by James Rosone
While many soldiers were tasked with digging three-man fighting positions or four-man machine-gun positions, others unraveled rolls of concertina wire roughly forty meters in front of their new fortifications. Just behind the rolls of razor-tipped wires, some of the other soldiers set up and concealed Claymore anti-personnel mines and other nasty surprises some of the engineers were rigging up. Further out, about a dozen meters in front of the razor wire, a few soldiers strung up trip flares with some Claymores—those would act as an early-warning system of sorts once the sun went down.
Corporal Webster took a break for a moment to stretch and crack his back and smiled at all the bustling activity and layers of defense they were building. They had no idea how long they’d have to hold this position; they might as well do their best to make it as tough on the enemy as possible.
He looked back. Roughly three hundred meters below them was the bottom of the ridge. The trees there opened up to reveal relatively flat farmland and the edges of a small village or city another seven to ten kilometers away. That was where their armored reinforcements would be linking up with them from.
“I hope we can hold out long enough,” Webster thought.
*******
Staff Sergeant Sanchez was walking the line his platoon was responsible for when he came upon Corporal Webster, Specialist Ryle and Private First Class Miller, all sitting with their feet dangling over the edge of their foxhole and their MREs in their laps.
“You guys look like the Three Stooges—you know that, right? Your fighting position looks like crap,” he proclaimed. He proceeded to point out the fact that their foxhole was still only a meter deep, the edges were falling in on it and they had little cover in front of their fighting position.
“We’re taking a break, Sarge. Can’t you see we’re eating?” Ryle retorted.
Sanchez snickered. “Five months ago, you guys hated each other, now you’re all jokes and sharing an MRE. Never mind. Get this position ready. I’ll give you guys another five minutes to finish your food, then I want to see you guys clean this up. Most of the platoon is already done.”
When he’d left, Corporal Webster asked, “You guys think this war is almost over? It’s practically November, which means winter is almost here. I really don’t want to be sitting in a foxhole when it starts to snow.”
“How should I know? I’m just a dumb guy from Compton,” replied Ryle in his usual manner.
“You’re lucky, Ryle. You didn’t spend months on end pulling occupation duty,” Private Miller responded. “I’d rather be out here in a foxhole facing off against enemy soldiers than patrolling through one of those Chinese urban jungles.” With that, he finished off the last bite of his cheese tortellini and stuffed the empty pouch back into the MRE bag.
“Hey, if you’re done, get back to work,” gibed Corporal Webster, who was still finishing off the last of the cheese spread on his crackers.
“I wouldn’t call getting shot lucky,” Ryle shot back, “but the ice cream and pretty nurses were a nice break from looking at your ugly mugs.” They all snickered at the joke.
“OK, guys, let’s finish off this position,” said Corporal Webster. “We’ve delayed long enough to avoid getting picked for any special duties Sanchez or the lieutenant might have for those overzealous gophers who already finished their positions.”
The three of them chuckled at that. They’d learned early on that if you finished your task too quickly, you could find yourself “voluntold” to go work on another task, so they’d learned how to milk a project just long enough not to get in trouble.
Slowly and steadily, the day turned to night as the soldiers of 2-14 Infantry settled into their newly dug fighting positions and waited.
Corporal Webster wondered if they’d be attacked during the night, or if their luck would hold out and the enemy would decide they weren’t worth the trouble.
*******
“Stay frosty, and get ready for stand-to,” Staff Sergeant Sanchez announced. “Several of the LP/OPs radioed in a large concentration of enemy troops headed our way.” He quickly moved down the line to the next foxhole to spread the word.
The three of them exchanged nervous glances as they readied their weapons, shifting uncomfortably in their fighting position.
“Maybe we should have made this thing a little bigger,” thought Webster as he placed a couple of hand grenades on the ground in front of him, ready in case he needed them.
“You think the sarge could be any more vague with his description of what’s out there?” asked Specialist Ryle. He pulled himself up and stood behind the squad’s heavy machine gun.
