'Ineffective'

31-Oct-2030, 2100U

LCDR Percy Jackson, US Navy, Son of Neptune

Legion XII Fulminata (TDY)

Oakland, California, USA

"So let me see if I'm understanding you correctly: you decided to find me in Virginia Beach, abduct me, and shadow-travel me back to Camp Jupiter... because you can't fix your own legion," I summarized, feeling exasperated at the four young gods before me. Hazel and Leo had sheepish grins—especially since they're the ones that "abducted" me, with the blacksmith god pinging my phone beforehand—while Frank and Reyna held my gaze, albeit with somewhat shameful expressions.

"That's about right," Frank confirmed as Leo nervously tapped on the table. We were in the Principia's conference room with Praefectus Castrorum Kahale and Legatus Legionis Reed—no tribunes or praetors, as they were all on duty elsewhere—with the leadership explaining the apparently dire situation in their legion. "It's bad, to put it lightly. And I'm not sure why we never took the time to address the issue... but we did."

"... and you believe that this is connected to the buildup of the forces?"

"... yeah."

To put it lightly, the 12th Legion Fulminata was at a point where—despite the buildup of equipment and manpower—it was overall worse than it had been twenty years ago. It confused me at first when it was presented to me, especially given the relatively good performance of the legionaries during Operation Black Squirrel. However, what I'd forgotten was that those legionaries were old dogs—veterans from before everything changed.

Long story short, the legion had strayed away from its stringent training and recruitment practices for the sake of building up the forces. I hadn't noticed it while I was here, but Kahale and Reed had. Within the past several years, they'd seen the praetors and Senate pass measures that—while increasing the manpower of the legion—resulted in the troops being less effective, including the reduction of standards such as physical fitness. Moreover, because the aforementioned people wanted to fill in checkboxes, they started putting legionaries into billets they didn't belong in (i.e., they weren't qualified).

Frank and Reyna didn't intervene for two reasons: first, they were supposed to maintain a relatively hands-off approach with their leadership; second, they didn't see any issue with the changes effected by the praetors and senators of the past... until now.

"Guys... you could just refer back to the old training and recruitment doctrine, y'know?" I suggested. "I seem to recall Roman legions being very particular about how they chose their men in the past."

"Percy, do you have any idea how hard it is to change shit in a legion of over 5,000 people?" Reyna asked, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

I had to admit, she had a point. The same could be said for the Navy and military as a whole: troops want and hate change all at the same time (obviously, it depends on the issue at hand, but still). It was very difficult to change the inner workings of such a large unit.

"Fair enough... but I'm still not seeing where I'm involved in the... repairing of the legion."

"Well, you've been in the Navy for the past twenty years," Frank pointed out. "I kinda assumed you learned a lot about discipline, cohesion, and effectiveness within a military unit. We wanted to get your help in fixing the legion."

"Yes, but there's one major problem: most of my work has been with small teams. This is a massive infantry formation—on par with a regiment or brigade, I think—not something I'm used to. If you wanted to talk infantry, you oughta have called upon Dad. He understands infantry like the back of his hand."

"Percy, it's not like we can just bring a mortal inside Camp Jupiter," Hazel replied. "Magical boundaries, y'know?"

"Yes, and phones exist too. You coulda just let me know... shoot me an email... send a text... let me set up VTC... some shit like that."

"In-person teaching might be better in this scenario," Frank said.

"Waitwaitwait... you want me to teach the legion?"

"I can't think of anyone more suitable for the task."

"Again: my stepfather? A gym instructor? A retired Marine DI? Dude, there are dozens, if not hundreds of people more qualified for this. Plus, I was never an RDC (recruit division commander)—er, the Navy's version of a drill instructor—and I'm not much of a teacher."

"I'll be perfectly honest... you're basically the only one I trust with this."

"E tu, Reyna?"

"Yep," she agreed. "Frank said you were the best for the job and I agreed. It's not like we can just switch back to the old ways. We do need to change a few things. And at this point, it's gonna take a big shock to get the legion moving in the right direction—a wildcard, so to speak—you."

I looked back and forth between the gods and other leaders of the legion, trying to figure out if this was a giant elaborate prank of some sort (you'd be surprised what kind of shit jokesters in the military can come up with). But they all looked 100% serious about this. They wanted me—who hadn't been in contact with the mythological world (mostly) for two decades—to retrain the legion and make them more effective and disciplined as a unit.

