by James Rosone
After the initial success in securing the SCZ, Sgt. Thornton’s Company was ordered to assault the IR forces near the strategic city of Be’er Sheva. This city was a crossroad junction leading to many different cities within Israel as well as several highways. The IDF was making a last ditch stand to block the IR advance, and desperately needed reinforcements.
The 2nd Marines were going to assault and secure the cities of Nevatim on Highway 25 and the city of Hura along Highway 31. This would place most of the Marines behind the main IR forces and would force them to halt their advance on Be’er Sheva. With Marine Aviation support and assurances from Admiral Todd with the 6th Fleet, MG Lance Peeler (the Commander of 2nd Marines) was determined to make the IR pay for crucifying captured American Forces. His Marines would disrupt the IR supply lines and force them to have to fight his Marines. The Marine armored units had secured the cities of Eilat and Aqaba, blocking the IR advance into southern Israel. Now it was time to go on the offensive and begin to take the fight to the enemy.
Sgt. Thornton’s Company had assaulted the IR lines at Nevatim, and with support from three dozen Razorbacks, they had quickly destroyed the IR’s armor, IFVs and light drone tanks in the area. They secured the critical highway network supplying the IR’s main force near Be’er Sheva. The Company had been in near-constant contact with the enemy for 72 hours, and it was starting to show; his men were exhausted and so was he. In addition to limited air support and their Razorbacks, there was a self-propelled 155mm Army artillery battalion assigned to support their position, which was facing continuous contact with the enemy. The IR was now starting to use massive human wave attacks.
“Sgt. Thornton, I’m pulling your squad off the line to get some rest. I can’t give your men a long break, but I need to start rotating the squads in the company before everyone drops dead from exhaustion,” said 1st Lieutenant Jack Lee. Jack had taken over command of the company two days ago when the Captain was killed during one of the IR’s suicidal human wave attacks.
“The men will appreciate it--not sure how much longer we can function in our current state. Some of the guys are starting to fall asleep between lulls in the battle and my fear is they won’t wake up fast enough to respond to a new assault,” Sgt. Thornton said while leaning against the wall of his foxhole.
“It’s a problem the entire battalion is facing; that’s why I need to get your squads some rest while we can. We are pulling one squad from each platoon and giving them an hour and a half to sleep before rotating the next group in. We will continue this rotation for as long as possible,” the Lt. said, sounding optimistic about the sleeping plan working.
Sgt. Thornton was glad his squad was the first to get some rest. Before the Lt. left to go inform the next squad, Sgt. Thornton asked, “Sir, do you know when we are going to get some replacements? Half our platoon is nearly gone.”
“There are two thousand Marine Reservists that just landed in Siganella yesterday; word has it they are supposed to start filtering in within the next 48 hours. Of course, that assumes we’ll still be alive in the next 48 hours.”
“If they keep sending these human wave attacks and that constant rocket barrage, you may be right,” said Sgt. Thornton dryly.
The 1st ID lost Jerusalem after two days of house-to-house fighting through the suburbs. General Gardner had ordered them to fall back to the surrounding hills and suburbs on the West side of Jerusalem. Sgt. Jordy Nelson’s platoon was exhausted and running on fumes. Nearly five days of constant combat was grinding them into the dirt. His company had lost nearly 60% of their original force by the end of the first day. After unrelenting rocket and artillery barrages, they were quickly faced with nearly 300,000 IR troops fighting to capture Jerusalem. When the 3rd ID reinforced them four days ago, the 1st ID had lost nearly 4,200 soldiers of their original 12,300. With the loss of Jerusalem, General Gardner had folded the two infantry divisions together (MG Paul Brown and his staff had been killed in Jerusalem during one of the many IR bombing runs). Both divisions were down to less than 40% strength, and until reinforcements showed up with additional senior officers, having them operate under a joint command only made sense.
When the US’s 80th and 81st Fighter Drone Wings arrived from Italy and Cypress, they immediately made an impact. The drones were slowly beginning to retake the skies over Israel. The ground attack drones had moved to forward airbases in Israel, and despite the airbases coming under rocket and artillery attack, the drones were starting to take a bite out of the IR artillery and rocket forces. The greatest contribution the drones had made thus far was whittling down the IR’s artillery, which had been devastating the allied defensive positions.
The key beneficial factors that the American soldiers had over their IR counterparts was their superior training, infantry weapons and body armor. With some air support, they were finally starting to halt the massive uncoordinated attacks by the IR human wave assaults. Word had spread through the allies that these human wave assaults were civilian volunteers with little in the way of training. They may have had numbers, but they lacked courage and conviction in their cause once the artillery and rifle fire started to cut through their ranks.
European Craziness
03 December 2040
Day Five
Brussels, European Union
The EU was experiencing a rash of violence against Jews, Christians and Muslims all across the Union. After the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque and then the condemnation from the Pope, the Muslims living in Europe exploded. There had already been strong support in the Muslim communities for the Islamic Republic, and once hostilities broke out against Israel and the United States, hundreds of thousands of Muslim men began traveling to Turkey to join the Islamic Army. Turkey had left the NATO alliance to join the IR, which created a lot of friction between the EU and Turkey. The border between Greece and Turkey, which was already a source of friction, quickly became a fully militarized border.
