Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Movie Script by ALAN NAFZGER
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over – Pecan Street Press
Lubbock ● Austin ● Fort Worth – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2015 Alan Nafzger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781072233190
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over – whiskey tango foxtrot
Written by Alan Nafzger
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
FADE IN:
INT. SMALL HOME IN RURAL EASTERN AFGHANISTAN – MORNING
whiskey tango foxtrot
SITA GULA is a 12-year-old a member of a fundamentalist Muslim household in Afghanistan. She is not covered yet as she is still to young. She is in her bedroom with a western fashion magazine. We can assume that it was found and had been brought to Afghanistan by an American female soldier. The outside of the magazine is old and worn. SITA sits and flips through the pages. She is looking at the photos but also she is trying to read. She scans the stories and when she knows a word she awkwardly repeats it – “outfit, love, beach body, bed.”
SITA’s mother is dead. UMAR, SITA’s father, is a Taliban fighter. He is a bit old to fight but he has a crazy glint in his eye. UMAR looks the part; he must be legit with the beard.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
UMAR receives a summons from a messenger. UMAR yells at his 10-year-old son, VAFA, to get ready for school.
UMAR
(to Vafa)
Get your things ready for school. And supervise your sister today.
SITA hears the talking and hides the fashion magazine. UMAR leaves his children presumably without breakfast. VAFA looks disappointed, but dutiful gathers his books for school.
SITA
(to Vafa)
No need to supervise your sister today.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
VAFA
I am the man. Father and I are responsible for you.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
SITA
You have school. Father has “God” to please.
VAFA looks at SITA crossly.
INT. ghazni FOB – MORNING
The phrase “MEAT EATERS” refers to Special Forces soldiers whose mission focuses on violence, as opposed to those whose mission focuses on stability and training. They are hunters and killers. They are dangerous and volatile characters.
This is the story of a jolly group of SOLDIERS who live together at the Ghazni FOB and hunt Taliban.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
Some of the MEAT EATERS, an Army Ranger squad (1st Ranger Battalion), are drinking coffee. It is a quiet morning. The Afghan Army counterparts are at a prayer service.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
CLYDE
You know WAR has never solved anything.
The other soldiers look at him as if he has lost his mind. After a few tense seconds, CLYDE reveals his joke.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
CLYDE
Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism.
The MEAT EATERS are only slightly amused. They need to know that CLYDE is reliable in combat and him joking around doesn’t help.
The MEAT EATERS are CLYDE, RAYMOND, JOHN, GARY, DAVID and ETHAN. They are an elite special operations commando squad. JOHN is a “field officer” and a First Lieutenant.
A blast catches everyone off guard. The door flies open from the overpressure, and two soldiers (DAVID and ETHAN) come running and pointing out the nearby plume of white smoke.
Without much information or time to get properly dressed, they grab their good luck charms. Some soldiers have religious jewelry (crucifixes and a St. George Patron of Soldiers). Other soldiers hesitate while looking for rabbit’s feet and lucky dice.
Once they find everything lucky, the MEAT EATERS throw on their gear and move out of the FOB towards the explosion.
EXT. TINY VILLAGE IN EASTERN AFGHANISTAN – DAY
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
Let’s take a minute to survey the village. We learn something about what it is like to live in a earthen-colored village at the end of a thread of path. There isn’t even a road to this village. There is hardly even a means to scratch out an existence, nothing more.
There are terraces planted with corn, wheat, and rice, some walnut trees, a stream that spills down the mountain (except in times of drought), but only a tiny school (for boys), no clinic, no road, and no running water.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
There are no young men and the old men are still inside.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
We notice the women. They rise before sunrise and pray. They fetch water from the stream. They cook and clean. They do laundry. They care for their children. They typically have never known a happy day, except perhaps the day of her marriage and many times that is in doubt.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
SITA and VAFA herd the goats down the street past a school. VAFA leaves SITA and the GOATS. SITA, like most other Afghani girls, is not allowed to attend school.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over
VAFA enters the school yard. He grins big as he greets his friends. They kick a futball around a bit and then enter the building.
SITA pauses to observe and the goats scatter a bit. She looks into the school trying to get an idea of what is going on. She is near enough to hear what is going on inside. Clearly she longs to have an education. She stands there long enough there can be no more other explanation.
The SCHOOL MASTER walks to the front of the school and scolds SITA. He motions for her to move on and closes the door. SITA gives up and moves on with the goats.
EXT. ghazni FOB – MORNING
There is smoke and screaming and confusion outside the gates.
The MEAT EATERS live on the base out with the Afghans and take advantage of casual Fridays. None of them are in the proper uniform — some are in fleece, one of soldiers was in a tracksuit and two others were missing their uniform blouses (they have been digging a ditch).
Afghan gate guard
A suicide bomber has killed some people in the city bazaar, and many are wounded.
Ethan
Everyone is going to want reports.
EXT. VALLEY AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAINS – DAY
SITA travels toward a grazing area with the GOATS.
EXT. ghazni STREET OUTSIDE OF MAYORS COMPOUND – MORNING
What we see resembles something near urban combat as they progress carefully through the streets.
There is an endless series of ill-painted, single-story concrete compounds and half-built shop buildings.
Within minutes of the MEAT EATERS arriving nearby the Afghan police began to shoot wildly, and the whipcracks against a wall near to their heads angers them.
GARY
What the…
JOHN
Friendly fire.
DAVID
Those damn Afghan police.
They need to duck into a compound. The mayor’s unlocked gate catches their eye. The gate is slightly open, only an inch or two.
