#5 - The 'General Hammond and the SGC' Theory

It was the first time in weeks that it had been quiet at the SGC in the middle of a weekday. Sure, the past several weekends had only had one crisis per day, but the weekdays... It was as if the Goa'uld had an eye towards messing with the Earthling's schedules.

Something had happened every single day, usually 2 or 3 times a day, leaving little but chaos at the underground base. If the Goa'uld had a secret desire to wear down the human's resistance before launching a full scale attack on their 'pathetic little planet,' their strategy was working. Of course, that meant that several of the System Lords were working together to take down the Tau'ri one SG team at a time, and the odds of any System Lord pausing long enough in their typical gloat fest in order to work together was so far fetched... The idea was as ridiculous as Dr. Jackson and Dr. Fraiser getting steamy together in the locker room.

At that point, General Hammond took a moment to seriously consider what he'd compared the Goa'uld to: two of the doctors on base romantically hooking up with each other until they were involved in a definite relationship.

But now that he thought of it, that thought wasn't so ludicrous as it had first appeared.

Which highlighted another point in the General's mind: the idea of the healer in a romantic relationship with her most prolific patient...

Which is exactly what had happened... though he wasn't supposed to know that.

Hammond gave a light chuckle: he certainly hadn't seen that one coming! Then again, truth to tell, he hadn't seen any of the SGC relationships coming. And just ten years ago, he would never have been one of those Generals who turned a blind eye to those relationships, defying the UCMJ, breaking Air Force regulations, even willfully going against his own conscience. But that's just what he had done since being assigned to lead such a novel outpost as Stargate Command. More amazingly, he had every intention of continuing to do so until events or his conscience directed him to do otherwise.

It was a case of making a deal with the devil, Hammond decided. On pretty much any day, several System Lords were given their walking papers, no Earthling was captured or lost, and no Tau'ri died. The men and women under Hammond's command had the reputation of being fierce fighters, going that tiny bit further, doing that little bit extra, constantly going above and beyond the call of duty, taking the motto 'leave no one behind' to heart to such an extent that there had been times where Hammond had needed to play the unwelcome roll of hard ass commander in order to reign in his troops' enthusiasm. For such a secret base embroiled in a hidden war with cross dressing megalomaniacs bent on their destruction, the SGC was one of the Air Force's top bases. Its stats were far and away the best. It was the base that had won the most awards, though those awards had to be classified. It was the base whose members received the fastest promotions, who won the most medals, who got the most commendations. And Hammond was convinced that it was all due to one thing: successful, long lasting relationships.

For just a moment, the General considered how many of the men and women under his command were currently involved in a relationship, and he didn't mean the kind of relationship that encouraged team bonding. He meant relationships, as in romantic attachments that broke the frat regs on a daily basis. The list was extensive:

Ken Cook and Amanda Richards of SG-8

Tim Andrews and Sandra Carlin of SG-15

Andy Livens and Jessica Bivens of SG-6 (affectionately called the Livens/Bivens Dynamic Duo when they weren't listening)

Tom Blakely and Sue Kleinman of SG-14

Grant David of SG-4 and Tammy Wociacowski of SG-15

Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter of SG-1

Diego Garcinova of SG-9 and Pam Pechenko of the motor pool

Scott Erics of SG-23 and Scott Pierce of SG-2 (aka 'the 2 Scotts')('don't ask/don't tell' at its best, enforced to the hilt... on paper)

Myron Toms and Monica Toms of SG-7 (married, but no one's supposed to know about that)

Walter Harriman of the tech crew and Alice Applebee of the Infirmary

Daniel Jackson of SG-1 and Janet Fraiser also of the Infirmary

Sly Siler of the tech crew and Fiona Shadowton also of the Infirmary

Jonas Quinn formerly of SG-1 and anybody who was free on base

And the reason a Major General allowed so many blatant relationships to continue right under his nose in his own command? Because no matter what they did on their own time, inevitably his people got the job done. At first, when the SGC had come on line, General Hammond had been a much more hard line General and tried to enforce the directives of the UCMJ to their fullest extent. But that had only ended up giving several victories to the System Lords when his enforcement had distracted the key players at pivotal moments. Through trial and error (lots of error), George had learned that to be the best meant bending the rules when getting the best outcome truly mattered. SGC personnel worked all that much harder at staying alive, at eluding capture, at sticking it to the enemy every chance they got if there was someone to stay alive for. They stayed alive for themselves, for him, for Earth, but most importantly, for each other. And he couldn't deny that this system, as screwy as it was, worked.

He was lauded by the Joint Chiefs as a hero. At the same time, Hammond thought it best if those Chiefs never learned the truth.

Therefore, his paper shredder was the busiest in the entire Air Force.