First of all, let me tell you, that Lee Marvin movie had it all wrong. Number one, we weren’t criminals, and number two, there weren’t twelve of us. Though, you know, as I think about it, our mission wasn’t anything like what they had in that movie either, so maybe it wasn’t supposed to be us. The dirty dozen we weren’t.

Well, I said we weren’t criminals, but actually, I was. Two years before all that, while I was stationed at Pearl, I’d decided to take a jeep into Honolulu, though the base was locked down. They called me AWOL, and I sat in a brig for two years watching the war go by.

By the way, and sorry for not saying this earlier, getting old you know- my name is Lance Steinberg, but everybody pretty much just called me Clutch. I love driving, you know? Growing up, in the Army, even after the war, I wanna be popping the Clutch, and it just stuck.

So, anyway, I’m sitting in Leavenworth, and it’s July 1944, so all my buddies who had been getting killed in the South Pacific were now over in Europe getting killed. The war wasn’t going so good yet for us there, but we started making headway. It looked like I was going to be sitting there until the end of the war, and then get a dishonorable whenever the boys came home. That’s when I got a visit.

He was the biggest son of a biscuit eater I’d ever seen in my life, at least 6’ 7”, and hell if he wasn’t wearing Master Sergeant stripes and rockers. Now, I was a motor head, sure, and a lead foot, but I had respect for Top sergeants, especially big bastards who could fold my ex-corporal carcass in two. I snapped to parade rest, as he stopped in front of my cell. With him was one of the MP’s who I saw all the time. He liked cars too, and we used to talk about racing home builds when the war ended. PFC Lavigne I think his name was. The big man spoke.

“Corporal Steinberg, how would you like to get out of here?” That was music to my ears, and I told him so. He had the MP unlock the cell, came in, and told me to sit down. He pulled over my stool, and sitting down, he was still taller than most people I know.

“Corporal, My name is MSG Savage. I am here to represent a Col. Clayton Abernathy. Have you heard of him?”

“Sure,” I answered, “He was the first officer to complete that paratrooper course at Benning, we all know him, Sarge.”

“Good. Corporal, you have a fine service record, except for the fact that you can’t get along with anybody. Tell me why you were court martialed.” Nobody’d ever asked me for my side of the story before.

“Well, Sarge, they had us locked down because some LT had lost his .45. I had a girl I was gonna meet, and I wanted to see her. I didn’t want to miss her because of some chowder-headed officer.” Those were the facts.

“You also led police and MP’s in a chase through Honolulu at high speeds, and turned to play chicken with them more than once.”

“I won too.” I said. He smiled, the type of smile that the spider had when he invited in the fly.

“I’m here to offer you a choice. You have an opportunity to serve under myself and Col. Abernathy. You will be serving with other similarly skilled, but… well let’s say other soldiers whose unique problems have gotten in the way of their service. You will be sent on a mission that you may not come back from, after weeks of intense training, but if you survive, your record will be expunged, and you will be given an honorable discharge. Or, you can forget I was ever here, and serve out your sentence.”

I looked around the same walls I’d been looking at for two years. “When can I go?” He just kept smiling and stood up, then yelled for the guard.

“We’ll send for you. I’m glad you decided this way. If this mission isn’t successful, you’d probably never get a chance to finish your term.” True to his word, I was out in a week.

They sent me in irons by train to Camp Ord, California. It was really a basic training post, but like I said, this was all hush-hush, and they thought we’d blend in with normal training. Fat chance.

MSG Savage was waiting for me when they pulled me off the train. He signed the paperwork from some buck sergeant, then had them immediately remove the shackles. He pointed to a jeep, “Do the honors, Corporal.” I sat behind the wheel, and it was like being back in Momma’s arms. There’s a special place in heaven for old Willy.

Sarge gave me some directions, and, since it had been a while, I took off like a bat out of hell. The route we took was only about two miles, but I made them count, and as I recall we scattered at least one formation. Finally we stopped in front of some barracks.

“Driving like that is not going to help us keep a low profile. Knock it off lead foot.”

“Actually, Sarge, they call me Clutch.” He gave me that cocky smile again.

“OK, Clutch, grab your bags and get into bunk five. Your bunk mate’s SGT Wilkinson. He’s in there and has your instructions.” He got out of the jeep, and walked toward the building across the street, looked like a staff building. “And you need to get rid of that beard,” he told me. Fat chance of that. I threw my duffel over my shoulder and went inside. It was the same old barracks, wherever you went. Two rows of bunk beds, one on either side, a foot locker on either side of those. There was one soldier, laying on the second bottom bunk on the left, bunk six, which gave me the top.

“You Sergeant Wilkinson?” I asked. He stood up and I stopped in my tracks. You need to remember; it’s 1944, and yeah, I’m a Yankee, but I wasn’t expecting to see a Negro.

“Yeah I am. Why don’t you throw your stuff in your footlocker. Then you’re gonna want to get squared away, we got a briefing at 1800.” Now I heard every word he said, but, well, damn man, he was a Negro!

“Did you hear me Corporal?” he asked, and stepped real close, that snapped me out of it, because I realized that he’d probably been putting up with that for a while, unless he was in the all Negro units. If a man’s willing to take a bullet for the red, white, and blue, I don’t care what color he is. We’ll get back to that later.

“I sure did Sergeant, just not used to being out in the world,” I answered, and hoped that covered up what I’d been thinking. I hadn’t meant anything by it, it was just the way things were. It turned out that our team had a lot of soldiers who suffered from the way things were.

