“Jim, cease fire, we’re within 100 yards,” Rick yelled over the radio.
The fire from above became sporadic, then slowly stopped. Explosions from the Rocket Propelled Grenades started lighting up the ground below.
“Jim, we’re pulling back. The tanks and troops will zero in on us if we don’t move. It’s your turn again.”
“You heard him, people, let them have it. Mortar men, take those tanks out.”
Tanks started exploding around the lower perimeter as the militia fired the few mortar rounds they had. With a surplus of machine gun rounds for the Browning .50 cals, M60s and SAWs they had recovered from the countless raids they had been on, they kept up the suppressive fire sporadically throughout the night. Different groups kept displacing so the enemy’s mortar teams couldn’t get a fix on anyone when they fired the occasional illumination round.
The snipers only took breaks to let their rifles cool off, displace, or to get more ammo. The battle had lasted for 16 hours straight and then became sporadic. They fought through the first night, the next day and before long, light could be seen on the horizon once again. Jessie had tried for days to get a hold of the Marines, but had no luck. By listening to the friendly radio traffic, she detailed the battle on her laptop as it continued. Eric took her place manning the radio while she slept.
“Are we having an Earthquake?” A tired Bill asked Jim, after dawn on the fifth day.
“What the hell are they doing?” Jim asked.
They watched as troops ran up the mountain in the deep snow. Jim gave the order to fire at will at about 500 yards out. The NWA troops fell as a continuous wall of bullets rained from atop the mountain onto the enemy below. The remaining tanks started to fire at the gunfire they could see through the fog from their positions, and in some instances were hitting close to the mouth of the cave.
The troops had been decoys for them to fire on so the tanks could zero in on the militia, who fell back, but the bombardment continued to get closer. Larger explosions could be heard mixed in with the tank shells. Shortly after, the tanks stopped firing at them completely.
Jim and a few others moved back outside to try to get an idea of why. Dust filled the tunnels on their way out as the ground shook with explosions that now rocked the bottom of the mountain.
Jim looked up.
“It’s a Specter Gunship,” he said, as he saw the aircraft orbiting above and firing on the NWA tanks and troops.
“Can you hear the difference in the weapons being fired?” Bill asked the men and women who poured out of the cave to watch. “From the 20-mm, to the 40-mm auto-cannon and of course the 105-mm cannon and mini gun. It’s music to my ears.”
Tracer fire could be seen as it fell to Earth. The fireworks display on the ground was spectacular. The secondary explosions from below continued even after the gunship moved out of the area. No one could help looking down at the bombardment. Unfortunately, a few people got hit by incoming rounds from the NWA troops who were still alive. Snipers were redeployed to thin them out.
“Jets!” someone yelled, as the fast movers flew low and made strafing runs, including dropping bombs on the valley below.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Danny asked, excitedly.
“I’m willing to bet Jessie got through on the radio,” Sgt Collins concluded.
For the time being, the machine-gun teams were ordered to stop firing completely in order to conserve the now depleting ammo supply and clean their weapons. Since the militia now had the advantage, thanks to the air support, snipers were told to find targets and engage. This happened for three days. Exhaustion overcame them. Matt found one man firing at the same corpse until he ran out of ammo and continued to pull the trigger. The NWA soldier had been pinned up against a tree and his lifeless body stayed upright, as the bullets riddled his corpse. The militia soldier was relieved and told to report to Doc to get some much-needed sleep under his supervision.
The shooting stopped when it became too cold to be outside for more than a few minutes at a time. The men kept watch from inside the cave with thermal and night vision.
A few people volunteered to get dressed in their arctic weather gear and go down to the FOB to look for survivors. Some had managed to fall back right before they were overrun, but only they had been relatively lucky.
“It looks like they put up a hell of a fight,” Danny commented as they walked through the remnants of Talladega.
“We lost some good people here,” Bill said.
For more than a week afterward, no movement could be seen on the battlefield below.
The extent of the damage and the loss of life had not yet been accounted for due to the extreme cold and rotation of men guarding the close perimeter.
“Matt, I need you to grab Danny and get an accurate count of the people we have lost. I also need a weapon and ammo count for another offensive,” Jim said.
“I’ll get right on it after my next shift,” said Matt.
“No, I need you to get on the task now. Whoever you plan on relieving will need to pull a double shift,” Jim told him.
“OK, but you won’t be happy.”
Due to his extreme exhaustion, Jim forgot Matt had been his relief.
“I’ll be fine, we need those counts. And Matt, thanks.”
“I will, brother. Once I get the info, I’ll be back to relieve you.”
Crews worked day and night moving rock in the tunnels in order to find missing people and reopen the passageways. There had been a few casualties from the cave-ins, but luckily no deaths. Some of the ventilation shafts had been sealed with rock. Clearing them had been made a top priority. The whole compound remained in disarray. Falling rocks damaged several parts of the home the community had built inside. Tables and chairs were broken, lights lay shattered on the ground and wiring hanged down in some places. Much of what they had constructed and brought in would need to be repaired or replaced.
