by James Rosone
Then to his dismay, the militia soldier got back up and started shooting back at them again. Shaking his head in disbelief, Mack realized the man must have been wearing some sort of body armor. He took aim at the man again but moved his selector from semi to burst. Once Mack got a good sight picture on the man, he squeezed the trigger. He felt the three-round burst leave the barrel. This time, the militiaman didn’t get back up.
Seeing the immediate threat gone, Sergeant Mack continued to charge up the hill with the rest of his squad and platoon. When he got within twenty meters of the top, he saw half a dozen of his Marines charge right over it. They were firing away at something just outside of his vision.
“Grenade!”
Crump.
“Take that machine gun out!”
“Covering fire!”
Crump, crump.
“Corpsman! Oh, God! I’m hit. Corpsman.”
When he reached the top of the hill, Mack was greeted by a dystopian wasteland. More than a dozen houses were burning, and several dozen cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs were nothing more than charred wrecks. Bodies were strewn everywhere.
Pushing past the initial shocked reaction, Sergeant Mack spotted some militiamen shooting at his Marines from deeper into the housing development. Small clusters of Marines were advancing cautiously from one covered position to another, returning fire.
Mack was horrified as he realized that this was a civilian community that was being destroyed. This isn’t what I signed up for. He had no desire to devastate an American neighborhood at all—but he also didn’t see any way around it.
Just then, Mack heard the familiar engine sounds of an LAV and looked down toward the incoming noise. He watched as several of the vehicles crashed through the front gate of the housing community, then made their way up to the top of the hill, where the rest of his platoon was.
A new sound that didn’t fit in with all the clamor of war reached Mack’s ears. “Please help!” a woman screamed. “Someone, please help us. Don’t shoot! My daughter’s been shot.”
Mack saw a woman carrying a small child in her arms, running toward him, tears in her eyes. He rushed forward and shouted, “Corpsman!”
A couple of other Marines joined him as they raced to the woman and her daughter. Her little girl was probably only four or five years old, and she cried uncontrollably, barely able to catch her breath. Blood streamed down from her left leg. Mack found an apparent gunshot wound. Her face looked pale and clammy, probably from loss of blood and shock.
“We need to apply pressure to the wound,” Mack instructed.
Just then, their squad’s corpsman arrived and took charge of the little girl’s care. Mack and the other Marines who’d come to assist took a knee, creating a small circle to protect them.
“Ma’am, I need you to put the girl down so I can start working on her.” The Navy corpsman pulled his aid bag off his back and pulled out a pair of scissors. “I just need to cut the pants a bit so I can see your leg better, OK?” he explained to the little girl.
She sobbed but nodded.
As the corpsman continued working on her, several bullets ricocheted off the asphalt near them. The little girl screamed, and the mother started crying hysterically.
“Take those bastards out!” yelled Mack to a couple of the Marines nearby.
One of the Marines leveled his M240 Golf at the house where the shots had just come from and opened fire. The mother and daughter screamed some more as they heard the roar of the machine gun open up next to them. Hot spent shell casings landed on the ground around the mother’s feet.
Mack and another Marine ran toward the house while the machine gunner provided them with some covering fire. When the two of them got to the wall of the house, the machine gunner stopped shooting but stayed ready to provide covering fire for their medic.
Now that Mack had made it to the wall of the house, he motioned for his comrade to get one of his grenades ready. The two of them moved toward two of the windows facing the street where their medic was working on the little girl.
Holding a hand up with his fingers out, Mack silently counted down as he pulled one finger down after another. He then pulled the pin on his grenade just as his comrade did. Then the two of them held the grenades for two seconds, cooking down the fuse just a bit before they lobbed them inside.
Boom! Boom!
They heard a couple of curse words and at least two people moaning in pain. A third voice said something they couldn’t understand. Knowing the defenders were stunned and hurt, Mack motioned for his squadmate to breach the door with him.
In one swift movement, Mack kicked the door hard right at the handle, breaking it open. The door swung inward, and he rushed in with his rifle at the ready. He swept the room to the left while his partner swept to the right. Mack saw one defender lying on the ground, attempting to stop the bleeding from a wound in his leg. Without thinking, Mack fired several rounds into the man’s chest, killing him.
“Moving right!” shouted the Marine as he moved to clear the next room. Sergeant Mack heard a couple of shots before the man called, “Room cleared!”
As he advanced down the hallway, Mack heard some voices coming from one of the other rooms, so he paused. He grabbed another one of his grenades from his IBA and pulled the pin. He let it cook down for two seconds before he tossed it in the room where he’d heard the voices.
“Grenade! Get down!” Mack heard.
Boom!
Several pieces of shrapnel blew through the wall, and Mack winced as he felt something bite at his left arm. Brushing the pain off, Mack whirled around the corner and saw the two defenders. Both of them were dead, ripped apart by the grenade.
“You all right, Staff Sergeant?” his partner asked.
“Yeah. I think I got clipped by a piece of my own grenade.”
“I’m going to clear the next room.”
It took them a couple of minutes to finish clearing the house. With no more defenders hiding inside, they moved back outside and headed back to where the medic had been working on the little girl. They didn’t find them there.
