by James Rosone
Looking up, he saw Childers, covered in dirt and sweat, and a little bit of blood trickling down from a small cut on the side of his right cheek. “You look like crap sergeant. Are you OK?” he asked in reply.
Chuckling, Childers answered, “Yeah I’m OK. We had a couple of guys wounded down by my section of the line. The medics are getting them back to the aid station. We got lucky the Russians didn’t focus that barrage on our position like they did the armor guys.” He said looking off towards where the tanks were hiding. He saw a couple columns of smoke, which meant a few of them must have been hit.
Suddenly, the percussion of tank cannon rounds, mortars, and heavy machine guns broke the conversation. “It appears the ground attack is about to start. Sergeant, get the rest of the platoon ready while I help get this gun operational again,” the LT said as he turned back to the gun.
Sergeant Childers smiled and ran towards the next line. “I’m glad to see the LT is starting to take ownership of the platoon. We’ll make an infantry officer out of him yet,” he thought.
Luke saw that the next group of three soldiers was ready. They had the M240 mounted on a tripod with the spare barrel and glove nearby, ready to be swapped out. “You guys have enough ammo for that thing?” he asked, hoping they had plenty.
One of the soldiers, who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, looked up. “Yes, Sergeant. We have fourteen belts.”
Childers nodded and then moved down to the next foxhole. He saw only one soldier, where there should have been two or three, so he jumped in. “Where are your battle buddies?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
“They both got injured during the artillery barrage. I’m here alone,” he answered, still clearly in a bit of shock.
Childers reached out, putting his hand on the young soldier’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s OK. They will be fine and so will you. I’ll stay here with you. You’ll be my battle buddy now OK?” His kindness brought a smile to the soldier’s face.
“Thank you, Sergeant Childers. You are a good sergeant,” the young soldier said.
Snap…Zip…Crack! Dozens of bullets began to fly over their heads, hitting the tree branches and other objects they were using for cover in front of their fighting position.
“Private Torres, remember to aim each shot. Find your target, then gently squeeze the trigger and move to the next target. Don’t stay up for more than a few seconds before ducking back down, OK?” Childers felt the need to try to convey some of his experience to the youngster.
“Man, we have a lot of young soldiers in this platoon,” Childers realized.
PV2 Jesus Torres looked over the top of his fighting position with his M4 at the enemy soldiers, heading towards their position. He did just as Sergeant Childers told him; he found a Russian soldier that was bounding from one covered position to another, stopping every few minutes to fire his AK-47 at their positions. He placed the red dot on the soldier’s center mass, just as he had been taught in Basic Combat Training at Ft. Benning, and gently squeezed the trigger. He felt his rifle bark once and recoil back. The enemy soldier clutched his chest, and fell to the ground. He had hit him.
PV2 Torres then slid down the side of his fighting position, his heart and mind racing.
He looked at Childers, “Sergeant, I did it. I got one of them!” he yelled over the now continuous popping of the platoon’s weapons.
Looking at the young soldier, Luke responded, “Great job, Torres! I told you that you could do it. Now, keep going. We have to stop these guys and the platoon is depending on you!”
Sergeant Childers spotted what appeared to be a Russian officer. He was the only guy he saw yelling at the soldiers, pointing them to various parts of the American lines where they would pour machine gun fire on. Childers took careful aim, and gently squeezed the trigger, just as he had done so many times throughout his military career. He released a three-round burst which hit the Russian officer in the chest. The officer dropped to the ground, dead. The soldiers near the officer suddenly looked up and pointed directly at Childers. Childers and Torres then found their position being heavily raked over with enemy gunfire. Pieces of dirt, grass, and tree leaves were all being kicked up around them as the enemy lit up their position.
Childers put his hand on Torres’ shoulder, indicating for him to stay down a bit longer. “Let the enemy fire at us for a while. Once they believe they got us, they’ll move on to the next position. Then we can get up and start shooting at them again, OK?”
After what felt like an eternity (but was probably no more than thirty-seconds), Childers popped back up and brought his rifle to bear. He sighted in a group of Russian soldiers moving towards their position. They were being smart about it. Two of them would run, while the other three would lay down covering fire. One of the soldiers had an RPG-7 and would stop from time to time to fire a rocket at the American lines. Childers looked down at Torres, and signaled for him to get up.
“See that group of soldiers over there to our ten o’clock? Try and take out the guy with the RPG. I’m going to try and take out the other guys around him, OK?”
Torres just nodded, still rattled from all the gunfire happening around them. Childers took aim at one of the attackers. He had stopped shooting to change out magazines; that’s when Childers placed the red dot on him and squeezed the trigger. The Russian soldier fell backwards. His buddy to the left looked right at Childers just as he squeezed the trigger a second time, hitting the soldier in the face.
It was practically dark now. The Americans had moved to using their night vision goggles. Roughly half the Russian soldiers had them. The other half didn’t; they were just running and attacking in the direction they were told. As night descended on the battle, it turned into complete chaos. Red and green tracer fire was crisscrossing back and forth across the battle lines while soldiers and armored vehicles attempted to race between them. Explosions could be heard everywhere. Bullets were whipping through the air, striking tree trunks, branches, vehicles and human flesh. It was the sickening sound of war as the cacophony just continued unabated, both sides trying relentlessly to kill each other.
