Letters, Part 1
Disclaimer: I do not own JAG at all.
Authors note: I thought of revamping the Mail Call fanfiction from my old account, Soul Reaver and this is the end result.
Summary: In the spring of 2005 Jennifer Coates wrote a letter as part of a pen pal program. It was received by a deployed Army National Guard sniper in Ramadi, Iraq.
1 April 2005
Dear Petty Officer Coates,
Your letter arrived, among a batch of Any Soldier letters, yesterday. Our First Sergeant pretty much handed out the letters to each platoon and my boss, Staff Sergeant Keck, handed yours to me.
I gotta say its nice to get mail out here, since we're in the middle of a city called Ramadi. Though it shares 83% of the letters with the Ramada I wouldn't recommend a vacation here. We arrived here early last week late in the night and are still feeling our way around.
A bit about myself? I am a soldier with the 2-124 Infantry Battallion, 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Florida Army National Guard, attached to the 1st Marine Division. I come from New Smyrna Beach, FL but live in Orlando, FL because I'm finishing up college at the University of Central Florida.
Can you tell me about yourself? What makes Jennifer Coates tick? I see you're in the Navy. What's your MOS (job) or whatever the Navy calls it?
Sincerely,
Roland "Rusty" Puckett
SGT, 11B4, US Army
Camp Corregidor
Ramadi, Iraq
1 April 2005, 1400
Staff Sergeant Wallace Keck lumbered into the one room that the eight men of the 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment's sniper section shared with the sniper platoon from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
"I'll be right back, Keck." Rusty said as he rose to his 5'8" height and grabbed his M16A4 with its telescopic ACOG site, sound suppressor and modified trigger and his patrol cap before walking out of the hooch to the small building that served as the outpost's supply section/post office.
"You wrote a letter back to the Any Soldier writer?" Keck replied, wiping sweat from his nearly bald forehead, "What's his name?"
"She's a woman, Keck." Rusty said with a wry grin.
"So she claims." Keck countered, stretching out on his cot.
"Screw you Keck." Rusty joked, dodging a crushed empty soda can Keck half heartedly lobbed at him.
As Rusty donned his patrol cap he faintly heard Staff Sergeant Hartzl, one of the Marine snipers, remark, "Hey Army, hope you shoot better than you throw a crushed soda can."
Timeliness. Rusty thought, glad he'd be clear of the obvious Army/Marine Corps rivalry for a few minutes.
JAG Headquarters
Fall's Church, Virginia
12 April 2005, 1500
"This just came for you, Coates." Gunnery Sergeant Galindez said, holding up an envelope, "It wound up in my inbox by accident."
"Thanks Gunny." Coates replied and then opened the letter. "New pen pal?" Gunny asked.
"New penpal?" Gunny asked.
"It was part of that Any Soldier program that Lieutenant Simms was talking about last month, Gunny." Jen replied, "Evidently whoever received mine wrote back."
"Interesting." Gunny remarked before heading back to his own desk.
Jen held the newly unfolded sheet of paper, reading it and after a quick glance at her computer screen she pulled a legal pad from her desk and began to start writing a letter of her own.
A bit formal, but he seems nice enough. Jen thought as she composed her own response.
Observation Post Hotel
Ramadi, Iraq
23 April 2005, 0645
"Kanas. Kanas. Kanas." The mosque loudspeaker sounded.
"What does that mean?" Rusty asked as he scanned the streets below, sitting well away from the open window of the long since abandoned hotel, like any well trained sniper.
"Sniper." Corporal Sid Randolph remarked, "They like shouting that any time they think we're out and about."
"Got two guys in black masks." Rusty remarked, by the rusting white clunker Toyota.
Rusty raised his M16, looking through the ACOG's aperture.
"Standby." Staff Sergeant Hartzl said, he and Randolph were helping orient one of the two four man Army National Guard sniper teams to the area near Corregidor.
"I see one, no, two AKs." Rusty continued as his crosshairs centering on one of the insurgents' torsos.
"Porky up." Specialist Richard "Porky" Porter, a stocky, 5'9" fellow built like a lineman, remarked from behind the M24 Sniper Weapon System, silently chambering a round.
"Not yet." Hartzl said, "Keep a watch on those two, maybe their buddies are gonna come out and play. Patience, guys, patience."
