12 Hours Ago

2

12 Hours ago, Travers was not alone. He was not on the strange island of Sicily surrounded by men who were trying to kill him. Travers was with his outfit and the rest of the 82nd Airborne Division in Kairouan, Tunisia. He sat in a large, dim tent filled with his comrades and friends as they awaited the battalion briefing by their battalion commander.

Private First Class Travers from Boston, Massachusetts belonged to G Company, 3rd Battalion, 500th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Travers was a simple rifleman in 1st Squad of the 1st platoon, under the command of Sergeant Jonathan Dane. Travers took a glance at Dane, sitting in the front of tent looking at the projector, and smirked. Dane was a carefree, laidback yet energetic spirit from Washington, D.C., with a casual attitude that made him seem lazy by his superiors. But the enlisted men liked Dane for his "go-with-the-flow" attitude and overall amiable personality. But this did not deter away from his leadership. He was seen as an excellent soldier and a solid tactician. Travers was lucky that Dane was his squad leader. Dane commanded the respect of most of the men in G Company, most except Sergeant Dan Setzer.

Travers peered over to his far right and eyed Setzer standing next to the side of the tent, arms crossed and with a scrunched up face that looked like he had just swallowed something sour. Travers merely shook his head at the sight. Setzer was a big muscular soldier and was a star athlete from Enid, Oklahoma; holding the record of the fastest time in the five mile run in the whole battalion. Personality-wise, Setzer was the complete opposite of Dane. Setzer took pride in training and aggressiveness in combat; whereas Dane would only train if he thought it was necessary and held more of a defensive mindset. Setzer was serious and strict, whereas Dane was easygoing and flexible. Setzer had often clashed with Sergeant Dane over little trivial matters; and they hold the distinction of being the most infamous rivals in the entire battalion. Their personalities and egos were too colossal for their own good. But on the tactical level, Setzer was second-to-none. Travers recognized he was a skilled NCO, but not the best man to serve under while outside combat.

"Ten-hut!" a captain shouted.

All of G Company stood up from their seats and stood at attention. A sharp-looking officer walked through the crowd wearing silver-oak leaves on his collar and stood in front of podium facing the men of G Company. The officer was the Commander of the 3rd Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Cage.

"At ease, Airborne. You may take your seats," Cage cleared his throat. The 160 men of G Company took their seats. Cage continued, "Our mission is here. Sicily. The village of Adanti. S-2 is reporting four enemy emplacement of AA Guns located throughout the village. The mission is simple, capture Adanti and knock out the emplacements. Now the capture of Adanti itself is the primary objective. It is vital, I repeat vital that Adanti is in Allied hands. Adanti stands right on the middle of a route that leads straight to the beaches where the Invasion forces will be at. Adanti has three roads going in, and three roads going out. The roads directly lead to Gela, Licata, and the Scoglitti beach where the landing forces will come ashore. From Adanti, the Italians and Germans can reinforce and counterattack against the cities and our beachhead, and can effectively drive the invasion force back into the ocean. We will not allow that to happen. So in short, we must take Adanti, disable the AA Guns, and hold Adanti until relieved from the beach forces. You can expect resistance from Italian Blackshirts, but they should consist of inexperienced and ill-trained young men. The Password will be "Cloud" and the countersign will be "Rain"."

Take a small village from the Italians, hold it, and boom! Done. Sounds easy enough, Travers thought to himself with a satisfied smirk.

"This will be our baptism of fire, gentleman. This will be the first time Uncle Sam deploys paratroopers, so we will live up to our expectation. Those silver jumpwings that are pinned to your chest signifies that you are the best of the best. And you will not fail."

For some reason to the men listening, this part of the briefing carried more weight than the actual mission detail. They understood the call that was being asked of them.

With nothing left to say, the Colonel said a simple, "Dismissed, Airborne," and left the tent, preparing on briefing the other companies of the battalion. The men of G Company slowly got out of their chairs and exited the tented area.

"And the award for the dullest speech goes to…," a paratrooper joked with Travers as they left.

Travers chuckled. "Jesus Christ, were you sleeping through that briefing, Reese?"

"I couldn't, Setzer wouldn't take his eyes off of me."

"So that's why he looked like he was going to pass a kidney stone."

The paratrooper scoffed. "That uptight son of a bitch…he really needs to get laid."

Travers chuckled lightly and walked off with the paratrooper. The man besides Travers was Private First Class Reese Taylor from Los Angeles, California. He was 23 years-old and had long curly brown hair, ruggedly handsome, brilliant but lazy. And he was Travers' best friend.

"I'm just saying Boyd," Reese started, "They already briefed us on this jump a dozen fucking times already. I already know what I need to know."

"Doesn't hurt to know all possible scenarios in case something happens."

"Oh come on Travers, what's the worst that can happen?"

"All right then. I want you to remember that when I save your ass on Sicily."

Reese chuckled as he lit a cigarette, "You're going to save my ass? Did I hear that right? Tell you what, I got ten bucks in my pocket. Ten bucks to whoever saves the other's ass first."

Travers cocked a grin. "You got yourself a deal, Reese."

"He Travers, you're good in Italian or Sicilian…or whatever…tell me, how do you say "Ten bucks richer," in Italian?" Reese asked as he pulled out his standard issue woolen cap and wore it. What made Reese's cap so special was that Reese put in his own flamboyant "Los Angeles" taste and sown golden embroidery around the rim of the cap. Travers chuckled loudly.

"How come you laugh your ass off every time I put on my cap?" Reese asked.

"Because it looks like something a woman would wear. Well, what do you expect from some from California."

"Oh Bostonians are just jealous of what we got in the West!"

Travers rolled his eyes. "Yeah…sure we are."

"Golden embroidery. I quite like it."

Travers raised his eyebrow and grinned. "You know, I'm not sure it's going to make a lot of difference to the Italians."

"Oh, I don't know about that. Think about it. You're an Eye-Tie, right? You're standing there thinking about which two paratroopers to shoot. And then you think, "Good Lord, one of them is wearing a very stylish cap!" You might shoot the other one instead."

"Or…now hear me out on this…Or alternatively, he thinks, "I like that cap. That is a nice cap" and kills you first."

Reese's eyes grew large as he considered the very likely possibility. He looked at Travers who was cracking a grin at him. Reese promptly removed his cap.

Travers made a cackling chuckle before patting his best friend on the back and snatching the cap away from Reese. Such brotherly amity as this was held in every member of an Airborne company since basic training. One of the benefits that enlisting in the Airborne provided was that you went through the same basic training with the unit you would be going into combat with. Such a benefit built a stronger bond among the men over years of hard, rigorous training; and instead of being sent out into battle with possible unwilling unknown conscripts, the paratroopers would be sent into the fight with their friends by their side. And G Company was no different.

I would wish to say that the 500th Parachute Infantry Regiment is entirely fictional. Just wanted to get that out of there. This entire chapter is just a device to establish some familiarity with future characters and a recall.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and I appreciate that you are continuing to read this!

-Kanuro5