The ground attack lasted nearly two hours before the Russians broke off their attack. They had not penetrated the American positions, but they had bloodied the Americans up pretty well. For the moment, the Americans had delayed a significantly larger enemy force from moving on to capture the international airport and the capital--at least for several hours, maybe more.
Disunity at the Top
Washington, DC
White House, Situation Room
The Secret Service was still requesting to move the President to a more secured command bunker. “Mr. President,” pressed one of the agents. “This is a shooting war with Russia, a nation that has nuclear capability and submarines potentially off the east coast. Our concern is for your safety.”
The President waved them off. “I respect your opinion, but I need to stay in the White House and project strength and calm until the situation changes,” he responded calmly. He felt confident in his assessment that Russia had no more desire to make this a nuclear war than he did.
As to the broader picture, however, the President had admitted privately to his closest advisors that he did not have any serious military experience or understanding of how these things worked. He was relying heavily on their experience and knowledge. Right now, it appeared to him they had completely underestimated the Russians resolve to stand their ground, and their ability to strike at the US and NATO. The only person he had spoken to in the last few days that had signaled any sort of warning was that Ambassador in Ukraine. “I’ll have to speak with him more. He seems to know what he’s talking about,” the President thought.
The room was abuzz with activity. Generals and Colonels were pouring over various digital maps, some of Ukraine, some of Europe. President Gates had been sitting in the Situation Room, absorbing the information being thrown at him for the past two and a half hours during this second emer
gency session of the day. Finally, the President cleared his throat and stood up. “Enough!” he exclaimed. “Everyone take a seat and shut up. There is too much chaos and yelling going on right now, and nothing productive is going to come from it. I need each of you to provide me with the situation update as of right now, and then tell me what our options are.”
The room suddenly calmed down. Everyone began to walk back to their chairs and sit down. General Hillman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (CJC), replied, “You are right, Mr. President. Please accept my apology for our behavior. We are trying to talk through our options and the situation right now. Not all of us agree on what to do next. We normally hash this out before you join the meeting. You are kind of seeing us as we brainstorm and work through the problems.” The other officers and generals nodded in agreement, realizing that this was not the time or place to have such a disagreement.
NSA Tom McMillan stood up and walked over to the digital map of Ukraine. “Mr. President, what we are trying to figure out right now is what to do about this American unit that is positioned right here,” he said pointing to a section on the map that then zoomed in. “It’s roughly 40 miles from Kiev, and 53 miles or so from our base at Pryluky here,” he explained, zooming in again on the base.
The President interrupted to ask, “Isn’t that our base that the Russians essentially destroyed during the sneak attack?”
“Yes, Mr. President. The Russians hit the base with both an airstrike and cruise missile attack. They also fought off a Spetsnaz ground attack. There are still 2,800 soldiers at the base, getting it ready for another Russian ground and air attack.” McMillan pulled up a side screen, which listed some of the units that were still at the base.
Another general, the deputy to the Army’s Chief of Staff, spoke up to add, “We’ve moved nearly 400 wounded soldiers from the base back to Kiev. We still have a lot of seriously wounded soldiers there that need to be evacuated from Ukraine that are presently stranded.”
The President’s Chief of Staff, Ishaan Patel, interjected to ask, “What are we doing to evacuate our wounded soldiers, General Sparks?”
Sparks grunted and shrugged his shoulders a little, exasperated. “Right now, we are not doing anything. Two of our medivac helicopters have been shot down by Russian aircraft. We’ve lost eleven helicopters in the past three hours in that area right now. Until the Air Force can get some air cover to our choppers, they are not going to keep flying into that base.” He was clearly angry that his soldiers could not get the medical support they desperately needed.
Gates looked to his Air Force General, Dustin LaSalle. “What are we doing to get air support to our troops and to cover Spark’s medical helicopters?”
The Air Force General felt all eyes turn towards him. “A wing of F-35’s just arrived at Ramstein Airbase. They are being readied to start carrying out operations in Ukraine and just across the Russian border, which should start to help alleviate our ground forces.”
Gates raised his hand to stop the general. “LaSalle, talk plain English to me. What exactly does that mean?”
“Sorry, Sir. The F-35s that just arrived in Germany are going after the Russian air defense systems--the SA-10 and SA-21 missile batteries, their SAMs. As those systems are taken off line, our F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s will be able to provide ground support to our troops. We have 41 F-22s in Germany and 12 in Poland. They are going to start flying round-the-clock air operations over Ukraine now that we have additional E-3 aircraft from the UK to help provide air battle management support. These efforts are going to result in us regaining air superiority over the next couple of days,” General LaSalle explained.
Gates nodded in approval. “Thank you, General, for explaining that. When will our B-2 Stealth Bombers and B-1s begin their attacks against Moscow?” he asked. Secretly, he was hoping that somehow, some way, they might get lucky and even kill Petrov.