“Where’s Doc?” Sergeant Mack asked.
Lance Corporal Pyro explained, “He took the girl and her mother over to the casualty collection point over there.” Pyro pointed to a section further down the road where it looked like two of their corpsmen were treating several wounded Marines along with a few wounded civilians.
Looking around, Mack saw most of his squad was engaging another house further up the block. Seeing that the little girl had been taken care of and this house had been cleared of threats, he had the two other Marines follow him and catch back up with their squad.
Bang, bang, bang!
Sergeant Mack breathed a sigh of relief. One of the LAVs had finally made it to their location and began using its 25mm cannon to tear into another house that had been turned into a bunker.
Soon, a second, third, and fourth LAV had arrived in the neighborhood. Behind them was a JLTV that had a bright red cross painted on the sides. As he continued forward, Mack glanced back to see the tactical ambulance make its way over to the casualty collection point where they’d be able to load up the wounded.
The fight in this area went on for another hour as the last holdouts were found and killed. By midmorning, the battle for San Clemente was over. A battalion of Marines continued to stay in the area to keep the highway open and clear it of any remnants still wanting to fight, while the rest of the RCT continued to the ports.
*******
The following day, Colonel Griffin drove up to the Auld Dubliner in Long Beach. It was a nice little Irish pub near the port facility that the Marines had taken over. Attached to the antenna of his JLTV was a white pillowcase they were using for a flag. He wanted to make sure his vehicle didn’t get lit up by some trigger-happy jarheads on his way to meet with their general.
Pulling up to the Irish pub, Griffin spotted a couple of LAVs and Amtracks, along with probably thirty or so
Marines that he assumed were either pulling guard duty or eating at the pub. It was odd seeing so many military vehicles inside such a large city—it reminded him of Iraq or Afghanistan, not America.
There wasn’t any official polling out to gauge the mood of the people of Long Beach, but Colonel Griffin’s impression was that many of the residents were glad to be rid of their CDF overlords. Still, others were definitely concerned that fighting could break out at any moment, especially if the California Army National Guard opted to fight.
Last night, a few gangbangers had thought they could take advantage of the situation and tried to ambush a squad of Marines a few blocks away. Needless to say, that didn’t go very well for them. Since that incident occurred, the Marines had pretty much been shooting anyone on sight that looked like a gang member or who made an overt threat toward them. It might have been overkill, but they were tired of being shot at, and with much of the police force giving the Marines a wide berth, there weren’t a lot of options left to dealing with threats like that.
As Colonel Griffin’s vehicle pulled up to the restaurant, a young Marine guided them to a spot where they wanted them to park. For the most part, they kept their rifles at the low ready, which made him feel a bit better about the meeting.
When he exited his JLTV, a couple of Marines walked toward him and saluted. Griffin returned the salute.
“I’m supposed to meet with General Shell,” he announced.
The Marines nodded and gestured for him to follow them inside. When Griffin entered the pub, he spotted the general sitting at a long table with a handful of other officers and NCOs. He also saw a number of maps spread out on the table.
General Shell stood when he saw him, and the two shook hands. Shell took a moment to introduce some of the officers at the table, and then they sat down. They placed an order for some fish ’n chips before the two military commanders got down to business.
“Well, Colonel, you held up your end of the bargain. My men stayed clear of your guys, and we took out that militia force for you. I can’t be certain that we killed that wannabe general, but we certainly took his force out. Are your men ready to cross back over to our side and come back into the fold?”
Griffin had talked with his officers and senior NCOs the night before. The consensus was that they should take the Marines up on their offer. His men told him they felt caught between a rock and a hard place. While they owed their loyalty to the state and their community, they also knew in their hearts and heads that breaking away from the federal government and joining this UN peacekeeping force was tearing the country and the state apart. Everything about it just felt wrong. His officers and NCOs felt like they’d just been given a golden opportunity to receive mercy for a crime they didn’t want to commit, and they were determined to take the pardon.
“General Shell, my men and I have come to the conclusion that while we have a responsibility to our governor, we also have a responsibility to the Constitution. I can’t guarantee that all my men will switch back over, but what I can tell you is that all my battalion and company-grade officers and commanders, along with my senior NCOs, will. We’ll do our best to make sure our men comply with our orders as well.”
The Marines at the table were visibly relieved by the news. Colonel Griffin related to those sentiments. This whole business of fighting your countrymen was sickening.
Chapter 8
Tactical Surprise
February 5, 2021
940 Miles West of Hawaii
Johnston Atoll
Colonel Peng couldn’t believe their luck when he heard the heliborne troops had landed on the island and found it deserted. He had thought the Americans would have reinforced the atoll, or at least placed a contingent of Marines there to prevent them from seizing it. Then again, the Americans had wholly underestimated them up to this point, so why should this be any different?
Looking back at the Longhu Shan, Peng observed a couple of sailors acting as ground guides as the drivers got the Wanshan special vehicles off the Longhu. Each W2400 was a specially equipped launcher platform vehicle that could carry three CJ-10 long-range cruise missiles, very similar to the American HIMARS system. The Longhu had transported twenty of these vehicles, along with their crews, to the abandoned American base. The other transport ship, the Dabie Shan, was carrying three additional missile pods per truck. All told, they had 120 CJ-10s for their upcoming mission.
