That saved my ass. The ones I could see checked and some looked back. Then that crazy Jones half stood up and sprayed them with SBs on full automatic, giving out with the Rebel yell in time to the tigers’ roar. It was a blood-freezing sight. Crazy or not, fighting cocktail or not, that man was as scared as I was.
The gooks turned and blew him away, but half of ‘em went down like ninepins, and I was already half up, holding my trigger down. They got off a couple of bursts toward me, nicked me twice, but they all went down. Damn wasteful way to use Smart Bullets, but it worked. I changed clips in a hurry, my knees shakin’ so I could hardly stand, still ready to piss my pants, not able to believe we’d got ‘em all. From farther back more Samkiller bullets ripped past and I was shaking so hard it’s a good thing M-3s don’t have to be aimed. I lobbed a few bullets, spotted another target, took it out, and thought.
I was standing up, shaking, with only a little blood showin’. The tigers had just counterattacked from the rear. I ought to go forward and finish the enemy off. I don’t know how I got together the guts to stagger forward in a crouch over dead gooks, but I did it, and I think one of the other guys from Blunderbore’s squad did, too. They must of got him, though, because I was the only one there when I saw the tigers polish off the rest of the stunned gooks.
There wasn’t that many of them, and what was left was shocked by the beehive M-80s and our SBs. Now the tigers, their ammo low, leaped among them and slapped off heads, ripped open bodies, bit, and shook. I saw then that Hooligan had just been playing with Jones, she hadn’t used claws. It’s even worse than explosive bullets, what a tiger can do to a man. One guy tried to run and the third tiger leaped past him and ripped his guts out with one blow and they dropped down and he fell over them.
All the tigers were covered with other people’s blood, and their faces were fearsome, worse than a crazy Ranger’s. I just stared, I couldn’t believe how fierce our pets were.
Our part of the battle was over, and by the time we regrouped, it was all over and the enemy were all streaming back down the road, and we let ’em go. So it was over for me while I stood there among the piled bodies the tigers had killed, and I kind of felt that.
I saw Hooligan prowl over to one down gook and bite his head, finishing him off, and she did it to another. Then she looked up at me with blood all over her, and especially over her face, and her eyes caught the light green and she opened her mouth and gave me that silent cat’s laugh. That’s when I puked.
I mean, I flat tossed my cookies and I was shakin’ and practically moaning and I was more scared than I’ve ever been, more scared than a man should ever get. I was scared of the war tigers.
Well, yeah, that was a scary sight, and blood and gore does bad things to you even when it’s gook blood and gore. I’d been through a lot, I was in shock and even wounded. But that wasn’t it; you don’t get it. It wasn’t till later, when I was in therapy, that we figured it out.
See, all these generations we’ve had war, and we’ve all hated it. I know there’s been guys like the crazy Jones—the Marines and Rangers get all the volunteers they need. But what they really like is not war, but fightin’—barroom fights with an audience are what they like best. Provin’ they’re men. Why else would Jones offer to fight a tiger, but to show what a man he was? But even he was scared shitless in that jungle; I was there, and I saw. Anybody would be, with the enemy cuttin’ the jungle down just to get you. So there’s always been a hope we could end war, if everybody hates it, really hates real war, not just barroom fights.
But those tigers loved it. They weren’t afraid; they didn’t need fighting cocktails to make them move like that, to make them fearless. They loved the danger and the excitement and the killing.
After all these generations, we’ve bred up soldiers that love war. God help us all.
No, I wasn’t afraid that they’d turn on me, I knew they couldn’t. Too many safeguards in their implant computer programming. I wasn’t afraid of them, themselves, at all. I was afraid of what they stood for, though it was months before I knew that.
But that night, when Hooligan had cleaned herself up and been bandaged, and she came over and wanted to console us for the loss of Pete, and roughhouse and play, and was purring and happy and friendly, just like a big stuffed animal that every kid wants for Christmas but that’s alive and can talk—I didn’t want to play. I didn’t want to pet her. I didn’t want nothin’ to do with her.
