The colonel’s rousing “Let’s go kick ass and take names,” speech at the end of the briefing brought Bannon back to the here and now. Reynolds knew he had not been paying attention to the last portion of the briefing, especially to his kick ass speech. Bannon didn’t really care. His Team was only an attachment, a very bothersome one at that. As such, he was expected to be somewhat different and, on occasion, a bit of a maverick. Today had been a good case in point. With the sound of Charlie Company’s commander chanting an obscene Jody call, the briefing broke up.
On his way out, Bannon briefly stopped in front of the intelligence map to see if there was any useful information he could glean from it. The S-2 watched him as if he expected Bannon to turn and attack. After studying the red lines and symbols for a couple of minutes without being able to find anything of use, he gave up and left. Team Yankee would find out soon enough what was there, the hard way.
The balance of the day passed rather slowly. After arriving back at the Team position, Bannon made another analysis of the terrain they would be covering. Satisfied that he had gotten as much as he could from his map, he rewrote those parts of the plan that needed to change because of the briefing at battalion and the second map study. In reality, not much had. A few new artillery targets, a better concept for crossing the stream west of the village of Lemm, and some more information on what would happen after Arnsdorf was about all. With that finished, he sent Kelp off to notify the platoon leaders that they were to assemble at 66’s location at 1300 hours for an update and further instructions.
As Bannon had been going over his plan, the Team went about its business in a slow and deliberate way. After stand-to, the checks and inspections that had not been performed while waiting for the dawn were completed. All problems that turned up during them were reported to the platoon sergeants, who in turn reported them to the first sergeant, who in turn reported them to maintenance personnel.
Once all checks had been complete and requests for maintenance made, the weapons were cleaned. First came the crew-served weapons. Every tank and personnel carrier had one M2 caliber .50 machinegun, affectionately known as a Ma Duce by every generation of American service personnel from before World War II. It was the same heavy machinegun the Army had used in that war and, despite monumental leaps in weapons technology, was still considered the best heavy machinegun in the world.
Then there were two M240, 7.62mm machineguns on each tank. These were of Belgian design and, when compared to the weapon they’d replace, were good weapons. Of course, anything would have been better than the M219 machinegun which some of the old tankers claimed had been the only single-shot machinegun in the world. One of the M240s was located next to the main gun, mounted coaxially with it, hence its nickname “COAX.” The second M240 was mounted on a free-swinging mount outside the loader’s hatch. The loader had little need for a weapon as his primary job was to feed the main gun. But since the loader’s M240 was interchangeable with the COAX, it had value. Besides, it gave the loader something to hang onto when the tank was moving.
While some of the platoon were working on the machineguns, three or four of the men went around cleaning out the main guns with using a twenty-foot rammer staff topped with a bore brush. It took three to four men to maneuver the staff and then ram the tight-fitting brush down the gun tube. Rather than have each crew assemble its own staff, the platoon sergeants had one tank, usually his, put one together and then, pulling one man from each crew for the detail, had them go from tank to tank and clean all the platoon’s gun tubes. It was efficiency and teamwork in action.
After the tanks and the personnel carriers with all their crew-served weapons were squared away, each man took to cleaning his own individual weapon. For the tankers, this was a caliber .45 pistol for the tank commander and the gunner. The driver and loader each had a .45 and a caliber .45 M3 submachine gun. This last weapon also was a veteran of World War II, but it had not aged as well as the M2 machinegun. Some said the M3 was worthless. Bannon always considered that rating too generous.
Only after all the equipment had been squared away were the men free to tend to their personal needs and hygiene. The Team worked under the old cavalry principle, “The horse, the saddle, the man.” The men understood this and, for the most part, abided by it. None, including Bannon, had any clear idea what was going to happen next. All they knew with any degree of certainty was that their best chance of survival was to stay with the Team. They knew what the Team was doing, and that there was safety in numbers. What lay behind the hills to the front and rear was a mystery few were interested in exploring. They wanted to stay with the Team, and to stay with the Team, their track and weapons had to work. There was no false patriotism, no John Waynes in Team Yankee, only tankers and infantrymen doing their jobs in order to survive.
Except for some sporadic shelling by the Soviets, the afternoon passed quietly, allowing tank commanders and squad leaders to keep half of their men on alert while the rest slept. After the 1300 hour meeting with the platoon leaders, Bannon was free to catch up on some personal needs he’d not had time for earlier. Washing from head to toe was a priority. After twenty-four hours in the chemical protective suit, he was ripe. The only reason no one else had noticed just how bad he stunk was because they were just as dirty and smelly as he was. It had only been at the battalion CP that he had noticed how filthy he was in comparison to people who were not on the battalion staff, not that he really cared if he had offended anyone on the staff. Once he’d finished washing up, he let Uleski know that he was checking out of the net and get some sleep.
This latest respite lasted a grand total of forty-five minutes, for the cavalry troop commander and his platoon leaders who would be relieving the Team that night showed up for coordination and a reconnaissance. They were from Bravo Troop, 2nd of the 14th Cavalry, the divisional cavalry squadron. Bannon had met the troop commander several times before, so he was surprised when a tall, lanky first lieutenant introduced himself as the troop commander. When he asked what had happened to Captain Farrar, Bannon was told that he was missing in action.
The former troop commander, it seemed, had given the order for the troop to withdraw, after that was not seen again. He, his personnel carrier, and its crew had all disappeared while they were moving back to their next position. This put a chill on the coordination meeting and the recon. Conversation was limited to simple questions and answers as to the positions, enemy activities, and the lay of the land. As soon as the first lieutenant was satisfied that he had all the information he needed, he and his platoon leaders left.
It wasn’t until near dusk that the Soviets became restless and began a massive shelling to the rear of the Team. This sent everyone in the Team scrambling for cover in his tracks or diving for the bottom of his foxhole as scores of shells screamed overhead, blindly searching for targets in the battalion’s rear. Their fears were only partially relieved by the fact that it could have been worse; those shells could be hitting the Team itself. Once crews were buttoned up and dismounted infantry were snug in their holes, all they could do was wait patiently, alert and ready for either a ground attack, or a shift in the artillery fire onto their positions.