“Jesus, see what you can do for him,” instructed Prost.
“I’m on it.”
“Come on,” ordered Prost. He led the men upstairs, and they forced their way through the barricade.
“They’re on the roof,” said Prost with an oath. The rebels were firing from the roof, their AK-47s delivering their distinctive report. These were real assault rifles, not what ignorant American politicians paraded around with calling them assault rifles. What the politicians had were really semi-automatic rifles that look military.
“Easy now,” Prost said as they eased up the stairs to the roof.
“Watch out,” said Prost as he tossed a grenade out the door.
“Come on!” With that the twenty-two-year-old Lance Corporal led the charge which took one building out of the fight.
This gave the Marines a vantage point to overlook the street, but they quickly found they were being fired on from the hill behind the village. They went back down into the house and began firing on the other rebels from the second floor.
“Ski, you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You think you can get a grenade into that next house?”
“Yeah, I was the star pitcher back at my high school in Michigan.” He set down his rifle, removed a grenade, and expertly flung it through the window.
“Phil, let me try to clean off the roof in that building with my 203,” insisted Jesus. “I think I can get behind that shack they got on the roof.”
“Okay, take a couple of guys with you.”
Jesus and two of his buddies moved out.
“Hey Marines, we’re cleaning out this building over here, he called out to the Marines still in the street. Just give us a second.”
The sergeant down below responded. “Make it quick.”
“You three guys see if you can suppress fire from across the street. You guys come with me.”
With that Prost and the Marines began to fire up the rebel fighters in the next building.
The sergeant down in the street called out, “Okay Marines time to get inside.”
Up on the roof, Jesus called out, “Cover me.” With that he hauled ass over to what little protection the shack gave, and slid a round into the grenade launcher.
The grenade landed squarely on the next building catching one rebel fighter in the middle of the chest. “It’s just too close.”
The next grenade he threw the old fashioned way and finished clearing the roof with his rifle. Unfortunately, he was now open to fire from the building on the other side of the street and the opposite ridge.
Jesus slid another grenade into the M-203 and cleaned off the roof across the street. For the next round he estimated the range to the ridge and added a little for the difference in elevation.
“Call it 200 yards.” He let loose, but the round went off about half way up the hill.
The next one he set at 400 yards. “Close but no cigar.”
“Just a bit more.” He let fly, and this one hit right on target. It cut down on the fire coming from the ridgeline.
“Hey Marine, you trying to win the war by yourself?”
Jesus looked over to where the voice came from. The Marines had taken the next house over. “About time you guys joined the party.”
“What range you using?”
“Four hundred then add just a bit.”
“What about behind us?”
“Ain’t tried that yet.”
“Let’s see what the old rangefinder is telling me, about 250 it looks like.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“Bought it before I shipped out.”
“Nice. Those guys across the street are starting to upset me.” With that Jesus chambered another 40 mm round and sent it across the street and through a window with devastating effect.
The tracks had begun destroying the buildings across the street, and in the distance they could hear the vipers. Soon the ridges were cleaned up, and the Marines were out of danger.
“Okay Marines,” called the first sergeant, “let’s move out.”
They found a way around the lead track and carried on to the objective without their erstwhile guide. Lance Corporal Prost would not be going with them. He had caught a round in his leg and a lung was probably hit.
“Hang on Phil; we’re going to get you out of here.”
“Sorry Sarge.”
“Sorry for what? You guys saved our asses.”
“We got him,” said the corpsman.
Soon Lance Corporal Phillip Prost was on the medevac chopper. The corpsman gave him a pain killer and as it lifted off his mind drifted in and out. For some crazy reason he could almost hear Miss Agnes, the neighbor who used to take care of him when he was little. She would come over and sit with him at night when Mr. and Mrs. Prost wanted an evening out dancing. She read the best stories.
Miss Agnes was a kindly widow who minded her own business and was known for having only good things to say about other people. However, today she was glued to her front window. She could not take her eyes off the spectacle that was occurring across the street at Ilene’s.
“Look what I found; he’s got a shotgun,” said the officer as he proudly displayed the weapon.
“An old double barrel and get a load of the curlicue hammers. I always wanted one of these. I wonder what the old man was doing with it.”
“Hey pops, you got any more weapons lying around?”
“That was my dad’s.”
“I don’t care. I asked you a question,” said the police sergeant as he gave Prost another little kick in the side.
He grimaced and belched up bile.
“I asked you if you had any more weapons in the house.”
“No, that’s all I have. It’s mine, and it’s legal.”
“You are about to get arrested for interfering with our terrorism investigation.”
“I’m no terrorist; you are.”
“Watch it pops, I ain’t started working on you yet.”
“What have you done to my wife?”
“You gal failed to follow the officer’s instructions.”
“Hey Sarge, look at this,” said another masked officer.