Remember the Alamo! by T. R. Fehrenbach
Editor’s Introduction
Lieutenant Colonel T. R. Fehrenbach, U.S. Army (Ret.), is the author of Lone Star, a definitive history of his native state of Texas. He is also the author of This Kind of War, which is not only the definitive strategic and tactical history of the Korean War, but the best presentation to date of the problems democracies face when they must fight small wars in faraway places. If you want to understand our present strategic dilemma, you must read Fehrenbach’s analysis; alas, few do so.
In 1962 Fehrenbach understood what would happen if the United States attempted to aid Vietnam. He said:
From the Korean War the United States drew troubled conclusions. American policy had been to contain Communism along the parallel, and in this, American policy succeeded. But no one realized, at the beginning, how exceedingly costly such containment would be. The war reaffirmed in American minds the distaste for land warfare on the continent of Asia, the avoidance of which has always been a foundation of United States policy. But the war proved that containment in Asia could not be forged with nuclear bombs and that threats were not enough, unless the United States intended to answer a Communist pinprick with general holocaust.
Yet the American people, army, and leaders generally proved unwilling to accept wars of policy in lieu of crusades against Communism. Innocence had been lost, but the loss was denied. The government that had ordered troops into Korea knew that the issue was never whether Syngman Rhee was right or wrong but that his loss would adversely affect the status of the United States—which was not arguable.
That government’s inability to communicate, and its repudiation at the polls, firmly convinced many men of the political dangers of committing American ground troops in wars of containment. Yet without the continual employment of limited force around the globe, or even with it, there was to be no order. The world could not be policed with ships, planes, and bombs—policemen were also needed.
Less than a year after fighting ended in Korea, Vietnam was lost to the West, largely because of the complete repugnance of Americans toward committing a quarter of a million ground troops in another apparently indecisive skirmish with Communism. Even more important, the United States, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported, simply did not have the troops.
Korea, from Task Force Smith at Osan to the last days at Pork Chop, indicates that the policy of containment cannot be implemented without professional legions. Yet every democratic government is reluctant to face the fact. Reservists and citizen-soldiers stand ready, in every free nation, to stand to the colors and die in holocaust, the big war. Reservists and citizen-soldiers remain utterly reluctant to stand and die in anything less. None want to serve on the far frontiers, or to maintain lonely, dangerous vigils on the periphery of Asia. There has been every indication that mass call-ups for cold war moves may result in mass disaffection.
The United States will be forced to fight wars of policy during the balance of the century. This is inevitable, since the world is seething with disaffection and revolt, which, however justified and merited, plays into Communist hands, and swings the world balance ever their way. Military force alone cannot possibly solve the problem—but without the application of some military force, certain areas, such as Southeast Asia, will inevitably be lost.
However repugnant the idea is to liberal societies, the man who will willingly defend the free world in the fringe areas is not the responsible citizen-soldier. The man who will go where his colors go, without asking, who wi
ll fight a phantom foe in jungle and mountain range, without counting, and who will suffer and die in the midst of incredible hardship, without complaint, is still what he has always been, from Imperial Rome to sceptered Britain to democratic America. He is the stuff of which legions are made.
His pride is in his colors and his regiment, his training hard and thorough and coldly realistic, to fit him for what he must face, and his obedience is to his orders. As a legionary, he held the gates of civilization for the classical world; as a bluecoated horseman he swept the Indians from the Plains; he has been called United States Marine. He does the jobs—the utterly necessary jobs—no militia is willing to do. His task is moral or immoral according to the orders that send him forth. It is inevitable, since men compete.
About the time that was published, the Kennedy administration attempted to aid Vietnam. Then, guided by Harvard intellectuals, the president sanctioned the deposition (and inevitable assassination) of Vietnam’s president, thereby assuming full responsibility for that unhappy country. After Kennedy was assassinated in turn, the Johnson government attempted to honor that commitment by sending conscript soldiers to a far land where few understood what was at stake.