“So,” I said, as I put my uniforms and such into the footlocker, “you been here long?” He had gone back over to his own bunk, taken a boot brush out of his footlocker, and was knocking a layer of dust off.

“I got pulled into this by Master Sergeant Savage, right after we moved into Italy. He saw the way I handled my self, and since my unit was usually used to clear villages, I had lots of chances to show off. We just got here to Ord a couple of weeks ago.”

“Do you know what this big mission is?”

He snorted. “I got an idea, but I think there’s a lot more going on than I heard. I’ll tell you what I know after Hawk’s briefing.” I was arranging my extra boots under my side of the bunk. In Army bunks, you always sleep with your head in the opposite direction from the guy under you. Then your boots are lined up under your head. It’s so when you come back drunk, you don’t puke in your buddy’s shoes.

“Whose this Hawk guy?” I asked.

“Col. Abernathy. We all go by these code names here, ‘cause of this cloak and dagger shit. Everybody but MSG Savage. Whose gonna think that’s his real name anyway?” I laughed. This guy was all right.

“How many of us are there?”

“’Bout a squad’s worth. We’re a diverse bunch. You about done there? It’s about time.” I locked up, stuck the key on my dog tag chain, and followed him out.

Yeah we sure as hell were a diverse group. You think I skipped a beat when I saw SGT Wilkinson, I about lost it when I saw the next two. Two Japs, yellow as Tojo sitting right there at the table, and wearing American uniforms. I was at Pearl man, I wasn't sure I could put up with this.

“What kinda crap is this?” I said, and said it loud. One of them jumped right up, and the other one just calmly put his hand on the first one’s chest.

“You got a problem soldier?” he said, without a bit of accent.

“Yeah, my buddies at Pearl got killed by Nips like you, and I ain’t serving with you!” I turned to leave but just smacked my nose into MSG Savage’s dog tags. I almost felt his voice more than heard it.

“Corporal Steinberg. You will sit down here, and you will accept these American soldiers, or you will go back to your cell at Leavenworth and spend the rest of the war trying to get my boot out of your ass.” I opened my mouth to argue, but I looked up at him, way up mind you, and he wasn’t joking. I looked back at the fiery little Japanese PFC, and muttered “Yes, Sergeant,” then walked all the way around the table to the other side. I didn’t drop my gaze for a minute, and neither did the little Jap. Suddenly MSG Savage sharply called “On your feet!” and we all went to attention. Only then did I realize there were even other troops at the table. A solid, dark haired man walked in and went to the head of the table, then sat down.

“Take seats,” he said, and we sat, but I traded one more ugly look with the PFC, before I looked around. There were nine of us at the table, including the Colonel and a pretty little red headed WAC who was sitting next to him with a steno pad ready. Next to her was another E-5, in long sleeve khaki’s with bandages wrapped around his head. I remember noticing that he was wearing gloves and dark glasses, even inside. He sat real quiet, and didn’t really look at anybody, except for an occasional glance at the WAC, which I could understand. We used to do Jody calls when we marched, that said “they say that in the army, the women’s mighty fine/ looks could break a mirror, march like Frankenstein.” She was the exception, and after two years locked up, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to cut the invisible man here off at the knees to get next to that.

Across from us, next to the Jap with the sergeant stripes sat a sailor, and he had a beard just like mine. Course, he was allowed to have one… Beside him sat another Corporal, name tag said ‘Talltree’. Dark skinned guy, and I guessed from the name he was an Indian. Relaxed looking.

“Gentlemen, I want to welcome you all to this operation. Later, you will be given sworn statements obliging you to secrecy in regards to all aspects of this mission until the end of the war, and for five years after.” After all was said and done, that became fifty years. Now you know why I’ve waited so long to tell this story, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think they planned for any of us to live this long. The Colonel continued.

“From this point onward this squad will be referred to by the code name ‘G.I. Joe’. We feel that such an innocuous title will be ignored in case any secret communiqués are intercepted. Furthermore all of you will be referred to by code name. Master Sergeant Savage will have those to me by close of business tomorrow.

“We are going to spend the next three weeks here on Camp Ord preparing for a mission into Germany. I won’t say this is a suicide mission; I don’t believe in the no win scenario. It will require all of your skills, however, to successfully complete this mission. I will personally be leading you into combat, along with Sergeant Savage. Each of you possess some special skills that will be essential to the successful completion of our orders. You will have to work as a team,” he looked at me, and then to the Japanese PFC as he talked, “regardless of whatever personal feelings you have.

“Each of us here are American servicemen. We all took an oath to protect our homeland against its enemies. Corporal Steinberg, Private First Class Ito, I will not abide by you two endangering this mission…” We both interrupted him, almost in unison.

“But Sir, He started it…”

“But Sir, I was at Pearl…”

Nothing doing though. The Colonel’s voice just kept rolling. “…due to your personal prejudice. With the exception of you Steinberg, and you Delgado, each of the others are here because some prejudice somewhere prevented them from doing their jobs to the utmost of their abilities, and from having the same respect due all American fighting men. This mission is far too important for petty squabbles. We just don’t have the time for it.

“And that goes for all of you. We need you now, and at one hundred percent, or else we may all find ourselves greeting our friends with a ‘seig hiel’. Is that clear?” You know, when he put it that way, how could we refuse? I swallowed some bile, and replied with the rest, a grudging ‘yes sir’.

