The Plan and other short stories

by Stephen Brandon

  * * *

  Three hours later General Sherzai returned with President Khwaja and they handed General Black a hastily put together diplomatic book. The gold inlay looked good, but the papers within were what General Black really looked at. First was a request from the Afghanistan Military Supreme Command requesting assistance to repel the invasion from Iran. General Sherzai would be in command with General Black as second in command. Next was authorization for the allied military forces to draw necessary supplies while traveling to Herat by way of Dilaram and then to the border of Afghanistan in support of the Afghanistan Army to repel the Iranian invasion force. The third page was a military pardon for all soldiers participating in the military operation to repel the Iranian invasion. The fourth page was a letter from the President praising the professionalism of General Black and proficiency of his soldiers in assisting in protecting Afghanistan from the invasion. Page five was a letter of permission for the US Air Force to overfly Afghanistan in support of General Sherzai's military expedition to repel the Iranian invasion. Page six was a copy of a letter to the Pakistani President chastising him as not being a good Muslim by not allowing the allied military forces to exit Afghanistan in a timely manner and also inviting the pagan Chinese to invade his country. Page seven was copy of a letter to the Chinese President informing him that Iran had invaded his country without provocation. He would repel that invasion with all military forces at his command and he expected China to stay out of the illegal military operation by the illegitimate government of Iran.

  ~ ToCn ~

  NEW - 2

  General Black informed General Sherzai that his military forces would be ready to move out at noon Tuesday. He thanked the President and would report his readiness status in the morning.

  General Black returned to his headquarter and had commo transmit all the pages to the Joint Chiefs. Then he had copies made of all pages and passed them out to the allied commanders as he briefed them. They had 16 hours to brief and get their personnel ready to move. The order of march will be light armor with infantry in trucks mixed in. One heavy armor company will be next, then fuel and maintenance vehicles. Remaining heavy armor and artillery will follow up mixed with support vehicles. Medical, supply, and food service personnel will be last. Air support personnel will go where they are needed.

  Upon contact the armor will disperse and the infantry will form a scrimmage line. Air support will be called in for any armor units or infantry units larger than company size. Smaller than company size units will be exterminated at their location prior to moving up. We do not have the facilities to take prisoners. All light armor will receive a disk to broadcast upon any contact. Basically it will tell the invaders that if they drop their weapons and run back to Iran, we will not kill them. If they want to die, they can stand up and fire at us. We are taking no prisoners. Every soldier must understand this. We are taking no prisoners.

  * * *

  Now, everyone except the senior commanders is dismissed.

  As everyone below the grade of full colonel filed out General Black informed them of the senior chain of command from him down to division level. Also by agreement General Sherzai is the figure head overall commander and he knows what I expect of him.

  Now the unofficial and not to be passed down the chain of command portion of the battle plan.

  We will exterminate every Iranian soldier in Afghanistan. We will then cross the border into Iran. General Sherzai then will announce that he has repelled the invasion and chased us out of Afghanistan just west of Herat. At that time I will broadcast in the clear to all commands that we will move south to the Arabian Sea to be picked up by the American fleet. Commo insures me that this broadcast will have enough power to be heard in Tehran by anyone with a radio. Also included in this broadcast is the route we will follow, Toyyebat, Quyen, Sadeeh, Birjand, Sarbisheh, etcetera down the main highway to Chahahar on the coast. You should realize what this means. It is a taunt to the Iranian government. I expect that they will throw everything they have at us. That is what we want. We will be resupplied by air. If the Chinese move across the border from Pakistan into Iran we will turn west and continue to rain a trail of devastation on any resistance to our movement. The Joint Chiefs personally hope we are forced to the west so we can take out a few of their nuclear facilities that are in the central mountains. The Air Force will be bombing from high altitude to support us. We will have ground support from the battle fleets in the Arabian Sea. Every unit must keep its position updated to command at all times to prevent friendly casualties. This you must emphasize to every officer starting tomorrow when we move out.

  If chemical weapons are used against our soldiers the reply is with battlefield nukes. If nukes are used against us we are to dig in as fast as we can because aircraft size nukes are the reply. If strategic nukes are used against us the reply is ICBMs on Tehran, Esfahan, and Kerman. By then we'll probably be dead.

  The Chinese, Russians, Indian, and Israeli governments will get this message after we cross the border with the caveat that we are evacuating our military force from Afghanistan through Iran and expect only limited resistance from the Iranians.

  The Arab governments in the region will be warned that we are evacuating our military forces from Afghanistan and they would be wise to keep clear because it is not yet time for the 13th Imam to appear.

  * * *

  Then he asked each commander if he understood the evacuation route and if he had any qualms or questions.

  A couple of them had qualms about the loss of life they would be responsible for, but none were worried that their soldiers would disobey orders once the operation was started.

