Once she had me over by the window she took a good look then said, “Okay, slowly turn in place.”

She poked and prodded here and there asking about some of my curves, “Is that you or is that padding?”

“A little of each” was my reply as I reluctantly explained which was which.

She nodded as I felt like a piece of meat at the corner grocery beginning to worry about whether she was a vegetarian or a carnivore. Be just my luck that she’s both.

“Loosen your blouse a couple of buttons — That’s better. You’re too stiff, relax more . . . you’re still too stiff . . . That’ll do, not perfect but better. We’ve got some instructors in Virginia that will quickly teach you how to carry yourself so you will be more convincing.”

She pulled on the blouse and bra a little, checking my ‘breasts’.

“Those don’t even have a clue of matching your skin tone.” she said as she wrinkled her nose.

“They were all I could find quickly and cheap. I wasn’t planning on using them in any situation which might have a man ogling me ... Ma’am.”

“Cut the Ma’ams and Colonels and so on. You’re a civilian for the moment so we’re just two women who are going to be out shopping together. Let’s see your makeup.”

She looked it over shaking her head as she did so then lifted the room phone and placed a call from memory.

“Betty please . . . Betty, this is Lucy Jackson again . . . Yes, we’ll be there in about forty minutes. I need something else done as well. Could you give Dottie a ‘heads up’ that I’m going to need a makeup session for the lady I’m bringing in? . . No, I’m afraid she hasn’t much of a clue. To save time she won’t be wearing any makeup. We will have only an hour so the whole nine yards will need to be accomplished quickly. She will also need to know exactly which cosmetics were used so we will be able to purchase some while we are out today . . . Good . . . All right, see you then.”

Jackson turned back to me and buttoned the lower of the two open buttons which she had unbuttoned earlier on my blouse. She left that upper one open. Grasping my face with her left hand she gently turned it back and forth before asking,

“How often do you shave?”

“I don’t.”

“Good. How did you get away with having your hair that long?”

“Most of the time it was under cover of one sort or another and the few times it was noticeable they either were too busy to say anything or just told me to go get it cut and then didn’t follow up to see if I did. I was lucky, I guess.”

“What about hair lice?”

“I wash it frequently and have some good hair care products.”

She grunted before she ran her finger through my hair, giving a grimace as she did so.

“We need to get you better products while we’re out. Don’t let me forget. You’ll see what the right stuff can do for you once we’re at the salon. Come on, we need to get moving. Do you have a purse?”

“Not for daytime.”

“Well, load the one you’ve got and let’s get going. Take all your ID, we’ll replace or add to it tomorrow.”

“I don’t have female ID.”

“You ... That’s right, Damn. All right, then take your male ID and again . . . we’ll add to it tomorrow. How did you ever pass without photo ID?”

“Almost no one checks since as a female, I don’t look that much like a teenager.”

We were walking out to the car when she landed another one on me, “You need some skin care products too. By the way, your dossier said you use Lynnette as your female name. Do you use Lynn as a contraction?”

“Yes, on both. My name is Lawrence Jay Stevens. When I go feminine I use Lynnette Joi Stevens. Same initials that way.”

“All right Lynn. Call me Lucy and we’ve known each other for about a year. We met at my building where you work as a secretary. It helps things that you have a boyfriend.”

“I hope this boyfriend isn’t some nut case.”

“I don’t know, is he? You were out with him when we met at the restaurant.”

“Oh! Ralph? I’ve known him for more than a few years. He’s pretty level headed.”

“That’s good to hear.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being facetious or if she liked my choice of “boyfriends”.
We spent the ride thinking. As we pulled up to a shopping center she said, “Okay, we’re here. Betty is going to give your hair some life, length, and add some colour and slight highlights to it. Dottie is going to give you a facial and do your make up so you can see how it should be done. Your face looks nice, proper makeup could make it look even better. With the proper make up you could be quite appealing. Remind me, we also need to pick up some jewelry for you. Something a little more mainstream than the stuff you’re wearing.”

