In the well-manicured suburbs a little north of Kansas City, scores of Marine amphibious assault vehicles raced across the Missouri River. Breaching the dangerous beachhead, the ramps dropped and hundreds of gung-ho Marines poured out. With a window-rattling “Oorah!” they bounded through their protective smoke screen with safeties off, ready for total war. As expected, they ran right into a coordinated ambush. Dozens of reporters and amateur filmmakers popped up in unison and slaughtered the pride of the oncoming warriors.
Sound booms raked the air over the Marines’ helmets while they fought off the glare of studio lighting. The rat-tat-tat of fully automatic, asinine questioning roared across the river. The engineers to the east, standing ready to run up pontoon bridges once the beachhead was secured, could only shudder at what hell the advance party must be going through.
Up and down the front, professional federal soldiers slammed into a brick wall of human stupidity while rebel forces retreated in good order to fight another day. With all these unarmed landmines in the way asking questions and taking photos, there was little chance the blitzkrieg would cut off and surround the forward-deployed rebel units.
Not all these games ended peacefully, though. On one tight South Kansas City street, a dozen members of some perpetually anti-war group had a great plan to “raise awareness.” With the rumble of military vehicles approaching, they chained themselves together and laid down across the street. They soon received the attention they craved from the indifferent media, but not the way they’d anticipated. No one told the distracted driver of some hulking federal M1 tank rounding the corner that those bodies were still alive. They didn’t stay so for long after a 70-ton track rolled over them.
Overall, most federal commanders were pleased. Sergeant Major John Brown shook his head at the giddy colonel next to him. “Sir, I wouldn’t get so slap-happy yet. The Florida Defense Forces pulled the same stunt on our boys during the Florida campaign. Sucked us in and hit us hard when we got too confident and careless.”
The young battalion commander, jumped up from captain to lieutenant colonel in only three months due to a shortage of senior leaders, dismissed him with a grunt. He pointed at the digital map displays taking up one wall of his command track.
“Why are you always so pessimistic, Sergeant Major? There’s no need to worry. Look, the hard part is over. We’re past the city and out in the open. Fighting us house by house in town was the enemy’s best bet to stop us. Now in the open… yeah, the Air Force will rip them a new asshole while we’ll easily outmaneuver them. No counterinsurgency bullshit like in Florida. This is the classic type of maneuver warfare we’ve always exceled at!”
Brown grunted. “Well, I ain’t got a fancy West Point class ring, but the enemy has the same training, doctrine and equipment as us. Hell, I’ve served with quite a few soldiers, officers and enlisted, that went over. Ever think they might know what they’re doing as well? Whatever we plan to do, don’t you think they’ve thought of it too?”
Annoyance, followed quickly by nervousness, flashed across his young boss’s face. Those eyes were in borderline fear territory. Brown sighed. A good NCO has to walk a fine line keeping their officers grounded in reality without shattering their egos. “Oh, don’t get me wrong sir. We’ve definitely brought a lot more firepower to the party. We’ll kick their ass six ways from Sunday, no doubt. I’m just saying don’t underestimate these sneaky rebel bastards. They can make things costly if we get careless.”
Brown didn’t need to say another word. The radio explained it all. “Incoming!”
Their command track rumbled along near the rear of the convoy, almost a mile down the road from the artillery impacts. Over the roar of the engine, they couldn’t hear anything. So Brown and the colonel just waited with anxious breath for a situation report.
Moments later, some jubilant voice from the lead company came through. “All clear, Iron Main. The barrage fell along the road, but well short of us. We’re Charlie Mike-ing. (Continuing mission). Nothing to hold us up, over.”
The colonel and Brown shared a quizzical look. The colonel gripped the mike. “This is Iron 6. How bad is the road damaged, over?”
“Not a scratch, actually. Some debris is still on the street, but that’s all. I’m going around on the grass to get a better look. Say, what are the odds of six duds striking at once? Break….”
A new voice, the battalion’s artillery liaison officer, broke in the conversation during the mandatory pause. “This is Thunder 9. Stop! Those are FASCAM mines! Don’t drive off the road. Stay where you can see—”
An explosion in the distance cut off his warning as the lead company’s commanding officer learned all about artillery-deployable land mines. Learned the hard way.
Brown clapped the command track’s driver on the shoulder. “Stop and let me out here. I’ll take my Humvee. Need to help with the casualty evac.” He opened the rear hatch, paused and pointed at the cornfields around him.
“Sir, we need to get off this damn highway or they’ll chew us up. This fucking road trip makes us too easy a target, no matter how convenient it is.”
The colonel shook his head. “But cross-country is too slow! We’ll never get to our objectives on time and cut off the enemy retreat that way. Division has a carefully prepared timetable.”
Brown punched the aluminum battery box next to him. “Are a few hours really worth the lives it costs? What’s with the damn race? The bulk of the enemy’s army is in Colorado anyway. They’re waiting for us there no matter how long it takes.”
“Perhaps that’s just what the enemy wants us to think?” The colonel rubbed his chin and slapped his mini-desk when Brown gave him a pitying stare. “Damnit, Sergeant Major, I agree with you, but I also have orders. If I start disobeying them, the general will just replace me with someone ‘more loyal.’ You know how paranoid everyone is nowadays. Let’s just have a little trust in our leaders. There’s a bigger plan in the works. Don’t you remember the briefing slides? They want to trap a sizable enemy force on the first day to show the others the futility of resisting.”
“That’s not the only thing futile.” Brown just left the track without another word, mounted his own Humvee and raced to help the wounded. He cussed the whole way to his confused driver about “fucking armchair generals and their damn Power Point boners.”
On the pretty maps brainless pundits argued over on TV, the federal assault was a piercing blue arrow arching relentlessly west. On the ground, things were far less clear. A lot more bloodstained.
While the rebels were careful to avoid being pinned down and grant the Feds an easy victory, they gave a whole new meaning to the term, “fighting retreat.”
Sergeant Walker, now Sergeant First Class Walker, was sick of babysitting. Only two of the 40 soldiers she led were regular Army. A few more were prior service, often Iraq vets, but had been out of the military for years. They knew what they were doing, sure. They could still handle their equipment like pros, but had gone soft on discipline and even softer around the belly. The bulk of her men, and they were all men, were freshly unwrapped privates. Young guys with more guts than brains. The fruit of America’s multi-billion dollar recruiting drive.
Despite all the intensive training they’d packed in the last few weeks, these kids were still undisciplined. Too much damn radio chatter, for example. Between the roar of the Stryker armored personnel carrier’s engine and their non-stop bitching, she barely heard her captain’s calm voice over the company net. “Blackjack 2–6, Blackjack 6, over.”