“Maybe the LP/OP spotted a squad or platoon and thought it was larger than it really was. It’s dark out,” replied Private Miller nervously. He pulled another hundred-round belt for the M240G out of his ruck and began to link it together with the one already fed into Ryle’s weapon.
Before any of them could say anything more, what sounded like a freight train zoomed right over their heads, then impacted violently several hundred meters up the ridge.
BOOM! Boom, boom, BOOM!
“Everyone down!” shouted one of the sergeants in a nearby fighting position.
The next five minutes was sheer terror for the infantry soldiers dug in on the side of the ridge. Enemy artillery rained down on them. Trees, parts of trees, rocks, dirt and everything else on the ridge were torn apart and thrown into the air and all around the soldiers. They did their best to ride out the horrendous experience.
Suddenly a shrieking whistle sound pierced their ears, followed by the guttural howl of an untold number of men and women below their positions.
Pop, pop, pop.
Illumination rounds started go off all along the ridge, turning the predawn twilight into full daylight.
“Holy hell, that’s a lot of enemy soldiers!” shouted Private Miller. He brought his M4 to his shoulder and fired.
Specialist’s Ryle’s eyes went wide as saucers when he saw the wave of humanity charging up the ridge at them. He shook himself, then lowered his head down until his cheek was flush with the stock of his M240G. He fired three-to-five-second bursts of automatic fire into the ranks of the charging enemy soldiers, making sure to sweep back and forth across his field of fire.
Lifting his own rifle to his shoulder, Corporal Webster sighted in on one enemy soldier after another as the enemy charged relentlessly up the hill at them.
Pop, pop, pop, zip, crack, zip, crack.
Bullets flew back and forth between the two sides at a dizzying rate of speed, cutting dozens of people down before they even knew what had hit them. At two hundred meters, the enemy soldiers started tripping some of the flares the Americans had set up, which further illuminated them. Then several of the daisy-chained Claymore mines and hand grenades they had boobytrapped began to go off, cutting huge swaths of the enemy apart.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, crump, crump, crump.
Dozens of enemy soldiers were thrown sideways in the air or were blown apart outright as the cacophony of explosions rippled up and down the ridge. More whistles sounded as yet another wave of enemy soldiers charged upward to replace the first wave, which had been utterly decimated by the American Claymores.
“I’m changing barrels. Get more ammo ready!” shouted Ryle. He carefully disconnected the barrel with the specialized glove. It was practically glowing; it had definitely needed to cool. He deftly grabbed the spare barrel and snapped it in place while Private Miller attached a new hundred-round belt to the few remaining bullets left of the belt still loaded in the weapon.
Webster did his best to keep firing at the second wave of enemy soldiers, giving them as much covering fire as he could until they got the machine gun back up and running. Then he heard the most sickening noise of his life—a wet splat.
Private Miller cried out in agony. “I’m hit! Oh God, my arm!” he wailed. His left arm was dangling, barely hanging on by some muscle and tendon. With each heartbeat, blood spurted ou
t on the ground.
Specialist Ryle stopped shooting. He turned his body toward Miller, but Webster shouted, “Don’t stop shooting—I’ll help him!”
Shock and blood loss took hold of Miller, and he slumped down to the bottom of their foxhole.
“Hang in there, Miller! You’re going to be OK,” Webster reassured him. “I’m going to get a tourniquet on, and we’ll get you back to the medics.” He pulled his tourniquet from the medical pouch attached to his IBA and tied off the arm an inch above the wound. With the bleeding stemmed, he stood up and started shouting, “Medic!”
With a half-glazed look and sweat running down his face, Miller looked up at his friend. “I don’t want to die, Shane…I’m scared,” he managed to mumble.
Wiping a tear from his own eye, Webster leaned in to be heard over the roar of Ryle’s machine gun. “You’re going to be all right, Liam. I’ve got the bleeding stopped. I’ll help you get back to the aid station when the medic gets here.” He looked above the lip of their foxhole, hoping to spot a medic.