She looked closely at my ears, “We need to pierce those.”

Pierce my ... “Wait a minute, now.”

“No arguments.”

“Uh. Who’s paying for all this?” Not to mention why and can this steamroller be stopped?

“The Army. Just go with the flow, okay?”

“Do you do this to everyone you meet?”

“No. Only the special cases get my full attention.”

I followed Lucy into the salon as I continued to wonder if being a special case was a good thing or a bad one.

“Hi, Lucy.”

“Hi Carol, are they ready for her?”

“Not quite, but the back room is available so we can put her in there. Jan can wash her hair while Betty finishes up. Dottie will be available in about thirty.”

“That’s about all the time we have.”

Carol nodded, “Nothing like a little pressure, huh?”

“You know how it is. The Army won’t wait.” Colonel Jackson told her.

“Yes, I know. My husband is forever rushing about. Come on ... What did you say your name is?” she asked as she turned in my direction.

“Lynnette. Call me Lynn.”

“Okay. Come on in Lynn. We’ll get this started.”

I know, this is all just a dream isn’t it? Maybe it’s a nightmare. Jury’s still out on that. Can’t we just back up to just before our rescue attempt and restart from there? Like from maybe three or four hundred klicks away? An hour and thirty-five minutes later Lucy and I walked out of the Salon. I now had fingernails, not a lot longer because of military requirements, but obviously feminine; and my hair matched the color of the extensions which were woven into it. It was down easily covering beyond the top of my shoulders, possibly half way into my shoulder blades. My face had makeup on it but you’d never know it unless you looked really close and it was my fervent intent never to allow anyone to get that close without first engaging in hand to hand. I looked as good or better than I had whenever Mom had made me up to go out as “protection” during one of my neighborhood girlfriend’s dates. She wasn’t like my ‘girlfriend’ girlfriend but was literally the girl next door and we had become good friends.

“My Mom and hers had become good friends so we had too. We didn’t think of ourselves as a girl and a guy nor as two girls. We were just best friends. We could tell each other secrets, watch out for each other and play together. If anyone started giving one of us a bad time they had both of us to contend with. She was a better fighter than I was, but I could run logic rings around most people we came up against. Since Mom and her mother were such good friends, so were we, it was one of those days a few days before she was going to go out on her first date that they cooked up the idea of me tagging along for safety’s sake. I didn’t care much for the idea but Cathy was all for it since she was more than willing to have me around during some of the times she didn’t feel comfortable going out with a boy. We got to be pretty good at double teaming against the boys.”

Lucy and I had gotten to chatting, during which I happened to mention that little tidbit to her somewhere during the conversation.

“My sister and I used to do that too. I remember this one time after Mom sent me along on a particularly difficult date. We used the money Mom sent with us to get back home and when we were walking arm in arm zig zag up the front walk we were singing “We shall overcome,” as our skirts swung back and forth together,” she related to me.

Her comment didn’t come home to roost with me for a year or so then it caused me to begin wondering. Never did get the whole story though. After a while it didn’t seem to matter a whole hell of a lot.

We continued to chat while I became more comfortable with being en femme for the second time in less than a week. A little too comfortable as it turned out. We were shopping and I was trying on clothes like it was something I did every day. I came to about an hour or so later when Lucy asked me some question or another while I was looking at a really nice blouse.

“I . . . what?”

“I said, that blouse looks really nice but I don’t think you’ll have much opportunity to wear it, at least not until you return to CONUS again and by then it will be out of style. Why don’t you look around on the economy once you get back overseas? You might find something nice over there which won’t be quite so dated when you come back to here.”

I continued fingering it as her words finally sunk in. Looking around I noted we were in our third store and she was right. The bags we were carrying were filled with sensible things which I could use overseas, especially in a warmer climate and which were fairly generic so by the time I got back here they wouldn’t be out of date very badly. I sighed and let the material drop from my fingers.