“Very well, I don’t want to have to address this subject again. First of all, I’m going to tell you all why you were picked for this team. As I said all of you have a special skill.” He started by indicating Talltree. “This is Corporal Talltree. Besides being a graduate of Airborne school, he is also a Navajo Indian. There has been a lot of success in the South Pacific using the Navajo’s on radios. We think the Germans speak as little Navajo as the Japanese. He’s got a partner up at HQ to intercept his messages.” He moved on to the sailor.

“This is Petty Officer Third Class Hector Delgado. Besides the fact that the man is a scrapper in a fight, he is also an expert in demolitions.”

“Good with powdered eggs too, Sir,” the sailor answered. I had no love for sailors, but he hadn’t done anything to piss me off yet. He was gonna need to lose that suck up tone too. Little did I know.

“To his right,” Col. Abernathy continued, “is SGT Thomas Arishikage. He and PFC Robert Ito beside him are both martial arts experts, as well as fine soldiers. At the end of the table, you’ve all met MSG Savage. He will make sure all of you learn to work together. Sergeant Lonzo Wilkinson here will be your direct supervisor. I’ve seen him fight, and he was the first Negro graduate of paratrooper school. He’s a good man.” He looked at me then and his glance didn’t mince words. “They say you’re one of the best drivers there is, Corporal Steinberg. I expect you to prove it.” I gave him another obligatory ‘yes sir’, and otherwise kept my mouth shut. Watching the sway of that redhead was giving me more and more incentive to stay out of Leavenworth. Then the Colonel did a strange thing.

Pointing to the Invisible Man he said, “I’m going to ask all of you to respect this sergeant’s privacy. He’s been through hell, but you have my assurance we can count on him.” He then pointed toward the redhead, and we were left with no knowledge of who the Invisible Man was.

“This is Spec 4 O’Hara, my personal assistant. She will be keeping records of all our training, as well as recording the mission itself. Are there any questions?”

“Sir,” I piped up, “I just wanted to say that if the young Specialist here needs any help with her steno pad, I’m more than happy to help.” I followed that with a grin toward the red head that was met with a mighty cold glance. That just made me grin wider.

“Sir,” Wilkinson started, stopping any response to my comment, “what exactly is our mission?” Col. Abernathy looked toward Savage, who nodded and got to his huge feet. He clicked off the lights as the red head pulled the cover off a slide projector in the center of the table. The Colonel took the control and a picture flashed on the bare wall to the left.

It was a map of Europe, and from the look of it, the newspapers were saying the good old US of A was doing a lot better than we really were. I’m no tactical expert, but our lines were being pushed back into France and Italy, and the big freakin’ swastika was moving back across the map.

“This briefing, as I said, is top secret. As you can see the condition of our forces in Europe is not as the Command had hoped. General Eisenhower is being pushed back, along with most of the front.” We were all quiet. The war had been almost going our way since the landing at Normandy.

“What the hell happened, sir?” I asked. He switched the slide to show the weirdest looking tank I’d ever seen. It was black with a cockpit that stuck out the front, with a tall armored body behind. On top was a manned turret with twin cannons. On the nose of the thing, next to the obligatory swastika was a larger symbol. It looked to be a snake’s head. In front of the tank, and in the turret, were soldiers, but not in any uniform I recognized. It was a dark blue, with a matching helmet that had a face mask attached to it, leaving only the eyes exposed. On the chest of the uniform was the same snake head symbol.

“This happened, Corporal. This is Cobra.” He flashed through several more slides showing different angles of this tank, as well as more of these soldiers, and what looked to be an auto gyro of some kind. Remember, helicopters were still in the developmental stage in the US, so this stuff looked Buck Rogers to us. The Colonel continued. “They are some sort of elite division, probably made up of the crème of the SS, and fielding weapons that are faster, lighter and stronger than anything in our arsenal. They are horribly secretive. Luckily, we were able to get an intelligence agent inside. Unfortunately, not long after smuggling out these pictures, we lost contact with her.”

“Her?” The sailor asked, beating me to the punch. Abernathy nodded.

“The male agents we tried to sneak in were all rejected. This woman infiltrated as the mistress of a Belgian mercenary who goes by the name of Bludd. He is also working in this organization, apparently training assassins.” He clicked to a picture of a moustached man wearing an eye patch, standing next to a man wearing a uniform that was similar, yet lighter than the others. In place of the helmet with the black faceplate was a silver plate that covered the entire face. How the hell did he see through that thing? “That’s Bludd, with the eye patch. The other man we know only as the Cobra Commander. Since Cobra seems to be everywhere at once, we are assuming they are at least a division sized unit. That makes this man the equivalent of a general, yet we can find no information on him.” He clicked again to show a regal looking man in a red and black jacket, wearing a kilt of the same color.

“This is the Earl of Dester, or Destro as the old Scots like to say. He is the patriarch of a family that has supplied various factions of Europe with weapons for centuries. He turned up missing six months ago, three months before Cobra began to counter attack. We think he’s being held against his will at Cobra Headquarters.

“That’s where we come in.” He clicked again and a map of southern Germany appeared. “We know that the HQ for this gang is in Augsburg, on the Sheridan Kaserne. Again we need to thank our missing agent for this info. We are going to infiltrate the HQ, find out all we can about Cobra, rescue any prisoners we find, and leave as much of the Kaserne a smoking ruin as we can.” There was silence for a moment.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a suicide mission, sir,” I said. The sailor turned and nodded to me in agreement. Maybe we’d get along after all. He picked up where I left off.

