The Chile assignment was just the kind of mission J.D. had been dreading.  Here was a chance for Fucking Freedom Force to make a real difference, a situation where their unique talents could save lives that otherwise would almost certainly be lost.  It wasn't like the first two missions, where they had admittedly saved the day, but the actual work involved was so carefully planned out and rehearsed that it felt less like helping people and more like putting on a show for the press.<br/><br/>J.D. was still getting to know his teammates, and he wasn't sure how cognizant they were of the potential contradiction in trying to help people while simultaneously serving as PR poster-children for the U.S. military.  He figured, however, that it was only a matter of time before all the goddamn tapdancing in front of the cameras got in the way of saving somebody's life.  He trusted his teammate's instincts to make the right decision in such a situation -- he had already witnessed their effectiveness on the ground -- but it was hard to say what the result would be if Wonderbread Welles got his way.  The Major wasn't smart enough to imagine that the goals of the American military could ever run counter to the right thing to do in any conceivable situation.<br/><br/>That kind of naivete was about to be put to the test.  Somebody in the military PR department (probably not Major Blowhard) was smart enough to not only sense J.D.'s misgivings about this mission, but also to take advantage of his particular weaknesses in order to get the desired results out of him:  he'd been personally "embedded" with a hot little Latina (from Fox News, natch) who looked like she was fresh out of school, maybe a couple years older than him, tops.  He'd been only too happy to peel off his mask and show off his pearly whites for Miss Lisandra Sanchez during their interview on the chopper, especially after she'd boarded in front of him and the blades had sent her skirt flying, giving him a generous eyeful of tight, tanned booty and --<em>'Oh my gawd was that a thong under there?  Oh, mama ... Scorchin'!'</em><br/><br/>Unfortunately, J.D. discovered that his long gazes directly into her eyes couldn't shake her professional demeanor, but he gave all her questions thorough and thoughtful answers, playing up the fresh-faced, selfless American do-gooder-angle for the viewers back home:<strong>"Just call me 'Happy,' Ma'am!"</strong>...<strong>"I'm just glad to be here, Ma'am, representing all the good-hearted folks watching this from home, who wish they could help somehow"</strong>...<strong>"I just feel so fortunate to have this opportunity, and I hope my special gifts can do some good here in spite of all this tragedy"</strong>.... (<em>'That's right, you just know the viewers are eating this up, baby! ... Maybe I'll track down her boss and put in a good word for her later, see if I can earn a little show of personal gratitude ....'</em>)  Months of military training had made helicopter drops second-nature to J.D., and it was easy to lose himself in Lisa's deep auburn orbs and forget where he was for the twenty minutes of the flight.  (Plus it helped keep his stomach calm to not look down to the ground.)<br/><br/>Twenty seconds after the landing in Colina, however, there was no pretense of calm remaining, nor any time for preening in front of cameras.  Lisa was left to find her own stories, while J.D. went to work.  Wellesie had told him plenty of times to slow it down once in a while so that the cameras could get in a shot or two, but there was just no time for that kind of bullshit.  Everywhere J.D. turned was another pile of splintered wood and concrete shards, with a human wail issuing out from underneath it.  He spent the rest of the day racing over the cracked pavement and dirt roads of Chacabuco Province, stopping only to guzzle bottles of water and wolf down energy bars to keep his metabolism from doing cartwheels.  During one of these short breaks at the military base station, the Major ran over to chew him out and order him to give Miss Sanchez more face-time.  Uncharacteristically, J.D. was too preoccupied and worn-out to argue.  Instead he stuffed the cellophane wrapper of his energy bar into the Major's jabbering mouth and left him in a cloud of red dust.<br/><br/>J.D. felt he had to push himself harder than ever, racing against the halt to his super-powered work that the sunset would bring; darkness would make it completely impossible to traverse such barrier-strewn terrain at high speed.  One look at Lisa's sweaty, disgruntled visage made it clear that she wasn't lining up for a cushy anchor position any time soon:  her afternoon of breathless ground reports with the superstar superhero had turned out to be nothing more than excess footage of the demolished landscape.  Even a follow-up report proved impossible, as Army medics peeled off J.D.'s dripping uniform and deposited his speechless, exhausted body onto a stretcher for I.V. rehydration.<br/><br/>The next day, J.D.'s overtaxed arm and leg muscles swelled into immobile lumps, rendering him useless for the remainder of the mission, but his assistance in the crucial early hours after the disaster had proven invaluable.  He'd been moving too quickly through too many different areas for anyone in the press or military brass to keep track of what he was doing; only the medical workers who received the people he evacuated could tell how helpful he had been, and even they were only aware of the ones he brought to their particular stations.  He'd been far too busy to keep track himself, but a wonder-struck private at the central base station stopped off at his bed with a hand-counted estimate:  273 trapped or severely injured Chileans, personally transported to U.N. and U.S. military aid stations, in just under seven and a half hours.