“Lynn, if you like it so much why don’t you save a little money and purchase some silks or the like while you’re overseas. As I was saying, the difference in styling would allow them to be usable here much longer than the rapidly changing trends here in the States would normally allow.”

“That would certainly be true, if I could find something I liked. I don’t have much opportunity to look through women’s fashions while over there.”

“You’ll have a little more opportunity than you had before.”

Another reminder that my status or rather, gender would be much more — fluid — shall we say. Again, I began wondering what this was really all about. I didn’t think the Army was doing this out of the goodness in it’s heart. Possibly from malice, but I didn’t believe that was coming into play here all that much either. This whole thing was beginning to become a bit more worrisome. Fun, at least for a day or two but ... worrisome.

We finished our shopping, for the day at any rate, Lucy told me to be prepared to continue this tomorrow morning at a couple of shops which opened at nine and we started out into the parking lot.

“I and a driver will be at your motel to pick you up around eight to eight thirty. I might need some time in the morning before I can come collect you. If I can make it at eight then we could go out for breakfast together.”

As we were walking having just spotted the car and driver, we were about fifty feet from a pickup truck which was between us and our ride. Suddenly this Doberman jumped out of the back and began to run right at us. I figured, “great” and started to get ready to fight it.

“Don’t,” Lucy said as the dog was nearly on us.

It slowed a little then stood up against her, dancing a little as it was trying to either bite or lick her face. I noticed her hand was in her purse and wondered if she was getting out some Mace or something when she brought it back out holding a large dog bone.

“Sit.” she said as she waved it in front of the dog’s eyes and the dog quickly was on the ground sitting patiently.

“Good dog. Take it nice.”

She held out the bone and the dog reached up gently taking it from her hand before it began to crunch it down as she explained, shrugging her shoulders, “Dogs like me. Some of them, like this one, come running up and treat me like a long lost friend whom they haven’t seen in years. I don’t know why. It can be embarrassing at times. When I was a child I used to need to be careful going home from school or I would have a pack following me by the time I got home. It’s only recently that I started carrying dog bones with me. It’s the only way I’ve been able to get them to calm down.”

The dog finished it’s bone and began looking around for crumbs. She held a smaller one out and said, “take this one to your truck to eat. Wait there for your owner.” She talked to it in a low conversational tone just like she and I had been talking. The dog reached up carefully, took the second treat and bounded back across the parking lot and up into the back of the pickup.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I never would have believed it.”

“Dogs like me.” she said again, shrugging her shoulders, “sometimes it’s like a curse.”

We walked past the dog who looked up from it’s treat long enough to quietly mumble something to her when we walked by. We continued on to our ride and by nine thirty we’d arrived back at my motel. I was hoping the guys were all here because if they weren’t she’d likely chew them out tomorrow if she didn’t stick around to see just how long they stayed out before returning.
I was about to stick my key in the door when it suddenly hit me. I was dressed as Lynnette and had another female with me. I didn’t want to barge in on the guys without a little warning. Who knew how they might be dressed at the moment, even though it should just be Ralph who was in there. Now I was suddenly a little apprehensive. I didn’t think I had anything to fear from them but this time I was coming in as a girl rather than someone they all knew as Lyon and I was a bit embarrassed about entering a male sanctum. I hoped Ralph was dressed. Maybe I’d better knock before I opened the door.

“What’s the hold up here, Sergeant?”

“Uh . . . I, uh, think I’ll knock on the door, Ma’am. Just in case they’re indisposed a bit in there.”

She laughed for a moment, shook her head before giving me, “Whatever. If they don’t answer right away then it’s their problem, not ours. Knock and give them five seconds then open it.”

I gave the door three light taps which I hoped were loud enough to be heard inside. Waiting a couple of seconds I gave it another three taps just a little harder then noisily inserted the key. Two seconds later I opened the door. When we entered we discovered Ralph was the only one in there and he was so busy sawing wood while sprawled out on top of the bed fully clothed that he didn’t hear me rap on the door. I really hadn’t expected the team to be collected here waiting for us since the rest of them had their own shared rooms. I hoped we would find them in them.