“Yeah Sir, why don’t we just pull a Dresden on Augsburg and call it a day?”

“It’s very simple,” Abernathy said. “We need to find out how Germany is developing these weapons, and the UK is very interested in the safe return of Dester. If we get our hands on these weapons, it’s going to make the invasion of Japan a whole lot easier. Luckily, we haven’t seen this stuff in the Pacific yet, but I wouldn’t count on things staying like that. Right now we’re counting on Hitler wanting to feel superior to Hirohito. We need to get in and get out, and bring some secrets with us.” He looked around for more questions. We didn’t move, mostly I think because we didn’t want any more bad news.

“Good,” he continued, “Top will get your code names to me tomorrow, and begin training. I’m letting him deal with that, but I will be joining you on the training field, and on the run we are going to do before chow in the morning. They’re yours Sergeant Savage.” With that, he walked out, and the little redhead started putting her papers away. I almost didn’t hear Top call the room to attention, since I was watching her. As she walked out, Savage started talking.

“All right, morning comes early, and I don’t want to hear any shit out of you about how tired you are at reveille. Be in your bunks by 2100, and standing tall out front at zero five. Dismissed.” As the others shuffled out, I stopped by Savage.

“Hey Top, since I’m the driver, I don’t have to do this running thing, right?” I immediately regretted asking, and stopped him before he could open his mouth, or pound me. “Never mind.” Then I was gone.

I went back over to the barracks instead of going over to the Mess Tent they had set up down the road. I didn’t feel like walking, and I wanted to get a little more settled in. It’s not like I had much, but what the hell, right?

I wasn’t alone. Sgt. Wilkinson was shining those boots of his again, and I could just about see myself in them from across the room. The Jap sergeant was sitting on his bunk like an Indian, his eyes closed and mouth moving like he was whispering to himself. I scoffed and kept going. I was already kneeling in front of my footlocker before I noticed that the invisible man was in the shadows looking out the windows. He’d taken off the dark glasses, and I’d never seen nothing like the eyes on this guy. They were dead, like when a snake is staring down a rat.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, and he noticed I was looking at him. He turned that gaze on me for just a minute before he put his glasses back on. I knew right there I didn’t want to get in this sum-bitch’s way. Then we all found out for sure why he was part of this team.

The Jap PFC came in and he was acting just as smart ass as he had in the briefing room. He threw some guff my way, but I thought about being back in Leavenworth with Sergeant Savage’s boot up my ass, and I waved him off. That was when he went over to bug the Invisible Man.

“So what the hell is your problem anyway? You hurt?” he said. I’d seen this before- this was the way troops picked out the pecking order. If it wasn’t rank, it was a pissing contest.

“I don’t feel like talking,” he answered in a low, almost pained voice, and started to turn away.

“Come on, let’s see what’s under there…” Ito said, pulling off those glasses. Then those snake eyes were on him. The laugh left him quick, and he went into some such karate pose, he felt threatened just by the gaze. Then he kicked, or whatever those kung fu types do.

He was on the ground between blinks, and the Invisible Man was on him, a knee in his chest, and a hand at his throat. Wilkinson was up quick shouting at them to knock it off, and Arishikage was off his bunk like a spring, kicking at the guy on top.

He caught Arishikage’s foot right out of the freakin’ air.

Yeah, Arishikage recovered and caught himself, landing in a crouch, but just barely. The sergeant in bandages was up and circling him.

“I have no quarrel with any of you. He started it.” It was a voice like death’s own. Arishikage was standing up now, and the two men stared at each other. I didn’t know how the Jap could stand it.

“All right, that’s enough,” Wilkinson said, and braver man than I, he stepped between them. Ito was on his knees now, holding his throat. I had no love for the little bastard, but he might have been hurt, so I went over and tried to help him up. He shook me off though and went over to stand behind Arishikage. They went back and forth in Japanese for a minute, then Arishikage spoke.

“We apologize, and I personally ask you for your pardon. PFC Ito was recruited directly from one of the internment camps in Nevada. The camps have developed a different type of lifestyle for our youth than we would like.” I scoffed.

“Those camps ain’t that bad,” I said.

“Perhaps if the country you were born and raised in locked you in a cage because you look like the enemy half a world away, you would be bitter as well.”

“Look,” Wilkinson interrupted, “as soon as Talltree and Delgado get back, we’re gonna have us a little pow wow, and work out some stuff. Right now this is over, so let’s give each other some space and take it easy.” With that everybody slowly went back to their separate corners, and things were quiet. I was rolling my socks, but I was wondering what kinda show it would be if Bandage man over there went head to head with Arishikage. That’d be a fight.

Soon the sun went down, and under the light of some bare bulbs we all set down for a talk, dragging some chairs and footlockers over to the center of the bay. Talltree and Delgado looked like they had eaten themselves sick. I guess we all had a special order at the Mess Tent for anything we wanted. “Nothing like that back on The Res,” Talltree said, and it took me a minute to figure out he was talking about a Reservation. What a bunch we were, a Jew, a Negro, a Redskin, two Japs, a Mexican, (it was later I found out he was Puerto Rican, and just what the damn difference was) and a psycho. Look out Cobra.

“You all heard what Top said about code names. We’ll be using them here to get used to them. Here’s the list I got.” He pointed at me, “You’re going to be Clutch, Top said you’d like it.” I smiled big.

