“Just the usual. Mail, if there is such a thing, and a fresh can of give-a-shit. The one I have is almost empty.”
With a straight face, Uleski got up, gathered up his notebook and map, and took off at a fast pace. “Come on Avery, this way.”
After giving Bannon a quick salute, Avery gathered up his gear and took off at a trot to catch up to Uleski who was already thirty meters away, thinking as he went that his greeting to Team Yankee and the attitude of its commanding officer was not at all what he had been expecting. This sent his mind to racing off in all different directions as he tried to figure out what was going to happen next.
It wasn’t until the evening meal that Avery had a chance to talk to Gerry Garger. The whole afternoon had been one rude shock after another. The greeting from the Team commander had been warm compared to that received from the platoon. Although Randy Avery was no fool and knew not to expect open arms and warm smiles, he had at least thought he’d be greeted with a handshake and a welcome aboard. What he got instead was a reception that ranged from indifferent to almost hostile. Sergeant First Class Hebrock had been proper, but short, following the same line that the Team commander had taken. “We’ve a lot to do and not much time, so you need to pay attention, sir.” The sir had been added almost as an afterthought and in a manner that Avery thought to be as surly as a soldier could get without crossing the line that separated proper military protocol and disrespect. Hebrock then continued with the training under way.
Sergeant Tessman, the gunner on 21, was less than happy to see the new TC and made little effort to hide it. Even the tank was not what he had expected. Unlike the new Alpha 66, which had been drawn from war stocks, the new Alpha 21 had belonged to another unit, been damaged on the opening day of the war, repaired, and reissued. Inside the turret there were still burn marks and blackened areas. The welds to repair the damage had been done quickly, crudely, and had not been painted. Tessman made a special effort to show his new TC the stains where the former TC had bled all over the tank commander’s seat.
Even Gerry Garger came across as standoffish when they finally got together late in the afternoon and acknowledged him with an offhanded hello while they ate their evening meal. He showed little interest in talking about the Team, what it had done to date, and what combat was really like. Whenever Avery asked him about the war and his thoughts on it, Garger would give simple, short answers, such as, “It’s hard” or “It’s not at all like our training at Knox.” By the end of the day, Randall Avery was feeling alone, confused, and very apprehensive.
Uleski returned from battalion with something that was almost as valuable as news that the war was over, the first letters from families in the States. The announcement that there was news from home brought everything to a stop. Even Bannon could not hide his excitement and hopes, hope that he had a letter, just one letter. This was counterbalanced by a fear there wouldn’t be one for him.
Knowing full well what a letter to his commanding officer would mean to him, Uleski wasted no time in handing Bannon his. After giving silent thanks to God, the Postmaster General, the Division Postal Detachment, and anyone he could think, he headed off in search of a quiet spot where he could be alone for a few minutes, taking no notice of those who still stood gathered around the XO in silence, waiting to see if they, too, would be lucky.
Pat and the children were safe and staying with her parents. He read that line four times before he went on. It was as if nothing else mattered. His family was safe. After having experienced emotional highs and lows in rapid succession over the past six days, the elation he felt over this news set an all-time high. Not even the ending of the war could have boosted him any higher. It was because of that elation that Bannon did not detect the subtle implications in what his wife wrote until he had read the letter for the sixth time the next day. In reading it more carefully, what she didn’t tell him spoke louder than what she had. Not all was well with her or the children. This realization dulled his joy, giving rise to new apprehensions. Even though they were safe, something terrible had happened. It would be weeks before Pat would be able to bring herself to fully recount the story of their departure from Europe. In that time, the war rolled on, taking new and ominous turns no one could foresee or predict, just as all wars have a tendency to do.
CHAPTER 9
DEEP ATTACK
After two days with Team Yankee, Avery came to realize that the cold reception he had received had not been personal. That is, he had not been the only one who was being like the red headed stepchild at the family picnic. All the newly assigned personnel that had been fed into the Team had received the same treatment. At first he resented this fact. He looked upon it as if it were some kind of planned initiation, behavior he thought to be offensive and inappropriate. When he mentioned this to a man he had thought was his friend and the only person in Team Yankee he felt he could share his thoughts with, Garger looked at him, and thought about the question for a moment before telling Avery he had no idea what he was talking about. He went on to tell the new platoon leader that as far as he was concerned, everyone in the Team got along exceptionally well. “You’re being overly sensitive,” he added. “This isn’t a fraternity or a social club. My advice to you is to settle down and get on with the business at hand.” Then, without so much as a see you later, Garger turned and walked away.
It didn’t take Avery long to understand what the difference between the newly assigned personnel and the original members of Team Yankee was when the CO authorized the tank commanders to paint kill rings on the gun tubes of the Team’s tanks. It had been the old German who owned the gasthaus that had made the suggestion that the Team do what the German panzertruppen had done in World War II. “We painted a ring on the tank’s gun tube for every enemy tank destroyed by that crew,” he told Bannon one night as the two were sharing a warm glass of beer. The idea was quickly adopted and proved to be popular. Before these rings could be painted on a tank’s gun tube, they had to be confirmed. Only the first sergeant, who didn’t have a tank, could authorize the kill rings if, in his opinion, there were sufficient evidence to support a crew’s claim. The kill rings were to be one-inch black rings, one for each kill, painted on the gun tube just forward of the bore evacuator. A three-inch black ring was used to denote five kills.
Once the kill rings had been painted on the tanks, the tank commanders and gunners went around to see who the top gun was. To Avery’s surprise, it was Garger. His Alpha 31 tank sported eleven rings. The CO’s tank, the new Alpha 66, had seven. Hebrock told Avery that the CO could have claimed six more kills, but instead allowed them to go on 55, the tank that he had been commanding at the time the kills had been made. Of the ten tanks in Team Yankee, only Avery’s tank, 21, had a clean gun tube.
It suddenly dawned upon him that since his arrival in the Team, no one had talked about what they had done in the war. Every time he asked questions about the engagements the Team had been in when talking to Garger, his friend would move on to another subject. When the CO, XO, and Polgar took to discussing lessons learned thus far in the war with a gathering of the officers and NCOs, they went over it in a very impersonal and academic manner. At times, it struck Avery that they were talking about another unit, not the one he had joined. It was as if there was a secret fellowship that only those members of the Team that had been in combat could belong to.
As if by mutual agreement, even the tankers refrained from bragging about their deeds. It was as if they felt doing so would somehow be disrespectful of those who were no longer with them. The kill rings, however, gave them a chance to show what they had done without the need to go about, blowing their own horn. When this finally dawned upon him, Avery found himself wanting to go into combat. This revelation came as something of a shock, for the motivation that was behind this desire to see combat had nothing to do with defending freedom or to doing his duty to God and country. The reason that drove this desire was a longing to belong to the Team as an equal, to be accepted. Avery wanted kill rings.