What we needed was legions.
Those who might have served as legionaries were not permitted to do it. Every few months America sent a new and untrained army halfway across the world. We needed legions, but we didn’t have them.
We don’t have them yet, despite ending the draft.
This story was published about the time that This Kind of War was completed. It might have been written yesterday. Some lessons are never learned.
Remember the Alamo!
T. R. Fehrenbach
Toward sundown, in the murky drizzle, the man who called himself Ord brought Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis word that the Mexican light cavalry had completely invaded Bexar, and that some light guns were being set up across the San Antonio River. Even as he spoke, there was a flash and bang from the west, and a shell screamed over the old mission walls. Travis looked worried.
“What kind of guns?” he asked.
“Nothing to worry about, sir,” Ord said. “Only a few one-pounders, nothing of respectable siege caliber. General Santa Anna has had to move too fast for any big stuff to keep up.” Ord spoke in his odd accent. After all, he was a Britainer, or some other kind of foreigner. But he spoke good Spanish, and he seemed to know everything. In the four or five days since he had appeared he had become very useful to Travis.
Frowning, Travis asked, “How many Mexicans, do you think, Ord?”
“Not more than a thousand, now,” the dark-haired, blue-eyed young man said confidently. “But when the main body arrives, there’ll be four, five thousand.”
Travis shook his head. “How do you get all this information, Ord? You recite it like you had read it all someplace—like it were history.”
Ord merely smiled. “Oh, I don’t know everything, Colonel. That is why I had to come here. There is so much we don’t know about what happened… I mean, sir, what will happen—in the Alamo.” His sharp eyes grew puzzled for an instant. “And some things don’t seem to match up, somehow–”
Travis looked at him sympathetically. Ord talked queerly at times, and Travis suspected he was a bit deranged. This was understandable, for the man was undoubtedly a Britainer aristocrat, a refugee from Napoleon’s thousand-year empire. Travis had heard about the detention camps and the charcoal ovens… but once, when he had mentioned the Empereur’s sack of London in ‘06, Ord had gotten a very queer look in his eyes, as if he had forgotten completely.
But John Ord, or whatever his name was, seemed to be the only man in the Texas forces who understood what William Barret Travis was trying to do. Now Travis looked around at the thick adobe wall surrounding the old mission in which they stood. In the cold, yellowish twilight even the flaring cook fires of his 182 men could not dispel the ghostly air that clung to the old place. Travis shivered involuntarily. But the walls were thick, and they could turn one-pounders. He asked, “What was it you called this place, Ord… the Mexican name?”
“The Alamo, sir.” A slow, steady excitement seemed to burn in the Britainer’s bright eyes. “Santa Anna won’t forget that name, you can be sure. You’ll want to talk to the other officers now, sir? About the message we drew up for Sam Houston?”
“Yes, of course,” Travis said absently. He watched Ord head for the walls. No doubt about it, Ord understood what William Barret Travis was trying to do here. So few of the others seemed to care.
Travis was suddenly very glad that John Ord had shown up when he did.
On the walls, Ord found the man he sought, broad-shouldered and tall in a fancy Mexican jacket. “The commandant’s compliments, sir, and he desires your presence in the chapel.”
The big man put away the knife with which he had been whittling. The switchblade snicked back and disappeared into a side pocket of the jacket, while Ord watched it with fascinated eyes. “What’s old Bill got his britches hot about this time?” the big man asked.
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Ord said stiffly and moved on.
Bang-bang-bang roared the small Mexican cannon from across the river. Pow-pow-pow! The little balls only chipped dust from the thick adobe walls. Ord smiled.
