Homefront: The Voice of Freedom

by John

  On the first day that Walker felt able, Kopple instructed him to bring the M4 to a “practice range” a few meters from camp. He coughed hoarsely and said, “The beauty about the desert is the entire place is a practice range.” He pointed to a cactus shaped uncannily like a human being standing twenty yards away. “Shoot that guy’s head off.”

  Walker held the rifle up and peered through the scope.

  “Hold on, hold on, wait a sec,” Kopple said. “You’re holding your breath. Relax and breathe.”

  Walker had never thought of that. He’d always unwittingly anticipated the recoil and fought against it. He raised the rifle again.

  “Hold on, hold on, wait a sec. First of all, you need to ask yourself, is that a long range target, a medium range one, or a short range one.”

  Walker guessed. “Medium?”

  Kopple coughed and shrugged. “Sure. Some instructors might say it’s short range. That’s about twenty yards so it could go either way. One rule of thumb for short and medium range targets is the more rounds, the better. Use burst fire.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Why don’t you try your three-burst mode and blow the shit outta that cactus.”

  Walker flipped the switch up and aimed. When he squeezed the trigger, the rifle popped three times in rapid succession. The cactus remained intact.

  Kopple coughed and said, “Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.”

  “I missed it completely.”

  “You’re tensing up. You’re doing what I call ‘spray and pray.’ In other words, when you’re spraying, don’t panic. Keep your aim controlled. You may want to aim slightly lower than the head or torso to compensate for that itty-bitty recoil.”

  Walker tried again. This time he blew away the upper third of the cactus-man.

  “Excellent!” Kopple said. “We just might make a soldier out of you yet. Let’s try some long range shooting.” He coughed again.

  “Wally, er, Sergeant Kopple, that cough sounds kinda bad. Are you all right?”

  Kopple waved him away. “Don’t worry about it, it’s probably cancer. It’s been like this for almost a year. All kinds of crap comes up sometimes.” He pointed to a group of cacti fifty yards in the distance. “See those guys over there? That’s a squad of Koreans, aiming right at you. What do you do?”

  Walker raised the gun.

  “Hold on, hold on, wait a sec. What firing mode you gonna select?”

  “Spray fire?”

  “That might work, but I find that single-shot mode is pretty good for long range. I guess it depends on how many of the enemy you’re facing. Let’s say it’s just one guy instead of six. Try shooting the cactus on the far left with just one shot.”

  Walker aimed. He did his best to place the crosshairs on the cactus’ “head.” He squeezed the trigger—and missed.

  “That’s okay, that’s okay. Try again. Aim a little lower. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I thought I was used to it. I’ve been firing this thing for a couple of months!”

  “Try it again. Go for a body shot.”

  Walker raised the rifle, aimed, remembered to breathe, and squeezed the trigger. Sure enough, most of the cactus was gone.

  “Wow.” Walker stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it. “It’s loud. My ears are ringing. I still haven’t gotten used to that.”

  “You need some ear plugs, although during a firefight you’ll need to be able to hear your mates. Now this time use the three-burst spray on those other guys. Put that slight recoil to good use. For that much distance, it’s best to aim for the upper chest. Not only will your target suffer the damage from a bullet to the chest, the recoil of the second or third shot will probably take the head off. Or you could try a strafing technique, but I don’t advise it because it wastes ammo.”

  Walker nodded, crouched on one knee, and aimed.

  “Hold on, hold on, wait a sec. Why are you down on one knee?”

  “My aim is steadier when I do this.”

  “Yeah, that may be, but crouching really makes you an easy target. If you’re facing one guy, that’s probably okay. But not against a group. Nuh uh.”

  Walker stood. “Okay.”

  “Now blast the hell out of those Norks over there.”

  He aimed, fired three bursts at the cactus on the far right, pulled to the left but skipped a cactus, fired three more rounds, moved to the right to hit the target he jumped over, and continued until all five remaining “Koreans” were in tatters.

  “Not bad.”

  “Not bad? I obliterated them!”

