by Walt Gragg
The martyrs’ march came on. The first wave was five hundred yards away. The American guns were ready. And the condemned children were relentless. The Iranians struggled toward the platoon’s positions. Four hundred yards. The death whistle blew a final time. The fourth sequence began running across the clamoring desert. The last group’s venomous wails joined with those of the earlier conscripts. Their voices filled the night with bloodcurdling hatred for the contemptible servants of Satan. Twelve hundred children were headed toward a certain end. Behind the final group, regular Iranian infantry, armed to the teeth, appeared. Their attack would commence once the lambs finished their esteemed purpose. Throughout the length of the strife-filled no-man’s-land, running, yelling children hastened toward their end.
The stilled cavalry platoon waited. The harbingers of death would soon be upon them.
Three hundred yards. The boundary was crossed. Walton blocked all conscious thought.
He pulled the trigger on his machine gun. In unison, the remainder of the platoon opened fire.
* * *
—
As the relentless slaughter continued, from the area behind his platoon, four fighting vehicle machine guns joined in on the unmerciful serenade. The reserve platoon had arrived. Soldiers, M-4s at the ready, poured from the rear of each Bradley.
“Miguel, before the Iranian infantry charges, take Wally and get the ammunition and TOWs from the relief platoon. Make sure all three Bradleys and each of our men have enough of everything to withstand a determined attack.”
“Okay, Sarge. I’m on my way.” Sanchez opened the hatch and disappeared into the night.
Alone in the compartment, Walton continued firing at the unrelenting lines of screaming children. They’d seen the holocaust reaching out to devour the initial order. Yet their visions of the remarkable place the mullahs professed propelled them toward that same vilified end.
From the Bradleys’ machine guns and soldiers’ rifles, death spilled forth upon the fiendish field.
Walton’s stomach was churning. Yet with each pull of the trigger, his mind felt less and less. The platoon sergeant’s trance was only interrupted when Sanchez and Dimmit arrived beneath the weight of machine-gun cartridges and cases of TOW missiles. The resupply was soon accomplished.
“Got a few more deliveries to make, Sarge,” Sanchez said. “Then I’ll be back to lend you a hand.”
It wasn’t long before he returned to his position next to the Bradley’s commander. “Took a look around when I was out there. Using the children to screen their advance, Iranian infantry’s sneaking forward.”
“All right, Miguel, get those TOWs ready. Iraqi armor will be close on their heels.”
As if on cue, the first of the T-72s appeared in the distance. The Iraqi tank fired a hurried round from its main cannon. The shot went high, harmlessly smashing into the trackless lands behind the platoon’s position.
Sanchez lined up his TOW through the Bradley’s periscope. “In about ten seconds you can scratch one Iraqi tank.”
“He’s all yours, Miguel. After what they’ve done to these children, hell’s hottest fires are too damn good for any of them. But I’m afraid that’s the best we can do as retribution for the suffering they’ve caused. Send the sorry son of a bitch on his way.”
Sanchez fired the first of his pair of online TOWs. The deadly missile ripped across a thousand yards of disorderly battlefield. It smashed head-on into the malignant tank. A thunderous explosion followed by a billowing ball of flames rose skyward. It was a sight the sands of the Middle East had witnessed innumerable times in the past three weeks.
“There’s one less tank to worry about,” Sanchez said. “As soon as another shows its ugly head, I’ll make the score good guys two, Iraqis zero.”
“That’s fine, Miguel, I know you’ll do your best. But tell me, where’s the air support we were promised? This is going to be a whole lot harder if we’ve got to do it by ourselves.”
Walton was back on the radio. “Two-Six, this is Alpha-Four-Five.”
“Roger, Alpha-Four-Five.”
“Where’s the air support? The T-72s are about to attack.”
“Hang tight. Apaches are on the way. ETA’s four minutes. Six Air Force F-16s are airborne. They’re eight minutes out and itching for a fight.”
“Roger, Two-Six, thanks for the encouraging news.”
The handset was returned to its receiver, and Walton’s fingers firmly wrapped around his machine gun’s grips before he even realized. On this night, the killing wasn’t nearly complete.
What followed wasn’t so much a battle as a bloodbath. The Iranians’ tactics had failed. Each Bradley was fully stocked and more than ready to dispatch a perverse enemy willing to hide behind the deaths of its children. The Iranians had the numbers. But the Americans had the skill, solid defensive positions, and superior weapons. The Bradley gunners were lethal in their ability to unleash their missiles, destroy two tanks, and quickly reload to initiate another round of devastation. And the attack helicopters turned up right on schedule. The Army’s top-of-the-line Apaches were as strong and lethal as the Marine Cobras. With their appearance, the T-72s were forever overmatched.
When the F-16s arrived, there was little to do but clean up the scattered remains of the doomed Iraqi armor. With smart bombs and deadly cannons, the fighters eliminated the last of the overwhelmed tanks and infantry.
At shortly after four on a hideous black morning, the firing finally stopped. When it did, Walton and Sanchez opened their hatches to survey the incomprehensible display. The defeat was total. Thirty-six Iraqi tanks had been destroyed. Five thousand Iranian infantry and twelve hundred children were dead or severely injured.