We rousted Ralph who took the normal few seconds to become coherent as did we all. We quickly had him up collecting his shoes so he could go round up the rest of ‘my’ team which now included Larry and Blade. They, whether they knew it or not, were now effectively a part of my new team or at least they would be as soon as they received their orders tomorrow morning. Gradually everyone assembled back at Ralph’s and my shared room where the new facts of life were explained to them. I left that to the Colonel. I figured if she gave them the story then they couldn’t come unglued at me about it.

“Tomorrow morning you will each receive a new set of orders. From that time on you will all officially be a part of operation Black Dragon. During the next three to four weeks you will meet many of the rest of the personnel who will also be involved. Once you all complete your twenty five day training course, which you will graduate the first time through, then Lynn will be the OIC of your new little group. If you can’t handle that then I’ve got several choice assignments to which any of you will be shipped for the duration. Believe me when I say none of you will like any of those assignments. Are there any questions so far?”

The room remained silent.

Lucy turned her head toward me, “You said there was an Air Force lieutenant who would be a likely candidate for the helicopter arm of this thing?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Lieutenant Carter Slade, moniker, ‘ghostrider’ stationed at Udorn, I think. At least that was where he was in their hospital after we crashed.”

“Crashed? And you want him for the Air Force OIC? He’ll be doing some of the flying, you know.”

“Yes, Ma’am. If it wasn’t for his flying ability we would likely have all been dead somewhere in the jungle.”

“Okay . . . I’ll see what we can do. Carter Slade, huh?” She looked at me with laughter in her eyes. I guess she reads the comics, too.

The next couple of weeks proved to be most interesting. The next day Colonel Jackson showed up early, well . . . early for around here, with her driver and she and I were off again. This time we had a quick breakfast with a conference then there was a little shopping to do before we made tracks back to her offices. There I found a little surprise waiting for me in the form of a major’s uniform which had all the little badges of courage and fortitude attached that should have been on my male uniform but weren’t for various reasons, all of which bordered on the ‘need to know,’ ‘never been there,’ ‘we categorically deny we were directly involved in any such action’ storylines.

“Uh, ma’am. Some of these aren’t supposed to be here since we aren’t admitting I had anything to do with those actions.”

“You’re absolutely correct. SFC Lyon couldn’t have them on his uniform but Lynnette can and does since she was involved with support for ARVN. Get with the program. You’re two people from now on, and you’ll need to remember which is which, when, and what background each has. Now hustle into that uniform so we can get the rest of this show on the road. Go into the bathroom behind that door and change. Your guys will be showing up in a little over an hour and a half and I still have some things for you to do before they get here.”

I hustled. For some reason I didn’t expect the skirt to be as short as it seemed to be. Looking in the mirror everything seemed about right but it just felt ... wrong ... short ... revealing.

“Stop pulling at that skirt. Just relax and go with the flow. You’ll get used to it.”

“Yes, Ma’am. If you say so.” As I unintentionally tried to pull it down a little once again.

She scowled at me and I got the idea even as my hand was going for the skirt a third time. This was all easier said than done.

“Put on your cover — not like that. Like this.”

She put on her own and I tried to duplicate her method. It wasn’t as easy as she made it look. Especially since my ‘hair’ was up in a rather large bun, instead of hanging free so that made it even more difficult.

“If my hair was shorter it wouldn’t be so difficult.”

“If your hair was shorter you wouldn’t be able to become a ‘civilian’ when you needed to be one. Women your — our age don’t usually wear their hair shorter if they’re civilians. Short hair would be a dead giveaway that you were military. And I’m emphasizing the word dead here. Once your team has been through special stores here they will need to go through the mall to pick up some civilian clothing in keeping with the civilian side of the mission. Don’t worry, you already have the things you need — mostly. There will be some advisors going along to be certain your guys catch on as well. You’ll need to watch though because the male side of you will need some of the same things, pick them up while you’re watching them. We’ll give you a credit card to use for your own things but it has a limited credit line. The advisors will handle the expenses for your men.”