  Kopple shrugged and coughed. He glanced at the position of the sun and back at the camp. “We should get back and get some shut-eye. We’ll do some more tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  As they walked back to the tents, Walker noticed a familiar shadow moving along the ground. He looked up—and there it was.

  “Goddamned buzzard,” he muttered. He raised the rifle and aimed, following the bird as it circled over its intended prey. “I don’t like being followed, you mangy bastard!” Walker allowed the buzzard to lead his aim until the sun wasn’t in his eyes, and then he squeezed the trigger. The buzzard jerked in the air, seemed to float motionless for a second, and finally dropped with a faint plop some fifteen yards away.

  He lowered the rifle, proud of himself. “That thing’s been on my ass ever since I left Twentynine Palms.”

  JULY, 2025

  The unit moved faster when it reached the area of the Mojave Desert known as the Devils Playground. The relatively flat plains contrasted to the terrain of the Bristol Mountains, which delayed the National Guardsmen’s progress for nearly a month. There was a compromise for the increased speed, however. Dunes and salt flats spread for miles; they reflected the direct sunlight, making the heat more brutal than before. One horse collapsed from heat exhaustion. Captain Hennings shot the animal. Morale was low. Several men questioned the wisdom of crossing the desert. Maybe it would have been better to have taken their chances on the highway and confront the enemy rather than bake for three months in hell.

  Walker continued his training with Sergeant Kopple by working on stealth exercises and combat movement. One of Kopple’s adages was, “Don’t run around like an idiot.” Walker practiced advancing with the rifle up and aimed, never taking his sight off a target. He caught on quickly, and Kopple grudgingly admitted the journalist was a better newbie than most recruits.

  As June rolled into July, a mysterious virus struck the unit, a few men at a time. At first the captain thought their food had gone bad, but the symptoms went beyond simple food poisoning. As soon as the sick men felt better, another group fell ill. For three weeks, the men lay in their tents, barely able to move. Simple acts of drinking a little water, consuming cold broth, and relieving oneself were monumental tasks. Kopple, who had spent time in Africa and Southeast Asia, opined that it was a strain of the Knoxville Fever that struck America in 2021.

  Three men died. Then, toward the end of July, the Guardsmen started feeling better. The virus had run its course and the hearty ones survived. Nevertheless, four soldiers remained sick for another week and Hennings didn’t think they were going to make it; but just as the outlook appeared the grimmest, they, too, showed signs of recovery.

  Weakened, but eager to move on, the National Guardsmen pushed forward, determined to cross Nevada and reach Utah by September. There were now sixteen men, including Walker, and seven horses. The Humvees never broke down the entire time. One of the vehicles carried nothing but fuel and supplies. The other two were armed, one with an M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun, the other with an MK19 grenade launcher, both controlled by Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations within the Humvees. The CROWS enabled the fighting crews to acquire targets and fire from inside the vehicles.

  They finally reached a bluff overlooking Interstate-15, the preferred highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. From a quarter-mile away, they could see that a small number of empty, abandon
ed cars still littered the road. Hennings, riding one of the horses, ordered the men to stay back until a scout performed a reconnaissance. Kowalski rode ahead, spent ten minutes looking up and down the road with binoculars, and returned.

  “Captain, there’s a caravan of vehicles heading our way from the west. I think they’re Korean. One IFV and two Humvees.”

  “How far away?”

  “Maybe two miles.”

  “What kind of IFV?”

  “Difficult to say, sir. Looked like one of ours. LAV. Twenty-Five, maybe.”

  “How many men?”

  “Impossible to say, sir. However many could fit in all three vehicles would be the worst case scenario.”

  “Are the Humvees armed?”

  “Didn’t appear so, sir.”

  Hennings turned to Kopple, who was the second highest-ranking soldier. “What do you think?”

  “We can take out an IFV. I think. I hope he’s right about the Humvees not being armed. Then we’d just have to worry about the men inside and whatever they’re carrying.”

