NOTICE: THIS IS A LONG POST, YOU CAN GET THE JIST BY READING THE TITLE!!!!
Okay, so this week has been combined ops week. That means that us Lts have been doing stuff with the Senior NCOs that are at SNCO Academy. It's been pretty fun up until now, but now it's even BETTER!!!!111!!!!
As you might have read, but prolly not, in an earlier note I talked about the game ICARUS. Well, we had the task of teaching our Senior NCOs ICARUS and then playing in a tournament today against all the other combined flights that were in our group. We only had 1 hour to discuss the game with them and come up with a strat. This was back on Monday mind you. Today was game day.
I stepped on to the ICARUS field this afternoon and I said with a smile as the wind blew by me and the sun shown upon me, "It is a good day to die." and by that I mean, today's weather conditions are pretty conducive to play ICARUS so I was excited.
I gathered combined flight 20 together and we warmed up and stretched our muscles. I asked them if it would be alright if we called ourselves...The Ninjas. With a resounding answer they all said, yes! I was pretty excited. =D
After the rules briefing my team took the field. We were ready, we were pumped, and most of all, we were NINJAS!!! The whistle blew and for the first 5 seconds we were doing fine, then in a blinding flash of blurred bodies the other team had air superiority (they won the round). We weren't starting out on the right foot. A few more rounds went by with similar outcomes, them gaining air superiority and us only knocking a few cones down (a few points here and there). Thus ending the first half. Fortunately for us, it was only a practice round so the senior NCOs could get the hang of it. If anything, it only opened up the flood gates of our inner rage, which was soon to be let forth to destroy. And by that I mean, it made us pick it up a bit and get our heads into the game.
When the other team (there were 3 teams on our field) had got their practice game in (which by the way, they played us in their practice game and we beat them every round) we started the tournament.
In the first game of the tournament the team that beat us and the team we beat faced off. The team we beat surprisingly beat the team that beat us. Are you following me?
Then it was The Ninjas vs. the team we beat in the practice round. We were pretty confident about our skills and our history with them so we went in stoked! We beat them pretty good, but I honestly can't remember the score. We'll call it a sound victory.
Then it was game 2!!!!!11!!!!! (That's game two for those who don't understand). In this game we faced off against the team that beat us in the practice session. By beat us, I mean slaughtered us. So, we went in knowing it would be a hard fought win, if/when we won.
Well, this game was a close one. They scored air superiority on us first round and made the score 5 - 1 for them. Then the next round took up the rest of the first half’s time allotment, which ended up 5 - 4 for them. We were down by 1 point at the half. It didn't look too bad for us, I knew we could come back. So, I called my team together and gave them a pep talk. This is what I said...more or less, "Hey guys, here's the situation. We are down 5 - 4. We have one half (5 mins) to get 2 points at least, to win, and to keep them from scoring any. In my ASBC flight during our first real game there came a point where we were down 5 - 21. We came back and ended that game with a winning score of 26 - 25. If my team could do that, and we're only down one point, then we can surely do it now." They said thanks coach, and good talk.
So what do you think we did? Hmm? I'LL TELL YOU WHAT WE DID!!!! We went out there and won air superiority time and time again, and shut them DOWN!!!!
Man, I'm really bad at remembering scores of games. Suffice it to say, we beat them. It was a great comeback and a solid victory. Oh btw, after one round had finished I over heard one of the other team members say, "I don't understand how they get down here so fast and knock our cones down." To which I replied, "It's cuz we're ninjas, we're stealthy." We all had a gregarious laugh and I went over to my side.
With that win we became the champions of our field group, but it wasn't over yet. One more challenge stood in the way of total victory.
We were informed that we were to play the winners of the other field, for the championship (well, as much of the championship as we could do, see they were running out of time. So what would have been the semi-finals for our two fields turned out to be more of the finals. There were two other teams from other fields doing the same thing).
After pumping The Ninjas up and reminding them to finish hard the final game started. This was a brutal game of wits and skill, not to mention speed and agility. They were good, I mean they had to be, they had won the right to be in the finals. But so were we. Even though we were down 3 - 7 at the half I knew in my heart of hearts that The Ninjas had the right stuff to pull it off. Dazed and tired my ninja warriors took the field for the last half of the FINAL game. These next 5 minutes would forever decide if we were the true champions (or as much as we could get done with the allotted time) or not! Round after round, cone after cone, minute after minute we pulled ahead of them and then away from them. It was a thing of pure, unadulterated beauty, something you only see from a popular sports movie (which you see a lot of, so I'm sure you can imagine). After the last ball was thrown, and the last cone knocked down, and the final whistle blown and our energy expended in this virtual battle we call ICARUS the final score was announced. "The final score is, Electric Orange (Those were the colors of our jerseys for the day) 20, and the grey team 7!" VICTORY!!! At this time you can imagine any kind of victory celebration that a sports time might enjoy at the end of a game.
Once again, I gathered The Ninjas together for one final Hoorah! This is what we yelled (It's a variation of what my ASBC flight yells), "Me: What time is it!?, Ninjas: Miller Time!, Me: What time is it!?, Ninjas: Miller Time!, Me: 1! 2! 3!, All of us: NINJAS!!!
Thus ended the work day for The Ninjas 12 APR 07 of the year of our Lord.
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