by T J Reeder
For fifteen minutes it went on, and in that time hundreds of shells fell on the convoy. The command and control choppers of the enemy were buzzing like bees looking for the guns and for a way to gain control.
And with the gods smiling on us two of them crossed in the right place at the same time and one of the big guns opened up with a canister round. It was like duck hunting with a sledgehammer- the two choppers just disintegrated into small bits.
It almost looked like a lucky shell had blown up between them. It was a sight I doubt anybody had ever seen before, using a 105 as a shotgun to hunt choppers. Awesome!
The girls were pissed off at me because they didn’t get to fire the shot but I wasn’t impressed. I’ve seen them in every stage of ‘mad’ they have and this was nothing.
The big guns were already hooking up and rolling away. In minutes they were on the road and soon after undercover. The enemy never even sent their big gunships out looking for the guns. That told me they didn’t have enough to chance- too bad since we had people on the shoulder-fired stuff waiting to swat them out of the sky, but we would get the chance.
We watched from the hills and saw them slowly gain control of the mess. They weren’t even going to look for their wounded; they just rolled around the mess and once again headed for our home.
We had done some damage and next time wouldn’t be as easy, but we had other ways to get to them.
Up the road a ways was a place where the road curved a bit thru some steep hills, with a bridge at each end of the canyon.
We had already planted the charges and moved the Utah guard guns into place. The next day when the lead units of the enemy convoy rolled onto the second bridge it went up with a roar. The following vehicles were trying to stop and bunching up all the way back to the first bridge.
The convoy was stopped dead when the second bridge went up and almost immediately the shells started raining down on the jammed up vehicles before the first bridge. They were falling back as far as half a mile and were right on target.
When they were done with that section of the convoy they started raining death on the ones trapped between the bridges. It wasn’t nice to look at; it was simply war, slaughter, like running cattle thru the killing chute.
When the shells stopped, their convoy was a smoking ruin but there was still plenty of them left. Right on the tail of the last shell that fell came the hammer to really nail them; the Blackhawks swarmed in with rockets walking up the convoy from the tail end. They followed in trail, the first one fired his load and peeled out and the next one started in. This went on until the birds were dry and off to rearm.
The entire convoy was a smoking ruin, their command unit in complete disarray. We still had no idea where their leaders were but I had to assume they weren’t in the mess below.
By now the Texas Guard had set up their guns and along with the Utah units they started shelling the entire convoy from end to end, and the choppers returned to do their thing. When they were done we just sat in the hills and watched. Well, some watched, some watched thru rifle scopes, and when something moved they shot it. There wasn’t a lot of rifle fire.
Fire were raging, black smoke filled the air, it was an ugly sight, and nobody was talking. This had not been the big battle we had expected. It had turned into nothing more or less than swatting flies, or shooting fish in a barrel.
There’s never really much honor in a war. Individual people do honorable things, but overall it’s not something that is all so wonderful; yet we paint it as tho it is.
We had just killed many thousand human beings. Almost to a person they just wanted a bit of dirt and some water to grow their rice and veggies and to be left alone. Now they were dead in a land far away from their homes and not one damn thing to show for it all.
All because some fool sitting back in the homeland had dreams of glory, or driven by greed decided to try to take an entire country by force of arms and no real plan. And he or they sit, warm and snug and no doubt well fed while these poor bastards died and their loved ones will never know where or why.
Just the way it’s always been- the kings send the serfs to die for their dreams of glory. I wish for the power to find them and drag them screaming and kicking to this spot and set them on fire so their ashes can blow in the wind as their troops’ ashes will.
And then in the midst of all this black gloom comes word that the leaders of this mess have been spotted by our scouts. They were following several miles behind the convoy and had planned to use their few choppers to evacuate, but their choppers ran into some good ol’ boys with shoulder-fired rockets and lay smoldering where they fell.
The enemy command staff was pinned down by the scout unit and couldn’t move so we loaded up in our chopper and headed that way. We found Charley there with Col. Chang who looked sad.
I told Chang that I was sorry for his countrymen, but that we didn’t ask for this. He nodded and said, “No, I understand that, but all of the dead would gladly never have left home but for these people and their bosses.” I sure understood that.
I asked how he thought we should handle this but he just shook his head and said, “I don’t know, these men are strangers to me.” He had never met them because his orders were different and his unit set sail long before this bunch.
I asked him if he would talk to them, and of course he said yes. We got close to their small convoy where they sat, trapped in their steel coffins and Chang called out to them. It took a bit, but a voice finally answered asking who he was. He simply said he was the translator.
