A strange murmuring echoed through the room. General Bennet surveyed the faces around him; some were obviously pleased with the changes, while others were less than thrilled.
“We’ve already gone over the changes in the ground invasion,” said Castle. “What we need to talk about now is the logistics of it all and how we’re going to make it work. With that, I’ll hand the meeting back to General Bennet.”
Bennet walked back up to the front. The conversation turned to the minutiae of the supply situation. Since the liberation of Taiwan, the island had quickly become a massive supply depot, and the Marines continued to build up their forces there in preparation for the next move. The Army was regrouping and preparing their fuel stores in Korea and Mongolia. Many maps were displayed, and a plethora of war scenarios were played out, but at the end of the day, they all left realizing that the next few months would see some of the heaviest fighting yet.
Aboard the HMS Albion, Sergeant Neil Evans held a new cigarette to the nearly burnt-out one he had in his hand, managing with some effort to light the new one before tossing the butt overboard into the waters of the Red Sea.
The ship was passing through the Suez Canal now. Sergeant Evans’s eyes drifted toward the horizon. Not too far away, a number of security patrol boats moved along the shore, keeping pace with them. He chuckled. Even from where he was, he could tell that the men on the patrol boats were bored and tired.
One of the corporals walked up behind him. “Can you believe twelve days ago we were strolling through the streets of Moscow, and now we’re being shipped off to Asia?” he complained. Evans didn’t mind his corporals grumbling to him, so long as they didn’t share their criticisms with the men below them. Complaining always goes uphill, not down to your subordinates.
“Come on, Corporal, you know you love a good fight,” Sergeant Evans replied lightheartedly. “We’ll find that when we get to Asia. Besides, we can’t let the Aussies or Kiwis show us up. They’ve already been fighting the Chinese and Indians — hell, it was an Australian general who forced the Indians to surrender. What have we done in this war?”
Evans was trying to keep the conversation good-natured, but he wondered to himself how Great Britain would fare after the war. “Those politicians have really bollocksed things up,” he mourned. Fighting with the US, then pulling out, then reentering the war again — it was enough to make any person’s head swim.
“I suppose you’re right, Sergeant,” said the corporal. Then he chuckled. “I wonder if they’re going to make us fight with those wannabe Marines.”
Evans snorted. “You mean the American Marines?” he mused. “I have no idea, but I can tell you this — they’ve seen more fighting in a month than the Royal Marines have seen this entire war. It’s about to change though, you’ll see. We’ll get a crack assignment; we just need to be ready when it comes down.”
The two of them talked for a bit longer before they resigned themselves to going back below decks and checking on their men. The ship had nearly completed its passage through the Suez.
Sergeant First Class Conrad Price watched as Major Fowler stepped around a couple of the sleeping soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers before plopping down next to him. Price tensed up a bit as the CO sat next to him. He had a pretty good idea of what was coming next.
“Sergeant Price, we haven’t had much of a chance to talk since the end of hostilities with India and the battle back at the airfield,” Fowler began. “I need a no-BS assessment from you. How’s the platoon holding up?”
Price thought about that question for a moment before responding. The battle he was referring to was really nothing more than a massacre. It had broken many of his men, but he wasn’t sure if they just needed some downtime to rest and recover, or if they truly couldn’t fight anymore. Finally, Price asked, “What did Martinez say?”
“I spoke with him, and he said he has some concerns about a few of them. He said you know which ones he’s talking about — you’re the platoon sergeant, and I want your input.”
Price let out a short sigh. He looked around him to make sure none of the soldiers he was going to mention were within earshot. “Not that you can hear much in the cargo hold of a C-17 anyway, but still,” he thought.
He leaned in closer to Major Fowler. “There’s at least six of the guys in the platoon that I would recommend not sending on any new missions right away. I’d like to think they could still be salvaged, but I know at least one of them is never going to be back to 100 %. The other five, I think we can get back to the front lines at some point but, Sir, you’re going to have to let me place them in a noncombat role for a few weeks, maybe a month. Hell, if we had access to a shrink, I think we could get them better faster, but I’m not sure that’s in the cards.”
Major Fowler took the information in and leaned back. He looked like he had just been punched in the gut.
Turning back to look at Price, he replied, “Thank you for being honest and upfront. I know you want to protect your guys, and I appreciate that. I wish you’d brought this issue up sooner, maybe to the sergeant major, but you’re right — we need to deal with it. I’m not sure what kind of medical support we’ll have when we land in Mongolia in a few hours, but I’m going to make sure to find out. If they have a combat stress clinic, then I’m going to order them to be seen daily by the docs there, and we’ll find them a support position in battalion headquarters or something. I’ll try to pull a few guys from the other platoons to get you back up to strength. We’ve got another ballbuster of a mission ahead of us. I’m going to need my best platoon ready for action.”
This was George Tailor’s fifth flight from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Seoul, South Korea, in the last ten days, and he was beaten down physically and mentally. The lack of good sleep, decent food and contact with his family was making him irritable.
Since the conflict in Asia had begun, his plane had ferried munitions or other war supplies to Seoul once or twice a month. The first few flights had been harrowing; he could see the heavy fighting taking place across the border. Explosions had ripped apart the forested ridgelines a mere twenty or thirty miles away.
While George didn’t mind the excitement of flying near a combat zone once or twice a month, the uptick in tempo of the last two months had been horrendous on the FedEx crews. Each time they’d landed in Minneapolis, he’d thought they were finally caught up on delivering war supplies, only to see the nearby warehouse had been completely restocked, waiting for delivery to Korea again.
George’s job was for the most part simple. As the flight’s engineer, he was responsible for making sure the maintenance was up to par. He also oversaw the loading or unloading of hazardous materials, which in this case happened on every flight into Korea.
Perhaps it was because he’d never been in the military, but the one thing he just couldn’t fathom was the number of artillery rounds he’d been charged with carrying to Korea on each flight. When one of the DoD contractors had climbed aboard his plane, after he’d finished signing the receipt to acknowledge receiving the newest batch of rounds, George had finally said, “Hey, Tim, I have a question — you know my crew and I have been flying these artillery rounds from the factory near Minneapolis to Korea now for over a year, right? We bring in close to five thousand of these bad boys a trip. I’ve got to know, if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity — how fast are you guys using these things up?”