“Oh, hell yeah.”

“Ito, for obvious reasons, we’re going to call you Quick Kick.” We all laughed while he turned bright red, angry and embarrassed all at once. Arishikage raised his hand toward him, and shook his head, so Ito just fumed. I smiled at him, cocky as always, but he just looked down. “SGT Arishikage,” Wilkinson continued, “With your permission, I’d like to call you Storm Shadow. Seems kinda fitting.” Arishikage smiled a mirthless smile and nodded. It took me three weeks to find out that Arishikage meant Storm Shadow.

“Talltree, you got a swagger like a paratrooper. You’re gonna be Airborne. Delgado, that belly stickin’ out, you look like a Shipwreck.”

“Feel like one too,” he said back.

“That leaves you,” Wilkinson said, looking at Invisible Man, whose chair was pushed back some, so he was with us, but not quite part of the circle. “You’re gonna be Snake Eyes.” Wilkinson must have seen the same eyes I did. Meanwhile, that psycho bastard didn’t nod, didn’t answer, just looked at him with those dark glasses. Jesus.

“I’m going to give this list to Top so he has it. So you know, I’m Stalker. Goes back to Detroit on the streets. The Colonel is Hawk, and Top is well, Sergeant Savage.” He started to go.

“Hey what about that little redhead?” I asked. I saw Snake Eyes twitch out of the corner of my eye.

“Specialist O’Hara? Scarlett so far as I’m concerned,” Stalker answered and headed out.

“Frankly my dear I do give a damn,” I muttered. I turned to see those Snake Eyes turned on me. “Kinda,” I said.

Summer at Fort Ord felt like winter in Kansas to me. It was freakin’ cold and damp when we got up to run that morning. It was funny because Sergeant Savage had a guide-on for us, and it was a Chaplain’s unit symbol. Except for Snake-Eyes we all got out to call Jody, and mine was filthy. Shipwreck was laughing so hard he could hardly run, so Hawk sped us up a bit. The crazy bastard got us all out on the beach, and just kept running. Soon as I’d start to slow down, Savage would run up next to me and start shouting worse than my Drill Sergeant, so I kept running. Well, except for when I had to stop and puke. We did seven miles that morning. I wanted to die.

Training didn’t let up from there. Hawk and Savage had every intention of us being a team of lean and mean machines, and we worked hard. I’m not going to bore you with a lot of macho tales, let me just say that I was in shape when we left. Do have some interesting memories though.

I was coming back from that chow hall one day with Shipwreck, and we were both pretty stuffed- we were kinda waddling. He bummed a smoke off me and we were strolling, shootin’ the shit like any troops would, even if he was a sailor. I caught sight of that pretty little Scarlett sitting out under a tree, and damn if Snake Eyes wasn’t with her. I could almost hear him rasping to her, just catching words like ‘grenade’, ‘mission’, and I swear he said ‘Moscow’, which didn’t make any sense then, but now I guess does. Before we passed, she was holding his hand, looking into those crazy eyes. Gave me the creeps, and we kept walking.

Went into Seaside, the local town there, one night with a few of the guys, and damn if that little Quick Kick didn’t keep us from getting arrested in a bar brawl one night when he took down a cop at the door. I thanked him later, and realized the bastards had done it; we were working like a team.

The mission concept was like this- we were going to hitch a ride on a B-17 heading toward Berlin out of France. The P-51 Mustang had recently been introduced, and so for the first time during the war our bombers had escorts all the way to the target and back. Under cover of night, we were all going to parachute into the hills around Augsburg. Except for this Cobra group, the only military that Augsburg really had was some regular German Army, and they had no reason to defend the hills since they were so far behind the lines. From there, Snake Eyes and Hawk (who both spoke fluent German) were going to make a recon run down by the Kaserne. Then the rest of us, with their information, would make an infiltration run against the Kaserne. In the heat of battle, Shipwreck and I would steal a truck, get everybody, hostages and all into it, and get the hell out, making our way south, slowly but surely, until we got back to allied territory.

Just so you know now, it doesn’t happen that way, so I haven’t spoiled the story for you.

Things were right on schedule at first. We all huddled in the belly of a B-17 called the Sweet Loraine (and lemme tell you, there ain’t much room), and we sure did get some stares, especially Scarlett. She was right there with us, to record it all, but the idea was she wasn’t going to actually fight. That didn’t work out either. Pretty soon we were ready to go, and we actually jumped out of the bomb bay doors. We were lucky, the ak-ak guns started before we hit the ground, but we were out of the way of the flak. We hit the hills like we were supposed to, and got a perimeter set up. We traded off getting some z’s before daybreak, and then Hawk dressed like a local, and Snake Eyes, dressed like a hurt veteran, started down into town.

That was the last thing that went right.

I was arguing with Shipwreck about who had better gams, Betty Grable or Mitzi Gaynor, when we heard movement in the trees. We all took cover, and Savage crawled up toward the noise. We all soon found out what was there.

A column of Cobra troops.

One of many reasons never to trust intelligence officers.

We didn’t want to tip them off that we were there, so we were going to have to beat a hasty retreat. We were in the process of doing just that when Stalker stopped us. He pointed back to where the lead tank, one of those black jobbies we’d seen in the slide show, was pulling to a halt. The Earl of Dester was in the turret, and he didn’t look like a prisoner. In fact, he seemed to be running the show, and after ordering some troops to set up targets he put on this weird looking helmet. It covered his whole head, and looked to be chrome. Not a big shiny ‘shoot here’ sign I’d want to wear into battle, but there’s no accounting for taste. He was talking to an interpreter who then shouted his orders to the troops. After a couple of minutes they had set up a small range and another one of the tanks had pulled up. Out of it climbed that guy Bludd, silly eye-patch and all. He and Destro started talking.