The outcome was the General commanding the people we just wiped out was just a puppet with no military experience at all which explained a lot. His staff was made up of people like himself, the only real officers were already dead.
Chang told them there was no way out and that they should just come on out and face it like men. Blowing my mind they did just that- the hatches opened and out came several officers but none over the rank of Col. And now I got a tickle of fear. I told the communications guy to get on the horn and call for all the scouts to break away and head for our area, something wasn’t right.
Col. Chang, after talking to them, came to me and said these men were not the ones we wanted; that this whole convoy was just the first part. The rest unloaded several days after these guys rolled out.
Someplace between here and home there was a large force of enemy heading for our homes.
Chang did say that he thought the plan was to get our forces into a dogfight with these guys who would roll over us, then cut south to join up with the other half of the force and then engage us in our homeland.
But he was told by the Col. in charge that we had knocked out his whole unit like it was nothing, and that the other force didn’t know anything had happened because they were following strict radio silence. This was the best news out of the whole mess.
Within an hour we were rolling hell bent for home. We had to cut these people off before they could hit our homes. Charley got on the horn to all units and all stations at home advising them to prepare for an attack if we couldn’t cut them off.
I had him call the fort and told them to break out anything that would shoot- especially the shoulder-fired stuff.
I looked at the prisoners, sighed and gave the word to turn them over to the Utah Guard. I didn’t have time or the will to just shoot them.
Flunkies following orders in an army that shoots you for not obeying instantly can’t be blamed for their leaders’ actions.
And SLC had a very large Chinese population, if the number of Chinese restaurants back in the 80’s was any indication.
Inside an hour we were rolling- the slower equipment was left in our dust. We had loaded everything we had that could handle the armor we would be facing and all the ammo and fuel we could haul in the trailers and hit the road.
Then we got a good bit of luck. The ranking officer, apparently out of gratitude for not being shot, gave us a small tidbit. It seems the main grou
p with the main Command staff had headed south out of the bay area and headed southeast on secondary roads, which will slow them down greatly. A lot of bridges on those small dusty roads aren’t built for lowboys with tanks on them, meaning they will have to unload the armor and drive thru the washes and gullies where they can.
We will be using better roads, our armor is lighter than theirs and we know the area very well. Ralph is up in Big Bird, high and wide looking for them. With him is Sandy this time, trading off with May. They can’t seem to get enough of the flying crap. If the almighty wanted me to fly he would have given me wings. Yes, I don’t like flying. I’ll do it, but I don’t like it. Like drinking warm beer. I hate it but….
We were making really good time but I was worried about handling these people without my heavy hitters.
Ralph finally found them. They were really slowed down by the road system they were on. They had cleared Tonopaw NV which surprised the hell out of me at first, but then it got clear. Somebody in the command group had started reading their maps and combining that with what they knew.
And what they knew was they weren’t going to make an easy run down the interstate to Vegas, then to Flagstaff, and then to our homeland.
I still have a problem believing these people see me as a threat to their plans. They have taken a decent advantage in numbers and totally screwed the pooch with all this over thinking maneuvering they were doing.
I was really starting to think we were not facing a real threat in the sense of trained military minds.
Hell, Kid could draw up a better battle plan than these dolts had.
They had left Tonopah a smoking ruin according to Sandy and Ralph, but they also said it looked like the people had moved out of the way and took care of the troops sent to deal with them.
They were in open trucks and rolled right into a nice ambush and were taught the ‘Rifle behind every bush’ lesson.
Ralph said it looked like none of the enemy had survived and now the people there were armed with military weapons and pissed off. Ralph said they had dropped a message streamer telling them what was going on and where to head if they wanted more payback and they were on their way.
We had our troops converging on the enemy from the north, the Tonopaw folks closing from behind and from the south, and our home guard coming in from the southwest. And if it worked out we would all come together around Caliente on State 93 South of Saint George.
The State Guard was highballing it south on I-15. Our biggest advantage was that we weren’t stopping for the night; we just switched drivers, refueled, took our leaks and rolled.
Charley had hooked up with the Home guard crowd who had slowed down at the fort to load up everything that went ‘bang’ or could take out armor, and they were hauling ass for Saint George.
While our enemy slept we moved, and with speed and not stopping we had made it to the place where 93, 375 and 318 all came together miles east of Caliente. We made it with a couple of hours of darkness to spare.
Charley and his gang got there a bit ahead of us, and we arrived about the same time as the Guard out of SLC.
We were long on small arms and fair to OK with the anti-armor shoulder-fired stuff, but it wasn’t gonna be the same duck shoot as we had with the northern bunch.
