“This is 2–6, over.”
“Standby for FRAGO, over.”
Walker wrestled her waterproof notebook out of a thigh pocket. She got ready to take notes as best as possible in the cramped, bouncing track commander’s seat, all while keeping an eye on the rest of her platoon’s vehicles. Not for the first time she hated filling both platoon sergeant and platoon leader roles. A lot like being a single parent. In a perfect organization, or at least one not so hastily slapped together, her platoon should have had a lieutenant to help shoulder the burden.
“FRAGO: we’re aborting Objective Blue. The enemy is already there in large numbers. I’m sorry to brief you over the radio, but we can’t afford the time to stop and chat. Break….” He gave the customary polite pause in case anyone else on the net needed to say something.
“The battalion will advance with all haste 20 miles southwest into the town of Grand Island. Since the recon platoon will bypass the town and screen the western flank, our company gets the honor of leading the battalion. We’re going in there blind, so treat this as a movement to contact, over.”
Sergeant Walker bit off a couple of sarcastic remarks. “Roger, over.”
“Now, our objective is to blow straight through town and capture that bridge on Interstate 80 at all costs. We’re sending in the whole unit; we’ll need the weight to hold off enemy counterattacks. This is the last natural chokepoint for hundreds of miles. If we can’t stop them from retreating here, we won’t have a second chance. Your platoon is taking point. Secure the outskirts of town and wait for us. We’ll breach the objective in a wedge and rush through. No time to slowly bound forward. Any questions?”
Walker fiddled with the zoom on her Blue Force battle tracker computer screen. She clicked on the new flashing purple circle on the map. Reading the details of the recently added objective didn’t take long… there wasn’t much there. “Blackjack 6, 2–6 here. Is this town a restricted fire area? I don’t see an overlay, over.”
“Negative. The locals have had plenty of warning to evacuate. If there’s anything waiting for us there, you call in whatever fire support you need to make the problem go away, over.” She smiled at the rare good news. Ever since Vietnam, the Army was pathologically afraid of collateral damage to civilian areas. So far in this war, their restrictive Rules of Engagement (ROE) had run the gamut from stupid to downright surreal… and cost far more lives than they ever saved.
“All stations, remember that’s just for this objective. Division granted an exemption to the ROE only because this is our last chance to trap the rebel army and score a major victory right here. Let’s kick some ass, Death Dealers! Acknowledge, over.”
She rolled her eyes. The captain was a good guy, but he always tried to make every little mission seem like they were storming the beaches of Normandy. Yes, trapping the enemy division retreating from Omaha and keeping them from rejoining their comrades would be great, but even she knew that wasn’t going to win the war. Those 18,000 rebel troops racing them to the river were just one division. Intelligence estimated the URA could field 20 or so more. Barely half of what her army numbered, sure, but more than enough to make life suck.
Whatever. This little mission was enough work for now. Walker flipped over to the platoon internal net and passed along a slimmed down brief to her team. She stood in the turret ring to make sure they were all deploying properly. All she could see were the other three Strykers in her platoon. The rest of the company, let alone the rest of the division, were far out of sight.
She felt so invincible when they first kicked off the invasion yesterday. What an awe-inspiring display the federal juggernaut made when launching the largest mechanized assault in generations. Now? The endless soy and cornfields of Nebraska and Kansas easily gobbled up three quarters of a million troops and one hundred thousand vehicles. So much water poured onto sand, and this was just a tiny piece of the enemy’s land.
Enemy? What a strange thought, even after all these months. Walker hailed from Minnesota, but had friends and extended family all throughout the Midwest. Yeah, yeah, she watched the news. She knew all about the terrible atrocities these URA “terrorists” had committed. Well, at least what the East Coast TV claimed. Western news had a slightly different slant. Unlike so many wearing a uniform on each side, the war hadn’t personally touched Walker. She had lost no loved ones in the escalating cycle of revenge killings. Her home state was never attacked by anyone. Hell, she didn’t even bother voting in the jacked-up election that kicked off this whole mess. Out here in the endlessly monotonous plains, it was easy for her to get lost in dark, even treasonous, introspection. She needed a diversion.
Thankfully, she spotted a little smoke trail rising from the driver’s hatch of the Stryker in front of her. Male or female, nothing gets a sergeant’s dick harder than a breakdown in discipline. Fifty yards away, the terrified driver and his shocked TC banged their helmets against the armored roof when the radio crackled to life. Sergeant Walker somehow reached through the net and strangled them both. “Blackjack 2–3! Are you letting your driver smoke as we’re about to make contact? Are you back on the block? You better unfuck yourself before I….”
Any nervousness her platoon felt disappeared with the familiar ass chewing. The Army’s insane focus on discipline wasn’t for sadistic pleasure… most of the time. The whole point of this anal-retentive attention to petty details was to give unseasoned soldiers something constructive and less terrifying to worry about than combat.
All those riflemen, packed like knock-off brand pickles into the back of the APC’s, knew the boss was on the warpath. They double-checked their weapons and gear or mentally reviewed their drill reactions. Fear of death faded before the much worse fear of breaking discipline and letting their teammates down. Walker smiled on the inside. Maybe they were ready for battle.
As they neared Grand Island, Walker felt sympathy for the Air Force. A rare feeling for a ground-pounder to express. It was pretty clear why the flyboys and girls hadn’t been able to take out the bridge. Dark black pyres billowed high throughout the cornfields around her. She focused her binoculars, simply called “binos,” on the upside-down cockpit of a smashed F-15E not too far away. A two-seater, with the armored glass cockpit still intact but blackened from the inside. Where was the crew? She ignored the obvious answer and studied the booms above her head.
The greatest air show of her life played out in the wild blue beyond. Dozens of metal specks cartwheeled around up there. The kaleidoscope of contrails, from planes and missiles, enraptured the soldiers miles below. It felt dirty watching a fight she couldn’t comprehend. Pure war porn.
Walker forced herself to turn away from the mesmerizing display. Stay down to earth. As long as those supersonic jets kept busy slinging million dollar missiles at each other, maybe they couldn’t be bothered bombing her platoon of ants below.
“All right everybody. We’re almost there. Spread out. Keep your heads down and pecker’s up!” She never understood why that silly cliché, coming from her, always got the men laughing. As long as they were paying attention, though, she didn’t care.
Her light armored unit never should have been the tip of the spear. Stryker brigades were built and organized for so-called, “low-intensity operations.” A surgical force intended to rapidly deploy anywhere in the world in a matter of days and kick the crap out of terrorists or prop up failed oil-exporting states. They were best deployed in crowded urban environments facing only lightly armed insurgents. Not acting out the giant Cold War tank battle fantasies of ageing generals in open fields.