"For all of those that don't know me, I'm Lieutenant McLaughlin - your new CO." He paused for effect, looking at everyone in the eyes, except for Gates, before continuing. "I realize that having a new officer is like having a new toilet seat... who give a sh*t, right?" That got a couple of laughs. "The purple heart, in my bags.... Somewhere, should show to you that I've seen combat before. I've seen men die in front of me and have killed before." The latter half og that was a lie, he had never actually killed anyone, at least to his knowledge. There had been ambushes that he had set up when he was shooting along with his men, he had not seen anyone go down by his own gun, but it would be easy miss it. Besides, in the sense that everyone in the ambushes was under his command, all of their shots would have been his shots.
Either way, he did it mostly for effect, if he had, indeed never killed anyone they would have no way of proving that, so the effect was worth it. He continued: "I know you guys don't want to be here. To tell you the truth, neither do I, but since neither of us have a choice, we're going to have to work together to get out of this alive."
McLaughlin could tell now that he had everyone's attention. "Now, I've talked to a couple of you (he actually only talked to Anderson) this platoon has been sending two or more patrols every day. Now, these patrols have been, at the very least, effective at keeping the VC at bay (he said it this way, in order to hopefully not tick Gates off too much), but now it's time to give the killing blow. I want this platoon to strike fear in the hearts of the Viet Cong."
"How are we going to do that, sir," Gates talked out, getting a little unnerved by how McLaughlin was handling the meeting.
McLaughlin ignored the improper way that Gates was handling himself and answered the question. "How does a snake or alligator attack it's prey. It lies and waits. The alligator looks like a floating log until it decides to attack." He waited for a moment for the effect to set in. "We will cancel all our patrols for the next week."
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