He found the second man he sought, a lean man with a weathered face, leaning against a wall and chewing tobacco. This man wore a long, fringed, leather lounge jacket, and he carried a guitar slung beside his Rock Island rifle. He squinted up at Ord. “I know… I know,” he muttered. “Willy Travis is in an uproar again. You reckon that colonel’s commission the Congress up at Washington-on-the-Brazos give him swelled his head?”
Rather stiffly, Ord said, “Colonel, the commandant desires an officers’ conference in the chapel, now.” Ord was somewhat annoyed. He had not realized he would find these Americans so—distasteful. Hardly preferable to Mexicans, really. Not at all as he had imagined.
For an instant he wished he had chosen Drake and the Armada instead of this pack of ruffians—but no, he had never been able to stand seasickness. He couldn’t have taken the Channel, not even for five minutes.
And there was no changing now. He had chosen this place and time carefully, at great expense—actually, at great risk, for the X-4-A had aborted twice, and he had had a hard time bringing her in. But it had got him here at last. And, because for a historian he had always been an impetuous and daring man, he grinned now, thinking of the glory that was to come. And he was a participant—much better than a ringside seat! Only he would have to be careful, at the last, to slip away.
John Ord knew very well how this coming battle had ended, back here in 1836.
He marched back to William Barret Travis, clicked heels smartly. Travis’s eyes glowed; he was the only senior officer here who loved military punctilio. “Sir, they are on the way.”
“Thank you, Ord.” Travis hesitated a moment. “Look, Ord. There will be a battle, as we know. I know so little about you. If something should happen to you, is there anyone to write? Across the water?”
Ord grinned. “No, sir. I’m afraid my ancestor wouldn’t understand.”
Travis shrugged. Who was he to say that Ord was crazy? In this day and age, any man with vision was looked on as mad. Sometimes, he felt closer to Ord than to the others.
The two officers Ord had summoned entered the chapel. The big man in the Mexican jacket tried to dominate the wood table at which they sat. He towered over the slender, nervous Travis, but the commandant, straight-backed and arrogant, did not give an inch. “Boys, you know Santa Anna has invested us. We’ve been fired on all day–” He seemed to be listening for something. Wham! Outside, a cannon split the dusk with flame and sound as it fired from the walls. “There is my answer!”
The man in the lounge coat shrugged. “What I want to know is what our orders are. What does old Sam say? Sam and me were in Congress once. Sam’s got good sense; he can smell the way the wind’s blowin’.”
He stopped speaking and hit his guitar a few licks. He winked across the table at the officer in the Mexican jacket, who took out his knife. “Eh, Jim?”
“Right,” Jim said. “Sam’s a good man, although I don’t think he ever met a payroll.”
“General Houston’s leaving it up to me,” Travis told them.
“Well, that’s that,” Jim said unhappily. “So what you figurin’ to do, Bill?”
Travis stood up in the weak, flickering candlelight, one hand on the polished hilt of his saber. The other two men winced, watching him. “Gentlemen, Houston’s trying to pull his militia together while he falls back. You know Texas was woefully unprepared for a contest at arms. The general’s idea is to draw Santa Anna as far into Texas as he can, then hit him when he’s extended, at the right place and right time. But Houston needs more time—Santa Anna’s moved faster than any of us anticipated. Unless we can stop the Mexican Army and take a little steam out of them, General Houston’s in trouble.”
Jim flicked the knife blade in and out. “Go on.”
“This is where we come in, gentlemen. Santa Anna can’t leave a force of one hundred eighty men in his rear. If we hold fast, he must attack us. But he has no siege equipment, not even large field cannon.” Travis’s eye gleamed. “Think of it, boys! He’ll have to mount a frontal attack, against protected American riflemen. Ord, couldn’t your Englishers tell him a few things about that!”
“Whoa, now,” Jim barked. “Billy, anybody tell you there’s maybe four or five thousand Mexicaners comin’?”
“Let them come. Less will leave!”
But Jim, sour-faced turned to the other man. “Davey? You got something to say?”
There Will Be War Volume VII Page 30