Invisibility
It was sunny that day, and after ten hours spent marching, everyone had a halo of sweat under their neck.
The two Baker teams were walking in full gear: heavy rucksack, helmet and M16.
Trautman was walking in front of them and was equipped just like them but with a green beret instead of the helmet
“Rambo, Ortega” he said.
Rambo and Ortega ran in front of all of the others, passing the column and finally vanishing into the woods in front of them.
On the other side, the others continued marching as usual, as if nothing had happened.
A few minutes passed by, then Trautman ordered them to halt and said:
“Recruits... Did anyone see 'em?”
No one replied.
Trautman then sighed.
“Rambo: well done. Ortega: you must make more use of the shadows. Your rucksack was illuminated. You can now rejoin your ranks”'
Rambo and Ortega came out from the vegetation at the borders of the path, rejoined the back of column and started marching again.
A few minutes later, Trautman said:
“What's wrong with my gear today?”
No one replied.
Krakauer in particular looked distracted already and Trautman knew perfectly what it was about.
It was the first symptom of fatigue.
Coletta looked like the fittest of the day.
Private Coletta, after recovering from the pneumonia he had suffered during the selection process, looked like he had just become another person.
Of course, he wasn't physically on a par with the fittest ones (Jorgenson, Barry and Rambo), but he was holding up much more than Trautman had expected.
“So - Trautman said – , what am I wearing today that is wrong?”
“The green beret” Rambo replied while panting.
“Correct, Rambo. I am the only one with the green beret, and so I am the commanding officer of the group, aren’t I? Anybody can understand that from miles away”
A while of silence followed.
Bullshit like this cost more than just one of my friends' lives – Trautman thought.
Then he raised his gaze to the sun, wiped his sweat and said:
“How did you know that, Rambo?”
“For the same reason you do, Sir”
Trautman looked carefully at the guy, but his eyes gave nothing away.
Rambo was just like that.
He was different from all of the others by the fact that inside his eyes, you were never going to find any answers at all.
“Messner, Barry” Trautman said, and the two vanished into the vegetation in front of them too.
The Baker teams’ training was never just a matter of pure workout: there were always some abilities to use or something to think carefully about, because that was the way Trautman wanted them.
The stresses always had to be two, not just one: fatigue and something to think about.