“Why can’t we get what we need from military supply?”

“First of all, because it’s civilian items. Secondly, it costs less to purchase directly off the economy than it does to go through military stores despite the breaks the government gets for the items it purchases.”

For some reason she was scowling at me again and a moment later she swatted my hand which, of it’s own volition, mind you, was tugging down at my skirt again.

They gave a lot of thought to our orders. All my orders used my first two initials and the last name. ie. L. J. Stevens. Everything else was generic except the serial number on those infrequent occasions when it was shown. The only other times differences were apparent was when rank needed to be shown. As a result I had a bunch of paper and had to be careful which I pulled out and when. I could be either male or female as the situation warranted. If I had to be an officer then female was called for since the only officer’s uniforms and orders were for a female but I could still do any office paperwork while as a male. The signature L. J. Stevens would remain the same so anything I signed would be correct and proper. As a male I would be an E-8 but if we needed an officer then I could be a female Major.

I thought it might be prudent to at least know my new date of rank should it come to a shouting match between equal ranking officers or enlisted. My curiosity was sated when I discovered they had given me three years in grade according to my paperwork so it was unlikely I would come across too many majors who outranked me, in passing at any rate. Besides that, I could always fall back on the special orders I would be carrying which had been signed by both of those Generals the Colonel kept dragging into our conversations. As a result I figured I wouldn’t need to outrank anyone anyway.

In an effort to prevent anyone from dragging their feet, one General was Air Force while the other was Army. They effectively were our ‘get out of jail free’ card and there wouldn’t be much of a chance of anyone in Nam or thereabouts being able to countermand anything we wanted to do or acquire as a result. All I had to do was hand them a copy for the interim and we were good to go. If we needed something from the Navy there might be a bit of a delay but it wouldn’t take very long since we could come at it from the top down. I must admit, the spooks knew the military business inside and out. Those special orders were fairly generic as well and applied to anyone and everyone in my new little unit. We even had our own unit insignia, not that we would get to wear it very often. It was an interesting patch which had both Vietnamese and Latin inscribed on it. I read the Vietnamese and wondered at the Latin.

“They both say the same thing.”

“Pardon?”

“The Latin and the Vietnamese both mean the same thing.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I was beginning to feel butterflies and hoped they didn’t intend to take up permanent residence. The idea of flip-flopping from male to female and back for longer than just a day or two once every six months to a year was beginning to give me the willies. For some reason I was beginning to think this would all be a lot more difficult than the Colonel had been letting on.
At least the time we had training in Virginia paid off for me. When I was Lynnette, I could go and do almost anything without being outed. That was both good and bad but mostly good. I just needed to keep my wits about me whenever I was out alone. I took particular pride at having passed their “on the economy” final with flying colours.

Trank took to our training like a seal to water. It turned out that his new toy was practically an extension of his arm. He could hit things with that little pistol while it had it’s silencer on it that most of the other’s only dreamed about being able to see, much less hit. The instructors warned him that the rounds were traveling slow enough that at the longer ranges he had used against the sand filled targets, his shots probably would either have only wounded or served to piss the target off, but not kill. He took that in stride, somehow making the adjustment more or less automatically. They just shook their heads and let him have his. Blade learned some new tricks, as if he didn’t have enough already; and most of my guys picked up at least three, usually more, new or improved ways to kill quietly. As for me ... well, in addition to learning how to BE a female I was learning to be an officer and a lady. They even gave me my graduation ring back dated to match into my supposed records. They were very detail oriented. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter that my graduation from OCS was recorded as having happened before I had graduated from seventh grade.

Well, if I had come up as an officer then I would have graduated as a lieutenant and it would have taken some time for me to make it to major. Since my DOR as a major was some three years past or about the time I really graduated high school other things prior to that time had to be 'adjusted'. Moments later I was rudely interrupted from my introspection by one of the instructors who, once again, was berating me for one thing or another.

