2024

by H. Berkeley Rourke

  We couldn't know what was happening in Alberton but it was much the same as Arlee only on a larger scale. Our battle continued for a while longer and the machine guns ran out of ammo. We had explosive devices on them so that when the NSI found them, and they did, the guns would be disabled from firing ever again and maybe a couple more would be killed or wounded.

  Wounds are just about the best to inflict in this kind of warfare. We had a few punji stakes set around the roadsides when the attacks first started. Some of them took a toll. The NSI people hurt by them would not fight again for a time. And some of those might die since we had made a paste from rat poisoning and put it on the sharp points of the stakes. These folks were getting the full bore guerilla war treatment. We would see how they withstood it.

  These first games we were playing were just a start. We had two marksmen in strategic locations. As the NSI people dismounted and began shooting at nothing our snipers began picking them off, looking primarily for officers and non-coms, especially non-coms since we figured they would be the real leaders of this outfit. I don't know how many they took with their sniper's rifles but it was quite a number. After the second machine gun attack there were quite a number of bodies on the tarmac by the cars of the NSI.

  And so it went in Arlee and Alberton as well. We had layered in quite a few IED's. As the NSI advanced toward or into the towns they paid, they paid for every inch of road they took. And they paid with wounded and killed at every turn of the road, at every slope of the road, at every flat spot. The second IED attack was on one of the armored vehicles that had taken the lead at that point and had separated itself from the column by a good two or three hundred yards.

  As it came forward around what was essentially a blind corner for its occupants we let loose an IED that consisted of about ten pounds of explosives packed under about five pounds of steel pieces of one kind or another. Those in the vehicle had little chance. It was destroyed as they were, without a fight, without us having to do anything but for pressing a button and unleashing hell. A large number of their troops, at least thirty or forty of them came running up toward the armored vehicle to see what had happened. We cut down about half of them with Claymores that had been placed in the trees alongside the road and were in downward or enfilade fire on the men that came under them. Many of those that were not killed by the claymores were wounded.

  I guess they must have thought they would take some casualties because they brought a number of ambulances with them. Those had filled up with casualties in the first two attacks. These new casualties were loaded onto stretchers and thrown in the back of large trucks that disgorged more men to throw into what they thought was a firefight. It was not a fair fight at all. We got both their armored vehicles. One of our snipers was also great with a shoulder mounted SAM and he shot down the helicopter. The two snipers, while the NSI people were firing blindly at trees, were shooting more and more of their troops. Dad and I joined in that effort as well while being mindful it was our lot to operate the IED's primarily. Did I say that they brought two or three hundred people in that column? By the time they had reached the first exit into Arlee off the highway more than half of those people were wounded or dead and they had lost their helicopter and one of their two armored vehicles.

  Some of the force of the NSI started down the ramp into Arlee. There were about twenty or thirty of them and it seemed likely they were going to make an aggressive move to find out who they were fighting. The first problem for them came in an additional set of claymores that we had placed on the ramps, all four of them, in anticipation of that move. The first set of claymores took out several and wounded more of the first twenty or so. More came along. The second set of claymores took out more. I guess they thought once the first set had fired that was all there were. They were wrong again.

  Once more they were stalled, once more they were firing into the woods at nothing, and once more the snipers were picking off targets randomly. Another bunch of them died or were wounded there at what we called the off ramp battle. Again the same sort of thing was going on in Alberton. But in Alberton the force that came was much larger.

  Later, when Allan and I talked about the results of these battles he said there must have been at least five hundred of the NSI people coming down the hills into Alberton. They received the same kind of treatment those in Arlee were getting, none too friendly in general.

  The next group of the NSI people that decided they were going to move into the town of Arlee decided that they would go down the side of the highway rather than down the off ramp. It was a smart move for them really. But we had anticipated that might occur and had placed some surprises there as well. They were called mines. The mine field was laid along the sides of the road for more than a mile actually and it consisted of the oldest mine used in the world though in the newer plastic version which our marine friends brought along with them. It is generally called a “Bouncing Betty.”

  The principal of operation of this mine is that it is tripped by a prong being stepped on or a trip wire, something along those lines. The mine then sends an explosive charge upward, which explodes at about six to ten feet above ground with a downward and outward effect. The “killing ground” for this mine is said to be about twenty to thirty meters in all directions. Of course we had put a lot of them out there, so when they started to be tripped, and then we set a few off remotely, there were more casualties amongst the NSI.

  But a few of them made it into the buildings that were right next to the highway. We had thought they might try to do that also. We had mined or placed explosives in a number of those buildings. As they went into them we blew them up. Those that survived ran back up toward the highway with more mines taking another toll.