To complicate things further in Europe, the American Embassies in Paris, Rome, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Germany were brutally attacked on the third day of the war. The Embassies were pummeled with multiple Vehicle Borne IEDs (VBIEDs) and RPGs and then they were directly assaulted by hundreds of “protesters,” as the EU media was calling them.
The Germans had caught wind of the threat and had prepared accordingly. When the attack was about to get underway, hundreds of German police and counterterrorism units intercepted the attackers. The outcome was a massive shootout in central Berlin that resulted in two VBIEDs going off, causing considerable damage to the neighboring buildings.
In Great Britain, the British arrested most of the attackers in the middle of the night and prevented the others from getting close to the Embassy.
The Paris attack was perhaps the most disturbing. The French had been dealing with hundreds of attacks between Jews, Christians, Muslims and rioting across the country. Despite intelligence sharing between countries within the EU, they were caught unprepared for the attack against the Embassy. Ten individuals attacked the French police guarding the Embassy with machine guns, killing them quickly. One individual unslung an RPG-7VR and blew apart the Marine guard station next to the gate, killing the two Marines and security contractors.
Within seconds, a cargo van drove directly into the front gate and exploded a 1,000 lb. bomb, destroying the primary and secondary gates. A second van drove through the newly created hole in the Embassy security and drove straight for the front entrance. Three security guards opened fire on the van, killing the driver. As the van began to slow down, someone detonated the bomb, exploding 3,000 lbs. of Semtex High Explosives. The VBIED blew the entire face of the Embassy right off, creating multiple new entries into the building.
Five additional vans arrived and disgorged 30 heavily armed men, who quickly began to storm the Embassy. In less than five minutes, they had captured the Ambassador, Deputy Ambassador and 23 employees. They were quickly moved to the vans and driven away while the re
maining armed men began killing everyone in the building and waited for the police to arrive. By the end of the day, 136 US and French nationals were killed during the attack; an additional 61 police officers were killed as well. The next day, a video was posted showing the Ambassador and the 24 other individuals crucified on crosses and their bodies being set on fire; the screams they made were horrific. This same type of attack occurred at the other Embassies, with the Ambassadors and their staffs also being crucified the following day.
President Stein was furious with the EU for not providing better security for the Embassies. The fact that the diplomats were crucified on a cross and then set on fire further infuriated the President and the American people.
“Chancellor Lowden, we have started the call up of the Reserves. Our active duty forces are now on high alert and ready to deploy to the cities when you are ready,” Minister of Defense André Gouin said as he looked at the faces around the table.
“I do not like the idea of deploying the military into the cities, but we have to do something. The rioting and the attacks on the American Embassies are too much. President Stein was enraged when he called me this morning.”
“Perhaps if President Stein had kept his generals under control and not destroyed the Al Aqsa Mosque, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Prodi.
“I might have done the same thing if I was in General Gardner’s position, after seeing video of our soldiers being crucified on crosses. That is beyond barbaric,” said General Volker Naumann, the EU Military Chief of Staff, shooting a stern look at Minister Prodi.
“Gentlemen, arguing is not going to change the situation. We have to deal with it and move forward; I want solutions, not arguments.”
“If you want to solve the problem, then we need to encourage the Muslim populations in our countries to leave and join the Islamic Republic. As long as they are here, they are going to cause problems. They refuse to assimilate, learn our languages and demand that our women dress more conservatively and wear a headdress. French women are scared to go out in public in certain areas of Paris for fear of being attacked,” said General Naumann, looking each person in the eye.
“Chancellor, I do not believe it is possible for us to evict them from our country, at least not peacefully. What we can do is deploy the military into the cities to return law and order. As Muslims are apprehended for violations of our laws, they can be moved to a detention facility we intend to set up in Marseille. From there, we will load them on freighters and send them to Algeria or Tunisia, both IR members. If the IR will not accept them, then sink the ship in the harbor,” said André Gouin as he took a sip of expresso.
“I cannot even believe you would suggest such a thing,” said Paolo as he pointed angrily at Gouin.
“Enough!” shouted Chancellor Lowden. “We, as the government, need to have a unified plan and deal with this problem immediately. Paulo, I understand your concerns, and I share them as well. However, the state of the world has changed so much in such a short time; while the majority of the Muslim populations in our countries used to be peaceful, we can no longer say that is true. The last five days have resulted in over 9,242 people being killed, and four times that many injured. We cannot continue to debate this. I do not like this plan at all, but I can see that it is the only plan right now that will work. Minister Gouin, order the military into the cities. General Naumann, crush this uprising.”
*******
05 December 2040
Day Seven
Washington, DC
White House Situation Room
After spending several days in the underground bunker, the President returned back to the White House, albeit with a significant military presence protecting the residence, in addition to the regular detail of Secret Service. Despite his advisors saying he should continue to stay underground with the rest of the government, the President was adamant that he needed to be in the White House and project to the American people a sense of calm. It was imperative that people stop panicking and do their best to return back to their daily lives.