“Try that again, ma’am. You must remember, you’re in front of members of your Battalion and as the female OIC you simply don’t just sit down like a fifty pound sack of potatoes dropped on the ground. You must be fluid and ladylike even though they are all going to understand you’re hard as nails if any of them gets out of line. Don’t yell, just talk quietly and distinctly. The effect will be multiplied for several reasons, one of which is you are female and in charge. There has to be a reason a woman was put in charge when a man might do. It usually means she can be more of a hard ass if she needs to be. Now, let see you try that again. Remember to continue talking as you are beginning to sit.”

It wasn’t until two and a half weeks later when we had completed our training courses and were actually flying West that it suddenly hit me that I was going to be a female OIC which meant I would be spending a sizeable amount of time in female mode. Hell, I was flying in female mode. That’s when I pulled out and again carefully read all the paperwork Lucy had supplied to me but it wasn’t until I had reached the third read through that the revelation had suddenly come home to roost.

My own little unit. Yeah, Sure. There were a few more than three hundred fifty personnel who would be doing the actual missions and more than a hundred more who were support of various kinds while we would have nearly a hundred from the Air Force who would provide our air cover, taxi service, et cetera. Just under a third of my new command were on this plane along with six of my new ‘female’ officers who had recently completed the same training we had gone through. The first thing I needed to do once we were situated, was make certain everyone had one nice clean crisp copy of the get out of jail paperwork in their pockets except when they were out on a fire mission. The orders probably wouldn’t have cut much slack with the enemy anyway. The other papers I needed to duplicate were blanket reqs which I or my designated appointee could use to acquire almost anything we wanted, whenever we wanted it. I was going to make certain everyone understood that the ‘get out of jail free’ papers didn’t mean they could tear up the town or anything else and get away scot free. I could make trouble for troublesome personnel just as well or better than most officers and I knew all the little dodges my enlisted personnel might try. I put the papers back into my briefcase then leaned back to take a nap as the plane continued it’s way West.

We flew with the sun having left the Eastern US at five in the morning. It was a little disconcerting to arrive in Northern California around two and a half hours later after we had flown for over five. My mental clock kept screaming it was ten forty-five which the clocks on the walls continued to tell us it was a little before eight. We stopped here for fuel and would do so once more before we arrived at Don Mueang about eight in the evening tomorrow and after having flown for nearly twenty-two hours. Don’t ask, I don’t even want to know. All I cared about was we were going to lose two days because of the international date line. We had departed as the sun was beginning to think about lighting up the sky only to be scheduled to arrive when it was saying sayonara.

From that point on the Zoomies wouldn’t be happy since I still had those special Air Force orders which granted me and all of mine, in this case a sizable portion of those aforementioned three hundred fifty and, courtesy of a few changes á¡ la that Air Force Spook and his General, the right to bump anything and everything to get to where we needed to be in what I considered to be a timely manner. If that wasn’t enough then I could commandeer almost anything I wanted courtesy of those same General’s oh-so-nice orders which granted me exclusive right to do almost anything I wanted which would further my mission.

That Lieutenant Slade, our Air Force liaison and the helicopters we were going to need would be about a week behind us which was okay with me since I would need the time to take over and begin to rebuild the small base to which we were going. I could imagine the consternation the Captain who presently was in charge of it would go through when he discovered we were taking half of his buildings and that our half was off limits to his people. That would quickly be enforced by a platoon of MPs which were supposed to arrive within a day or two of our own arrival. It wasn’t like we were going to keep the buildings. We’d give them back as soon as the construction people finished building ours.

The construction Battalion was supposed to arrive about the same time we did, if not before. It was their job to clear enough space that they could build thirty five more barracks, hardened storage for sixty-eight helicopters, of which thirty-five were heavy gun ships, our own mess, workshops and twenty emplaced fuel bunkers. Each and every helicopter would have the ability to hold extra fuel so we could easily make it deep into Nam and back on one fueling if things didn’t get too dicey. The buildings would hopefully be ready, sandbagged and hardened before said helicopters and their personnel arrived. I hoped they wouldn’t be too put out at our lack of fine cuisine but I’d try to do something about that as soon as possible so the Air Force guys would continue to be happy.