American losses were a single Bradley, nine dead, and sixteen wounded.
In the hours following the ill-conceived struggle, the frightful screams of the mortally wounded, many of them children, pierced the poisonous battlefield. Once again, the enemy turned his back and left the dying to the Americans.
Walton’s machine gun spit out a distorted world’s final judgment in short, injurious bursts. Each child’s cringing death stabbed ever deeper into the platoon sergeant’s heart until he sensed nothing from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Yet despite his determined efforts, the cries of those in unbearable agony went on until he believed they’d never stop.
To the relief of all, there’d be no more attacks prior to the 3rd Infantry’s arrival.
With the coming of the long-awaited dawn, the Bradley commanders continued the distasteful task of locating and eliminating the Iranian casualties upon the banishing ground.
Shortly before ten on a smoke-filled morning, a final burst of gunfire brought an unearthly calm to the crimson-choked sands. Walton’s hands, frozen in place, had to be pried loose. While he surveyed the anguish he’d wrought, tears poured down the platoon sergeant’s face. His tears would eventually stop. For the remainder of his days, however, the overwhelming damage to his anguished existence would never be fully repaired. In the long years that followed, not once did he talk to anyone outside his platoon about what had happened in the bleak desert outside Sakakah.
After loathsome days and sleepless nights, the stillness of the ruinous scene was deafening.
* * *
—
They heard them before they saw them. For over an hour, the growing sounds of the relief column reached across the far-flung Arabian dunes to fall upon the embattled battalion’s ears. The 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry was drawing near.
With each passing minute Sanchez’s smile grew. As the first of the Abrams peaked over the ocher hills behind them, the specialist’s satisfaction reached from ear to ear. He glanced over at Walton. The astonished sergeant sat in a disbelieving hush.
“What’d I tell ya!” Sanchez exclaimed. “You and I are minutes away from leaving t
his place.”
“I guess you were right, Miguel. Who knows, maybe the rest of your prediction will come true. After last night, I’d believe almost anything. We might really be headed back to rest and prepare for some top secret mission.”
As the sun reached its highest point, the scorching sands behind the embittered battalion filled with M-1s and Bradleys.
At least for the moment, Darren Walton’s ordeal was over.
But for another soldier caught in this suffocating war, the anguish was about to increase tenfold.
29
5:53 P.M., OCTOBER 19
ODA 6333, CHARLIE COMPANY, 3RD BATTALION, 6TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP (AIRBORNE)
CAIRO
For half a century the burgundy-bereted soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division had shared Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with the green-bereted members of American Special Forces. Throughout their history, there’d never been any love lost between the two organizations. In the tough bars of Fayetteville they’d battled for as long as anyone cared to remember.
A bleak October day may have been the sole time in the two units’ histories when Special Forces soldiers were glad to see the appearance of a burgundy beret.
It hadn’t been long after Alpha 6333’s retreat into Old Cairo that the welcome word had come—help was on the way. The 82nd Airborne’s soldiers would soon be loading onto commercial airliners for the ten-hour flight to the Middle East. And as the news spread, even the despondent Egyptian army rallied. The Egyptian infantry company scheduled to support Alpha 6333 was twelve hours late in arriving. Yet arrive they finally did. Without them, the Green Beret detachment would’ve had no chance of surviving the night.
Late in the morning, the first of the airliners appeared. Carrying two hundred men and as much equipment as their jammed cargo holds could contain, the planes landed one behind another throughout the afternoon and well into the evening.
Close to sundown, nearly thirty hours after the A Team’s abandonment of Rhoda Island, a company of burgundy berets showed up in the section of Old Cairo being held by what remained of the detachment. After an infinite black night and torturous gray day of house-to-house fighting, the Special Forces team and their Egyptian support had fallen back even farther into the heart of the city. And the Americans’ numbers had dropped from ten to eight. They’d left the bodies of two of their countrymen, victims of a direct hit from a Pan-Arab mortar shell, in the bombed-out skeleton of an ancient marketplace.
Not one of the team’s survivors had escaped the long hours unharmed. Each had suffered the indignities of fierce combat. Their wounds ran the gamut from light to severe. In time, if they survived to the war’s conclusion, their physical injuries would heal. The damage to their struggling psyches, however, probably never would. Yet each fought with every ounce of courage and strength he could muster. And finally the burgundy berets appeared. Battered and staggering, but still unbeaten, the Green Berets prepared to temporarily turn their sector of the city over to the airborne company.
There was one task remaining before leaving for a welcome respite and their first sleep in three days. Captain Morrow agreed with the 82nd Airborne company commander’s assessment. Further demolition needed to be performed to secure the area from enemy tanks.
Morrow found Sanders sitting in the shadows of a crumbling building with his rucksack and equipment packed to leave. Beneath his tattered beret a trail of blood, thick and coagulating, peeked through the soiled bandages on the right side of his skull. A solid red line reached down the brash sergeant’s neck, staining his uniform’s collar.
Sanders looked up at his commander and smiled. “So when are we leaving, sir?”