The President met with the CEOs and head producers for each of the major news networks and insisted that their coverage start to focus on the positive aspects of the war (victories, defeats of the enemy, winning), the economy and other stories rather than coverage aimed at scaring the public and further inciting rioting and violence between American Muslims and non-Muslims. The news agencies agreed to refocus a majority of their coverage to topics that would hopefully help to diffuse the growing violence and panic that was starting to run amuck. Even the journalists, usually keen to find the most salacious stories possible in order to rack up their ratings, realized society would not function if everything imploded. They knew they could do something to help bring some calm to the situation and moved to do so.
“Does the President understand how many casualties we are sustaining? We need more reinforcements now or we may lose the rest of Israel,” said General Gardner through the secured video phone in the Situation Room while the group waited for the President to arrive.
“General, we know how many soldiers you are losing, and so does the President,” said General Aaron Wade, the Central Command CG.
“--Sorry I’m late gentlemen. Monty and I were held up in the economic meeting. Please, let’s start the briefing,” the President said as he sat down at the head of the table. “Before we move to Israel, update me on the situation in the EU and our forces there.”
“Our forces in the EU continue to stay in a state of high alert. The bases are also receiving additional security from the EU, so we are confident they are as secured as they can be,” said General Branson.
“Well, I’m glad the EU is finally doing something to protect our people and buildings from their unruly mob,” said the President.
“We have moved close to 300,000 troops to Italy and Germany. Our biggest challenge is getting those troops into Israel. We do not have full air supremacy over Israel. We’ve had to focus on using only military cargo aircraft to bring in reinforcements--it has slowed down the number of reinforcements we can send each day. Nine civilian aircraft were shot down over the past four days, trying to break through; no pilot is willing to take the chance now,” said General Rice, the Air Force Chief of Staff.
“General Rice, how many troops a day are we sending into Israel right now?” asked the President.
“We are flying in 13,000 reinforcements a day. I would also like to add that we have lost sixteen C17s and four C5s; roughly 4,000 troops were killed. We just are not able to get enough reinforcements to the front,” said Rice.
“V Corps just arrived at the port of Ashdod; they are offloading their equipment as we speak. They have been under a lot of artillery and rocket fire, slowing the offloading of equipment. The equipment and troops that are offloaded are immediately being moved to General Gardner’s Command,” explained Admiral Juliano, reading from his tablet.
General Gardner broke in to add, “As these troops are becoming available, I am filtering them into the frontline where they are needed. It will still take several days to unload their equipment. I’m feeding most of the Corps into the frontline as infantry for the time being.”
“Mr. President, I know you are aware of how dire the situation is here in Israel. If we are not able to get more reinforcements to Israel within the next 24 to 36 hours, I am not confident we are going to be able to hold onto Northern Israel and Tel Aviv. If we lose Tel Aviv, the Army will have to pull back to Be’er Sheva and Gaza,” said General Gardner with a worried yet tough look on his face.
“General Wade, what is your opinion on the situation?” asked the President.
“I have to agree with General Gardner, Mr. President. If we continue to try and hold Northern Israel and Tel Aviv without reinforcements, General Gardner’s force may be cut off from the rest of Israel and surrounded. Then it would only be a matter of time until they are wiped out,” said General Wade with a sole
mn expression.
“General Rice, what else can the Air Force do to improve the situation?” asked President Stein.
“Mr. President, we are in a tough position. The IR continues to move hundreds of thousands of troops to Israel. They have already lost over 300,000 troops and more keep coming. Presently, there are 540,000 IR troops fighting in Israel; the IDF has taken some horrific casualties too. The IDF have lost 154,000 troops; on our side, 31,235 soldiers and 18,432 sailors have given their lives in sacrifice to our country.”
“I know the losses are terrible, General Wade. What is the solution? How are you going to get more troops into Israel and stop the continued IR reinforcements?”
“The USS Intrepid battle group has arrived on station and we’ve moved another 600 fighter drones to Europe; most of them are now in Cypress. We are going to make a massive air assault that we believe will finally give us air superiority. I’ve ordered our strategic bombers to Europe as well; once we have air superiority, our bombers will begin attacking their reinforcements and supply lines. Of note is our cruise missile stockpile--it’s down to 37%--I’ve ordered 12,000 additional cruise missiles to Europe, but it will drop our strategic reserves down to 28%,” said General Rice.
“I’ve been in discussion with our cruise missile suppliers; they are now working 24/7 on producing more cruise missiles. They are even adding several new production lines to increase their production capacity,” said the SecDef, trying to ease concerns over the possibility of a munitions shortage.
“That is a whole other issue, getting the economy on a war footing. We knew a war was coming, but I do not believe we thought we would lose this many troops and equipment so fast. We are only eight days into the war and we are already running low on ordnance, infantry vehicles, tanks, aircraft and naval ships,” the President said with a bit of concern.