I thought it was just another ordinary day digging ordinary test holes.

 

I soon found out otherwise.

Next door there was a kid about 11 plus minus, he wasn’t just an average kid home for some teacher in service day. Most kids would’ve watched and if they weren’t too shy they might say hi but not this guy, he was a Special Ops guy on the job.

 

He came boldly close using the cover of a goldenrod bush. He was confident in his training that the wildly moving goldenrod would be assumed to be the wind’s doing. They’d never suspect a a Special Ops guy this close in. Plus in his camo pants and vest how could they ever spot him?

 

He crouched in his goldenrod spot and pulled out his binoculars to get a better look at what exactly those people were digging. In his effort to obtain visual information he realized he’d nearly stood up, it wasn’t just the top of his head that was visible his shoulders too!

He crouched as low as he thought possible and waited what seemed like an eternity, maybe they’d stop looking over here. It’s really hard to just sit still.

Just when he’d wiggled into a good vantage point, a perfect place for the binoculars to peer out from and only a little bit of his head showing, his decoy man quit jumping on the trampoline and leaned over the fence AND STARTED TALKING to him!  As if he was just having a normal backyard conversation with his brother or something!

He grit his teeth and refrained from saying

Hello? Can’t you see I’m achieving an objective where a conventional force requirement does not exist or might affect the overall strategic outcome?  Anyway I’m wearing camo so you’re not supposed to see me.

He knew Special ops are carried out with limited numbers of highly trained personnel that are able to operate in all environments, utilize self-reliance, are able to easily adapt and overcome obstacles, and use unconventional combat skills and equipment to complete objectives.

So with his cover blown he knew it was time to use his training and skill to temporarily retreat to a better position.

He began with the low crawl but promptly abandoned it for the conventional crawl.

 

Then broke into an all out run for the backyard fence!

 

As he cleared the top of the fence he gave one backward look to see if he’d retreated prematurely. Maybe they’d never noticed him after all.