The weather slowly warmed up over the next couple of weeks as the maintenance continued and the militia could finally get out of the compound to find their fallen, and to see what they had done to the enemy as well.
They had started the battle with 76 men and women on the lines. This included the 15 people at the FOB. There were a total of 12 confirmed KIA, and 17 had been considered MIA or missing in action until they found them either dead or alive. They had prepared everyone the best they could, but they knew death could be a possibility after the amount of time that had passed. The militia troops had water and extra food, but how long could it last in the harsh conditions? They had a group of faithful patriots, and they gave the enemy hell.
As the recovery patrol made its way down the mountain under sniper cover, they started to find people and body parts; some sticking out of the snow and ice. Finding the missing militia members would prove to be difficult.
A few militia members looked in a destroyed bunker they had been using for a mid-mountain observation post. They pulled the wood away and found a body. Then they heard a noise.
“I have something here,” one of the men yelled.
Under more wood debris and sandbags they found three half-dead militia members. Jim radioed for Doc to get down the mountain, and requested three stretchers and more men. None of them had bullet wounds, but they did have multiple broken bones, cuts and scratches. Frostbite had taken the woman’s nose, and fingers and toes from the others. They were all extremely dehydrated and one man was only hanging on by a thread.
They encountered more bodies as they descended. Most were NWA soldiers from the charge up the mountain. As they made their way down the slopes, they found they had destroyed sixteen tanks and APCs and killed more than 300 NWA troops. Those were the ones they could actually count. The damage from the bombs the planes had dropped and the mortars proved extensive, they knew there had to be more who had been vaporized. They might not ever know the amount of troops who were really killed in the offensive. No one would ever find out why so many troops and tanks
were sent to their location to fight such an insignificant sized force either, but the remaining men and women were glad it was over.
With the three people who were found alive and the bodies they recovered, 16 people had been accounted for.
“Twenty-six KIA, 19 wounded and one still missing” Jim said looking at the others.
“It could have been much worse,” Matt said.
“Recover as much ammo as you can,” Rick ordered the militia. “We don’t know if we’ll have to do this again.”
The search continued down the mountain until no more bodies or tanks could be found.
“Who is the missing soldier?” Jim asked Matt.
“Roger Man… something, I can’t pronounce it.”
“Does he have any family?”
“It doesn’t look like he came here with anyone,” Matt said, looking at his little brown notebook. Being the local law, he kept track of everyone.
“Post his name on the big board in the common area so we can see if anyone comes forward.”
Two more weeks passed and still no counter attack. The militia had lost 26 people, mainly to enemy fire, but some to the extreme cold. The total continued to climb as a couple of the wounded passed as well. Doc did what he could, but some of the wounds had been too horrific. They no longer had the security they had a few months before. The militia members were pulling longer sentry duties to compensate for the loss of the other sentries.
Jim sat on perimeter security not far from the cave one day when he heard some crunching snow behind him.
“You’ll have to work on your stealth if you want to sneak up on me, boy.”
“How do you always know when I’m behind you, dad?” Todd asked.
“The sound of the crunching snow was the first sign, and the shadow was the second, son. The snow should be melting soon, and then we can enjoy some warm weather again.”
“I can’t wait for it,” Todd said. “Did we get a mission yet?”
“Here’s a list of names. I want you to have them armed and ready to go at the cabin by 1400 hours, and, no, you aren’t on the list. You’re ready, Todd, but I’m not ready to lose you. Now, off you go.”
“Yes sir,” Todd said, walking away hanging his head. He wanted to help out more than they would let him, but he had grown to understand the reasoning behind it.
Jim listened to the silence for a while until he was relieved from his post. As he walked back to the cave, he remembered the men and women they had lost. He wondered how anyone could live with it.
Not long before he made his way into the entrance, Jim stopped to listen. He thought he heard a distant sound.
“Come here, boy,” he hissed to a young man passing by. “Do you that?”
“Yes, sir, it sounds like a helicopter.”
“Incoming!” Jim yelled over the radio.
People scrambled. The response team met Jim at the entrance.
“What is it, sir?” asked a young man who wasn’t even old enough to shave yet.
“There’s a helicopter out there,” Jim said. “Man the machine- guns and get ready for the enemy.”
The top of the mountain became full of the remaining militia in an instant.
“Cease fire!” Jessie screamed over the radio.
“What is it?” asked Rick, frantically.
“The Marines have returned,” she said.
“Do not fire on the helicopter,” Rick told them.
The helicopter, a CH-46 Sea Knight, circled around in a slow orbit and eventually landed in a clearing at the base of the mountain. Jim and a militia contingent walked down to meet them, while the others watched from above.
“Captain McGee,” said Jim as they walked toward each other. “Where the hell have you been?”
“To hell and back,” McGee answered.
“I thought you didn’t make it when the rocket hit your helicopter last year.”
