(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/American_soldier_in_Vietnam.jpg)<br/><strong>Name:</strong>Randy James "R.J." Johnson<br/><strong>Position:</strong>Grenadier<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Dundalk Marine Terminal - among the shipping containers<br/><br/>*******<br/><br/><br/>Johnson had seen some<em>fucked up shit</em>in the war, but through it all and way back in the back of his mind he held on to the idea that things were different back in the States.  Sure, his intellect knew a lot of shit had gone down back home, but in his heart he convinced himself it wasn't as bad as what he'd seen in Europe.  When he got close enough to see and smell what was going on in the cargo container, he had to back away and take in a few deep breaths to keep from gagging.  Then a few sips of water, and he was okay.<br/><br/>Yeah, not too bad.  And this is Baltimore, big city in the Northeast.  Folks back home are country folks, they know how to survive and take care of themselves and each other.   Besides, he had no business being around the opening of the container anyway ... he would keep an eye on the northern perimeter of this little operation and let the people making more money than him sweat the small stuff.<br/><br/>When finally they began to get organized to move again, it was almost a relief.  It was a bit of a relief to be tail-end charlie, too.  He didn't relish the idea of running into something he didn't know how to deal with.  After all, this wasn't Europe where he'd learned to tell good guy from bad with a fair degree of accuracy (knowing your Area of Operations helps) ... this was America where everyone was supposed to be on the same side, which in many ways made it worse.  Here they would be faced with the decision to<em>shoot or not shoot</em>their own countrymen, an additional step in the process that the process didn't really have time for.<br/><br/>It was nerves, probably, that made him start chattering as he double checked the placement of the M203 rounds in the carrier, so he'd be able to find what he was looking for in the dark.<br/><br/>"Ya know, back home there was this family in town lived in a house that smelled sorta like that.  There was like three or four generations living there ... musta been a dozen kids in school and they all smelled.  Everybody thought it was just them not cleaning their house or somethin', ya know?  Turns out the cops went in one day and they had grandma layin' in bed in a back room, all dirty and sores all over her body.  That's what smelled so bad.  They's just keepin' her alive to collect her government checks."<br/><br/>Okay, so maybe not everybody back home knew how to survive and take care of each other, but most of 'em did, he was sure of that.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=175864.msg8516372#msg8516372">Quote from: AlexStone on 05-07-2013, 21:28:38</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Let's move out." <br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>And he did, falling in line behind the others and doing his best to cover the 180 degree arc behind the patrol (which fortunately wasn't always 180 degrees, given they were moving along the water's edge much of the time.)  Still, in an environment like this, he realized being assigned to bring up the rear wasn't the big favor he thought it was.