Re: [ME] After action report from Maracon 1/2

[Lauri Gardner <lauri_gardner@xxxxxxxxx>]

A week late, but here it is anyways. I played in two
games and wrote up on both. This is the first one I
played in, and was great fun.

Banana Republic

We went off to train an “elite SWAT unit” somewhere in
the Caribbean. They were fighting communist insurgents
that hid in the jungle. 

The group consisted of a former grunt Jack Colby, an
Irish  sniper by the name of James Reese, and me, an
intelligence operative called Dieter. 

We left on Sunday morning in a two prop Cessna, which
we later found out consisted El Presidente’s personal
plane and the only part of his air force. The plane
was rather big since we were able to stretch our legs
one at a time, luckily for me I took the co-pilot
seat, which I did not regret later. The weather being
slightly cloudy I got a first glance of the island.
The island consisted of a small town around a bay,
which was over-looked by a colonial mansion. The rest
of the picturesque island was covered with the thick
foliage of untouched jungle. 

A runway had been cleared by the mansion as we circled
around the island to land. As we drew closer I could
see that it was not really a runway but a cleared
patch of ground.  As we finally drew to a stop we were
greeted by the interior minister and several gorilla
like security guards. After a formal introduction we
were taken in the El Presidente’s car to the mansion,
which was obviously a former colonial governor’s
mansion, with it’s pillars, wrought iron gate and
sparkling fountain. 

At the steps we then met El Presidente, a man I
immediately liked and after shaking his hand wanted to
wash my own. We were then escorted to our rooms and
after we had freshened up, dinner would be ready for
us. El Presidente was quite happy to see us and
expected very much from our training. We gave very
encouraging remarks, but we would need to see the raw
material that we would refine before we could make any
promises. The evening went rather well with us talking
pleasantries and later on as we had cognac and cigars,
surrounded by members of his clique and his personal
secretaries. As a bit of a joke I said off-hand that
they were bit too old for me, and the master of
ceremonies says, “why didn’t you say earlier signor.
Do you like girls, or would you prefer a boy?” I waved
him off with a bit of a laugh and said that the
selection here was just fine. We were also awarded
each a .50 caliber chromed desert eagle. I thought it
made a rather magnificent hammer, and I had a picture
that need to be hung back home. We found out from El
Presidente that he was trained in Fort Bragg as a
green beret, and that his interior minister was a
graduate from the School of Americas. He had performed
a military coup, elevating himself to the position of
president. We continued on talking into the evening
with our hosts becoming more sociable and with me
sipping my drink more and more carefully. We then
excused ourselves, so that we could get ready to train
the troops, each taking an escort with us for the
night. I thought of disappearing and doing a bit of
exploring during the night, but with the random
gunshots heard from that direction, and a beautiful
signorita in my bed, I just let a single tear if
nostalgia drip down my face in the memory of the
wonderful time I had in Beirut. Suffice it say, that
we all slept little but well that night. 

Monday morning. We started by having a general
inspection of the barracks, the group we were to
train, and the equipment. All of this conveniently
located next to the mansion. We knew that the
situation would be bad, so it came as no surprise when
we looked at the barracks and the twenty recruits, and
of their shifty eyes and plump bodies. The equipment
we had was completely different. What we had were
three tanks, one of which had been dismantled as
parts, the rest consisted of small arms, M-1 Garands,
M-4’s that were new at the onset of the Vietnam war.
We also had loads of ammunition and pineapple
grenades. This all gave the distinctive impression of
being military aid that was given during the fifties
by the U.S. and that had been left in a back room.
With well applied hits from our batons and cattle
prods, as well as well meaning kicks we took them out
for a couple hour jog with sandbags, wearing down
their resistance. We gave them three minutes time for
lunch before forcing them on their march again.
Whatever they could not eat had to be deposited in an
oil drum, from which they ate that evening. We then
taught them proper military conduct that day, ran them
through basic drills and PE instruction, we took their
barracks apart and told them to reassemble them. We
did barracks inspections all night.

Tuesday we taught them basic combat, how to dig
foxholes and weapon handling, including
fieldstripping. After a full day, they were only able
to hit with one bullet from 50 meters onto the pole
(it was a ricochet, but we were not complaining). I
left early since I would be teaching them torture
techniques tomorrow and getting to bed early is in
such a situation a good idea, since I was going to be
doing all the commanding that day, and most likely be
shouting myself hoarse. I had nice talk with El
Presidente, saying that his men were doing very well
and that they should be taken to the U.S. for advanced
training as well as getting modern American weaponry.
El Presidente was sympathetic, but pointed out that
their country had very little money, and that because
of the communistic organization Amnesty International,
they had an embargo on weaponry. I asked him then what
about cutting down forest, a big teak tree like that
is worth about 100 to 200 dollars a piece (a rough
estimate of my own was 100 000 to 200 000 dollars a
tree). I am sure we could get a company to cut down
the jungle, also removing all that cover that kept the
terrorists in hiding. He was really enthusiastic and
you could hear the little clogs in his head moving as
he mentally calculated the money he did not have. He
said I was a true friend, and I said not at all,
smiling my best smile through pained teeth.  That
night I was serviced by two of El Presidente’s best
and most beautiful personal secretaries. Letting me
sit back while they did all the work. I woke early in
the morning feeling quite drained.

