Luke covered the short distance through the room to the balcony, just as another Russian was about to enter. He fired several quick shots into the man’s chest, then pushed him through the entrance and right over the balcony. As Luke entered the balcony, he saw several shocked Russian soldiers across the street on the other balconies, which were also manning a machine gun position. He took quick aim with the M203 and fired the high explosive fragmentation grenade right into the first gun position, not more than 100 feet away.
As the blast exploded, Specialist Cross made it onto the balcony with Childers and fired his M203 at another machine gun position, killing the soldiers who had been manning that stronghold as well.
Just as the soldiers in the third balcony began to turn their heavy machine on Sergeant Childers, Luke grabbed the machine gun that had been sitting on the sandbag position in front of him and fired a quick burst from the gun into them, killing the two Russian soldiers instantly. He then took aim at the walls and room behind them and fired a long string of bullets into the area, ensuring he had killed anyone else who might be available to take over firing that machine gun.
While he was doing this, Sergeant Crockett had unslung his AT4 and moved quickly to the balcony edge. He leaned over and aimed the AT4 at the top of the tank. Just as he was about to fire the rocket, a Russian soldier from one of the balconies across the way fired several rounds from his AK-74 and hit Crockett in the head, killing him instantly.
Luke turned the machine gun on the Russian and riddled him with bullets. “Grab the AT4 and take that tank out!” yelled Luke to Specialist Cross.
The young soldier ran to Crockett’s now lifeless body and grabbed the AT4 from him. He aimed at the tank below and squeezed the trigger. The rocket leapt from the launcher and hit the top of the turret less than forty feet below, blowing a small hole through it into the compartment below. In less than a second, the tank rounds inside the turret began to cook off, causing a much larger explosion. A piece of shrapnel flew back and hit Cross in his left shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
While the chaos was unfolding around them, the rest of Childers’ platoon was now moving down the street heading towards them, engaging Russian soldiers along the way as they saw them. Then, several Russians began to pour out of one of the buildings not far from his platoon. Within moments, they had managed to pin down Lt. Taylor and his men. Luke turned the heavy machine gun and began to open fire on the backs of the Russian soldiers below, killing many of them outright.
Luke looked back to the road in front of them when Cross pointed to more enemy soldiers. He quickly turned the machine gun loose on them as well, cutting many of them down before they realized that one of their gun positions had been compromised.
“Cross, get me more ammo,” ordered Childers with a sense of urgency. “We need to keep providing covering fire for the rest of the platoon.”
As Specialist Cross was grabbing an ammo can near the edge of the balcony, a hand grenade flew towards them. Without thinking, Sergeant Childers grabbed his M4 that was still slung behind him and swung it towards the grenade like a baseball bat. He hit the grenade, sending it flying away from the balcony; in seconds, it exploded over the center of the street crossing. A piece of hot shrapnel hit Luke on the side of his cheek and his left arm, knocking him to the ground briefly.
Specialist Cross ran over to him. “Are you alright Sergeant Childers?” he asked, genuinely concerned despite his own shrapnel wound.
Luke was holding his left arm as pain shot down it to his hand and fingers. He could feel some blood starting to ooze through his fingers. “Yeah, I’ll be all right. I think I just got clipped. Get the machine gun reloaded. We need to keep providing covering fire,” he replied as he pulled open a bandage from his tactical vest and began to wrap his wound. He didn’t dwell on the injury very long as he moved back to the machine gun just as soon as he could.
With another 100-round belt attached, he began to lay down covering fire for the rest of the American soldiers still moving to the corner below them. While they were shooting away at the Russians, they could hear what sounded like a cacophony of machine gun fire echoing from the various cross streets. It was pure chaos as they saw green and red tracer fire zig zagging back and forth between the various groups of soldiers. Above the din, Childers could also hear the roar of a lot of vehicles starting their engines, and the unmistakable sound of tank treads as they rumbled down the city streets. As Childers was keeping a group of Russian soldiers pinned down, he suddenly saw a tank rumbling in their direction. When the turret began to turn towards them, he knew they had seconds to vacate the area before that 125mm gun fired.
Childers got up and grabbed Specialist Cross by his individual body armor (IBA) and yelled at him, “Run back into the building!”
They had made it a couple of feet into the living room when the balcony exploded from the high explosive round the tank had just fired. As Luke was moving through the living room, he felt the sudden pressure change in the air around him, then the immense heat from the explosion. His body was thrown to the floor by the concussion of the blast. Specialist Cross was just slightly in front of him, so Luke had absorbed most of the blast preventing him from being too seriously injured.
As Childers laid there on the floor, he fought to keep his mind from drifting off into la la land and the blackness that was beckoning him. He felt a sharp burning pain in his legs and lower back, though he could still feel his toes and wiggle them. “That’s a good sign,” he thought to himself.
Specialist Cross got up and moved to Childers. He began to apply a couple of bandages to his legs and tried to help him up. “We need to get you out of here, Sarge. You’re hit pretty bad,” he said in an anxious and shaken voice.
“Agreed. Let’s try and move down the stairs over there and get to the ground floor. The rest of the platoon should be here by now,” Luke replied through gritted teeth. As they made their way to the ground floor, several American soldiers entered the house and began to move to several of the windows. They were on their way to set up a couple of machine guns.
“Hey, we need a medic over here!” Cross yelled to the soldiers who had just entered the room.
When the men turned and saw that the injured soldier was Sergeant Childers, they instantly yelled out for the platoon’s only medic to come help them. A minute later, the medic came in with several other soldiers, many of them wounded. They immediately began to place the wounded on the chairs and couches, turning the first floor of the building into a makeshift aid station.
Lieutenant Taylor walked into the room, carrying another wounded soldier. He saw Childers and came over to him. “How bad are you hurt, Luke?” he asked as he surveyed his comrade in concern.
“I think they got my legs and my left shoulder pretty good. How is the rest of the attack going? Are we breaking out of the city yet?” Luke asked, hoping all of their efforts were not in vain as he continued to fight to stay conscious.
“It’s starting to look like it’s going to work,” Taylor answered. “I saw a couple of the German tanks just a couple of blocks away. I think we are going to bust out of this hole, so you just hang in there. We’ll get help and hopefully a medivac for the wounded once we are able to place some distance between the city and the Russian lines.”
The fighting was fierce and hard, often devolving into hand-to-hand hostilities and close-quarter combat. The mixed NATO units fought like men possessed along this part of the Russian line; within the first thirty minutes of heavy fighting, the German tank unit that was leading the charge broke through the Russian positions, which were quickly followed by a battalion of tanks from the 1st Armored Division. Next came dozens of Strykers and other armored vehicles and trucks. When a group of transport vehicles drove towards Lt. Taylor’s position, they stopped and loaded their wounded into the truck, along with the rest of their platoon and company.