Another tale from me, taking place in a particular interesting time - evaluation period. Names and locations have been fudged and obfuscated, with some embellishments thrown in the mix, to preserve anonymity.

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Yep, it was fun and games alright.

All 'pathfinders' were to be sent out for a mandatory navigation exercise within a week after arriving at our exercise area. That wasn't so bad itself, considering the extensive number of field exercises we had been through. A simple nav would be a cakewalk.

Except for the fact that there had been a logistics fuckup, and my squad leader drew the short straw (or in an act of 'self-sacrifice', volunteered to bear the fruit of this stupidity). So, instead of drawing our usual weapons, the 6 of us now had rifles with underslung grenade launchers for entirety of this exercise.

Amidst the final preparations for the exercise, most of the squad were letting our squad leader Marco know how much they enjoyed this turn of events.

"Fuuuck youuu Marco, imma shove this barrel up your arse." Nick complained, opening the empty launcher and closing it hard with a loud click.

"Yea, I bet you get off with something this big up your arse." York snarled, touching up his freckled face with stripes of camo cream. "Want some lube?" he said and offered his tube of camo cream. The excess liquid hung threateningly from the opening.

"Can it, the lot of ya. It's just two days, and I bet none of ya are carrying shit anyway." Marco snapped back, pointing his map at all of us.

He was right. After initial inspection, the usual inventories of 'essential items' of extra uniforms and shovels had been carefully reconsidered, carefully rearranged, and carefully neglected in favor of items befitting the event we were about to embark on. Such items included biscuits that were much more palatable than the dog biscuits in our ration packs, canned tuna of the most flavorful kind, and fruity gummi bears. They were simply too important to leave behind.

"Marco, why the fuck did this happen." Chip helpfully quipped, tightening to straps to his pack. I could see blue mentos peeking through the gaps of the main flap of his pack.

"Yea, damn it. Why do we gotta take this shit?" Squid inquired elegantly. Beside the coiled up short antennae of his radio sticking from his pack (which unfortunately could not be left behind), I spied tuna mayo printed on a can's blue label.

Marco's eye whites stood out among green and black.

Overlooking the exchange, I guffawed, but offered no comment to either side. I turned my attention back to my own map, studying the geography and the planned routes, making sure I was up to speed as Marco's 2IC. The checkpoint locations had been marked out in the initial briefing to the team leaders, and planned routes scribbled in black permanent ink on the protective plastic covering our maps.

"Nick, York, you guys all set?" I addressed my team members.

"Yea, but I don't wanna lug this shit around. You wanna take it?" York offered his rifle to me.

I offered a single finger.

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It was a long ride in the back of the truck. Our squad of 6 shared the vehicle with 2 other squads, yet there was plenty of room to go around. The air was cool which was a far cry from the usual horrendous warm weather we had often trained in, and . Amidst the rattling of buckles and straps, everyone had descended into a thoughtful silence, or drifted off to sleep. Stay in the boonies long enough, and the back of a rickety truck covered by tarp was simply heavenly.

Some guys opted to nap on the dusty floor, their heads thumping against their packs as the vehicle bounced from the occasional pothole. I was seated at the front of the carriage, facing the rear where the canvas had been pulled up to give me a good view of the countryside scenery, a sea of green and grey, indicative of an area waking up from winter's slumber.

Eventually, the journey's end came as the engine's roar was cut off with a sputter. The rumble jerked the sleepers awake, and there much clanking and shuffling as everyone rose to descend the vehicle.

My boots crunched the gravel underneath as I stepped off the vehicle's panel. The cool morning breeze stung the back of my nose as I inhaled deeply. We had arrived on a road beginning its ascent to a small hill, where we had to go to get to our first checkpoint. Squid shot off a message on his radio, informing the folks back on base of our touchdown, and we were off.

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"Easy to find, my arse." It was merely the first checkpoint and we were already struggling to locate the damned sheet of paper so we could fuck off to the next.

Our team had parked ourselves at the top of a slope which was home to a small village. Marco and I had dropped the rest of the squad and our packs to wait while we hunted for the elusive checkpoint around the area.

As we trudged back to our squad, 2 kids followed us back to our rest point and started chattering among themselves about what an extraordinary bunch they had come across. Surely most kids their age would be very curious seeing a bunch of soldiers hanging around their town, carrying all those cool gadgets and decked in cool uniforms.

"Marco, hot_sweaty. You guys get anything?" Squid wiggled his radio piece at us.

Marco crunched over to Squid as he relayed our finds to him. I made my way back to my pack, sipping from the water tube tucked inside.

"Soldier boys! Soldier boys!"

"See them lassies, get nosebleeds!"

The kids had started a little jingle and dance act. Darting between us, they laughed and 'oohed' and 'aahed' at us like the travelling circus had just arrived in town.

Cute. However I was starting to get paranoid at the thought of them suddenly taking off with any of our equipment. There would be hell to pay if any of us lost any of these expensive toys, so I extracted a box of unopened chocolate mints from my rifle pouch and tossed it to the 2 lads, shooing them away in the process. Losing interest in the weird, green and black colored animals, the kids ran away laughing with their prize in tow.

"Alright guys, we leave in 10." Marco announced, before plunking to the floor. Somehow, while I had focused on the kids, Marco had magically found the coveted checkpoint and had relayed the information to base. I sat down and got ready to close my eyes.

"Oi, we've got company." York lazily announced. I pulled my head up.

A little white dog was pattering toward us from the direction of the village. It was an unrecognizable breed, a mongrel maybe, as big as a toy poodle, and short haired. Its big and black eyes shone in the warm sunlight, its nose glistening as in took in our scents. It appeared friendly enough to approach us.

"Lookie here, we got ourselves a friend. I didn't know you got family here Chip," York quipped.

"Go fuck yourself York," Chip retorted. "But this guy here seems like he wants to come with us."

"'slong he don't get in our way," Marco shrugged.

I had no idea when we decided that the dog was a 'he', but it just seemed to come natural. The white dog happily sat in front of our group, his round head bobbing slightly from his panting. The rest of us simply stared in mild amusement, too lazy to get off our arses to give it a closer look. When the whole day was going to be spent on walking, the times we get to rest were going to be precious and far between.

Fuck it, I thought. I sat upright and strode to the dog.

The white dog kept his eyes on me as I approached. He didn't let out a yelp even as I picked it up.

"It's a she, guys," I smirked.

"Well fuck me, you gonna be a dog-fucker?" Nick laughed. Squid snickered in support of Nick's joke. I chose to ignore the rib.

"If its gonna come with us, we should give it a name," I said.

A few suggestions came up. The most memorable ones that didn't stick were the names of certain hated individuals, including one particular drill sergeant that had given us hell a long time back in basic.

But eventually, it was decided that the dog's name would be 'Snow White', because she would be protected by her seven (6 of us plus one radio) rather tall dwarves in green and black.

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More of this story coming up, when I eventually get to it. Got a few more episodes of my time during evaluation period.