  Hennings took the binoculars and scanned the highway. “I see them. They’re moving at a steady pace. We’ll have to hurry if we’re gonna do this.” He lowered the binoculars and made the call. “I want the designated riders to remain on their horses, everyone else in the Humvees. We go for the IFV first. Plan Reach-around, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  Hennings instructed the six other riders to follow him west along the bluff so they could attack the Koreans’ flank. As they took off, Kopple turned to Walker. “You should stay back here.”

  Walker was incensed. “No way, man, I’m going with you.”

  “You’re not ready for a firefight.”

  “Sure I am. I’m not staying back here. I mean it.”

  Kopple coughed and spit brownish phlegm on the ground. “Suit yourself. Don’t run around like an idiot.”

  The remaining men poured into the Humvees—two in the supply carrier and seven in the armed ones. Walker followed Kopple into the Humvee with the MK19. Johnson manned the gun. The sergeant sat in the front seat and issued the order to roll.

  The three vehicles bolted forward, down the bluff, and toward the Interstate. The Koreans were moving perpendicular to the National Guardsmen at the same rate of speed—both sides right on a collision course to intersect at the highway. At the same time, however, the seven horsemen, armed with M4s and M16s, galloped diagonally toward the road behind the Koreans.

  When the Humvees reached within a hundred yards of the Interstate, the Koreans reacted. Their three vehicles halted and the IFV’s M242 Bushmaster 25mm cannon swiveled around to face the attackers. Its two M240 machine guns immediately started blasting at the Guardsmen’s Humvees.

  Johnson commenced firing the grenade launcher. The first M430 round struck the front wheels of the LAV-25 and exploded in a cloud of black smoke. At the same time, though, the IFV’s Bushmaster fired a shell. The Humvees’ drivers swerved to avoid the hit—just barely—as the shell blew a crater in the ground. The force of the blast lifted the side of one Humvee and almost flipped it over, but the driver managed to keep the vehicle moving, balanced on its right wheels, until the elevated side dropped a few seconds later.

  The smoke in front of the IFV cleared, revealing that its front treads were disabled by the grenade. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  The doors on the Koreans’ two Humvees opened and four KPA infantry, armed with automatic machine guns, poured out of each. They had seen the advancing horsemen.

  Walker had never witnessed anything like the firefight between the Korean infantry and the Guardsmen on horseback. The image suggested a strange hybrid of a Western and a War movie—the good guys galloping on horses in a circle around the vehicles, albeit with contemporary automatic weapons in hand, and the evil enemy hunkered down around modern military machinery to return fire. It was totally surreal.

  Johnson launched another grenade. This time it hit the Bushmaster cannon assembly, obliterating it in a massive explosion that rocked the IFV. The machine guns continued to fire, but they inflicted no damage to the Humvees.

  Kopple gave the order to halt the vehicles—they were close enough to the Koreans.

  “Take out those machine guns!” he shouted to Johnson.

  The MK19 fired another high-explosive round at the IFV, this time knocking out the rear treads. Meanwhile, the Korean soldiers took positions behind the Humvees and shot at the horsemen. One animal went down, spilling its rider. The Guardsman bounced back unharmed and charged the enemy on foot. The Korean operators of the IFV’s machine guns must have realized that shooting at the Humvees did no damage, so the guns swerved toward the riders. The spray of bullets hit two more horses and men.

  “Damn it!” Kopple shouted. “Come on, Johnson, take out those guns!”

  Another launch struck the side of the IFV, blasting a hole near the top. Smoke gushed out. Whoever was inside was certainly injured, for the machine guns ceased firing.

  “Keep at it, Johnson. I don’t want to take the chance that one of them bastards is still alive in there. The rest of you—go, go, go!”

  The men piled out of the Humvees, shouting war cries: “Land of the free!” “Long live America!” “Remember Pearl Harbor!”

  With four remaining horsemen and nine Guardsmen rushing the Koreans, the enemy was outnumbered. Their targets were split, coming from two directions, providing the Americans with the advantage. Walker then understood the meaning of Hennings’ “Plan Reach-around.”

