But the North Koreans were now fully awake and grabbing what weapons they could. By now the fires illuminated the entire valley and the allied force found itself exposed. The men and women began taking cover and firing at anything that moved in the tent encampments. Ricks saw his opportunity. Grabbing several bundles of dynamite, he raced down into the inferno to the ammunition trucks that were apart from the rest. At a dead run, he charged in, lighting the fuses and tossing them into the back of each truck.
The North Korean soldiers saw him and were concentrating on making sure he never returned home. He dashed behind one tent to find several soldiers standing there with rifles. Ricks opened up with his M-16 taking them down in a spray of bullets. Seconds later, he came upon one officer urging on two men. They too were taken down by what some thought was a wild demon charging through the camp.
The dynamite went off in the first truck, setting off all the other munitions. The blast knocked Ricks to the ground along with twenty other North Koreans trying to get out of the camp. Once again Ricks opened up and mowed down most of them, but not without one round grazing Ricks’ left arm. He rolled behind several crates as bullets struck the ground around him. Glancing around the corner, he saw the other men had taken refuge behind some drums. Ricks pulled out his only grenade and pulled the pin, lobbing the grenade toward the soldiers then bracing against some crates.
The grenade went off in front of the barrels, its shrapnel piercing the sides and igniting the diesel fuel. A gout of flame poured skyward, drenching everyone in the area with burning oil. Ricks dashed towards the area where his men had been stationed, firing into several small groups of North Koreans trying to get out as well. Seeing several of his people firing into the compound, he motioned for them to start making their way out. As they passed by his position, he saw that several were wounded. Giving orders to gather at the kick off point, he dashed back along the hill and found two of his men who had been hurt and were struggling to get back. Ricks slung his weapon and got between the two men, helping them along the trail and out of danger. At one point, they had been pinned down until others in the squad opened up from the side and took out the soldiers firing at them.
Once back, Ricks was still one short. Urging his men back toward the valley entrance, Ricks went back into the inferno. After a few minutes he noticed a movement to his right and saw Private Walker behind a large stone. He had been hit in the leg and could tell it was broken.
“Always getting in trouble, huh?” Ricks said as he crouched beside the young man. He felt around his lower leg and watched the grimace on Walker’s face. “We got to get you out of here. If I help, can you move?”
Walker’s face was illuminated by the fires in the compound, but his eyes shot Ricks a give me a break look. “Give me a hand and I’ll walk on my knees if I have to,” he growled. Ricks jerked Walker up and threw Walker’s arm over his shoulder. The two men hobbled off as fast as they could. It was a slow process. They were now getting fire from several places in the compound. The two men dashed back and forth behind what cover they could find, with Walker’s leg dangling behind them. Another massive explosion shook the ground and Ricks took advantage of the confusion to move farther down the path. When it seemed there was no way out, the brush erupted in gunfire. Ricks threw Walker down and moved his body over him to protect him from the onslaught. Then he felt several sets of hands grab him and pull him back.
“Get moving! I’m not going to carry your ass,” Hufham shouted as several men moved the two of them to the safety of the valley entrance.
The men moved another hundred yards when a line of flames seemed to spread behind them. Lt. Colonel Peterson and his men had laid out a line of barrels and opened them up. On signal, the line was ignited, covering their escape. The men gathered what was left and moved back around the hills to the culvert three klicks away. All during their escape, the men heard additional explosions and the ground shook from the destruction they had caused. It was a tired group of men and women who came out of the other end of the culvert into the early morning sunlight. Peterson started out with thirty people. Only nineteen came back.
Lt. Colonel Peterson watched the men and women trudge past him toward the small building where they would rest. Already the medics were working on the most seriously wounded. The last one out of the culvert was Ricks. Peterson gazed at a man who looked old beyond his years. The look was one of exhaustion. His eyes were sunken, his stare vacant. He was walking with a slight limp and a slouch, as if he was already asleep but his body continued on instinct. Peterson waved slightly and Ricks looked over and smiled. That was when Peterson noticed the holes. Ricks’ flack vest had four holes in it along his chest; one along his left arm where there was some bleeding. The final hole was in Ricks’ helmet. It had gouged out a line at least five inches long. As Ricks passed, Peterson took step beside him. “You’re bound and determined to get yourself killed, aren’t you?” he said to Ricks.
“Nah. Trouble just seems to follow me,” Ricks said.
“I saw you going after those trucks. I also saw you taking on a few squads of soldiers all by yourself. It looked like you were looking for trouble to me. And what was all that running back into that place?”
“Had to get my guys out. You knew I was a Boy Scout didn’t you, sir?” Ricks joked.
Peterson chuckled. “Just get your ass to a medic and get that arm looked at. Then get some sleep. I have a feeling we really pissed them off last night.”
“No arguments from me,” Ricks said. The men walked into an old gym where the others were being looked over. A medic took Ricks in tow and some others were preparing a hot meal. Peterson walked over to a bird Colonel and sat down with him to report. He was very careful to tell the man what Ricks had done in detail.
Major Dave Adams eased back on the stick and broke away to the right as the KC-135 finished topping off his tanks. In the back, his Electronic Warfare Officer had the gear up and operating. It would take only about thirty minutes before the craft would near the coast of North Korea. He checked his orders again and, at the appointed position, he adjusted the bomber’s heading to move toward the upper east coast of the Korean peninsula. It could have been done by the computer onboard, but Adams just didn’t trust the things anymore. A couple of friends had been in the air on EMP night and they had almost been killed when the computer systems went haywire. Luckily they were both fine pilots and managed to get the ships back on the ground in one piece.
“EWO to pilot, I have begun receiving search radar emissions. Beginning plot.”
“Roger that. Do you think they see us?”
“I doubt it. The systems I’m detecting would have a hard time seeing a B-52.” That brought a chuckle from the rest of the crew. The North Koreans had notoriously old equipment.
“Well, let me know if one of the fire control systems comes up.”
“Roger that.”
Lieutenant Janice Carter had been top in her class at the Electronic Warfare School. But because her vision was far from 20/20, she was relegated to sitting in the back of the plane instead of the front. Her lack of vision was more than made up in her intelligence, however. She built a reputation for being able to pick out the signatures of radars and be able to tell not only where they were, but what they were. In a few cases, she had been able to tell where it had been made. The guys called her a witch behind her back. She loved every minute of it.