Captain Long’s Marines were nearly ready for battle, and it was time to fine-tune some of their individual skills that would help to keep them alive. “Listen up, Marines,” he said. “Whether we hit the beaches or fight our way through the jungles of the Philippines or the mountains of Taiwan, you’re going to need to know how to shoot accurately under pressure and not freak out. Today, we find ourselves on the North Field of Tinian Island. This field was used to house the 313th Bombardment Wing, the same bomb wing that carried out the atomic bombing of Japan. It was from this island that the war in the Pacific was won, and it will be from this island that our generation will end this terrible war with the Eastern Alliance.”
Long could tell by looking at the crowd before him that he had them fired up, so he pressed in. “Today’s training will focus on a couple of critically important skills, which I can attest from my own combat experiences are vital to your survival and our success. We’re going to run through a series of firing drills. In the first drill, you will have to hit targets from five meters, fifteen meters, thirty meters, fifty meters, and one hundred meters while one of the Ranger officers fires a M240 and an M2 several feet over your heads. I want you to hear it and know what it’s like to have to shoot your weapons while under fire, to feel that pressure to hit the target. You’ll also go through a series of magazine-changing drills while under fire. When the crap hits the fan, it’s going to get crazy, and you need to know how to react under immense pressure. With that said, I’m going to hand you over to the range control officers, and I’ll continue to monitor everyone’s progress.”
The rest of the day was spent running his company through a series of challenging shooting exercises and identifying those soldiers who would need extra training and those who were going to thrive on the pressure. This type of exercise was designed to get them truly ready for what they would ultimately have to face when it came time to evict the PLA from the Philippines and Taiwan.
Two weeks went by as the Marines continued to train their units relentlessly in preparation for the final assault. Then, the word finally came down that it was time to retake the Pacific.
Captain Long walked through row after row of tents until he came to the tent that was being used as the brigade’s headquarters and operations center. He walked up to the entrance and made his way in to find Colonel Micah Tilman’s office. He quickly noticed a lot of the other company and battalion commanders in the tent as well.
“Maybe this was changed to more of a group presentation,” thought Long.
A couple of minutes went by before they were led further back into the tent to a small group of chairs and a map board with a lot of Post-it notes and other markings. The board was quickly flipped over to present a blank whiteboard, which Long assumed would be used as the backdrop for a PowerPoint presentation.
Walking to the front of the group, Colonel Tilman cleared his throat. “OK, men, it’s finally happening. We’ve been given our orders to attack. While many of you knew we’d invade soon, most of you had no idea where we would be attacking. The 6th Marine Division has been given the task of liberating the main Philippine Island of Luzon, and as such, our brigade will be assaulting the beach area around Dingalan, roughly twenty kilometers from the Philippine base at Fort Mag, where we’ve previously trained at in the past with the Filipino Army.”
Turning to his aide, he signaled for the PowerPoint presentation to start. “As you can see, we will be hitting the beaches along this section.” Tilman pointed to a series of beach resorts and a tourist town that led along Dingalan-Gabaldon Road, which snaked its way through several miles of the Minalungao National Park.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he said bluntly. “This is some tough and rugged terrain we’ll have to truck through to get to our objective. By road, we’re looking at 71 kilometers. If we go through the national park, we cut that down by two-thirds, but it’s tough going — lots of jungle and no roads — which also means no support vehicles.”
Someone in the crowd let out a grunt. Colonel Tilman ignored it and continued. “We’re going to approach this a couple of ways. 1st Battalion will go ashore with their amtracks and will lead the way up through the road with armor support. 2nd Battalion is going to be flown indirectly via our Ospreys and other helicopters to assault Fort Mag directly and capture the airstrips there. 3rd Battalion is going to be held in reserve and will be sent in one company at a time to reinforce whichever battalion appears to be hitting the most resistance.”
“Now, we could also get lucky and have an unopposed landing. The enemy may, for whatever reason, determine that they would rather fight us further inland — in which case we’ll be able to secure our objective quickly and capture Fort Mag without much fanfare. Keep in mind, once we do land, our orders may change quickly, and we may need to adjust accordingly,” Tilman explained. “If you have further questions, please stay behind and ask them. Otherwise, get your commands ready to move and I’ll see you guys at Fort Mag. We board the ships in twelve hours, and we launch the attack in two days.”
With that, the meeting was dismissed.
Three days later, Captain Tim Long was packed into a V-22 Osprey with several of his men and all their body armor, gear and weapons. The air was oppressively hot and humid as it rushed through the various openings of the helicopter. Within minutes of the tiltrotor aircraft being loaded, the pilots gave the engines more power and the aircraft lifted off from the USS America, joined by dozens of other Ospreys and attack helicopters as they turned toward the shores of Luzon and the enemy that was waiting for them.
Long caught a glance outside through the tail ramp and was impressed with what he saw. Arrayed below them were dozens of US warships disembarking thousands of Marines to head toward the shores and establish the all-important beachhead. There were also rows of V-22 Ospreys and many other helicopters moving toward land and their various objectives. He hadn’t spotted any sign of opposition just yet, but that wasn’t to say the Chinese weren’t lying in wait for them once they set down.
One of the crew chiefs leaned toward Captain Long. He spoke loudly to be heard over the noise of the chopper. “We’re ten minutes out, Sir. The base should be off to our right when we approach it,” he said.
Long hoped that the Air Force had cleared the area of any possible air-defense vehicles. “This landing could get rough,” he thought.
Just then, a string of green tracers flew past their Osprey, and the pilots banked hard to one side to avoid flying into the next stream of them. Tim turned and saw a concerned look on the tail gunner as he readied his weapon to engage the enemy.
The Osprey jinked hard to the left, just in time for Captain Long to see another string of green tracers fly past them so close that he felt like he could reach out and touch them with his hand. Looking past the tail gunner, he saw one of the Ospreys move away from one string of enemy fire, only to fly right into the path of another. It was a horrific crash; the front section of the tilt-wing aircraft was shredded, causing it to fall quickly to the ground and explode.
No sooner had that happened than he saw two missiles streak in toward a pair of Super Cobra attack helicopters, which were now speeding ahead to engage the enemy anti-air-defenses. One of the helicopters pulled up hard, spitting out a shower of bright red flares to throw off the enemy missiles while the second helicopter turned hard to the right and attempted to dive away from the threat. The one that dove to the ground was obliterated by the enemy missiles in an enormous fiery blast, while the one that pulled up hard and dispensed flares lived to fight on.