"A few of the remaining SEALS at the Amphib Base said we took out the oil platform. "

“Know what the weather forecast is in Baghdad?"

“No, Dick. What’s the weather forecast in Baghdad?” “Early-morning smoke and 25 hundred degrees!”

We laughed and swilled our Buds. There were four of us: Donkey Dick, Slator Crowe, Black Mac, and me. The other two members of our fire team couldn’t make it.

But those of us who’d gathered to drink beer on my Bonita patio this late afternoon couldn't wait to talk war. Operation Desert Storm had been raging for more than a month, and we had sea stories to tell. Donkey Dick got us started.

“Heard anything ’bout our mates in the Gulf, Slator?”

Slator wiped the beer slop from his mouth with his good arm and replied, “A little scuttlebutt here and there. The Teams have the usual missions: downed-pilot rescue, beacon bombing, ship boarding, beach recon for the Marines, and of course the oil platforms. No doubt the Jedi Warriors in SEAL Six on the East Coast have fancier missions.” “SEALS must have already hit an oil platform,” I said — recalling a cryptic mention in the Union of Navy forces occupying a rig off the Kuwaiti coast.

”That’s right. I was talking with a few of the remaining SEALS at the amphib base, and they said we took out the platform. West Coast SEALS did it this time.”

“How’d we do it?” I asked.

Slator turned to Donkey Dick. “You should know about that, Dick. You helped work up the op when we hit the Iranian platform in ’87 or ’88 and destroyed the minelayer. Must have hit the Iraqis the same way.”

Donkey Dick belched and said, “We prob’ly just came screamin’ in on the Blackhawk helos — Army UH60s — about 20 feet off the deck, flared up above the platform, then fast-roped in with night-vision goggles, M-14 sniper rifles, and M-16s. ’Course when SEAL Two did the Iranian op, the Iraqis was on our side, not that it matters. Raghead’s a raghead.”

“What about fast-ropes?” I asked. “How do they work?” “Fast-ropes is what the Teams use now instead of rappellin’. Bill. The rope’s maybe three, four inches in diameter, made of braided synthetic fiber and anchored inside the helo. The helo comes to a hover 50, 60 feet above the deck, the jumpmaster tosses the rope out, the SEALS grab ahold like it was a firepole and slide on down.”

Donkey Dick paused to drink, belched again, and continued, “You can insert a squad of eight men that way in less than ten seconds, a lot faster than rappellin'. where you got to disengage the line from your snap link. Also, you don’t have to worry about getting your nuts crushed in the swiss seat.”

“Don’t your hands and crotch get pretty hot sliding down the rope?” I asked.

“Naw. You wear heavy work gloves, and you shouldn’t touch the rope with nothin' but your hands. You squeeze the rope to slow down. Easy day.” Donkey Dick smiled, showing strong, tobacco-marred teeth. “ ’Course if you’re too high and the rope’s been used a couple hundred times, you got problems, sailor.”

“Whatcha mean, ‘problems.’ ”

“It’s like this, Mac. The more you use the rope, the more them fibers get matted down. You can comb ’em back up some, but not much. After a couple hundred insertions, that rope gets slicker ’n snot. You combine a slick rope an’a drop of 60 feet or so, you’re gonna land like a sneaker full of shit.”

Slator added, “That’s probably how those SEALS in Team Six busted their ankles. Pushing the limits.”

“Six is always pushin’ the limits,” Donkey Dick snarled. “Like the time they came here to work with us against the oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel. They had all these fuckin' exotic ideas on how to take the rigs down.”

“Why were you working with Six?” I asked.

“That was when we was worried about the Iranians, and West Coast teams was tasked along with SEAL Two for Iranian oil rigs in the Gulf. I thought it would be a good idea to work against our rigs up in Santa Barbara — same oil companies built them rigs as built the ones in the Gulf."

“Imagine that.”

“Anyhow, after we got it all cleared, some staff puke comes up with the bright idea of bringing a training team out from Six, since they was supposed to be the experts. They’d been practicing for hostage situations on oil rigs off Louisiana.”

“How did Six want you to run the op?”

“The usual James Bond crap. They wanted us to use techni-scooters to approach underwater, then shoot climbing lines around the rig supports.” Donkey Dick looked at Black Mac and added, “Techni-scooters is swimmer propulsion units that look kinda like what you seen in the movie Thunderball.”

“What’s wrong with that concept, Dick?”

“C’mon, Bill. Can you imagine the kinda problems you could have towing all that climbing line behind them techni-scooters? An’ what are you gonna do hangin’ off that line halfway up the platform if some mess cook comes out to piss over the side, looks down and sees you?”

“Well,” I offered, “you could always shoot him.”

Donkey Dick snorted, then said, “Yeah, in a pig’s ass. I could just see you or me hangin' onto that line with one hand and usin' the other to squirt off a few rounds from our MP-5s. Maybe them apes from Six got the upper-body strength for that, but not vour standard-issue SEAL.” He paused, “Well, Mac could prob’ly manage, but Slator’d be in a real trick.”

We laughed and swilled our Buds.

“What was the final profile?” I asked.