Seconds later, one of the platoon’s medics came running over and motioned for Webster to help get Miller out of the foxhole. The two of them did their best to carry Miller further back behind their lines to the battalion aid station, where one of the doctors could help patch him up. As they shuffled along, Webster saw the extensive damage from the enemy artillery attack. Then he spotted the aid station; it was inundated with wounded soldiers.
Meanwhile, the roar of battle continued unabated. Before heading back to his foxhole, Webster made a point to grab as much ammo as he could for Ryle and himself, and then he raced back down to their positions. As he got closer to their foxhole, he was horrified to see that the enemy had reached the concertina wire—they were practically on top of their positions at this point.
Jumping back into the foxhole, Webster dumped another four one-hundred-round belts of ammo next to Ryle’s gun.
“`Bout time you got back here. For a minute I thought I was on my own,” Ryle shouted. He stopped shooting just long enough to reload and to pour one of the canteens of water he had across the barrel in an attempt to cool it off.
“Damn, those guys are getting close,” Webster remarked. He took a moment to link another belt of ammo to the one Ryle had just loaded. This would give him at least two hundred rounds.
“Oh crap, they just broke through the wire!” Ryle shouted. Webster saw the enemy soldiers pouring in through a several-meter-wide opening they’d managed to create.
Suddenly, a string of bullets tore into their position, forcing the two of them to duck for cover. A voice somewhere to their right yelled, “Get that machine gun going! We’re going to be overrun!”
“Cover me!” Ryle shouted. Then he popped up and tore into the charging enemy.
Webster grabbed one of the Claymore clickers and depressed it. A fraction of a second later, the electrical charge reached the blasting cap and detonated the mine, spraying hundreds of ball bearings at the enemy like a giant shotgun at point-blank range.
Without pausing, Webster picked his rifle up and began to fire.
Pop, pop, pop!
Then his bolt locked to the rear. His magazine was empty. Dropping the empty magazine, he snatched a fresh one from his IBA, slapped it in place and hit the bolt release. With a fresh round in the chamber, Webster aimed right for a cluster of soldiers that were now no more than twenty meters from them.
He paused just long enough to reach down and grab some grenades. Then he started lobbing them at the enemy.
Crump, crump, crump.
Other soldiers also threw grenades in a desperate attempt to cut down the attackers before they overran their positions. Just as Webster thought they weren’t going to make it, they heard a thunderous roar in the sky. It sounded like a monstrous ripping noise, like some massive piece of paper or fabric was being torn apart. Then what almost appeared to be the finger of God began to rip through the charging enemy.
A near-constant red line emanating from somewhere above them systematically danced across the ground in front of them, obliterating the enemy soldiers just as they were about to overrun the American positions. What they were witnessing was a mixture of red tracers from the 25mm GAU-12/U Equalizer five-barreled Gatling cannons and smaller explosions from 40mm Bofors cannons. Further behind enemy lines, 105mm Howitzer rounds started to hit, decimating a third wave of enemy soldiers that was about to filter their way.
In seconds, the mass of enemy soldiers that had been moments away from wiping out their unit was turned into a torn and bloody mess of bodies as the entire attack collapsed.
“What the hell was that?” shouted Ryle. He stopped shooting and turned to Webster, a look of horror mixed with thankfulness on his face.
Shaking his head in amazement, Webster replied, “That, my friend, was a miracle.”
Then the loud tearing sound and wave of explosions started up again, only this time a little further down the line. It tore into the next enemy position.
“Seriously, what the hell was that? I’ve never seen something like that,” Ryle added. He craned his head around to look up at the sky. Corporal Webster looked up too, but all they could see was a layer of clouds and intermittent red lines slashing through the gray covering.
“That was an Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunship, Ryle, and it just saved our lives.”