"Okay," I sighed in resignation. "I'll do it. But you guys owe me... big time."

"Cash or check?" Leo joked, helping to break the tension in the room.

"Either one... just no counterfeits or bouncing, okay? Invoice at the end of this shit. Now, how long do I have?"

"Well, we'll run it on a six-week trial basis," Reyna proposed. "You'll have the full support of the camp prefect, tribunes, and legion commander for this. We'll be one call away, worse comes to worst."

"Whaddaya mean 'one call away?' Aren't you gonna be here?"

"Uh, November's kinda when we're not doing camp director stuff," Leo explained. "We take the time to come together, discuss the state of the camps, joint programs, all that fun stuff."

"And... that takes a month?"

"We... do a lot of logistics planning. Supplies, finances, and whatnot."

"Again: that takes a month?"

"Percy, we may have been doing this job for twenty-ish years now, but we still have little to no idea what we're doing," Frank added. "It's one thing to go to battles deciding the fate of the world and conduct fetch quests. It's another to run a freaking camp with thousands of people."

"When you say it like that..."

"Jackson, I promise you, the one month is not for shits and giggles," Kahale interjected. "I tagged along once. They do goof off a little, but most of it is just trying to ensure that the gears of the camps keep turning... let alone the rest of the machine."

"Wha—okay, you know what? Never mind," I sighed, not wanting to argue the point any further. "Let's get some things settled before I have an aneurysm."

Over the next couple of hours, the leadership team briefed me on the current state of the legion, including its day-to-day operations, equipment, maneuvers, and personnel—with specific reports on each cohort and the centuries within them. They then briefed me on the camp itself—along with the nearby New Rome—throwing in any information that I thought would be necessary for my six weeks here. Once everything was said and done, I bid my immortal friends goodbye and stepped out to make a phone.

"Mmmph... Percy? Why are you callin' me this early in the mornin'?" Dad's rough voice asked over the phone—it was approximately 0230 back on the East Coast.

"Hey, Dad. Sorry for the late call, but this was important," I replied.

"You missed your mama's cookin', son. You got a good explanation?"

"I do." I proceeded to succinctly explain the whole situation here in Camp Jupiter, as well as the fact that I probably wouldn't be making it to dinner for a while. Dad listened patiently throughout the whole thing, slowly digesting and dissecting the information before I finally came to a halt.

"Son... by the sounds o' it, you gotta pull out yer inner instructor."

"What kinda instructor, though? BUD/S? Basic?"

Definitely not Green Team.

"You're gonna want a lil' more of an instructor you'd see at boot camp—a drill sarn't, a drill instructor, whatever the hell the Navy calls their own variant."

"RDCs."

"That's it. You gotta do it like in boot camp: break 'em down like they're fresh civvies, build 'em back up into proper warriors. If the situation's as bad as it sounds, you're gonna need a major shock to their system. An' don't forget: you gotta have the rest of the leadership in line with you or yain't gonna get far."

"Yeah, I know... but Dad, they're infantry. I'm not. How the hell do I teach that?"

"You gotta get help from your command element, son. They're the subject matter experts, so utilize 'em. Yain't the only instructor, right?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Now, you got some paper handy?"

Dad—bless him—stayed up with me for a couple more hours as we worked out a plan for remodeling the legion into the fighting force it should be. Utilizing history, open-source information, and our own memories, we constructed a somewhat flexible plan that would hit the legionaries hard physically and mentally... but it would make them into a fine, cohesive unit... in theory.

After thanking Dad for all his help, I hung up and reviewed my plan again before utilizing a laptop borrowed from Leo to conduct further research into how boot camps operated. I would have to take the lessons and concepts from modern-day training, Romanize it, and apply it over the course of six weeks in order to undo years of damage done by incompetent praetors and senators.

Guess I'm about to be the most hated man in the history of the 12th Legion, I thought to myself with a sardonic smile as the Marine Corps Recruit Training documentary began.

A quick mini-update (sorry) to set the stage for the next arc of the story—I wanted to go ahead and get it out while the idea was still fresh in my head—retraining the 12th Legion. Percy's about to find out just how hard being a boot camp instructor (DS, DI, RDC, MTI, CC) really is... which is made worse by the fact that he's doing this for over five thousand legionaries.

To put it mildly: our hero is in for a bad time.

Be sure to comment all your feedback—including any thoughts you may have on the upcoming training arc. Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

- ADF-2