How in God’s name did we, as Americans, ever come to… this?
Chapter 26
Major Norman Schwarzkopf viewed the bloody, mangled bodies heaped and strewn randomly across the fields south of the small town through his field glasses as the dawn illuminated the dreadful scene. In the last two attacks the rebels had driven women and children, old folk ahead of them. Yesterday morning he had tried to allow some of the terrified civilians, all starving and dressed in rags, into his lines before engaging the enemy; but there had been suicide bombers and berserkers mixed in with the crowd. Once inside his positions the maniacs had pulled the pins of grenades strapped to their belts, or pulled out hand guns and knives; it had been a nightmare and but for a withering artillery barrage from within the Madison perimeter Company ‘A’ would surely have been over run.
After that none of his men had balked at indiscriminately shooting into the oncoming horde. This was not war; this was something filthy, evil and the US Army was on the losing end of it.
Schwarzkopf checked his watch.
There were still a few minutes to go.
The rebels had washed against the eastern defenses of Madison — tides of humanity broken on the killing grounds before them — as if casualties, death, and maiming were of no consequence. Belatedly, somebody on the rebel side had worked out that he was beating his head against a brick wall so long as every assault was being cut to shreds by enfilade fire from the ruins of Sun Prairie.
Company ‘A’ and the dwindling number of surviving citizen volunteers, commanding the north eastern approaches to the State Capital; had repeatedly poured devastating fire into the flank of every insane frontal assault on the Divisional perimeter to the south west.
Last night the rebels had withdrawn out of range of machine gun, small arms and mortar fire from within the Madison lines. The enemy had clumsily probed down Route 151 into Sun Prairie; and noisily moved around to the north — presumably seeking an open flank — in strength before running into Schwarzkopf’s previously under-employed pickets. The constant chatter of automatic rifle fire, the unmistakably chain saw rattle of M2 50-caliber machine guns and the occasional detonation of a booby trap or grenade told Schwarzkopf it was time to go.
“Top Dog’s on the horn, sir!”
Norman Schwarzkopf put down his binoculars and took the handset from his communications trooper. The other man was his age, a married man from Shreveport, Louisiana. Unlike his company commander, Corporal Romney was a man of average height and stature, who seemed ludicrously burdened by the bulky radio hanging on his back.
“This is Little Bear on the horn, sir!”
“You ready to bug out, Little Bear?” Lieutenant Colonel Harvey Grabowski, commander of the 32nd Infantry Combat Group of the Wisconsin National Guard inquired.
“That’s an affirmative, Top Dog!”
“We have BIG STICK incoming. Repeat BIG STICK incoming. When the shit hits the fan put the pedal to the metal, Little Bear! Top Dog OUT!”
Schwarzkopf passed the handset back to Corporal Romney.
He could already hear the distant scream of jet engines.
Moments later all Hell broke loose east and north of the town.
Within seconds shells began falling north and east of Sun Prairie, some actually within the eastern boundary of the suburb. The fighter jets rocketed overhead; F-100 Super Sabres and A-4 Skyhawks with cannons rattling and Napalm canisters toppling end over end from under-wing pods. As the fast jets circled for a second strafing run the thrumming thunder of the big Wright R-3350 radial power plants of five Douglas A-1 Skyraiders filled the air. Coming in so low they brushed tree tops and skimmed the chimneys of the few still standing buildings each aircraft’s four 20-millimetre cannons blazed, and from as many as a dozen hard points on their wings bombs and missiles spilled and smoked away.
It had been Skyraiders which had turned the Battle of Washington against the rebels in December; each aircraft blasting hundred yard-long avenues of death and devastation with a single pass. Against an enemy moving above ground with no forewarning the Skyraiders were the ultimate grim reapers of any battlefield.
“GO! GO! GO!” Schwarzkopf screamed above the bedlam.
The calculus was simple.
Either his men jumped into their M113 armored personnel carriers and every other surviving serviceable vehicle in the town and hightailed it back to Madison while the enemy was still in a state of shock; or what was left of Company ‘A’ and the valiant Sun Prairie militia ended up emulating George Armstrong Custer’s hopeless last stand at the Little Big Horn. Schwarzkopf’s men were low on ammunition and the surviving M113s were already loaded with wounded.
It was only a matter of time before the enemy realized as much.
The M113s’ 50-caliber machine guns were hosing bullets into buildings less than a hundred yards away as the column formed up, rumbled onto Route 151 and began to race south west.
Something had clutched at Schwarzkopf’s left thigh as he ran back to his command vehicle. He had stumbled, crashed into a wall. Romney and another man had grabbed him before he fell. Almost immediately, Romney had given way to a bigger man and the group had moved forward again, with Schwarzkopf vehemently protesting he was okay as he was half-carried, half-dragged through the rubble. Bullets pinged off the hardened flanks of his command M113 as its motor roared and the thirteen ton monster picked up speed, rocking and rolling like a boat in a choppy sea, its tracks grinding over debris.
“I’m fine, dammit!”
A corpsman was trying to apply a tourniquet to his upper leg; there was blood everywhere.
“Keep still, Captain!” The other man shouted.
More rounds were ricocheting off the armored personnel carrier as it raced headlong down the road with its Detroit Diesel 6V53T 6-cylinder diesel engine transmitting every one of its two hundred and seventy-five horsepower to its tracks.
Spent 50-caliber cartridge cases from the APC’s constantly firing Browning M2 machine gun rained into the crew compartment, bouncing, rattling on the floor among the bodies. The whiff of cordite was overpowering, positively nauseas.
Somebody had voided his bowels.
As the agony from his leg began to hit him in red-hot stabbing waves Schwarzkopf wondered if he was the man responsible.
He clenched his teeth to stop himself bawling like a baby.
The worst agony peaked, subsided.
His leg was numb, dead.
He knew it was a mistake but he glanced down at his left thigh anyway.
Shit! I didn’t think I had that much blood in my whole body…
The corpsman and Corporal Romney’s hands and arms were covered in his blood as they fought to stop him bleeding out on the floor of the bumping, jarring, tossing armored personnel carrier.
Briefly, Schwarzkopf must have passed out.
And then it was quiet.
The M113’s engine suddenly throttled back, the 50-caliber fell silent and the APC was thrumming evening across level ground.
“How many made it out?” Schwarzkopf asked, feebly, his strength ebbing and an irresistible weariness threatening to overwhelm him.
“We lost Little Bear Three, sir. Everybody else got out.”
One M113 left behind.
Company ‘A’ had got out of town with half the men he had taken into it two days ago; it almost seemed like a victory.
The darkness fell.
Chapter 27