Title: Operation Charlie Foxtrot
Author: WriterKos
Rating: FR18 for swearing
Parings: none
Characters: Timothy McGee
Genres: Vignettes, Character Study, Drama
Warnings: Swearing and flesh wounds.
Summary: The lovely differences between several Military acronyms explained. What? Don't you know what FUBAR isYou never know when things will go totally FUBAR. Don't you know what FUBAR is?


Growing up in a Navy family I was introduced to a multitude of military terms, each used to express joy, hate, anger and some just to say that all things went down to crap.

Military just love their acronyms and their day-to-day operations is filled with colorful words that for an untrained ear sound like a totally different language, but hold a whole different meaning when their secrets are unveiled before us.

I'm having a terrible day. We say it all the time. The boss screams at us calling us incompetent, or you can hit your big toe on the center table making you double over yourself and howl with pain like a crazy wolf. You burn your favorite shirt with the iron or your car breaks down just on the day you're scheduled to have a meeting first thing in the morning.

But how do you react when things go totally FUBAR? By the way, if you are curious about it, FUBAR is a military way of saying Fucked Up Beyond Any Repair.

Do you cry? Do you panic, paralyzed in fear as your brain struggles to jump-start and try to save your sorry ass?

When things around you become a royal clusterfuck, when everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong, and you see an inevitable chain of events unfolding before your eyes.

It's like Tony once described: It's like watching a train wreck. You know there will be noise, crash, boom, bang and … you can't look away.

Clusterfuck is a word I've heard a lot being shouted by my dad. When the vitriol my Dad used to pour like honey over his colleagues â€" always behind their backs, when there was no chance of being heard or being reprimanded for speaking your mind â€" my dad would start explaining the terms to me. Right before, after or during his reprimands for my way of walking, speaking or my geeky friends of the chess club.

I was never up to his standards. So I fought for my own space in the world, carved my own path to a career my dad shouted that I would never succeed.

So, several years later, my Dad's words come back to haunt me, as I look around this field and cover my partner, firing my weapon trying to shoot whoever has opened fired on us.

It was a simple op. Go in, get the info the informant had willingly offered to us on the stolen merchandise, get out. The Intel had been straightforward.

Gibbs would give us cover and Ziva is somewhere out with a sniper rifle pointing at the baddies.

But of course it would become a major clusterfuck.

Believe it or not, there is a progression on how the smelly things that shall not be named hit the fan and spread over the land.

It all started with a typical SNAFU situation. By SNAFU please read Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

We reached the warehouse in rural West Virginia where Tony and I were supposed to meet the informer. The lights were off and only the sounds of crickets and some low flying bats filled in the air.

We both left the car and exchanged worried glances over it as we closed the doors with a thud, announcing to the night air that we were there. The meeting was supposed to be held in an abandoned horse farm in Western Virginia, where the informer had guaranteed that the interested party in the stolen goods would be expecting us.

The lead was solid, the fish was big and we were hooked.

"Are you wearing your vest, Tim?" Tony strutted in his usual arrogant way towards the warehouse, where we could see the tall metal doors partially opened.

"Yes. You?"

"Yep. But it won't help us much if they aim at our heads." Tony added darkly, his eyes checking the perimeter around the warehouse, aware that a somewhere in the growing darkness was Gibbs and Ziva, rifles in hand to give them cover.

As soon as we reached the doors hell broke loose as I've caught a glimpse of movement inside the building and instinctively pushed Tony to the side, throwing my body to the opposite direction.

A hailing of bullets flew over our heads as we crawled to a safe position against the walls of the building. I pressed the small radio signal that things had gone south, so Gibbs and Ziva were warned that they should come over to help us. We opened fire against an invisible enemy, who apparently had a good idea of where we were and we couldn't see thanks to the darkness in which he / they hid.

Can you believe there's actually a gradual progression on the Clusterfuck moments?

We were at a SNAFU. When people started shooting at us, we reached the TARFUN level. By TARFUN, please read Things Are Really Fucked Up Now. When asked, my dad explained that TARFUN is what the people at NASA thought when they've heard those famous words: "Houston, we have problem."

Yep. That's the moment when you buckle up and hold on tight,as the ride will be crazy, fast and wild and you might be get thrown off the horse. That's if you're lucky enough to fly out from under its hooves.

But when is the moment when the thin line between TARFUN and FUBAR is crossed? When you say, okay, why God? What did I do to you so you may punish me like that? Did I curse the cross? Did I rail at the heavens and make an indecent proposal to Mary, the mother of God? Please, you really must hate me to let such thing happen.

Because when operation 'meeting the informer' becomes officially 'Operation Charlie Foxtrot', or in plain Military English my dad would say back in the day, 'Operation Clusterfuck'.

"McGEE!"

"Boss, in here."

More shots fired. More shots answered.

Gibbs and Ziva were coming in a mad drive towards the warehouse. I looked to the side and my moment of distraction was rewarded by a flying bullet that pinged close to my location and for some reason made a burning sensation blossom in my body.

"Ouch!"

"McGee!"

I doubled over in pain, but keep shooting in the direction they are shooting at us.

"McGee! Are you okay? Answer me?" Tony's voice came from my left somewhere, but I was struggling to keep the howl of pain as the burning sensation spread out from its initial point to the surrounding muscle and flesh.

"NO! I was shot!"

"Man, talk to me!"

"Ohhh."

"McGee, where?"

"Ohhh"

"MCGEE!"

"IN THE ASS! I WAS SHOT IN THE ASS."

"Oh man…" Tony, despite his efforts, couldn't hold back a smirk. "Seriously?"

Now that's official. It's a clusterfuck.

- the end -

THE END