“Why did we have to come all the way out here to test this rifle? Wouldn’t the range on the Kaserne do?”

“Bludd, you would advertise in the Berlin Times given half a chance. This is a weapon that I would like to keep a secret for a while.” He then pulled a package out of the cockpit of the tank, and unwrapped it. It was a rifle, but a weird one. He pulled out a large backpack and strapped it on, and then had his interpreter plug in a cord that ran from the pack to the bottom of the rifle. He flipped some gizmo on the rifle, and a hum filled the air. We all looked at each other and Shipwreck smiled and mouthed “ray gun,” at us.

We weren’t smiling after a minute.

It was a ray gun, and when he pulled the trigger, the target some thirty feet away burst into flame. There was no beam like in the movies, just a whistle and then poof, the target was on fire.

“Impressive,” Bludd said, “How does it work?”

“It takes a standard light beam, and focuses it then amplifies it with radioactive energy.”

“Like the Radiation Bomb?”

“Similar,” agreed Destro, “but not as powerful so less danger to the user. Bring out the spy.” Two of the troops in blue drug someone out, all tied up and kicking and fighting…

“Oh, shit,” I heard Savage mutter. She was the OSS agent that had gotten the information to us. She was an American. They were tying her to the target. Bludd stepped up to her.

“Well dear Alison, I suppose this is an uncomfortable ending to our little relationship.” He then slapped her and turned his back. “Burn her.”

I looked toward Savage, and he already had Quick Kick and Storm Shadow in motion. They were moving quick too. He motioned to me, Shipwreck, and Airborne to spread out for a wider field of fire. We had to move, because that pack was humming again. There wasn’t much time. Stalker was the only one of us with an M-1 instead of the grease guns we’d all been issued. We were figuring on close quarters fighting, so we all had the sub-machine guns usually reserved for tankers. Stalker wanted to be able to make the long shots though. He eased a round into the chamber of the big rifle and waited for Savage’s signal. That was when I noticed the soldiers in the back were falling down. Storm Shadow and Quick Kick were already taking them out.

Destro took aim.

Savage signaled. Stalker’s round took Destro in the shoulder, while the rest of us opened up on the troops. The second tank was turning toward us when our two Kung Fu masters attacked it. In a moment, it was over. We’d taken down twenty men, and two tanks, not bad for a bunch of nobodies. Storm Shadow and Quick Kick had both the injured Bludd and Destro together. Scarlett went to untie the American dame with Savage, and the rest of us established another perimeter.

“You’re agent Lady Jaye, aren’t you?” Scarlett asked.

“Yes. Did they send a mission to rescue me?”

“Not exactly,” said Savage, and he proceeded to explain the situation.

“It’s a lot worse than you know,” she said. And that’s when things really got weird. “Hitler has something,” the lady spy said. “They know what it is, but I don’t. I only got a brief look at it once.”

“Look at what?” Scarlett asked.

“It’s not very big. Maybe thirty feet across, ten feet high. It’s all the same metallic black as those tanks. Something’s wrong with it though. It looks like it’s supposed to be a big circle, but it’s damaged on one side. From what I got out of Long John Silver over there,” she pointed at Bludd, “it’s the inspiration behind Cobra. This new technology is all being taken from it.” Savage walked away from her, and over to Bludd and Destro.

“What is it? Russian? Chinese?” They didn’t even look up. Savage motioned to me and Shipwreck. We walked over, and shrugging at each other pulled Dester to his feet. He kinda whimpered through his helmet, and I realized I was squeezing the gash Stalker had taken out of him with the Garand. He was lucky, I’d seen people catch an ought six from the M-1 in the shoulder and die of shock. He was just sorta grazed, but hurt. Savage pulled off his big metal hat and dropped it in the dirt. This Dester, or Destro, whatever, was mighty pale under there. “I asked you a question,” Savage said. Destro still was silent. Savage grabbed his shoulder. I thought he was gonna pass out, so Shipwreck and I held him up, shaking him a bit to keep him awake. “How about now?”

“You would never understand what it is you American swine.” Swine? I was Jewish, Swine ain’t kosher.

“Try me, chrome dome,” I said in his ear. Savage pulled out his bayonet and laid it near the bloody wound. Destro swallowed and started talking.

“It is a crashed extra-planetary vehicle.”

“Excuse me, what?” Shipwreck said.

“Nobody has anything like that,” Savage said.

“Not on this planet,” Destro said. We were quiet for a minute till the light dawned.

“Now just a God-damned minute here. You’re saying that’s a foo fighter?” I asked. Shipwreck was puzzled.

“A what?”

“A foo fighter. I heard about them from the pilots at Pearl. Every now and then our high flying compadres in the Air Corps see these lights, or these big saucers up there doing stuff airplanes shouldn’t do. I remember one time, one guy wrote this whole article for the unit paper about how they was airplanes from another planet. He ended up spending a week in a little room with guys in black suits asking him where he got that info.”

“Flying saucers,” Savage said.

“Yes,” Destro answered.

“I suppose it was flown by little green men?” Savage asked. Destro answered quietly.