“The B-2 strike will happen in two more hours. The bombers are just now penetrating Russian airspace,” one of the Air Force colonels said from his spot against the back wall.
“What about the Navy? How is that front going?” asked the President. The last update he had received was a few hours ago, when it was reported that the Supercarrier George H.W. Bush had to be abandoned. When part of the carrier’s air wing had to land at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, it had created a bit of an issue with the Turks, despite them being a part of NATO. They were not happy. They complained that it made the international airport a legitimate military target while those military aircraft were there. However, the air wing was being refueled and would fly on to the US Air Force Base at Aviano, Italy. The President was hoping to avoid further issues with his NATO partners.
Admiral William Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations, took the question. “Mr. President, the remaining ships of Strike Group Two have linked up with the Bulgarian and Romanian navy. They just launched cruise missile strikes against the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, and also against the two Russian airfields there. Strike Group Two will move towards Crimea and finish off the rest of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and then provide air defense support over as much of Ukraine as possible.”
The admiral continued the briefing on the naval situation. “We held back on sending the Eisenhower into the Baltic Sea until it can be properly secured. The Strike Group has been engaging numerous Russian submarines since the start of hostilities. So far, no submarines have gotten close enough to launch any torpedoes at her, but one of the destroyer escorts was sunk in the North Sea.”
“I’ve also ordered the Truman Carrier Strike Group to withdraw from the eastern Mediterranean Sea and start heading to the Black Sea. We will need the carrier’s air wing and strike package as we continue to hit the Russians. Plus, the 3,500 Marines they have traveling with them, along with the 3,500 Marines from the Bush Strike Group, will give us a solid ground force we can use against the Russians,” Admiral Richardson concluded.
President Gates nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Admiral. I appreciate your taking extra precautions with the Eisenhower carrier group and getting the Truman into position. I like the idea of having 7,000 angry Marines we can deploy in the Black Sea.”
“The Russians are obviously hitting us with a lot of cyber-attacks. Are we going to have these attacks under control? And are we taking appropriate attacks of our own against them?” asked Gates. Prior to coming into the meeting, he saw a news bulletin from one of the networks talking about a series of cyber-attacks taking place across the country; he didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.
The Director of the NSA spoke up as this was his primary lane. “Mr. President, certain parts of the economy are being attacked with a series of DDoS attacks and other malicious cyber-attacks. We have our best people working on countering this (along with the private sector) to restore service and to prevent these types of events from happening again. Our country, unlike most, has been the target of vicious cyber-attacks for more than a decade. As a result, we are far more prepared to deal with them than our European counterparts. Our agency is currently carrying out a myriad of cyber-attacks against parts of the Russian government and economy that support their military and forces in Ukraine.”
The President nodded, knowing this was a complex issue. He felt good that his people were on top of it for the time being. He’d have to check back with them over the next few days to verify their progress.
Then he turned to face the broader group. “I do not believe we addressed the initial problem McMillan brought up--that small pocket of American troops southeast of Kiev. How many soldiers do we have there?” asked Gates.
General Hillman took back over, standing up next to the map. “It’s kind of a hodgepodge of units. It’s being led right now by a Lieutenant Colonel, Brian Munch, the battalion commander from the 37th Armored Regiment. They are the first armored regiment from the 1st Armored Division that arrived in Europe three days ago. They hauled butt to get to Kiev and then ran straight to t
he front lines when hostilities started. The other unit is about half of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s brigade combat team. All in all, they have roughly 1,900 troops: about 64 Abram battle tanks, 46 Stryker vehicles, and 32 Bradley fighting vehicles. The 2nd Cavalry also had a battalion of Paladin self-propelled artillery guns. That unit has been providing them with the bulk of their fire support.”
“They’ve positioned themselves in such a way as to block the bulk of the Russian forces from capturing Pryluky or Kiev quickly. The Russians must either push through them, or find a way around them. The Russians already attempted to launch an attack against them, but after two hours, they were beaten back. Although our guys managed to stop them, we know that the Russians will hit them again…either with more forces, or most likely, they will go around them, leaving them completely cut off. While I would like to leave them in place, as they are buying us more time, we have virtually no way to resupply them or relieve them. We have roughly 8,000 soldiers in and around Kiev, but roughly 3,800 of them are combat arms. The rest are support units: supply, air-defense, engineers etc.”
Tracing his finger along the highways in Poland leading into Ukraine, General Hillman went on, “We have 12,000 combat troops traveling down these three highways, heading into Ukraine right now. They are at least twelve hours away from reaching Kiev, and that’s if they do not come under heavy air attack. The Polish are reluctant to release any of their combat units right now with the Russian 4th Army currently sitting in Belarus. It’s not clear what the intentions of the 4th Army are, but they are in excellent position to invade Poland if they want to. Mr. President, it is my recommendation that we order LTC Munch to have his forces fall back to Kiev and attempt to hold the city for the next twenty-four hours while additional combat forces arrive from Germany.”