The Army wanted to put some flyers there but that was nixed by the spooks, for which I was grateful. I didn’t have anything against the Army pilots but I was used to the Air force providing the aircraft and I didn’t need any pissing contests. The fuel bunkers ... those would be put in place at a number of underground locations so we would have plenty of fuel even if we were shelled, resulting in some of them being destroyed. Refilling them would remain a priority on the part of both the Air Force and the Army for the duration of the group of missions which were scheduled to last about a year and a half to three. The first half year was for some of the small operations the purpose of which was supposedly to get us all acquainted with working together then the real deal would begin. That is if things didn’t get moved up by some enemy action which the Spooks hoped wouldn’t occur for a while. The work we would be involved in would mostly be in Laos but we had been told the rest of SEA could not be excluded from our sandbox. Turns out it wasn’t either.

Trank and Frenchy would now get their wish for more interesting action than even they thought they wanted and Trank, of course, was very happy to now have his own semi-legal silenced automatic courtesy of special stores. He tried for two but they literally laughed in his face. That we would be seeing action wasn’t in doubt since we would be less than ten klicks from the border with Laos, and well less than five hundred from much of North Vietnam.

“Are you happy now, Trank? They gave you your very own toy. Just keep it put away when it isn’t actually in use. And by use I mean when it is being fired at the enemy or being cleaned.”

He gave me a hurt expression but stashed it.

This OIC shit wasn’t exactly my idea of a cup of tea. I was already planning the multitude of ways I could foster off the paperwork and other stuff on the others who were supposed to be my staff. Of everyone headed to my little part of the world, sixteen were female or as female as I was anyway, and they were each bringing their own entourage with them. By the time they all arrived I would easily have my more than three hundred fifty operational personnel and the support people would be there in short order. I hoped I would find at least twenty of them already there when we arrived.

At Don Mueang I had my ‘officers’ form ranks long enough to do another head count. This was the first opportunity I had to really try my special orders out on anyone. It didn’t take long for it to escalate to a Lt. Colonel who was anything but happy when he learned he had to outrank a couple of Generals and not a major. There wasn’t presently an American general in Thailand who outranked either of the two of those who had signed my paperwork. I and all of mine went into the Air Force mess for chow before sauntering off to acquire some transport to our assigned location.

When we began to receive static from the flight line I seriously thought about permanently acquiring some aircraft and fuel for same, which brought that same Lt. Colonel running to defuse the situation. While transport was being arranged, our luggage, special and otherwise was being returned from the replacement station in Bangkok. I don’t know what good it does to put orders in the duffles and on the crates when so few people actually read them. They quickly provided us with transport to the Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base which was located at Udon Thani on my map.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. The characters contained herein are not even distantly inspired by any specific individuals known or unknown to the author. All incidents described or alluded to within this work are pure invention. No affiliations, involvements or gender assignations due to the use of any images contained within this work are to be implied, intended or inferred.

Cover image copyright Maps.com and shown for clarification of area in which the story begins it’s evolution.

DUTY CALLS, L.J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright  © 2012 USA, Earth by R. A. Dumas.

All rights reserved.

The posting of this story chapter on the site known as BCTS (Big Closet - Top Shelf) in no way indicates this work is public domain and, in fact, this copyright contains an implicit license on the part of the author permitting this portion of the work to be maintained by BCTS for the reading enjoyment of those who frequent that site (BCTS) and such posting shall not be considered as authorization for any further posting or offering of this work at or upon any other location or site or in any other manner, print, electronic or otherwise.

Except for small excerpts of 200 words or less used in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, designed, or conceived, or in any retrieval system for any purpose, is forbidden without written and specific license of the author or his/ her heirs or Estate.