“Grey.” Savage laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“All right, this changes things. If this thing, whatever it is, is the source for these new weapons, we need to do something about it. Airborne, see if you can get a signal out to any allies with the proper routing codes. Appraise HQ that we are going into the Kaserne early. Also let them know about our friends duplicity here, and tell them we think we know where the equipment is from. Don’t tell them where.” Airborne nodded and opened up the radio gear. Sergeant Savage turned to Scarlett. “Get a bandage on Mr. Destro here, and then gag him and put his mask back on him.” A funny look came to his face, along with a crooked half smile. “Actually, I have a better idea. Stalker?” Hearing his name he left his spot at the perimeter. Quick Kick and Storm Shadow spread out a little to cover his lane of fire. “I think I have a solution to making you not so obvious to our good Kraut buddies down there.”

‘Bout half an hour later we were on the way, and behind us, we left not just some Cobra bodies behind us, but a couple of hog-tied European aristocrats. We had dressed in the uniforms of the Cobra soldiers, and I was driving one of the black tanks down into Augsburg. Storm Shadow, Quick Kick, and Scarlett were in the other. Only MSG Savage hadn’t changed, because there was no German big enough for him to raid. Stalker was in Destro’s mask, up in the turret of my tank, and my buddy Shipwreck had Bludd’s eye-patch on in the turret of the other. You know what was funny was that there wasn’t nothing wrong with Bludd’s eye. I guess he just wore it for looks.

It wasn’t too long after we got a couple of funny looks. We were about a hundred feet from the gate to the Kaserne when I saw Hawk on the side of the road helping out some poor beggar. Took me a minute to catch on that it was Snake Eyes. We had no way of letting them know it was us, but they were watching us mighty close. I saluted as we drove by, and Hawk did a double take, but that was it. We were approaching the gate.

I didn’t speak any German. Lady luck smiled again though, and the guards just waved us through, throwing up a couple of ‘seig heils’ as we passed. Sheridan was a small Kaserne, and we had circled around to the motor pool pretty quick. We didn’t know how long these shenanigans were gonna work, but we were in too deep to run now. Those blue Nazis were all over the place and sooner or later they were gonna realize that we weren’t who we were supposed to be. We stopped at a crossroad, and I heard Savage talking to the OSS broad in the back.

“Where is it?”

“They have it in an auto works bay, one road over behind the headquarters building. It’s heavily guarded.” She said.

“Of course,” Savage muttered. “Clutch, radio the other vehicle, tell them where the thing is, and we’re gonna flank it. We got the armor, let’s take down the whole damn building.”

“Top?” Airborne piped up, “How do you plan to get out of Dodge when we send up so much noise?”

“We’ll do it if we can, otherwise DOA…” Airborne cursed.

“I knew this was a goddamn suicide mission. Shoulda stayed on the res…”

“Don’t you worry none,” I said. “If I gotta drive this sumbitch to France on one track, I ain't dyin’ in Deutchland.” Savage smiled at me, I made the call, and we moved into position. Then came the fireworks.

We opened up from either side of the building Lady Jaye had pointed out to us, and the building went down quick. The guards outside responded quick too. I knew Stalker and Shipwreck didn’t have a whole lot of cover in those turrets, so I tried to keep the tank moving, and told Storm Shadow to do the same. I heard a clunk and felt air and glanced back to see that Savage had opened a hatch on the side of the thing and was hosing out the door with his grease gun. There were just more of those blue suited bastards coming though. We were pretty well surrounded, and I knew there could be more of these tanks on the way.

“Can we go now??!!” I shouted.

“No, we don’t know that saucer’s been destroyed!” Savage shouted back.

“How do you plan to do that?” He pointed over my shoulder out the front.

“Gun it toward what’s left of the building!” Well, okay… Cobras were jumping out of the way of my suicidal run, and I heard Stalker swearing loudly from the turret. Suddenly I noticed some of the Cobras were bursting into flame, and a glance told me that Scarlett had opened the same hatch Savage had, but had fired up the ray gun that Destro was testing. Holy Shit.

Then I hit the debris and the whole floor gave out and dropped the tank into a deep basement.

We’d stopped pretty abruptly, but it looked like everybody was ok. The battle sounded kind far away now. But we were pretty far from safety. There was a guy with another one of those ray guns in front of us, but he was wearing a silver mask. The Cobra Commander. In a heavy German accent he called out in English. “I will assume that you are Americans. Please step out of the vehicle.” Wasn’t really a whole lot of room for argument. We all got out, but I noticed that Savage had his .45 in his back pocket. This was going to be interesting. “Before I burn you all to death, allow me to show you the object of your attack.” He gestured behind himself, and sure enough, in the dust and darkness you could make out a big black saucer. “This is not the main attraction though. That is.” And here’s where even old Clutch’s knees went weak. There were two upright beds against one wall. Strapped into them with a bunch of tubes and all were two little men. They were grey, and maybe four feet tall. They had big heads and large scary black eyes. I mean these were spooky little bastards. The worst part was they were alive. I had locked eyes with one. I’m gonna tell you this right now. The damn thing was in my head. And it was telling me to kill it.

“Why?” I asked, maybe in my head, maybe out loud. And then I saw a picture in my head. It was an explosion, but not like any I’d seen before. It sent up fire a mile into the sky, and leveled things for 50 miles. I knew that this was the power Cobra would have if we didn’t stop them right now. But they needed the grey guys to explain it all. So far… I snapped out of it in time to look around and see that I wasn’t the only one in my group to be under the little grey guy’s spell. Airborne was locked on and I heard him mutter some word; ‘Anasazi’.