It took the soldiers and sailors close to an hour to get the vehicles and the additional missile pods offloaded from the two transport ships. Once that task had been completed, the launchers were driven over to the east side of the abandoned runway, where they’d be set up and made ready to fire.
Peng and his crew were on a strict timeline. They had to have all twenty vehicles ready to fire their missiles at precisely 2100 hours, which only gave them about nine hours before the final attack on the remaining American forces in the Pacific would start.
*******
Clear Air Force Station, Alaska
Despite the cold-weather gear and tight-fitting body armor he was wearing, Senior Airman Dutt was freezing. After spending ten minutes letting the two JLTVs’ engines run, he couldn’t wait to get back inside the building. Every few hours, one of the guys from the QRF had to go outside and turn the trucks on to let the engines run. Otherwise, they couldn’t be sure they’d crank in the cold when they needed them. Dutt had drawn the short stick.
While Airman Dutt loved being in the Air Force, it was moments like this he hated being stationed in Alaska. When he’d initially received his orders for Eielson AFB, he had been excited. Growing up in Montana, Dutt was an avid hunter and fisherman, so an assignment to Alaska had sounded like a dream. Then he’d arrived at the 354th Security Forces Squadron and had summarily been assigned to Clear Air Force Station, nearly two hours away.
Fortunately, they had a rotation system in place, so he only had to serve a week at the remote radar station once every three weeks. Still, he hated being at the secluded base. With the war going on, Dutt wanted to be down where the action was. A number of his friends in other squadrons had already regaled him with their combat experiences.
Senior Airman Dutt had also learned that several of his classmates from technical school had been killed at Beale Air Force Base in California at the outset of the war. It angered him that here he was, itching to get into the fight, and he was stuck pulling guard duty on a remote radar base in the middle of nowhere Alaska, far from the fighting.
As Dutt reached the door that would lead him back into the warmth of their security detachment’s QRF office, he entered his six-digit code. The green light came on, letting him know the magnetic lock had turned off. Once he heard the click, he pulled the handle and walked in. The heat from inside slapped him in the face, and he immediately felt better.
“Hey, close the door, man. You’re letting the cold in.”
Grumbling to himself, Dutt closed the door and stomped his feet a couple of times to get the snow off of them. He placed his rifle on the gun rack and then began the process of unwrapping himself from all the cold-weather gear and body armor.
He looked over at his counterparts. Two of them were taking a catnap in a chair, two more were playing something on the Xbox, and the other three were watching the computer monitors that displayed several different camera images from around the base.
Just as Dutt finished stripping off his cold-weather gear, one of the perimeter sensors detected something. The red flashing light hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room turned on and spun rapidly in a circle.
“What the hell is that?” Dutt asked.
“Crap! Those look like snowmobiles,” his technical sergeant remarked. “Hit the alarm and alert the QRF at Eielson that we have a perimeter breach!”
“Everyone, suit up and grab your weapons,” ordered one of the staff sergeants, who quickly threw on his winter jacket. “Someone call Bravo Team and tell them to head over to Alpha’s position. Tell th
em they are cleared to engage those hostiles.” The sergeant moved faster than Dutt had ever seen the portly man move.
“Miller, you stay here and monitor what’s going on,” called out the section chief. “You’re our eyes right now, so stay on the radio and let us know what you see. The rest of you follow me out to the JLTVs and let’s get going. I want those M240s manned, so don’t forget your goggles and gloves. Let’s go!” As soon as he finished issuing orders, he hit the green lock release button on the side of the wall.
The sergeant pushed the door open. Before any of them knew what had happened, an object slammed into his chest plate, throwing him backward into several of the airmen. He knocked several of them over, like a bowling ball hitting a stack of pins.
Dutt had been standing to the side of the door, so he hadn’t fallen, but as he looked down at his section chief, his eyes went wide. It was an RPG rocket that had hit him. For whatever reason, the rocket hadn’t gone off. Whoever was out there was real trouble.
Flicking his selector switch from safe to semi, Dutt dropped down and took a knee. He arched his body over to peer outside the door. Several dark-clad figures were practically on top of them, their rifles at the ready.
One of the attackers fired several rounds that flew over Dutt’s head and thudded into the chest of one of his friends. Dutt immediately fired several shots into the men charging toward him. His first shot hit the lead soldier right in the face, killing the man instantly. His second and third shots hit the man just to his right, clipping his neck just above his body armor.
Dutt swept his rifle slightly to the left. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when his world went black.
*******
Tan Zheng fired several rounds from his QBZ-95 into the face of the American soldier who had just killed his two comrades. When the man dropped, Tan kept charging forward, shooting his rifle at the remaining Americans in his line of sight.
As he crossed over the threshold, he could see the looks of surprise and terror on the faces of the two soldiers as they reached for their sidearms. Tan fired several bullets into each of them—two shots to the chest and one to the head, just like he had done a thousand times in training.