“I thought we were goners too, but we were able to land and make repairs.”
The two men shook hands and began to walk up the mountain trailed by more Marines and the militia members.
“We’ve been in several states since we last left you, the whole time fighting for our very existence as Americans. It looks like you put up a hell of a fight here.”
“We lost too many,” Jim said. “But, we also took many. I don’t like what we do, but I do it for my family and my country.”
“I know what you mean. The fight is finally over for most of the world. We’ve combined forces with China and Russia to fight the NWA and have been gaining ground. We don’t know when it will be over completely, but in the meantime, it can start to get back to normal here.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“The NWA would have been unstoppable if they had gone from one country to the next. But instead, they tried to take it the whole world at once and showed their arrogance. They had too many people fighting them, people who enjoy their freedom. They didn’t anticipate this, for some reason.”
“Before we leave and resume our lives, we’ll construct a monument here on this mountain and remember the Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, and our way of life.”
They proceeded inside to let the community hear the good news, but several people were reluctant to believe it.
“After a storm comes a calm.”
—Matthew Henry
Chapter Thirty-Four
The weather continued to warm up and the leadership decided when spring came, it would be time for the people on the mountain to head home and rebuild what they had lost.
“What’re you going to do when you get back home?” Bill asked Jim one Sunday morning in March as they drank their first cups of coffee of the day.
“On the top of my list of priorities… I’m going to cook some steaks on my grill on the back deck while I drink beer and relax in one of my deck chairs. What about you?”
“Well, my house still wasn’t finished when this started, so I guess I should make the construction my top priority, but I like your idea too.”
Others started to enter the cabin and joined the conversation. The men and a few of the women talked about getting back to their normal lives in their own houses. Mary couldn’t wait to bring her flower beds back to life and be in her own house once more.
Captain McGee turned out to be a man of his word. So far, the NWA could be found nowhere, teams who had been sent out returned with nothing but good news. Everything looked as if it were getting back to normal in the different towns they visited. Most people they came across were still suffering. With the lack of food and medicine along with the harsh winters they had endured, the human loss they encountered proved mindboggling. The militia did what they could to help people, but there were limitations. The local infrastructure which had once been in place had completely collapsed during the occupation by the U.N.
After getting a call on his two-way radio Rick took Jim aside to talk to him. He motioned Matt over as well.
“We have two recon teams who recently returned from up north and they confirm what the others have been reporting.”
“How far north did they get?” Matt inquired.
“One team made it to the Potter’s Marsh area on the outskirts of Anchorage, but couldn’t continue due to the road being washed out.”
“We’ll stick to our timeline of leaving here after breakup,” Jim told them. “In the meantime, it’s business as usual. Do the Marines still plan on leaving today?”
“As far as I know,” Rick said.
After a hearty breakfast of thin cuts of moose steak, pancakes and eggs from the little farm they put together, the group dispersed and moved on about their day, doing what needed to be done around the compound. Rick and Terry geared up so they could keep an overwatch on the kids as they played in the woods near the cabin. Jim and Bill walked over to the main part of the cave system to lend help where they could.
Early in the afternoon, Cpt. McGee and the rest of the Marines
who had arrived in the helicopter started preparing to take off and head to Anchorage. The crew removed the camouflaged netting and checked the bird before the preflight. Goodbyes were said and the people of the small community watched as the aircraft lifted off and soon disappeared over the next mountain.
The snow continued to melt and emotions were diverse, from being anxious to leave to hesitant to go back.
The people among them who had been stranded in the state while on vacation wondered how they would get back home and what would be there when they did. So many questions were brought up to the leaders of the small community, and so few could be answered.
Packing up belongings and tidying up became priority. A skeleton security detail remained on watch for the perimeter day and night to keep the last of the community safe. The compound continued to be home, and would be kept that way until they were gone.
By mid-April, the snow had melted and the community so many had called home, no longer remained. The original group sealed the entrance to the main tunnel from the outside with logs. There were still some mixed feelings, but the time had come for a new chapter to begin.
Some people wanted to stay in the safety of the cave compound, but Bill made it clear about it being his property and if life were to get back to normal then everyone needed to go back home and get back to their own lives. It took two days to transport each of them and their belongings, but they made their way back down the mountain to the highway. Bill and Terry stayed behind to button up the cabin. Some from the original crowd would be back the annual moose hunt in the fall, but Bill wasn’t counting on the whole group. They had been through hell up there and returning so soon would only be a reminder of what they recently endured.
Like the others, Jim and his family returned to their home. The drive back consisted of conversation of what they saw outside. Most of the kids hadn’t been out of the cave or cabin in nearly two years. So much had changed. They had changed.
Debris from fallen trees, trash and vehicles littered the highway as they headed north. Some parts of the road had been damaged from exploding ordnance and would have to be repaired once state road crews were up and running again. The numerous obstacles in their way made the normally one-hour trip take much longer.
Uncertain Times: A Story of Survival Page 18