  Apparently the few leaders that they had left, and that was damn few I am sure, decided that they needed to make a run for it out of town toward Alberton. So they all jumped back into their vehicles and away they went past the first of the destroyed armored vehicles, roaring up the street with the second armored vehicle leading the way and two cars hot on its heels. The next IED we set off was the equivalent of about one hundred pounds of explosive. All three of the vehicles were destroyed and all their occupants were killed. The second of the armored vehicles was the Bradley type fighting vehicle. It was surprisingly badly damaged by the explosion which lifted it into the air and turned it on its side. That was it. They were done for that day. The rest of them turned tail and ran like hell as fast as they could get by the destroyed bridge the hell out of Arlee and back toward the mountains of the Couer d' Alene forest. We didn't really care how far they went as long it was out of sight so we could begin the clean up of this battle zone.

  Most of these NSI people were equipped with the M-16 that could fire bursts of three, single shots or full automatic. Some had SAW's, some few were carrying long rifles the equivalent of a Remington 700 if not that same model. Most carried pistols and most of those were nine millimeter Beretta's or Glocks. We got one of the cars that had not been too badly damaged in all the fighting organized and started loading it with arms and ammunition. We took three Tow missiles from the Bradley and we found a few shoulder mounted SAMS in the cars that were littered with dead.

  This was a massive killing zone. There were at least fifty to a hundred dead or dying in various poses around the road. Our snipers had really taken a toll. Many of the dead had one bullet hole in the head and that was their only injury. We loaded the dead into a large truck that was full of dead already. They were taken to the Arlee cemetery and buried in a common grave dug by a Caterpillar tractor.

  The cars were pushed or driven off the road into the town, parked in various lots there and disabled after the gasoline was siphoned off into one of many drums we had stored in the town for that purpose. We didn't want this fight but whatever we could gain from it in weapons and/or the materials of war, gasoline for example, we would use.

  We could hear the explosions from far away that meant the battle in Alberton was
still going on. It was getting late in the day when we finished our tasks and headed down the road to the junction that would take us to or guys in the Alberton area. We, the four of us who had wreaked such havoc in Arlee, met up with our buddies outside Alberton with some additional weapons, including some small sixty millimeter mortars, and more SAM's and Tow's. In addition we had confiscated several more fifty caliber machine guns that might come in handy along with a lot of ammunition for those guns.

  When we got to our guys, Allan and six others, he gave us a report on the day's work. He told us they shot down the Apache helicopter at first light, got the first of two light tanks that turned out to be Bradley fighting vehicles, right away. After that the planned harassment devices they had installed, claymores, mines, remote mounted machine guns all had taken a toll. Allan estimated there were over five hundred in the initial push by the NSI forces. He thought that through the day they had killed or wounded at least twenty percent of that force. He too had snipers that shot their people while the NSI guys were firing off into the forest in every direction imaginable.

  Allan said to me “A lot of their people are bottled up at the airport in pretty much the same places we attacked previously. We are too far away for their mortars or so it seems, but we want to go closer if we can. Do you think you and your guys can go closer and cause some havoc up there in the night?” I nodded.

  I looked at my dad and the other two with a question mark in my eyes. All they said, almost in one voice was “Recon.” We left and headed into the woods. We were back in our element, back in the “jungle” as it were, back where we were a lot better than anything the enemy had. We heard the first outposts within minutes. We killed them all within minutes later. The second layer of outposts were closer to the body of their force. We set up to take some of them out. We picked targets, used our bows and killed four of them almost exactly at the same time. Some of their buddies popped up to look and see where the attack was coming from. They died much as did their buddies.

  We took off as quickly as we could expecting a mortar barrage to occur with parachute flares as the basis to try and discover where we were. It came just as we expected it would.

  By the time that happened we were on the opposite side of the road finding another set of outposts to raid. We took off another sizable number of their people in about two hours that evening, then worked our way back to Allan. From there the four of us went back to dad's place to get some rest before going back into Arlee in the early morning hours. We expected the remainder of the forces that had tried to come through there that day to come back again the next day. They didn't disappoint us.

  We didn't know how many they would bring again but it was about the same number as the previous day. This time they came much more cautiously though and without helicopters. Either they had lost all their helicopters or decided to use them for other purposes that were less dangerous.

  The troops this time were walking in the forest. Again we had anticipated that might occur and in several places had set up mines and claymores in the forest on both sides of the road. Those items played havoc again with these militiamen. We killed a lot of their trained leadership the day before. This time we saw much rawer, less capable leadership, with its fruits being the loss of many more men. But this time we were a little more personally involved.

  There were eight of us this time. Two of us were in the woods with machine guns which we had camouflaged and with which we once again devastated the troops of the NSI. They didn't understand shoot and move, shoot and move. We would fire around fifty rounds and then get out of dodge. And we were camouflaged and blended with the forest so they had a hard time seeing us. We had pre-prepared firing parapets that protected us from return fire while we rained down enfilade on them. Once again they had no response or their response was ineffectual and scattered. Finally they got out of the woods and remained in the stance of firing in all directions, blindly wasting ammunition while this time four snipers took them out in wholesale numbers.

  Again it was a slaughter. And the numbers of troops whose limbs were damaged or blown off were larger than the day before. The armored vehicles, as they came out of the Couer d' Alene woods and into the clearing of what was Arlee were blown to pieces by both IED's and TOW missiles. The firefight lasted less time than the day before. Its intensity was lesser than the day before. The NSI was less avid this day about the battle.

