Close Enough

Chapter 1 -- Pre-Deployment

"Will you come back?" Bonnie asked with a little catch in her throat.  Mark tried not to sigh in exasperation, remembering that, although they had been engaged for nearly a year before marrying six months ago, his wife was still very new to Army life.  She had gone to the Dependents Orientation briefing upon her arrival at Fort Hood, Texas, and remembered hearing the story about the U.S. soldiers killed along the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea four years earlier.

Also, Mark had invited over some friends a couple of weeks ago to talk about the upcoming deployment to Germany.  They had mentioned that this year's REFORGER--REturn of FORces to GERmany--exercise coincided with a Warsaw Pact exercise called Waffenbruederschaft-80 (Comrades-In-Arms-80).  As Mark had explained, that meant that the Soviet, East German, and other East Bloc armies would be conducting exercises at the same time, but on their side of the Intra-German Border.

Mark stopped packing his second duffel bag and gave Bonnie a hug.  "Of course, I'll come back, sweetheart," he assured her.  "It's just an exercise.  NATO does this one every year, and they do other ones, too.  It'll be fine, you'll see.  And--" he said, as he read the the next question in her eyes, "yes, I have to go.  I'm a Sergeant and I'm in charge of some equipment and some guys.  We've got a job to do, so we're gonna do it and then come home, okay?"

He thought Bonnie still looked a bit troubled and nervous.  Then, an old training technique came to him: it's easier to do
something new, if you have a checklist you can run through.

"Hey, honey," he said encouragingly, "why don't you go get that binder we put together?  We can run through all the contact
and support info, while I finish packing."  Bonnie smiled, turned and went into their apartment.


Chapter 1 word count = 313
Running total word count = 313