hanrahan's A Teams can train and operate a coupleof companies of native troops.When they're in that role.Their other role, asguerrillas blowing up bridges, cutting communications can tie up an awful lotof enemy troops just running around trying to find them.I stand in that thinline of soldiers who think Hanrahan is right and everybody else is wrong."* White pbosphixus."I'm a little surprised to hear you say that," Sauer said."The word I getfrom people I know at Bragg is that those green hats they wear went to theirheads.They think they're better than everybody else.""They are," Lowell said."But that's past tense with the Green Berets.Theylost that fight.CO NARC forbade the wearing of foreign-type' headgear.""I hadn't heard that," Saner said."You think CO NARC was wrong?""Yes, Ido.And Ithink CO NARC is wrong in the next step in their screw SpecialForces program.""Which is.?""They want to convert the Fifth Special Forces Group into the Fifth AirborneRegimental Combat Team and assign it to XVIII Airborne Corps.When I talked tohim before lunch, Hanrahan said the President was about to arrive at Bragg.What I'm afraid of is that the President came there to make the announcement.""Why would he do that?""Airborne just lost a very serious pitch to take over Army Aviation.I thinkthey're going to be thrown a consolation bone called Special Forces.""Is that why you're not down there in a green beret? You found out they'regoing to lose the battler"I have an unfortunate reputation in the army," Lowell said."I am one hell ofa paper pusher.That being the case, I might as well shuffle paper in comfortrather than in a swamp, eating snakes."Colonel Saner sensed the bitterness and understood it.Once an officeracquired a reputation as a "good staff man," that's what the army assigned himto do.Napoleon said his army moved on its stomach.The U.S.Army had solvedthat problem, but only at the price of acquiring another problem.The U.S.Army moved on a sea of paper, and people who could shuffle that paperskillfully were in short supply and great demand.Whether or not they likedit, they were given desks rather than battalions and regiments."Speaking of which," Lowell went on, "I was due in Sodom on Potomac thirtyminutes ago.""You going to be in hot water?" Saner asked
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