A Salt

Made from empty wooden mortar boxes, the doghouse was a work of art. The flat design of the roof doubled as a bench to sit on. Fitting perfectly in the space between two of Viper team's bunks and nailed to the wall at the end of the aisle, Rags now had a permanent home. She had taken it upon herself to guard anything left on top of her house. The "ugliest dog" had two old canteen cups hung on each side of the door, one for water and the other for food. She even had a wool blanket for a mattress. Now all the partying Rangers had to do was figure out a way to get the dog to use it. Rags was glued to Mac's side, as she had been since the Ranger rescued her from the stew pot down in the gook village.

Staff Sergeant "Flash" Gordon could see three dogs lying on Mac's bunk. "I now have a plan. Listen up, you bunch of drunks." The party had started that afternoon and was continuing in the Ranger barracks after chow. "Mac, you grab that dog, shove her in the doghouse and the rest of us will nail the door closed," and the sergeant popped another brew.

Specialist Fourth Class Ronnie "Bones" Washington started to laugh. "Ain't no motherfuckin' door, Sarge."

Two stereos blasted out two kinds of music. Neither was being listened to. Rattler, the second Ranger team, had gotten in before chow. Just having two teams together was enough reason to have a party. As more beer was consumed, the green was temporarily forgotten.

Flash Gordon had taken his team down to the headquarters building to pick up Mac. Sergeant Major Bill Mateau had called the team into the map room and briefed them on what was supposed to happen the next day. He'd given Flash a copy of the newspaper story about the mercenary in the American Army who had quit. That made the team laugh, especially when they found out it was about Mac. The sergeant major had taken them back to his office and Flash had to wake up the Ranger who was sleeping on the sergeant major's rug with that ugly dog. Now everywhere the skinny grunt went the dog wanted to go too. When the whole team had to take their khaki uniforms to the gook tailor shop on post and have them pressed, Rags had nearly caused a riot. She ran through the shop, snapping and trying to bite the gooks who were working there. Mac had finally tackled the dog and waited outside, holding the dog while the rest of the team took care of their dry cleaning.  Mama San had their uniforms done pronto. Every time she looked out of the shop Rags would start growling. If this kept up, he'd have to take the dog to the whorehouse downtown.

The team had to be on the chopper pad at 0900. The general and the sergeant major were taking the team down to MAC-V headquarters to meet the MAN, four star General Creighton Abrams himself.

The beer drinking had started as soon as the four Rangers had returned from the tailor shop. They'd made two trips to the PX for more beer so they could build the doghouse. When the second team of Rangers hit the hooch it was cause for a third trip to the PX and really stock up.

The ambush that Viper team had gone through was discussed with Rattler team and the lessons learned were passed on. The mistakes the team made were written on the board and ways to avoid them on upcoming missions were discussed. The fallacy that the gooks didn't have radios was put to rest. They talked about the cave and how the team would never have found it except for Mac falling in it. Details of the escape of the team by climbing up into a tree and waiting for the tracker to pass by was added to. Hollywood Stevens thought that an added bonus for the team to use up in the tree would be for the escaping team to have a claymore mine or two at the bottom of the tree.