“And now you die,” Cobra Commander said. There was a flash to my left and 1SG Savage had his pistol out, and damn if he didn’t put a round right through the tube that lead to the backpack. “Why do you villainous tyrant types always have to rant about your nefarious plans?” he said, and then put four .45 caliber rounds into Cobra Commander’s chest. He staggered back and I noticed the gaping holes in his chest were oozing black fluid. Then they began to close. Holy Shit, again.

“Thanks to my dear friend Doctor Joseph Mengele’, I myself now share the genetic make-up with our little grey friends here. Would you like to shoot again?” Savage raised his gun to shoot, when a shadow came from overhead and knocked the blue-clad SOB to the floor. He was dressed all in black, even a black hood over his face, and in his right hand he held one of the types of trench knives that my uncle Saul had brought back from WWI. “Snake Eyes.” Savage said. Snakes moved quick, and pushed the knife up to the hilt into one of the bullet holes. Cobra Commander grabbed his arm, and tossed the man over him and against the side of the saucer. Savage charged them, along with Stalker and Lady Jaye as Airborne and I went to the little grey men in the beds. They looked at us for a moment without blinking, and then one of them nodded to the pumping apparatus that seemed to be keeping them alive. I looked at Airborne, and we both knew what we had to do. We pushed the machine over, and started ripping at pipes until it quit running. We both watched as the glossy eyes of the creatures went dull, but I got one last thought in my head;

“Win your war and stop them.”

“You got it, Shorty,” I said, and they died. There was a weird whirring sound behind us, and we turned to see Savage and Stalker on the floor. Lady Jaye was emptying a pistol into the belly of the saucer and Snakes was hanging out of the wounded side of the thing. It was lifting off. I barely managed to grab Snakes’ ankles as it lifted, and we fell in a heap on the floor . He was pissed, but there wasn’t going to be much they could do without their little alien slaves. Somehow I just knew that even with his new genetics Cobra Commander wouldn’t be able to figure out that saucer. I told Snakes that, but he just looked at me blankly. Savage and Stalker were getting up.

“He tossed us aside, but Snake Eyes managed to get that knife under his helmet. He wasn’t dying, but he was hurt too bad to fight.” Savage said.

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Stalker said, and held up what looked like a keychain. “Satchel charge pin.”

“How long’s the fuse?” Lady Jaye asked.

“’Bout three minutes.” I was never sure, but I always thought I heard a muffled pop just then above the fight outside. Oh hell, the fight outside!

“How do we get out of this basement?” Snake Eyes grabbed a tow cable from our crashed tank, and like a damn spider shimmied up the wall to the opening. We all hoisted ourselves up with each man adding to a defensive perimeter.

The other tank had a track knocked off, but was nestled behind the ruins of two more of the same type that had suffered some mighty damage. Scarlett was actually in the turret of one of the burning tanks, and Quick Kick in the other, while Shipwreck still manned the first one. Storm Shadow was doing all he could with a machine gun, but there were a least a hundred Cobra troops moving all around them. We opened up from behind, but even with the crossfire we were outnumbered. Then I heard what sounded like horses. Out of nowhere came one of those little gyro copters, and damned if Hawk wasn’t playing the stick. There was a gattling gun in the nose of the thing, and he started eating Cobras alive. I grabbed Airborne, and we covered each other until we got to the motor pool. There was some resistance, but we were able to steal a truck just fine. Most of the Cobra troops were attacking the tanks. By the time we got back to the fight, air superiority had almost mopped up. We had a definite advantage, but it was time to skedaddle. We didn't know how many Cobras might still be around, and who knew if a warning had gotten out to the regular German Army? In a hail of bullets, we rescued our compadres, and were about to head for the gate when Hawk came in low in the gyro. Savage shouted something, but I couldn’t hear. In a moment though Hawk leapt into the back of our troop truck, and the gyro lurched toward the basement where we’d battled Cobra Commander. It fell in and soon a fireball erupted out.

“Rest in peace, Shorty,” I muttered. Then I floored it and we got the hell out of town. We sped past a lot of befuddled German citizens, but we weren’t going to stop to give excuses. We ditched the truck in the hills, and started on foot for France.

It took us three weeks, and the story is a grand one (especially the part about me, Shipwreck, and how we kept those Bavarian twin sisters from revealing we were in their daddy’s barn), but that wasn’t the point. We were rushed back to the states, and spent a good month getting debriefed on what had happened by those guys in black suits I talked about before. It looked like we’d dealt Cobra a serious blow. No one knew where Cobra Commander was. Cobra had no new toys, and the swastika was getting pushed back toward Berlin again. I was a free man and we’d done our bit for Uncle Sam.

Before we all went our separate ways, I had a long talk with Airborne about the Anasazi were. He told me they were the ancient ones, people who did great magic and were the start of his people. Maybe they had come to check on us and got caught up in our petty little differences. I felt sorry for Shorty and his friend- but not as sorry as I would have felt if Hitler and Cobra had gotten that bomb before we did. It was funny- when I saw the films of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was exactly like Shorty had shown me. I figured we wouldn’t see there kind again this time.

Like I said, we all went our separate ways, except I think Scarlett and Snake Eyes. I was sorry to see her go, but I had the end of the war and a trip to visit a young Bavarian girl to look forward to. We never saw each other again. Well, until Roswell.

The End