*******
90 Kilometers Northeast of Tangshan, China
Captain Jason Diss and his tankers were physically exhausted. Their brigade had been in almost constant combat for the past four days as the Allies began their final move on the PLA amassing around the Beijing capital region. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team or “Black Jacks” of the 1st Cavalry Division still had another 130 kilometers to travel to relieve a brigade from the 10th Mountain Brigade that was hunkered down deep behind enemy lines.
Looking behind him, Diss saw the Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles of his battalion steadily moving along the G1 or Jingha Expressway. They had been making good time ever since they’d finally jumped on this route.
“Anything is better than snaking through one endless village after another,” thought Diss. Tanks didn’t belong in cities. They needed room to maneuver.
Looking up, Diss saw a pair of Apache gunships several kilometers to his right zoom ahead of them, scouting for possible enemy armor or threats.
“As long as the flyboys keeps the Chinese Air Force off my tanks we’ll be fine,” he thought. Diss remembered a few weeks back when one of those new PLA UAV ground-attack planes had torn into his battalion. They’d lost several tanks before the drone had been shot down. The sight of that thing had scared the hell out of them—it was the first time they’d seen the PLA’s newfangled weapon.
Diss heard some radio static in his CVC and then the familiar beep as the SINCGAR synced. “Mustang Four, this is Hawk Three. Be advised, enemy armor spotted nineteen kilometers to your front. Enemy armor at least battalion strength. Moving to engage them now. Out.”
“Well, at least our gunships found the enemy before they found us,” he thought, trying to look at the bright side. Part of him was selfishly upset that the Apaches would get to score some kills before his tanks arrived on scene. His company already had more tank kills than any company in the brigade, and it was a point of pride for his unit.
Depressing his own talk button, he spoke to his tankers. “Heads up, Mustangs! FRAGO follows. Our Hawk element has spotted enemy armor. Roughly battalion-size, nineteen kilometers to our front. They’re engaging them now. I want everyone to get ready to move off the expressway in a few more kilometers. We’ll approach from the fields to our left.”
A few minutes went by as the tankers drove a little closer to the enemy on the smooth surface of the expressway. Then Diss’s lead tank bulldozed through the cement barrier on the edge of the expressway, creating a hole for the rest of the company to follow through.
As they approached the outskirts of Gengyang, they saw a handful of black
smoke columns drifting skyward, evidence of the Apaches’ earlier visit.
“Damn, those guys were probably setting up an ambush for us in the city,” Diss thought, grateful that the gunships had made their visit first.
Captain Diss examined his map; they were roughly halfway to their objective of relieving the 10th Mountain Unit. This was the last place they wanted to get bogged down—it was one of the few major cities between them and the soldiers they were supposed to relieve.
A familiar crackle of static echoed in his CVC before the radio beeped. “Mustang Four, Warrior Two. I’ve got eyes on at least twelve Type-96 tanks intermixed inside a small cluster of multistory apartment complexes. We’ve also spotted seven Type-11 assault gun trucks. Unknown number of dismounted infantry, but it looks to be at least company strength. How copy?”
The Warrior element was their scout platoon assigned to them from brigade. The combat observation and lasing teams were specially equipped M1200 armored cars that would speed ahead of the armored forces, looking for enemy targets for the armor to engage. In this case, they zeroed in on the targets the Apaches had found and would lead the tanks right to them.
Captain Diss depressed his talk button. “Warrior Two, this is Mustang Four. Good copy. We’re eight clicks from your current position. Can you get some steel on those assault trucks?” he asked, hoping they might be able to get some artillery support. He was concerned about the AT trucks in particular—although not heavily armored, they could really damage his tanks if they got within range of their antitank guided missiles or 105mm cannons.
“Copy that, Mustang. Stand by while we see what’s available,” came the reply.
Diss switched over to his company net. “Mustangs, I want everyone to reform into a wedge formation and slow down to fifteen kilometers an hour. Stay alert. We’re approaching Warrior’s position.”
As their company approached the outskirts of a small village southeast of the major city, their scout platoon spotted movement.