“After we got rid of Six, we just decided to keep it simple. We loaded eight men each in two Blackhawks with a trail bird to clean up and made a low-level night approach about 20 feet off the deck at a hundred knots or so.” Donkey Dick drank, then said, “Let me tell you, mates, if you want to do something that’ll put your nuts in your throat, try that kind of approach with ever’body — including the pilots — wearing night-vision goggles. You’re flyin’ so fuckin' low and hard, you’re gettin’ soaked with ocean spray kicked up by the rotor blast.”

“Hoo yah!” I said. “What happens after you insert?”

“You just start clearing the oil rig, but you got to be careful with them night-vision goggles.”

“Why’s that?” Black Mac asked.

“ ’Cause you don’t have no peripheral vision, and what you can see is like looking at it through a bottle of Gatorade. If you don’t watch your ass, you’ll step off the edge and do a 200-foot free-fall into the ocean.”

“No safety lines?” I asked.

“None where you insert on the helo pad.”

“How do you clear the oil rig?”

“Fast but careful. Them rigs is a lot like ships. There’s mess decks, berthing compartments, comm centers, workshops, boiler rooms, ladders, and passageways. There’s all kinds of comers to turn, steel doors and hatches to blow. Then there’s this huge superstructure towering above the platform. That’s why we take sniper rifles — to neutralize anyone who’s hid high up.”

“How would you blow the doors?”

“Slap a double-primed haversack on the mothers, with a 15-second delay.”

“A 20-pound haversack?”

“You know the deal. Bill: load heavy. ’Course if you got time, you can mold a linear charge around the door, stick data sheet on the hinges, cap in, and let ’er rip. ‘Fire in the hole!’ ”

I watched Donkey Dick’s smile lengthen, stretch back to reveal more strong teeth, and make his nose appear even longer than it was.

“So that’s how we did it in the Gulf?”

“Naw. Them ragheads just gave up like the turds they was.”

“I’m told we have very few if any decent missions in the Gulf,” Slator said.

“I heard the same,” Donkey Dick added. “A buddy of mine’s been floating around on the Denver for months with nothin’ to do except build his body and get a tan to impress the sleeves in I.B. and Coronado when he returns."

“Why don’t we have any good missions?” I asked.

Slator replied, “Because Schwarzkopf’s got a hard-on for special ops. He and General Stiner, who commands SEALS and Special Forces, can’t stand each other. Then there’s the old rivalry and jealousy between Army line officers —artillery, infantry, armor — and Special Forces snake-eaters. A ground-pounder like Schwarzkopf is not about to let the Gulf become a showcase for special operations — especially after Stiner hogged the glory in Panama.”

“Well, at least Stiner’s kept in shape. I never seen such fat generals as Schwarzkopf and Kelly." Donkey Dick said, “They look like they sleep with feed bags on.”

“C’mon, Dick,” Black Mac said. “Just because those generals got frost-bit ears from keeping their heads in the reefer too long don’t mean they can’t general.”

We laughed and swilled our Buds as Slator said, “You know who really looked like a general? Westmoreland. Now that’s what a general ought to look like.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Westy stayed in great shape playing tennis at the Circle Sportif in Saigon.”

“How do you know, Bill? You ever play tennis with him? I thought you were an old basketball player.” Slator sounded mildly annoyed.

“I never played tennis with him, but I heard him talk about his matches with an admiral when I briefed him on our first Shallow Draft mission.”

“Ah, our snatch op against the VC political cadre in the Le Hong Phong Secret Zone. Where we inserted from that can and you fired those naval guns so much the barrels damn near melted down.”

“That’s the one, Mac.”

“You sure loved to fire the naval gun, didn’t you, Bill? Get them airbursts and spray Willy Pete and VT over ever’thing and ever’body."

“I liked it a lot, Dick. You know the deal : load heavy.”

Toothy grins and happy growls all around. If we’d had tails, they’d have been wagging.

Donkey Dick was extolling President Bush. “Now there’s a real Commander-in-Chief. Thank Christ we don’t have no liberal bed we tier in the White House. Can you imagine how Carter woulda fucked things up?”

“Well,” Slator replied, “I can’t imagine Preacher Jimmy saying we’re going to kick Saddam’s ass.”

“ ‘Kicking ass’ has become a slogan for this war,” I said. “I even heard a zoomie say it on CNN as he climbed into the cockpit of his fast-mover. I think he actually said, ‘We’re on our way to kick some Republican Guard butt.’ ”

“Yeah,” Black Mac added, “I saw that. Made me think about some of the butt we kicked in Nam. We didn’t lose our war, and we didn’t go to Nam so we could come home and have a goddamned parade. We went to Nam to kill Cong, pure and simple.”

“Virtue is its own reward,” I murmured.

“How’s that, Bill? Hey, we’re outta beer.”

I refilled the cooler and turned on the patio lights, despite Donkey Dick’s protest that we were night-fighters who should drink and talk in the dark.

Black Mac observed that Donkey Dick was also probably disappointed with the lack of mosquitos in my back yard. He said, “You miss those Rung Sat skeeters, don’t you, Dick?”

“Bet your ass. Them was real mosquitos — big enough to fuck a turkey.” Although we’d heard the line many times, we still laughed and Donkey Dick’s eyes gleamed in the soft yellow light.