“Well, well what do we have here?” Police Sergeant Williams took the frame. In it was Mr. Prost’s Silver Star.
“Pops, you some kinda’ war hero?”
“Vietnam.”
“Well ain’t that nice.”
Williams dropped the frame on the floor, and it broke shattering glass out over the floor. “Your kid’s a Marine. That’s nice too.” He threw that on the floor as well adding to the broken glass.
“Take this dump apart. Find out what else he’s got.”
“I need an ambulance.”
“Shut up.”
“What about my wife?”
Williams kicked him in the side hard. “I said shut up!”
Prost could only moan with the pain. He had not heard anything from Ilene.
“Hey Sergeant, the lieutenant wants you outside.” Williams went outside to see his police lieutenant.
“You got the wrong house,” said his lieutenant.
“What? Oh great, just great!”
“Yeah, it’s a block over. We got a lawsuit coming over this one. Now, we’ll have to get a search warrant. You know what to do.”
“We found a weapon, and they resisted arrest.”
“Put it in your report. Now let’s go.”
Williams went back inside. “Okay people we’re moving out.”
“Hey Sarge, I found another gun.”
“Well what do you know? Pops, we got you on lying to the police. What’s this some sort of cowboy pistol? Is this your six shooter? Twenty-two long rifle, what you planning on doing with this?”
He turned back to the officer. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“What about the weapons?”
“What weapons, all we found was this cowboy pistol.”
After they left Agnes cau
tiously crossed the quiet street. The door had been blown open, and she stopped at the door uncertain what to do next.
“Ilene?” she called out loudly.
“Agnes, is that you?” answered Bill.
She entered the living room. The place was a mess; the house had been ransacked.
“Bill, what happened?”
“Check on Ilene; she’s in the kitchen.”
Agnes carefully walked around all the glass to find Ilene lying on the kitchen floor bleeding from a head wound. Then she saw the dead dog.
She knelt beside the woman. “Ilene, it’s Agnes; can you hear me?” There was no response. Ilene just lay there holding her head.
Agnes quickly got a towel to stop the bleeding and called an ambulance. “Bill, Ilene is breathing, but she’s not talking. They hurt her head. I’ve called an ambulance. Is there anything else I can do?”
“No Agnes, just don’t touch anything. Leave it the way it is. Do you have a camera?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get it and take pictures of everything?”
“Yes, I’ll take care of it. I’m going to call the TV station too.” With that she headed back across the street to her house.
* * *
“What do you mean you didn’t have the drugs with you?” asked William’s supervisor incredulously. “You know you’re supposed to be prepared in case something like this happens.”
“They were missing.”
“What do you mean missing?”
“They weren’t in the BearCat. I think some of our guys smoked them.”
“That’s just dandy; well go get some more,” instructed Williams’ Captain. “You know where they’re kept.”
Chapter 12 – Home is the Hero
“Corporal, can you hear me?” asked Prost’s commanding officer, Captain Spencer Buttons.
Prost opened his eyes, “Hello sir.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like warmed over crap – sir.”
Buttons chuckled a bit. “I’m not surprised. You stopped a couple of slugs, one in the chest and one in the right leg. They need to ship you out of country.”
“I can’t go back to my unit?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“How’d we do?”
“Well that’s a long story. Something has gone very wrong. Our drive has stopped, and between you and me, the brass and Washington are looking for someone to blame. We’re now consolidating our hold on the territory we’ve already taken. However, they’re attacking our rear.”
“Who sir?”
“For now the rebels.”
“But I thought …”
“That they’d welcome us with open arms. Yeah, that’s what we were told. Washington just doesn’t seem to get it.”
“Get what, sir.”
“These rebels are not on our side. Now they’re fighting us.” The CO paused for what seemed too long before he continued. With great difficulty he said, “They are fighting us with weapons we gave them.”
“Say again all after …”
“Yes, I had the same reaction.”
“Washington, through the CIA, has been arming the rebels, and now they have turned the weapons we gave them on us. They’re even shooting down our helicopters with shoulder launched antiaircraft missiles they stole from Benghazi.” Buttons shook his head in disgust.
“Sir, what was the state department doing with shoulder fired antiaircraft missiles in Libya?”
“Excellent question, I wish the people back home would ask the same question of Congress.”
“Somebody needs to pay for this sir.”
“Somebody is paying – us. We’ve been gagged as well, can’t even talk to the press except for Colonels and above, and that’s to the approved mass media only. They tell the public back home the party line, and it’s all a lot of bull. They’re even checking all emails and stopping all posts to social media by soldiers and Marines.”
“What are you going to do, sir?”
“I’m a Marine. I’ll do my job just like Marines always do.”
“Who’s the enemy sir?”
“I don’t know, anyone who shoots at a Marine I guess.”
“It’s a hell of a note, sir.”