Wednesday was a flurry of activity. I had received two
prisoners, one woman and one man. I taught them basic
torture techniques like using a field telephone,
various pressure points, the anatomical differences
between women and men, where to strike, and how to not
to leave bruising. They were quite impressed usually
when they interrogated prisoners they would just beat
them up until they confessed or use an agrigator for
electrical shocks. Colby also taught them on how to
prolong a prisoner's life. Afterwards I divided them
into groups, and had them experiment on prisoners. 

Thursday we put the through the obstacle course seeing
if they had learned anything during the week. We ran
them through the course pretty much until the
afternoon. They improved especially when we switched
to live ammunition (not that we had any other type).
Afterwards we all piled up into a truck and we went
out into the city. I chose a building at random and
said that they needed to arrest everyone there. We
surrounded the building, which was a new and novel
idea for them, and took everyone as they tried to
escape. Then once they were arrested I showed them how
to do a proper search and after a few comments they
started to get the idea. The money and the valuables
that they found was not our interest, nor the chickens
that they stole (they get something like a hundred
dollars a year, and all the time in between they make
do by pay-offs of various kinds), or the women that
they raped. We looked upon to make sure that the
search was thorough. Then we took the prisoners and
let them practice torture techniques on them. After a
long ordeal after getting several satisfactory answers
to the disappearance of Hoffa and who killed JFK, we
also got some information that seemed actually genuine
of the position of a terrorist camp, it was situated
on Porco hill. This was interesting and since tomorrow
we would be going out into the jungle for a bit of
survival training, important too.

Friday we started by getting them up at the crack of
dawn, and checked their equipment (which was basically
the clothes on their backs). While we had issued them
with guns we had not issued the ammunition (they would
have shot themselves or each other) We then continued
on, with us trainers in a black Jeep Cherokee while
the trainees jogged along side us. We then arrived
near the supposed terrorist camp (basically we
continued until they couldn’t carry the jeep anymore),
and set up base, there went the whole day telling them
how to put up positions and setting up a field
latrine. While this was going on, our sniper Reese
went off to scout the surrounding area. He found the
camp, and by the look of it there was some small fires
lit. The rest of the night we kept watch on the
trainees and made sure that the sentries did not fall
asleep. 

Saturday morning, a few hours before dawn we get
everyone ready and setting them up in an open line
towards the camp. We gave them ammunition and
proceeded with haste towards the camp. Surrounding
like a herd of wild elephants they attacked the camp,
expending all ammunition, the end result was that
everyone that was in the camp had long gone by the
time we got there, and ten of trainees were wounded
from ricochets and twisted ankles. The trainees were
ecstatic, their first decisive victory!
Reese noticed tracks, and guessed that they were
mainly women and children. No knowledge if they had
guns since they had not fired a single shot. We let
them escape, since chasing them would not have been
worth it or desirable. After looking around a bit more
we torched the camp and returned to our own camp. We
dismantled the camp and the gladly carried the jeep
the rest of way, stopping on the way to the barracks
to raid several kegs of rum from a bar. El Presidente
was overjoyed at hearing our outstanding success and
we were invited to a formal dinner. We all drank
pretty heavily that night, finding out that the El
Presidente had a plasma screen TV and the island’s
only DVD. With Rambo I to III playing in a continuous
loop we told and retold the story, with each retelling
becoming more wild then the last.

Sunday we all awoke with a raging hangover, and I
being the only one who survived yesterday’s
festivities went out to command the trainees to
clean-up the store room. Trying not to shout too loud
all the equipment was put into order, discovering that
most of the ammunition was rusted, all the tank
munition dangerous, and the TNT stored there had
started to sweat. What surprised me was that it had
not exploded before, even a gun shot in the direction
of the store room would have taken a good portion of
the mansion with it. The guns were also in pretty bad
shape, made if they were completely dismantled you
could get 1 servicable rifle out of 4. Mainly all the
equipment oiled, serviced in some way, and the
dangerous material was separated into its own pile.
After the store-room was cleaned the dangerous
material was taken far as possible. I debated whether
to use a detonator but decided against it and just
simply fired a shot at it. The whole pile showered the
city with debris. After that I started to prepare for
the farewell party, going out and getting a woman a
piece for the trainees. Something a bit more fresher
then the ones that could be found at the mansion.
Sunday evening was spent indulging in heavy drinking.
The pilot had to be carted to the Cessna and after
having a shot of Jack Daniels and a snort of coke,
took off with us trainers inside. In Florida nursing a
raging hangover I explained to our boss on what we had
gotten done. He was quite happy on creating work, and
I hoped we did get that bonus for a job well done.



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