(The Shia, by the way, were mostly Persian or Persian oriented, even the Arab ones. They'd had a burgeoning civilization when the ancestors of the Sunni were still trying to learn how to herd goats and our ancestors in Europe weren't even doing that. Which was why the Shia, and especially the Iranians, called them goat-herds. Or, more often, goat fuckers. And the Iranians didn't think much of us, either. Discussed that.)
So, and yes it was under "advisement" of the State Department, the DOD was told to park all its shit under guard of the guys we'd been fighting for damned near twenty years and fly home.
Did the Sunni bastards grab all our gear? No, but they grabbed enough before the Plague hit to start a decent little, and entirely unreported, civil war to retake the Sunni Triangle. Then the Plague hit. They got hit at about 60% rate. Things fell apart but they fell apart for everybody.
The Sunni, though, had managed to spring back. Now, there was another park of gear down in the south, very dominated by Shia, area. The Sunni had more and better tanks. But the Shia were still more numerous and even if they were a bunch of groups, the Sunni weren't entirely cohesive.
There was an uneasy truce between the Sunni and Shia. Problem being, while central Iraq had all the government buildings and monuments and museums and even some factories, it had dick all for oil. And eventually the tanks had to be filled on those tanks.
But the Kurds had oil.
And the Kurds didn't have tanks. Or even much in the way of APCs. We hadn't left them much at all, in fact. Just some ammo dumps with light to medium weapons.
Think that the Sunnis, once they got reconsolidated over the summer, immediately kicked the Kurds out of Mosul and Irbil and took over the oil fields?
Think again, brother. They were up against Kurds. Who at least had some shit to fight with this time.
Did I find this all out at once? Nope. But I found out a bunch of it pretty fast.
I finally got the phone number, sat phone, for one of the big Perg Mersha commanders.
Oh, the Perg Mersha. It means "fighters to the death" or some such and was sort of a National Guard. More like the original U.S. and Swiss militia. The guys were farmers or factory workers or whatever. Every now and again, on a rota, they'd get called up and either train in peace or raid in war. Every male Kurd had a weapon of some sort ranging from a rifle to heavy machine guns. They'd come in with their weapons and some ammo, get more ammo then gather under a tribal boss soldier and go fight like fucking demons.
Don't get me wrong. They were not shock infantry. Shock infantry goes back to the Greeks again and their hoplites. Every other fighter in the world, back then, were essentially "raid" infantry or cavalry or whatever. They'd charge and poke then run away. Charge, poke, run away. Do that until one side backs up from too many (low) casualties.
It's very conservative of losses. Also a good way to lose a battle if you're up against the alternative.
The alternative is "we're going to keep rolling forward until you're either dust or we are."
Think the difference between soccer and American football. One of them is all about swift moves and GOOOOOOAAALLL! The other is about slamming bodies together until you've forced the ball up the field. Oh, maybe a bit of throwing and such. But without the slamming bodies, the quarterback's toast.
Think of Three Hundred Spartans facing two hundred thousand Persians and allies. And kicking their ass. Marathon: Ten thousand Greeks (Athenians mostly) vs. about two hundred grand, again, this time on a flat fucking plain. And they smashed the Persians.
Put the Kurds on the plains against us or even the Iraqis, who sort of had the concept of shock infantry, and they were going to have a hard time. But the shock infantry people were never going to have a bit of rest. And in any sort of terrain, including urban areas, raid can counteract shock if shock's not done right. (Which nobody did except us in those days.)
So I called this Perg Mersha commander.
Bandit: O Great One, commander of the faithful, a descendent of Suleiman . . . (Three minutes.)
Kurd: American! Dude! Amigo! Great to see you! (Pretty much that.)
Bandit: Sorry, man. I've been dealing with fucking Iranians for so fucking long . . .
Kurd: American! Dude! Amigo! No problemo!
Bandit: Uno problemo. Need a fill up. Willing to trade some gear and shit.
Kurd: Dude. Bummer. Got a problem.
They didn't hold the oil refinery. Or the tank farms. Or any significant stock. And to get to them I'd have to hit the Iranian Sunni force anyway. Maybe they could sneak us up through the mountains. But then we'd be bingo on fuel.
Motherfucker.
This was getting to be too much like the Ten Thousand.
(By the way. If you ever read the Anabasis or one of the really good historical fiction accounts, the guys who really fucked up the Greeks in the mountains? Kurds.)
Okay, well if that was how it had to be.
They don't call us Strykers for nothing.
Chapter Eleven
He Turned White. Well, Whiter.
So here I switch right into a battle chapter, right? Good patterning. Build up and then fighting.
Dude, life is never that simple.
I don't know how they found me. They never told me and the investigation has never concluded who gave them the data.
Look, I was up on commo with the States. We were using BFTs. Everybody in the Pentagon and various other places with the right clearance could tell where we were and our more or less status as well as I could when I was in the van.
One of these days I'm going to find the guy with the "right clearance" and feed him his ass. And other parts. Slowly. Without mustard.
We're in consultation with the Kurds. We're going to heightened alert with what they've told us. They don't have much intel on the threat in our area but we're getting some.
We're sweating bullets. Somewhere up ahead is an armored force that's guessed by the Kurds to be about a division in strength. I didn't buy it. The one thing about the Kurds is that they always overestimate. But say a battalion. Even a brigade.
It's way more complicated than this, but this is military structure 101. Three platoons in a company. (You'll already notice ours has four including mortar platoon. And then there's the techs and Nepos . . . Like I said, this is 101.) Three platoons in a company. Three companies in a battalion. Three battalions in a brigade. Three brigades in a division.
More complicated but you get the idea.
Basically, if we're looking at anything like a normal battalion, we're outnumbered and outgunned three to one. And they've got our Abrams tanks, which are a bitch and a half to kill. Not to mention Strykers and Bradleys. Those were all confirmed as well as we could confirm it.
If they've got a brigade, we're outnumbered nine to one. And way outgunned. Then there's artillery which is going to way outrange our mortars. Their mortars.
There were also aircraft. Fighters dropping dumb bombs and some helicopters including a couple of Apache gunships. Those, right there, could rip Strykers a new one without breaking a sweat. The trucks? Toast.
We are on a heightened state of alert.
We've moved to constant movement for the time being. I want to get past Baghdad as fast as possible. The main force seemed to be to the north but the fucking Baghdad area is never good.