Chapter 7

Gibbs, Saldano and Mercer walked listlessly toward the assembly hall to meet their squads. The two other men had taken long weekends to see their families with permission. They would be staying with Gibbs for the next three nights and the entire 3 new squads would be heading for Camp Pendleton to work out all of their "kinks" before deployment next Monday. The sixty days had gone by so quickly everyone's heads were still spinning.

"I'm too old for this crap again. God this sucks." Mercer said and kicked at a pebble.

"We know Jim, we know. You've told us, endlessly. Fucking forever even." Ricky snarled.

Both Gibbs and Mercer looked at Saldano quickly. Saldano's face was set in hard lines.

"Sorry." Mercer murmured.

Saldano stopped walking and stood very still. The other two men stopped with him and waited. Gibbs moved to stand almost in front of him. With bowed head he looked up into Saldano's eyes and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"What?" he said and waited.

"She's pregnant. My youngest daughter is pregnant. She's 20 years old."

"I gather this is not the best news?" Mercer said quietly. Then "What? I'm serious!" When Jethro shot him a look.

"It's OK Jethro. He's right. This isn't the best news. Jenna is a freshman in college. She was gonna get her teaching degree. She's just brilliant in Science."

He rubbed his face, took off his garrison cover and wiped an arm over his brow. Then he straightened his shoulders, slipped his cover back on and nodded at them.

"I'm OK. Thanks."

Mercer clapped him on the shoulder and the three men headed toward headquarters and from there they would go to assembly.

There was a fair amount of activity in headquarters as they came in. Phones ringing and people rushing around surprised them. Mercer looked about him in disbelief. He quickly assessed that he and his fellows were the highest ranking people in the room. He looked at Gibbs who nodded and put his fingers to his lips and blew a long and lingering shrill whistle.

"Belay this crap!" Mercer shouted. People froze and stared.

"This is the Marine Corps people! Not a bunch of ninny, know nothing civilians in a Walmart! Tell me what the hell is going on here! Now!"

Saldano stepped forward, hands on hips and a scowl hard enough to make people shake in their shoes. People glanced at one another but no one spoke.

It was Gibbs turn.

"Sit rep! Now or I'll rip one outta your asses!" he roared.

A thin Marine with a PFC insignia stepped forward.

"Yes sir Master Guns! We..we…we're trying to get everything and every body ready! The Commandant is coming and we only got 2 hours before he gets here. We got people out in the training areas that need to come back…we gotta get…"

"Alright, alright I got it. But you're all getting ahead of yourselves and in each others way." Mercer said.

He quickly began to organize the personnel. The Master Guns settled people into functioning groups, tasks were assigned.

"Where is Lt. Gen. Worth? Why isn't anybody in charge around here? We were supposed to pick up our assignments and troops." Gibbs asked a scattered looking woman whose tag said PFC. Norton.

"I'm sorry sir. I think everybody left to go meet the Commandant. Basically we were told to notify everybody. That's what we were trying to do. But we started finding out that a lot of people, field commanders and Staff Sgt's all those people can't reached, they're on maneuvers and…"

"Got it, got it Private. Listen, you got someone who knows where the paperwork is for us?"

Gibbs interrupted her as she started to wind up again. Mercer seemed to be quelling the state of hysteria that had existed when they came in. Gibbs had to redirect her one more time before she was able to focus. She led him to another desk. A young dark haired marine with a tight desert cut was on the phone. He held a hand up and continued to talk on the phone. Gibbs listened long enough to decide the phone call was not really necessary. He reached out and cut the phone off.

"What the hell?" the man said whirling to see Gibbs standing there.

"Question for ya Cpl. Morningside."

The young man snapped to as he looked at Gibbs with wide eyes.

"Begging your pardon sir!" he said with a shaky voice.

"Do you see bars on my uniform Cpl?"

"N..no Master Guns!"

"Then don't call me Sir!" Gibbs growled. "I need the paperwork for Master Guns Mercer and Saldano and myself. We're looking for assignments, personnel rosters for our squads etc."

"Yes s… I mean Master Gunny. I remember seeing a file …"

Morningside began to rustle through papers on his desk. Gibbs tried to keep his face neutral while he waited. The young man became increasingly agitated as he couldn't find the folder. Gibbs waited another minute then dropped his hand onto the pile. Morningside froze.

"Listen Cpl. Let's just go one file at a time. Make a pile to put things into as you eliminate them. OK?"

"Y…Yes Master Guns."

The pile grew and then suddenly Morningside had three files.

"Here it is s..Master Gunny."

"Thank you Cpl. Morningside."

Gibbs went outside with the files followed by Saldano. Mercer was in his glory inside continuing to organize things. The two Gunny's sat down on one end of the porch to sort through their rosters. They read in silence. After finishing a quick read through Gibbs closed it and sighed looking off into the distance. Ricky was a few minutes behind him. Finishing up they sat in the sunshine staring at nothing.

"Gettin' real Gibbs."

"Yup."

"Well, I s'pose we should collect Jim and head for the rendezvous. I'm tired Leroy, don't know about you…"

"Yeah, down to the bone Ricky."

Pulling Mercer away from the now organized office was easier than they expected. He took his roster from Gibbs and looked through it. He then sat down next to the other two men. They all looked at nothing.

"Usual bunch of jarheads Gibbs."

"Yup."

All three men sat quietly and thought to themselves for about 10 minutes.

"This ain't getting' it done fella's." Saldano said.

"Ok. Let's go." Gibbs stood up and waited until the others joined him.

They set off across the compound walking abreast. Mercer grunted and pointed to people running about from building to building.

"Chickens with their heads cut off. It's a damn shame Gibbs." he drawled.

"Yeah. No leadership apparently, everybody's tryin' to kiss ass."

"Here we are. I'm goin' in hard." Ricky said.

They pushed the doors wide and went in still abreast. The noise level was up. The men mixing about inside were talking and posturing for each other, joking about. The three Master Guns stood watching alertly. It took approximately 3 minutes for the men to realize they were there. Mercer growled looking at his watch.

"Now that y'all so kindly have given us your attention gentlemen. We would like to introduce ourselves. I'm Master Guns Mercer, this heah fella is Master Guns Saldano and this heah scoundrel is Master Guns Gibbs. We're all gonna be your mentors, your advisors, instructors, father figures and the only thing saving all your ignorant asses from total destruction!"

Mercer had finally built up to a bellow, now his voice suddenly dropped back down to a quiet civilized tone.

"So…now we want y'all to line up in your squads and we'll all get acquainted." He smiled with deceptive Southern charm.

No one moved, eyes wide and staring.

"Fall in you assholes! All hands on deck!" Ricky shouted.

"Now!" snarled Gibbs.

The men scrambled and hurried into groups of 12. Gibbs noticed one older Marine with sergeants' stripes moving more slowly. He sighed to himself as he found the man going into his squad. 'Oh great.' he thought.