“OK, OK,” Taylor said, putting his hands in the air as if to say, “I give up.”
“Well, believe it or not, I was accepted and went to college at Yale. I originally wanted to be a lawyer, so going to Yale made sense. I figured I’d go to another Ivy League school afterwards and go to work for some fancy law firm in New York and make the big bucks. During my junior year, I got an internship for a law firm in New York over the summer — it was a prestigious firm, the kind that pays you high salaries right out of college. They had me working 100-hour work weeks, which was brutal. I talked with a few of the first-year lawyers and they told me they also worked more than 100 hours every week; most of them did their first two or three years, until they got promoted to associate lawyer. Then their schedule dropped down to sixty to eighty hours.”
Pulling out his wallet, the LT handed Childers a picture of a very beautiful woman. “Then I met her over the summer of my senior year — Cindy. She was going to school for accounting. We dated, and by the time the fall semester of my senior year was over, I was completely head-over-heels in love. She got pregnant unexpectedly, and I realized that I couldn’t live a moment of my life without her and asked her to marry me.” He began to rub his wedding ring, and looked like he might get emotional.
“With a new fiancé and a baby on the way, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t be a lawyer. My father was a workaholic, and I never saw him much. We had a nice house, nice cars, and fancy clothes growing up. I mean, I never wanted for anything… except time with my dad. He never made it to any of my sporting events at school, or anything else that really mattered to me. Now that I was going to be a father, I vowed I would not be like my dad. My entire perspective changed and I knew I needed to change my path. So, what was I supposed to do? I was about to graduate Yale with $82,000 in student debt and I was no longer going on to law school to get one of those high-paying lawyer jobs in New York to pay it all off.”
“As fate would have it, I ran into an Army recruiter during finals’ week. He asked me if had I given any thought to how I was going to pay off my student loans. Well, that got me to stop and talk with him. He told me if I joined as an infantry officer, he could get me a $10,000 signing bonus, and the Army would pay off all $82,000 of my student loans over a six-year enlistment. After that, I was free to stay in the Army or leave.”
“I talked it over with my fiancé and we agreed that I should join and get my student loans wiped out. She was going to have a degree in accounting, so she could get a job anywhere the Army sent us, except here in Germany. But, then again, our son is only a few months old, so she will just plan on being a stay-at-home mom until we return to the States. So, that is how I ended up in the Army. How about you? How did you end up here, Sergeant Childers?” Taylor asked.
Just as Childers was about to go into his story of how he ended up joining the military, they heard a missile streak over their position towards a target just over the horizon. Seconds later, they heard a Bang! Then a Russian Hind helicopter emerged in the distance, flying straight for their position. The Hind was emitting some smoke, but appeared to still be combat effective as it continued to head towards them. Then, another missile streaked over their position and hit the Hind just below the rotor blades, exploding directly into the engine. The chopper was not flying that far off the ground, so when this second Stinger missile hit it, it did not have very far to fall before it blew up.
A loud whistling noise overwhelmed their ears, which meant either artillery or bombs falling. Explosions began to rock the area all around their positions. The Russians began to hit the American positions with 152mm artillery rounds, softening them up before their tanks and infantry fighting vehicles began their attack. The artillery barrage lasted for about five minutes; then, as soon as it ended, they heard the unmistakable sound of tanks.
SFC Childers poked his head above their foxhole and saw numerous Russian tanks spread out in a wide attack pattern, supported by dozens of BMPs and BTR infantry assault vehicles. They were racing towards the American positions, trying to get within knife range and limit the ability of the American tanks from their primary advantage, their long reach. Following behind the armored vehicles was the infantry — and not a small number of soldiers, but a whole regiment’s worth. “It looks like it’s time for us to earn our pay again,” SFC Childers said with a wicked grin on his face as he raised his rifle and took aim at the advancing Russian infantry.
LTC Brian Munch was sitting in his Stryker command vehicle, scarfing down an MRE before the next round of fighting started. As tough and macho as he acted in front of his men, he was nervous. He knew they were outnumbered, and he knew the smart move would have been to fall back to the international airport or even Kiev. However, he also knew that they needed to buy NATO time to get more forces into Ukraine and to the front lines. The rest of their division was less than a day away. If they could hold this position until morning, the rest of the division might reach Kiev and even be able to relieve them.
He was also concerned about his oldest brother, who he knew had been commanding the carrier, USS Bush, in the Black Sea. He was aware that the ship had been sunk, but so far, he had no updates on the whether or not his brother had survived the attack. The Munch family was a military family, through and through (of course, Brian was the only one to join the Army). The rest of the family was all a part of the Navy; his father had retired as a three-star admiral, James was the two-star admiral in charge of the carrier, and his other brother Adam was a submarine commander. Even though his brothers often gave him a hard time about bucking the family trend and going Army instead, he really hoped that everyone would come out of this OK and they would all see each other at Christmas.
A warning came over the radio, interrupting his thoughts. One of the Avenger crews announced, “We’ve detected two Russian Hind helicopters heading towards our position. We are currently engaging the choppers. Chances are, there will be tanks behind these helicopters.”
“Copy that,” answered LTC Brian Munch.
He switched frequencies on the radio to address his battalion. “Listen up everyone. Our air-defense guys are going to engage some enemy helicopters. Be ready for a possible bum rush by some enemy tanks,” he announced, wanting to make sure everyone was as ready as they could be.
Then Munch turned to his drone operator. “Specialist Lee, move the scout drone towards where that Hind is coming in from. I want to see if there is anything else that may be following the helicopters,” he directed.
“Yes, Sir,” responded the specialist, and he dutifully redirected the drone.
As Brian was watched the drone feed and re-examined the electronic map with the disposition of his forces, he felt confident in their position.
A voice from one of the cavalry troops interrupted everyone’s thoughts. “This is Outlaw-one-one. We have tanks, three kilometers to our front. T-80s it looks like,” the voice said. His voice sounded like it was filled with adrenaline and anticipation.
Then another troop reported tanks to their front, then a third troop reported BMPs and BTRs coming from a different direction. As LTC Munch looked over the various troop locations on the map, he could see that the Russians were coming at them from three different directions.
LTC Munch snapped his fingers and waved his hand to get the attention of his Fire Support Team (FIST) LNO; the FIST coordinated artillery missions between the armor units and the battalion of self-propelled 155mm Paladins.