Panicked crowds mass and then scatter with the gunfire. Ambulances and police trucks were tearing by, blasting their sirens and horns, and jumpy policemen are shooting right at them as they are nearing the entrance to their own mayor’s compound.
The shots chunk the concrete wall behind them, the point of impact mere feet above their faces.
EXT. InSIDE OF MAYORS COMPOUND – MORNING
The mayor’s house is more than two stories high, decorated with blue and green colored tiles and gabled roofs on each tower. An unusable (but nonetheless menacing) recoilless gun sat on a tripod atop the tower balcony.
JOHN
We can’t do anything here.
JOHN delivers his report over the radio and hands it back to CLYDE, the radio operator.
Everyone else is in a hurry to make it back in order to get breakfast before the chow hall closes.
The soldiers are lined up and ready to make a run for it back to the FOB.
GARY
I’m freaking starving man!
DAVID
Chow hall closes in thirty minutes.
ETHAN
I’m a track star then.
JOHN is about to join them.
Walking out the door, CLYDE (on the radio) get his attention.
RADIO
A casualty is coming in to the mayor’s compound. A kid with a head injury there ain’t any space at the local hospital.
CLYDE
What do you want us to do?
RADIO
Raymond there with you?
CLYDE
Yes.
RADIO
Make a determination on his condition at the mayor’s compound before bringing him back to the FOB.
Thus engaged, they freeze at the gate and waited with a newly arrived Afghan police guard.
As the police have stopped firing their guns, the MEAT EATERS eventually stand in the gateway and some smoke, their sleeves rolled up, they glove their hands with blue latex.
After no more than ten minutes of nervous joking, we see the Red Crescent ambulance rolling through the serpentine of concrete barriers. Its lights were flashing but no sirens wailed.
The vehicle is a donated Pakistani ambulance van, dented and abused after years (or maybe just months) of service in a war zone.
whiskey tango foxtrot
Given the size and manpower of the US Army, it’s no surprise that its lingo has gradually invaded everyday conversation. Not many of us keep a Purple Heart framed on our desk, though (i.e., we have no idea what these words and phrases mean even though we hear them all the time). Here’s the best explanations we can come up with as to what these military phrases actually mean (and how to start using them immediately because they’re amazing). Fun fact: A lot of them make great movie titles or band names.
whiskey tango foxtrot
Meaning: WTF (what the f*ck).
Origin: NATO phonetic alphabet—W for “Whiskey,” T for “Tango,” F for “Foxtrot.”
In a sentence: “Whiskey tango foxtrot, I can’t believe he double-crossed you like that!”
fubar
Meaning: A mess.
Origin: 1940s US military acronym made up by soldiers to stand for “f*cked up beyond all recognition;” arguably became popular with Americans abroad during WWII due to its similarity to the German term furchtbar (terrible).
In a sentence: We tried to fix her bangs, but ultimately Courtney’s haircut was fubar. She’ll have to wear a hat for a few months until it grows out.
zero dark thirty
Meaning: An unknown/undefined time in the early morning.
Origin: US military timekeeping terminology—any time that’s before 10am is prefixed with “zero,” so zero dark thirty is an unspecified (thirty minute) time before 10am.
In a sentence: Omar’s dog always wakes up at zero dark thirty demanding to be let outside.
umpteen/umpteemth
Meaning: Very many.
Origin: Military slang from the early 1900s; perhaps influenced by “umpty,” which is a dash in Morse code—the means of communicating at that time.
In a sentence: “Instead of asking me for gum for the umpteenth time, why don’t you just buy yourself a pack?”
roger/roger that
Meaning: Message received.
Origin: the NATO phonetic alphabet—a previous version of the alphabet used “Roger” to signify the letter R. Fun fact: Now they use “Romeo.”
In a sentence: “Babe, will you pick up some burgers on the way home?” “Roger that—and I’ll grab some fries, too.”
Murphy’s Law
Meaning: The idea that anything that can go wrong, will.
Origin: Named after US Air Force captain Edward A. Murphy, when he became frustrated with faulty wiring on a project.
In a sentence: Spring break’s events seemed to be ruled by Murphy’s Law. First the flight was cancelled, then the hotel was overbooked, and then there was the food poisoning …
snafu
Meaning: A messed-up situation.
Origin: 1940s US military—SNAFU is an acronym for the oxymoron “Situation Normal, All Fucked Up,” which suggests the status quo chaos of wartime.
In a sentence: Ted found himself in a major snafu: should he return the wallet he found and find its rightful owner or pay off his gambling debt?
P.O.V.
Meaning: Personally-owned vehicle.
Origin: modern military (technical term used by the government).
In a sentence: In Iraq, Kelly’s P.O.V. was a Jeep; back in the States after her years of service, she upgraded her P.O.V. to a Tesla.
with flying colors
Meaning: Successful.
Origin: Used as sailors on naval ships saw colored flags at port when returning from a successful mission.
In a sentence: In Clueless, Cher doesn’t exactly pass her road test with flying colors.
raunchy
Meaning: Vulgar.
Origin: Spanish American War-era Air Corps slang; perhaps adapted by American soldiers inspired by the Spanish word rancho.In a sentence: It’s sweet how R-rated movies that seemed so raunchy to our parents in the 1980s are about as vulgar as, say, Boss Baby today.
wilco
Meaning: Will comply.
Origin: WWII radio slang, often used in conjunction with roger/roger that.
In a sentence: “Can you pick up the dry cleaning on your walk home?” “Wilco—but you owe me one.”