  This time though we watched them and harassed them with sniper fire as they retreated, causing more casualties. I think they went back at least twenty-five miles that day. We wondered how long they could withstand the losses that they were suffering in this fight and the loss of weapons and ammunition as well as armored equipment and transport. We concluded they were not done yet and we were right.

  The clean-up took longer than the firefight by far. We salvaged two more fifty caliber machine guns from Bradley fighting vehicles along with several more Tow missiles and this time the NSI left a truck full of eighty-one millimeter mortars and ammunition for our future usage. We buried those who had died, sent those who had not to the hospital in Missoula where they would be interned after their recovery from their wounds. We gathered as much ammunition as we could and weapons and took them back to Missoula.

  We went to the area where fighting had been renewed with the NSI outside Alberton and found our contingent of marines basking in a restful day after an early morning attack had been repulsed. Allan and I began to talk with dad about taking the offensive against the NSI people on the Arlee side. They were so schizo that day and fearful of the IED's and mines that we felt it might be useful to show them an offensive capability. We decided that four of us, two of our buddies from San Diego and Allan and I would go up the road through the woods and see what we could accomplish. We drove part of the way and then did our woods routine. We sent two of us on either side of the road. Right away we took out two forward observation points and a roadblock which was occupied by kids who were less than fifteen. I went into their ring of fire and faced them up, four of them, with a buddy giving me cover.

  One tried for a weapon. He died. The others began to cry and beg for their lives. I decided that rather than kill them I would break an arm or a leg on each of them.

  I did that and loaded them screaming in pain with their dead buddy into a pick-up truck and told them “If you want to live head for Seattle. Do not come back here again or you will most certainly be buried in Arlee before you reach the end of high school. You are facing men here. We will kill you. Look at your dead friend and know that to be true.”

  Hell I didn't want to kill kids. But I also didn't want to live under some dictator who would confiscate everything from me and then kill me, rape and murder my family as he had promised in the flyers. Why these kids got involved I cannot know. If they went back to Couer d' Alene their boss would kill them and if they came here again we would kill them. It made for quite a quandary for them.

  We wondered if we hung around there for a little while what would happen. We set up a defensive perimeter complete with claymores and scattered a few mines with trip wires in the tree line areas next to the roadblock. We had already policed up all the ammo, guns and useful tools we could find amongst their dead.

  A half an hour or so after the three boys left three pick-up trucks came roaring down the road firing out of their truck beds which were filled with men and firing a fifty caliber machine gun from each of the truck tops that was mounted on some kind of circular pod that allowed it to be traversed. They shot the hell out of the trees.

  There were five of them in each truck. Four from each dismounted and began to look around. They were badly bunched up. Most of them fell when the first claymore went off. Two of the trucks were riddled with balls from the claymore and sat there smoking with a dead driver at the wheel.

  To their credit three of the guys that were not wounded tried to get back to the fifties. They didn't make it. None of them made it. We policed up their ammo, dismounted the fifti
es quickly planted remote detonation grenades in each of the trucks and took off. We set off the grenades when we were about half a mile away and with satisfaction heard three separate explosions.

  So we had made another small dent in their force and we had given them a reason to fear that we might attack rather than just defend. Maybe it would suffice for a day or two, or not?

  It did not. The next morning they came again only this time there was a force of about a hundred men that drove into the forest as far as they could and dismounted and moved through the forest from there to Arlee. Dad and I and our two assigned troops, Dan Marble and Jim Wooden, awakened early as usual, had breakfast, prepped for the day, armed and went into the tunnels for recon.

  It didn't take long to see that we had trouble. The troops didn't appear to know where they were going but there were too many of them for just the four of us to kill or wound badly enough that they would be out of the fight.

  Allan called on the sat phone about the time we regrouped at the house to discuss the situation. He said that a big push was being made out of Alberton toward Missoula and wanted to know what was going on with us. When I told him he said “Oh shit, these guys are better than I thought they were. They are trying to flank us from the direction of your place, put us in a pincers. Okay, time to put some of the reserves into the fight. I am going to bring up ten guys to set up a trap for the ones who are coming your way near Charley and Berneice's place. Let em come. We will hit them there hard, hard enough to drive them back to you. By that time you should have a trap ready to spring on them as well.”

  We talked about how to get all this done for a few minutes and then it was time for the four of us to set our trap for the remainder that would come back our way after they got hit at Charley's place. We had let them go on by without making any offensive moves. They didn't see our claymores or our spider holes from which we could set up a grazing fire situation against them in some places and from four directions at once. Soon we heard explosions and firing. And then it was quiet again for a time, more explosions and firing and a few stragglers that were wounded started to come back toward us. We took them down individually and quietly since the larger body of troops was behind them. The larger body had been nearly cut in half. They were not running but they were moving quickly away from the battle they had just faced. They were badly bunched up as usual. The first of the claymores took five by itself. We set off at least a dozen claymores. Most of the remainder of the force that had passed us by that morning was destroyed by that power. But those who remained alive did not stay that way for long.