It's Going to Be You, Jimmy

Roger and the boys greeted us planeside as we disembarked from the C-17 into the dusty world of Bagram Air Base, thirty miles north of the Afghanistan city of Kabul. A taut angular mountain of a man, at six foot eight, Roger stood out far above the rest of the team. We collected our gear and traded a barrage of loving insults. We were all far from home and in the middle of a war zone.

My good friend Chris Robertson came over to me and gave me a giant bear hug, saying, "Welcome to Afghanistan, Jimmy!" Chris, Roger, and the other PJs stood waiting for us outside the chain-link fence, just off the tarmac where we disembarked from the jet that had delivered us from Germany.

Chris and the other PJs had finished their deployment, and most would be back home in Alaska, eating a Moose's Tooth pizza and sipping on a cold Pipeline Stout, before I'd even adjusted to the altitude and time zone of Bagram.

That fall, our unit had been split for deployment. We'd left our home base in Anchorage to participate in a joint military mission in the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan. My PJ team phased in over many weeks, and I was in the second phase of guys. Two more groups would follow. The team members who went before us had put our gear together at the Bagram PJ section and worked out all the kinks to get us fully operational. My teammates and I were replacing Chris's crew for our own stint. They all were returning healthy, happy, and with mustaches. They had seen some action, but none of our PJs were injured or killed. The mission up until that point had been fairly routine: save the lives of soldiers and special operators requiring assistance in the rugged Afghanistan mountains.

It would be a few months of deployment, then we would return to saving civilian lives in the Alaskan wilderness.

I felt encouraged when I saw how great the brothers who had been deployed looked. They had been operating on the front lines for several months at this point, and these guys were salty. We were the fresh meat. The warm welcome felt like the opening moments of old friends gathering before a bachelor party. Once we got through the reception center, our buddies grabbed all our gear and loaded it on the team bus. We were off to get our on-base driver's licenses and secure area passes. The basic IDs they handed us were straight from the 1980s, with a photo and paper laminated together. We would need this to drive vehicles and to get into the area of the base where our special section was located.

We were joking and making faces for our license photos. Chris asked how the trip from Alaska had been.

"Tell them about last night," one of the guys said, elbowing me.

"He's great in bed," I joked, getting a quick slug for my always smart-ass responses.

"I am!" he said. "Last night in Germany."

They leaned in, men who had been at war, away from their wives and girlfriends, suspecting a story of debauchery.

I began rattling off the tale. That was one of my jobs in the unit — unofficial entertainment — and practically my rank. Senior Airman Jimmy Settle of the Alaska 212th, storyteller, joker, and prankster. The way I saw it, the team that laughed together, stayed together.

I relayed the story of our overnight delay in Frankfurt.

We had hopped a taxi, rumbled down the cobblestone roads, and stopped at the pub closest to base. Inside, we just happened to bump into one of my buddies from another PJ team. He also was transitioning over to a unit, in southern Afghanistan. Since we just happened to run into each other, this was more than reason to celebrate the one night of reprieve before heading downrange.

I'm enjoying the good German beer, the big timber construction of the establishment, and appreciating the different look and smell from Alaska. We're doing our thing, pounding beers and telling stories, when we meet a few fellow American service members, and after a few more drinks, I hear this one cat sitting next us trying to pick up a girl.

He said, "I'm an air force SERE specialist."

PJ and SERE career fields tend to be interwoven. In the spirit of a good-natured ambassadorship, I tapped him on the shoulder. "Did you say you are in the air force? Did you say 'spear specialist'? Is that what you air force guys call missiles? Spears? The air force is so weird."

He leaned into me. Clearly not picking up on my sarcasm, and said, "A SERE is spelled Capital S. Capital E. Capital R. Capital E. And that stands for 'survival, evasion, resistance, and escape,' officer."

So this guy was calling himself one of the elite trainers, a man with the knowledge of some incredibly complex and highly classified tactics. SERE specialists are adept at interrogation and information gathering, and as such they don't go around offering up so much as the time of day, let alone their particular career field. But this clown? He didn't look or act the part. We had all been around our share of actual SERE specialists. They, like most operators, don't feel the need to advertise their presence.

I felt compelled to call his bluff.

"You're no SERE specialist," I replied, and added, "only special."

And his response? "Well fine," he said. "Let's do this."

I nodded and pushed back from the bar. "Well then," I said, "why don't we do this SERE style?"

By that, I meant slap boxing, like they do in interrogation resistance training. This is a stressor technique that employs an open-palm slap to the face, with the hand starting on the shoulder.

We took turns, one at a time, faster and faster. Slap. Slap. Slap.

I'm laughing the whole time, which only pissed him off more, and the next thing I know we're all being thrown out.

The slapping continued on the cobblestones. I'm still laughing, and going to town on this pretend specialist. Pow! Pow! Pow! Until my PJ friend from the other unit steps between us. "Dude, you gotta stop," he said. "You can't do this."

He was right. "Don't ever pretend to be someone you're not, dude," I said to the guy, and held my hand out. He considered it for a moment and we shook.

We staggered off down the road, hailing a cab for the ride back to base.

* * *

Back at Bagram, I finished my story and took a few jabs from the guys about how I was lucky I wasn't still in Germany, sitting in the brig. I nodded. It had been silly, even if it was just harmless slap boxing and not actual...