“Yes it is. Anyway you have been put in for an award, and you are to be shipped out of country, probably Germany where you can get better medical attention. I suspect you will get out on a medical.”
“Medical? That’s not what I wanted.”
“I know, but ‘a sucking chest wound is nature’s way of telling you it’s time to come home’. I think I heard that in a movie once.” He tried, without much success, to grin. It’s an awful business. Better to send them home patched up than to write those letters to their mothers. Buttons thought that he should have joined the Air Force where the officers do most of the fighting.
“When do I leave, sir?”
“As soon as they think you’re strong enough to travel, a couple of days I suppose. I’ll ask.”
“How about Ski; he was hit.”
“He’s been treated and released.”
“Anybody else?”
“Not from your platoon. A couple of the other guys got hit.”
“Did we get to Damascus?”
“Not yet. We’ve run into a problem getting fuel to the tanks. That’s slowed our advance.”
“I don’t get it. Don’t they know we’re on their side?”
“Either they don’t know or don’t care. We are foreigners, infidels; they want to do nothing but kill Americans. We have not been warmly received.”
“We’re not going to take their land.”
“Their land, who did they take it from at the point of a sword? This was all part of the eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. They stole it from them.”
“I don’t know much history sir.”
“That’s all right; neither do those clowns in Washington. History was my major in college. Guess I get carried away sometime.
“We are new world people, and we have no business over here. Whatever these people are killing one another over is not our concern. I’m losing good men, America’s finest because some idiot in Washington wants to make a few political points or make more money from the war profiteers.”
“This makes no sense.”
“You don’t know the half of it. The government has spent billions arming allies of al Qaeda.”
“Say again, sir.”
Washington has been arming allies of al Qaeda here in Syria. We are arming an extension of the people who destroyed the World Trade Center buildings in New York and killed over three thousand Americans.”
“This is insane, sir.”
“Yes it is. Just remember that when you get home.”
“Yes sir, I will.”
Captain Buttons offered Prost his hand. “Goodbye Corporal Prost.”
“Goodbye Captain Buttons.”
With that Buttons left the room. He had much to do, what with Marines spread out all over creation and rebels hitting when and where they pleased. To make matters worse, the Marines couldn’t even hit them unless they fired on his men first. What a way to run a war, he thought to himself.
Prost looked at the ceiling for a long time. This is not how he wanted his Marine Corps career to end. He felt like he had let his buddies down.
He knew it was silly; in a fight the idea is to shoot somebody. Given what bad shots these people were, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – tough break, he thought.
He would be home in a few weeks, but it wouldn’t be the same. Something had changed. He had become hardened. They say war does that to a man, he remembered.
In the distance he could hear machine gun fire. Occasionally a rocket would impact nearby. Just how far had he been evac’ed, he wondered.
In a few minutes his doctor came in. “Hello Corporal, how do you feel?”
“Some pain, but other than that I’m okay.”
“We n
eed to move you out of here. The only problem is that the rebels have our shoulder fired antiaircraft missiles, and only must-go cases are getting out.”
“Benghazi?”
“Most likely.”
“Somebody should have gone to jail over that.”
“Nobody of importance even lost their jobs. Finding some low level people to frame was the best they could do.
“Anyway, we might be able to get you out overland, but that will risk reopening your wounds.” The doc was at a loss for words and didn’t seem to have any idea what they were going to do.
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something sir. Is it okay if I get up? I’m getting pretty tired of this bed.”
“I don’t see that as a problem. I’ll call in a nurse, and we’ll see if we can get you over into a chair.”
They got him into the chair without too much pain. It was good to sit up again. They took this opportunity to call in someone to put clean sheets on the bed.
He was angry and disgusted; this was not how he wanted to leave. Though, he thought to himself, I don’t even know why I’m here. What the devil are we doing here?
* * *
As he sat in a chair at the medical facility, his younger sister sat in the waiting room with Bill Prost while the nursing staff worked on Ilene. Bill had been treated and released. The X-rays showed no permanent damage to his hip replacement. Ilene had not been so lucky. Her scalp had been split open, and it took many stitches to sew her up. She would have a big bald spot for a while. She had a concussion as well. The police had done a fine job serving and protecting.
The news station had shown up and did a report from Prost’s home. The police said there would be an internal investigation, but assured the public that its officers had acted professionally.
Prost was not in great shape himself, but was trying to comfort his daughter who had been crying from time to time. He was still in shock. Who were these people, and why had they torn up his home? He hadn’t gotten to the point of being angry yet; that would come later.
“Why did this have to happen to you?” Miriam said between sobs.
“There, there my dear,” he said. Bill had to reach over with his left hand and put it on his daughter’s. His right arm wasn’t doing well. The police hadn’t been too careful with his bad shoulder either.
“I wish Phil was here,” she said.
World War III - Home Front: A Novel of the Next American Revolution - Book One – As Day turns to Night Page 13