  The last one out of the Humvee, Walker felt simultaneous surges of energy and fright. Was he really about to go into battle? He was thirty-four years old, way too young to die. Not once in his short life had he ever envisioned himself performing military service. Yet, here he was, in the middle of the Mojave Desert, about to join a bunch of National Guardsmen in an ambush against the worst enemy the United States had ever faced.

  “Christ,” he murmured, and then he, too, cried out for “Glory!” and ran forward with the M4 raised to his eye as he’d been instructed.

  The grenade launcher fired again twice in succession, this time knocking out the IFV’s two machine guns and blowing another hole in the top of the vehicle. The four remaining horsemen rode around to the opposite side of the road and strafed the sides of the Humvees, hitting several of the enemy. No longer shielded behind cover, the standing Koreans were pinned against their vehicles. They fired recklessly at the aggressors while attempting to run for nonexistent protection. The horsemen had no problem mowing them down.

  One man bolted toward the Americans on the other side, wildly shooting anything in sight. He hit two men and headed straight for Walker.

  Oh my God, he’s coming right at me!

  As Walker met the enemy’s eyes, time seemed to slow down. What was in actuality the span of two seconds felt like an eternity. He hesitated. Could he kill a man? Really kill him?

  The running Korean, his face contorted with desperation, raised his rifle and pointed it at Walker.

  Squeeze the damned trigger, you fool! Don’t run around like an idiot!

  Walker couldn’t bring himself to do it. That was a human life running toward him.

  But he’s going to kill you if you don’t act first!

  Everything happened in slow motion. Walker couldn’t make his finger move.

  It was finally the heat of other bullets whizzing past Walker’s head that motivated him to act. He remembered Kopple’s words.

  Short Range: three-burst spray.

  Walker squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked three times.

  The rushing Korean jerked violently, fired his weapon, missed, and toppled to the ground. Walker wasn’t sure where he’d hit the man, but the guy wasn’t moving. He ran forward, gun ready, and examined his handiwork. Two out of three. One round had gone astray, but the other two had hit the Korean in the chest and side of the face. Instead of a cheekbone, there was an ugly, red, wet hole.

  Holy shi
t. I’ve killed a man.

  Walker experienced an immediate knee-jerk reaction and froze as a wave of conflicting emotions swept through his body. On the one hand, he was frightened, shocked, and appalled that he could take another human life. On the other, he felt exhilaration. Was that wrong?

  Remember, he told himself. This man was an enemy of my country. He was one of many who tried to destroy our way of life. He deserved to die.

  “You gonna stand there staring at your buddy or are you gonna help us clean up?”

  Walker looked up to see Kopple in front of him.

  “Huh?” He realized there was no noise. The gunfire had ceased. It was over. “How long were we fighting?”

  “What?”

  “How long did the battle last?”

  Kopple looked at Walker as if that was the strangest question he’d ever heard. “Two minutes. Not even that.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “That’s fast. I thought it would take longer. I thought we’d be out here for an hour, battling it out until we were either dead or our ammo ran out.”

  Kopple shook his head and coughed. “It ain’t like that. It always happens so fast that if you don’t keep ahead of the seconds going by, you get killed.”

  Walker took a deep breath. “Did we win?”

  “You bet your ass. Got ourselves a prisoner, too.”

  Walker surveyed the scene. All of the Korean infantry were dead. Their IFV was useless. Two Guardsmen pointed guns at a lone Korean on his knees with his hands behind his head. His uniform was charred and his face was black from smoke. He must have been inside the IFV.

  Three horses were dead.

  “Did we lose anyone?”

  “Two. Masters and Hodge.”

  Walker saw them lying on the ground. Another two Guardsmen were wounded but were on their feet.

  “We gained two more Humvees and some supplies,” Kopple said. “This was a successful mission.” He coughed, spat phlegm, and clapped Walker on the arm. “You done good, Walker. For a newbie. And you didn’t run around like an idiot.”

  Kopple walked away and joined Captain Hennings, who was talking to the Korean prisoner. Walker kept his distance, but somehow he knew what was going to happen.