“Shortly. Just a few loose ends to tie up and we’ll be on our way. How’s your injury?”
“I’ll live, sir,” Sanders replied. “I’m still a little groggy from the blow I received from that falling beam. And this headache won’t stop.”
“Even so, you were extremely lucky. If Donovan hadn’t screamed a warning, you’d have been a goner for sure.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wouldn’t sweat the headache too much. I’ve been assured by the team medics it’s nothing more than the lingering effects of the slight concussion you received.”
“The Chosen One’s ‘gift’ isn’t going to stop me, sir. All I need are a few days of sleep and a pretty woman or two to whisper words of love and adoration and I’ll be fine.”
“I’m afraid,” Morrow said, “that before we find those soft beds and adoring women, I need you to do something for me.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Pan-Arabs have succeeded in building some makeshift bridges over the Nile. Despite our air support knocking them out as quickly as they erect them, a handful of tanks have crossed the river and joined Mourad’s infantry. More are sure to follow. Something has to be done to counter the enemy’s actions. We’ve got to blow a few of the buildings in front of us to block the tanks’ paths. That will force them to enter the city through some traps the 82nd’s setting up. That’s where you come in. Still got plenty of explosives in your rucksack?”
“Sir, you’ve got to be kidding. We’re all exhausted, and that certainly includes me. My head’s pounding so hard it’s coming apart. I can barely keep my eyes open. Like everybody else, I’m more than ready to get out of here. And you want another demolition job?”
“That’s exactly what I want, Sergeant Sanders.”
“Why doesn’t the 82nd blow the buildings themselves?”
“We’re being relieved by an infantry company. You know there aren’t any demolition people with them. Most of their ordnance folks have yet to arrive. They’re spread real thin right now. There’s demolitions work all over the city. Who knows when they’ll wander out here to handle this one? The 82nd company commander doesn’t want to sit around and hope they show. That could take hours. Maybe even days. If they wait, it might be too late to stop Mourad’s tanks from smashing through our lines. And you know what’ll happen next. All hell will break loose. Everything this team’s suffered, every horrible attack we’ve beaten back, will’ve been for nothing. Once the armor’s in the clear, there’ll be nothing to stop them. The Chosen One’s forces will reach the center of the city by midnight. If that occurs, you can forget about getting any rest. Tired or not, we’ll be thrown back into the front lines.”
“But, sir, I—”
“Look, Sanders, there’s nothing to it. One simple mission and we’ll be relieved. All I want you to do is blow a handful of buildings at three intersections a few blocks west of here. For someone with your skills it’ll be a piece of cake. You’ll be back in an hour. Abernathy and Porter will go along to provide support.”
“But, sir, everything west of here’s in enemy hands. What if when we get there, the whole place is crawling with Mourad’s troops?”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll just have to deal with the situation. Come on, Sanders, it’s not going to be that difficult. Blow a few buildings and I’ll personally find you the prettiest woman your eyes have ever seen.”
“Sir, what good are women if I don’t make it back? Another mission, even if it’s as simple as you claim, really wasn’t what I had in mind. Isn’t there another way to handle this? Maybe the 82nd could call in a few well-placed artillery rounds to blow those buildings. That might work as well as sending me smack into the middle of thousands of lunatics who’d enjoy nothing more than lopping off my head.”
“Enough already. I know we’re tired and ready to go, so I’ve tried to be more tolerant than usual. But I’m still in command here. I’m the one who gets paid to make the tough decisions. And this one’s been made. I don’t know why I’ve wasted time trying to reason with you. When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed. Is that clear, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”
“Then the subject’s no longer open for
debate. This is something that’s got to be done. So you’re wasting your breath trying to get out of it. It’ll be dark soon. The faster you accomplish your assignment, the faster we find those soft beds. Now stop stalling and get up off your rear. Let’s go over what I want you to do.”
30
6:33 P.M., OCTOBER 19
ODA 6333, CHARLIE COMPANY, 3RD BATTALION, 6TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP (AIRBORNE)
CAIRO
With Abernathy and Porter to watch over him, the fresh-faced sergeant headed into the half-light. The sunset was drawing near. It would be upon them well before they returned to their own lines. Down narrow, twisting streets the silent trio moved. The initial target was three blocks west and two south. The going was cautious and calculated. Slipping in and out of the lengthening shadows, the phantomlike figures made their way toward the first intersection. To all but the most highly trained eyes, their presence couldn’t be detected.
In ten minutes, they arrived. They’d reached one of the main crossroads in Old Cairo. The trio took a careful look around. Their enduring rival was nowhere to be found.
“Okay, this is one the captain wants blocked,” Abernathy whispered. “And there’s no sign of any of the Chosen One’s followers. But that could change at any moment.”
“It’s about time for prayers,” Porter said. “Hopefully, they’re busy fulfilling their duty to Allah, and we’ve got a few minutes to get the job done without interference.”
“Maybe,” Abernathy said, “but I wouldn’t count on it. We need to stay alert. Sanders, figure out what you’re going to do, do it, and let’s get out of here.”