No artillery, so we were going to be fighting in close and this part I hated. We always stood off and used firepower to do the job, but we never had to face trained (kind of) troops with plenty of armor to hide in.
We established the range we needed to dig in at for the people using the rockets. After that it was going to be belt buckle close because we needed to get in among them if we were going to stand a chance.
The Utah Guard officer asked where I wanted his people. Hell, they were all actual National Guard trained troops so I asked how many he had that had ever trained with the shoulder-fired stuff. He smiled real big and said, “About half, sir.” God smiles on me!
I had them start digging fighting holes that would give cover and concealment. With a thin cover over the holes and sand scattered over that they could avoid the choppers the Chinese still had. In each hole we placed several tubes so they could keep fighting.
A ways behind them we put in another line of holes for the people manning the ground to air tubes that would deal with the choppers…I hoped.
Closer in we dug in shallow holes or body trenches for our assault people to use when it was time. I asked the girls to go with Ralph in the chopper as gunners.
They looked at me for a long time, then both hugged me, kissed me and with, “I love you” they were in the air and gone.
I was very glad we had brought the lowboy with the chopper. Not that I thought it would add that much to the fight, but it got them out of the way and I hoped a small bit safer. I should have known better.
By the first crack of dawn we were as ready as we were going to get. Those of us in the assault group were in close and in our shallow holes, (too much like graves), covered with blankets and then sand and brush. We tried to put each person behind a bush or rock. We were within fifty yards of the road. It was going to be unpleasant but I could see no other way.
I think all of us dozed off in the warmth of the rising sun after the long day and night before. I was whipped; dead tired and feeling really old. In the hole with me was my brother and fellow warrior Charley, who gave me strength.
He was very quiet. Finally, I asked if there was something he wanted to tell me. He laid there a bit and said, “Not right now” and I found no comfort in that. I said, “Am I going to hate you before the day is over?” He laughed and said, “Well, maybe.”
We felt a tiny vibration in the earth, like her tummy was rumbling/ As time passed it got stronger and after some more time became a sound- the sound of hundreds of vehicles grinding along slowly.
We had set the ambush up on both sides of the highway. The side we were on would fire up the vehicles first, then after a minute of silence the other side would light them up. They would switch back and forth until their tubes were all empty. By then their troops would be pouring out of the burning tracks. I had told the rocket people to try to hit every tank at least once.
They were then to get their asses down to the bottom of their holes and prepare for the enemy gunship to make their runs. After the ground to air guys got done, I hoped they would have no more choppers.
In all our small wars we had never really closed with an enemy this way, and I was worried because our people weren’t trained for this. If we survived this I was going to make damn sure we did train for it because I had a feeling this might be just an advance wave of Chinese. God, I hoped not.
We were strung out in a long line but the enemy convoy was much longer than our line. All the assault troops were on my side. I didn’t want us attacking into each other’s fire.
I had to shut down my mind finally. I had done all I could, thought of all I could and there was nothing left except to take it to them hard and without mercy.
I was very glad the girls were out of this part. It was going to be awful and they would at least be spared charging right into the enemy rifles.
The time was now, they were here, we were here, and time to dance again and the devil was here to collect his cover charge.
I clicked the 5 watt, heard a flare pop overhead and the doors of hell slammed open with a roar. We were hugging the bottom of our holes but I took a few seconds to watch it and it was truly horrible. Rocket after rocket flashed over our holes and slammed into the vehicles in front of us, all down the line it went, on and on as if it were never to stop.
But it did, and for one strange moment complete silence came to the battle field. I was reminded again of the words of the survivors of Gettysburg who later said there came a moment when there was no sound; the breezes stopped, the birds were quiet and nothing moved, and then the screams came.
This was such a moment; quiet, and then the screams came as men were burning to death in steel coffins where they were t
rapped by hatches fused closed, trapped under dead friends.
I was about to order the flare for the attack when my radio crackled and I heard Ralph’s voice yelling, “STAY DOWN !” Charley and I both sank even deeper into the bottom of the hole than we were before. I wasn’t sure why but Ralph had a ‘NO SHIT! DON’T MOVE!’ sound to his voice.
The next thing I heard was a ripping sound and the howling of all the tortured souls in hell and the world blew apart. My first thought was that Ralph had crashed and I was about to jump up when Charley threw his arm across me and screamed, “WAIT!”
In seconds the howling hell was back, and the sound of the very air being ripped apart. The earth was bouncing and I felt like I had a heavyweight boxer pounding my gut thru my spine. I was having trouble breathing.