  ~ ToCn ~

  NEW - 3

  At 1045 hours General Sherzai called and informed General Black that the streets of Kandahar had been cleared. The only resistance the allied troops might run into would be terrorist if they had a suicide wish. The regular army was ordered 100 meters back from the main route and all civilians were evacuated from the route. Move out time is 1100 hours.

  * * *

  The first incident was 30 miles up the highway. A suicide truck tried to ram a troop truck. The burning wreckage rolled into the blocking APC with minimal damage. Two APCs requested ammunition resupply. The column was stopped for less than a minute and everyone behind the incident saw the results. The 18 mile long convoy continued to move at at a respectable 45 miles per hour.

  20 miles from Dilaram the lead elements ran into the first enemy unit. The light armor, APCs, and infantry deployed. The speakers on the APCs blared the warning to the Iranians. Then they opened fire. Several of the Iranian tanks blew and they could see enemy soldiers digging in. Then the first jets arrived. Most of the soldiers had never seen napalm. The smell was terrible, but the battle was over in a matter of minutes.

  General Sherzai observed the battle from his helicopter and called General Black. I think this is a good place to spend the night because my scouts reported that a few survivors were headed back up the road. Hopefully their reports will throw fear into the occupation troops in Dilaram. Even if it doesn't, I have scouts going into town to tell the civilians to leave tonight.

  * * *

  Hot food had been served by the mess personnel starting at 0400. At 0600 the first vehicles cranked up their engines. By 0615 the convoy was moving. 35 minutes later the first vehicle entered Dilaram. The second vehicle was fired upon. The troops in the truck deployed and started retreating as several APCs and light armored vehicles gave covering fire.

  General Black was called by General Sherzai and told to pull back another 100 meters. He was calling in the Afghan air force to start leveling the town. General Black should call for heavy bombers to complete the job. He had several elite light infantry companies on the other side to prevent any Iranian soldiers or equipment from escaping. His scouts had already eliminated 6 Iranian outpost that were place
d to observe the town.

  Twenty minutes later the first jets arrived and started strafing and dropping bombs. That only lasted about thirty minutes and then they all headed east. Then shit started falling out of the sky. The bombers were so high that all that could be see was the contrails. After half an hour they stopped coming and low level jets screamed in from the south. After two sweeps not a wall was standing. General Black ordered the engineers and heavy armor forward to clear a path through what was left for the convoy.

  General Sherzai called General Black and informed him that he could tell his commanders that the outpost northwest of Dilaram was evacuating after sending messages that Dilaram had been utterly destroyed with the loss of 5 companies of soldiers.

  Friendly casualties were 2 killed and 6 wounded.

  * * *

  We spent the night at the road intersection to Farah.

  The next morning half the convoy headed for Farah and the rest headed northwest on the main road to Herat.

  Two small ambushes later the main force reached the northern road south to Farah. General Sherzai called and requested that General Black hold position around that intersection to stop the Iranian units fleeing north from Farah. The first of them should be at the intersection in about an hour.

  Their tanks were no match for ours because we'd dug in and had all our fields of fire plotted. 16 tanks, 5 military trucks, and 20 civilian trucks destroyed in 18 minutes. General Sherzai reported that his scouts reported 9 survivors fleeing south on foot. They would be shadowed back to Farah and our convoy was holding an hour east while the civilians fled town. 20,000 civilians took awhile to evacuate into the hills. If we could insert some heavily armed infantry just north of Juwain there was a steep pass that would be a good place for an ambush. His scouts would mark the landing zone and offer support, but he only had six men at that location. There were an estimated 400 Iranians headed south in stolen vehicles.

  * * *

  The British Commander stormed into General Blacks APC when he heard about the preparations. His first words were, “Are you going to cheat my men out of this mission. I have 60 ready to go with everything they can carry and they are ready to head north or south from the ambush point.”

  General Black looked at him and then picked up his phone. Tell the lieutenant to stand down, the Brits insist on going to the party. Departure time is still in 20 minutes.

  40 British soldiers boarded the helicopters. The ambush was a classic. Unfortunately the Iranians were so spread out that only 3/4 of the vehicles were in the kill zone so they let the first on go through. When the firing started it must have unnerved the driver because he drove his truck off the cliff. The last 4 trucks were abandoned before they even stopped rolling and weapons were dropped everywhere.

  The Afghan scout sergeant had his men collect the weapons and ammunition. The British lieutenant gave him a snappy salute and asked if he wanted a ride back to Farah. He declined and announced that his mission was to head south to Juwain and put a little terror in any Iranians that were in town. General Sherzai had a company of soldiers coming up from Shand and they'd meet up with them.

  When the Brits approached Farah from the south all they heard was the rumble of bombs falling so the lieutenant had his men pull off the road and set up another ambush. He reported his position and was told to pull further off the road because it was going to be a kill zone for jets that needed to expend unused ammunition before heading back to their carriers. He then reported the Afghan scouts position and the fact that a company of Afghan soldiers were headed north to Juwain from Shand. The air controller thanked him and told him to have his men dig in deep. There might be some napalm left also.

  Friday morning Farah was considered liberated and the Brits had a hot meal for breakfast after they marched into town singing at the top of their lungs.

  By 1000 hours both convoys were headed north toward Herat. General Sherzai asked General Black if he wanted to make enough noise to let the Iranians know they were coming.

  General Black just asked him to have his scouts start telling the civilians to get out of town. That alone would be enough to warn the invasion force. He was going to ask that the airport be leveled in the morning to prevent any high ranking Iranian officers from taking the easy way out.

  Then General Sherzai admitted that he only had two scouts that made it to Herat. Then managed to down four Iranian transport planes with RPGs before they stopped reporting. He had no other scouts anywhere near Herat.

  General Black then called the fleet and requested the airport at Herat be destroyed at first light and a no-fly zone placed around the city at the earliest possible hour. Since his forces would be entering the city hot, he also requested that any target identified as military be bombed, starting in the south, to panic the civilian population into fleeing the city to the north and east.

  ~ ToCn ~

  NEW - 4

  Saturday morning just before dawn the first jets screamed overhead. They were better than any alarm clock it getting the troops up and moving. Just after noon the convoys started hitting landmines. Personnel type first and then antitank. That slowed down our advance. We only made 40 miles Saturday.

  * * *

  Sunday we started hitting more and more mines along with downed trees and other obstacles on the roads. We still managed 25 miles.

  * * *

  Monday we had clear roads until about noon. One Iranian suicide bomber managed to get close enough to a troop truck to wound several soldiers. After that anything suspicious near the road received several bullets or other ammunition. Anything that moved was declared a free fire target. One soldier commented over his radio that, “That suicide bomber exploding at a distance is an entertaining event.” A minute later one of the company commanders repeated the comment and told the unnamed soldier he shouldn't be so happy to see someone die, even the enemy. His chastisement was in the clear, on the division frequency, so everyone within thirty miles heard it.

  That afternoon we ran up on a patrol in the process of burying an antitank mine on the side of the road. It was the command detonation type. On the body of the officer in charge was found a map giving the locations of several more along with the detonation cell phone codes. We detonated them at a distance and made good time until dark when General Black ordered the convoys to set up in formations similar to the old circle the wagons.

  Heavy and light armor on the perimeter. Infantry next, support next, aircraft, and finally artillery in the center. Patrols were sent out from all circles to keep an eye out for night attacks.

  One patrol walked right through Gandalak and set up an outpost 2 miles north of the town. When SSG Smith reported their location, he requested reinforcements to set up an attack. He also informed the command that he had in his sights what appeared to be a reinforced infantry company and his boys were mapping their ambush and heavy weapons locations. He would pull back if the General wanted to use air support on them, however their perimeter was like a sieve and his boys already had half a dozen covered routs mapped into their midst.

  On the main road several patrols infiltrated the area around Gozareh. Someone on the Iranian side was getting smarter because the civilians were held in the center of town and battalion size forces were dug in east and west of the town.

  * * *

  At 0330 SSG Smith's men briefed the six lieutenants and NCOs that brought the attack force up to take out the ambush force. They were in position at first light and started their attack from the middle of the Iranian ambush out. By 0830 the senior lieutenant called reporting area clear and requested breakfast be brought up. His casualty report was two wounded and one broken leg. His commander informed him that he needed to sweep up the road and insure no other ambushes were set up. He'd get a hot lunch at the Herat airport. Light infantry would be sweeping the area half a mile on either side of the road following his unit at a
one hour distance.

  Just after 0900 the first bombs and napalm started dropping on the ambush sites east and west of Gozareh. Only one bomb landed in the town. Allied scouts infiltrated the town perimeter quickly eliminated the few soldiers left to keep the civilians prisoner.

  After he last wave of bombers supply transports came in escorted by jets and air dropped ammunition and rations. Among them were twenty soldiers that only wore a star on their left sleeves. Their officer reported directly to General Black and then they dispersed among the infantry.

  That evening the airport runway was filled in and more resupply transports landed with everything from toilet paper to pork BBQ. All the wounded and injured were evacuated. The strangest cargo that arrived was a dozen live pigs. More soldiers arrived that weren't identifiable by unit or country.

  * * *

  The main assembly point that we moved to was just west of Kohsan. The towns on that road had been evacuated. General Sherzai requested that we wait one day before crossing the border so his soldiers could at least get to Herat. General Black considered his request and then left a rear guard. Everyone else was to move out at first light on Wednesday. The first unit crossed the border just before noon. That evening the convoy was stretched out from Toyyebat to the main north south highway intersection.

  * * *

  Thursday morning I saw my first antiaircraft and missile defense vehicles. At 1500 every unit was reported across the border and some elements were headed south on the main highway. We met with no serious resistance until just north of Birjand. This unit had air support for about 15 minutes. When the heavy artillery started pounding them they ran. We followed all the way into Birjand and through to the other side. For a city that was supposed to have about a 100,000 population there were very few people.