"Watch for their patterns then we whack them. I like it." PFC Billy Carwin, a skinny nineteen year old with a shaved head and a hook shaped nose, remarked.
"Exactly." Rusty said, shifting slightly in the chair he sat in, his rifle atop a wooden table on a collapsible bipod. Flicking the safety from safe to fire.
"Range me." Porky said.
Carwin grabbed the range finder, aiming it towards the car where the two insurgents stood, "268 meters."
"Got a guy, one RPG, coming out of the house." Carwin said.
"Got him." Hartzl said, raising his own M16A4, "Porky, we're firing off your shot."
Rusty heard Porky take a deep breath and then slowly exhale. His own finger depressed the trigger. I'm really gonna drop the hammer on this guy. He doesn't even know I'm up here...
Rusty could scarcely hear Specialist Vincent DiStephano on the radio, relaying to Samurai 6, the Marine battalion command post, the situation, "Samurai 6, Assassin 1-2, we are engaging three insurgents vicinity of OP Hotel..."
Crack! The M24 to Rusty's right erupted, followed by the barely audible thump from his own M16A4 and the slightly louder crack of Hartzl's unsuppressed M16A4.
On the street below three insurgents hit the ground, almost simultaneously, with rounds having ripped into their chests.
"Good hit." Hartzl said. The three men lay motionless, blood spreading into the dusty streets below.
"Samurai 6, Assassin 1-2. Three enemy KIA in vicinity of OP Hotel. Request extraction." DiStephano began.
Rusty watched the streets below, hearing Porky lightly raise the bolt on his M24, pulling the bolt back and silently extracting the expended cartridge before chambering a second round.
"If anyone grabs that RPG I'm shooting his ass." Porky replied.
The streets below did erupt in frenzy. The few Iraqis nearby scattered away from the three dead insurgents.
"Kanas. Kanas." The mosque loudspeaker sounded.
"Humvees." Carwin said, grabbing his M4.
"Great timing Samurai..." DiStephano remarked.
Without rushing the snipers packed their gear and weapons and ran down the four flights of stairs towards three waiting Humvees waiting to get them back to Camp Corregidor.
It was several hours later, sweating, dusty and coming off an adrenaline high that Rusty walked into the plywood hut that served as quarters for the snipers. After cleaning his M16 and his 9mm pistol he noticed a letter on his cot.
"Just arrived today. This Jennifer Coates the penpal?" Keck remarked as he took a drink of water from a bottle next to his cot.
"I guess so." Rusty replied as he opened the envelope.
"Probably some old, frumpy secretary type." Keck remarked offhandedly as he was cleaning his own M4A1 rifle.
"I dunno," Rusty said as he pulled the letter from the envelope, "I have a hard time imagining that."
"Just saying be realistic, she's probably some frumpy old bat where you're imagining some beautiful woman..." Keck quipped.
12 April 2005
Dear Sergeant Puckett,
Well, a little about myself. I grew up in Wichita Falls, Kansas where my dad was a minister.
We call jobs rates in the US Navy, and I was an Electronics Technician 2nd Class before I switched over to be a Legalman 2nd Class, kinda like a Navy paralegal if that makes sense.
Well, I am working on getting my bachelors in psychology myself. And in my off time I like hanging out with friends, watching movies, occasionally going out to a nice bar or restaurant and hanging out with Mattie, my roommate/sorta niece (long story).
You seem like a nice guy, maybe even a gentleman, and I'd like to keep writing you. So what do you do in the Army? What are you studying in college?
And one more thing. It's Jen or Jennifer next time. No need to be so formal.
Sincerely,
Petty Officer Coates
JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia
12 April 2005, 1400
"I take it you found a new friend in the Any Soldier letter writing?" Harriet remarked as she noticed the open letter on Jen's desk and that Jen was also folding up a response of her own.
"Yes ma'am." Jen replied with a smile.
"Who is he?" Harriet asked.
"He's an Army National Guard soldier from Florida and he's in Ramadi, Iraq." Jen replied, "And he's a college student when not in the National Guard."
"That sounds nice." Harriet replied.
"I'll be right back, ma'am," Jen replied, "just going to drop this in the mailbox."
"Don't me keep you." Harriet said, as she smiled and headed back to her own desk.
TBC
