[TML] New Member & the Sylean Rangers

[Richard Aiken]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 5:09 AM, Kelly St. Clair <kellys at efn.org> wrote:
> That'd be nice, but consider what happened when someone used "civilian"
> assets to confound and cripple the task force in a war game some years back
> - it was declared null and void, and the exercise was reset.

Ever read the Phule's Company series?  I think the author is Robert
Lynn Aspirin.  Anyway, IIRC in the first book Phule's men are
challenged by an elite commando unit.  The challenge is to see which
unit can complete the base's rigorous obstacle course in the least
amount of time.

Phule agrees, but specifies that the commandos have to go first.  Of
course, these ultimate soldiers blitz through the course in record
time, crossing/climbing/navigating the obstacles with consummate ease.
 Then it's the turn of Phule's men.

Most of the company forms up in marching order at the course start.
The commandos start to laugh . . . until the sapper teams scurry out
ahead.   As these began to lay the first demo charges, Phule's
sergeant major begins to count cadence . . .

BOOOM!   KA-BLAAMMM!   KAH-POW!! and so on.  Phule's combat engineers
completely obliterate the course, even going so far as to lay down a
portable bridge across the "impassable" ravine.

The commando unit commander is livid.  But Phule points out that
nobody specified HOW the two companies were to get to the finish line.
 <sigh!>  Too bad real life ain't like that.

> I'm sure the British thought it was terribly unsporting of us to hide in
> the hedgerows and woods and take shots at them as they marched down the
> roads in neat columns, too.

Indubitably.


-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein