He found Lieutenant Taylor helping one of the soldiers get their heavy machine gun repositioned. A large tree branch had fallen and pinned the weapon to the ground until they were able to wrestle it out and get it set up in a new position. “Everyone OK here LT?” he asked, hoping no one was killed or injured.
Looking up, he saw Childers, covered in dirt and sweat, and a little bit of blood trickling down from a small cut on the side of his right cheek. “You look like crap sergeant. Are you OK?” he asked in reply.
Chuckling, Childers answered, “Yeah I’m OK. We had a couple of guys wounded down by my section of the line. The medics are getting them back to the aid station. We got lucky the Russians didn’t focus that barrage on our position like they did the armor guys.” He said looking off towards where the tanks were hiding. He saw a couple columns of smoke, which meant a few of them must have been hit.
Suddenly, the percussion of tank cannon rounds, mortars, and heavy machine guns broke the conversation. “It appears the ground attack is about to start. Sergeant, get the rest of the platoon ready while I help get this gun operational again,” the LT said as he turned back to the gun.
Sergeant Childers smiled and ran towards the next line. “I’m glad to see the LT is starting to take ownership of the platoon. We’ll make an infantry officer out of him yet,” he thought.
Luke saw that the next group of three soldiers was ready. They had the M240 mounted on a tripod with the spare barrel and glove nearby, ready to be swapped out. “You guys have enough ammo for that thing?” he asked, hoping they had plenty.
One of the soldiers, who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, looked up. “Yes, Sergeant. We have fourteen belts.”
Childers nodded and then moved down to the next foxhole. He saw only one soldier, where there should have been two or three, so he jumped in. “Where are your battle buddies?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
“They both got injured during the artillery barrage. I’m here alone,” he answered, still clearly in a bit of shock.
Childers reached out, putting his hand on the young soldier’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s OK. They will be fine and so will you. I’ll stay here with you. You’ll be my battle buddy now OK?” His kindness brought a smile to the soldier’s face.
“Thank you, Sergeant Childers. You are a good sergeant,” the young soldier said.
Snap… Zip… Crack! Dozens of bullets began to fly over their heads, hitting the tree branches and other objects they were using for cover in front of their fighting position.
“Private Torres, remember to aim each shot. Find your target, then gently squeeze the trigger and move to the next target. Don’t stay up for more than a few seconds before ducking back down, OK?” Childers felt the need to try to convey some of his experience to the youngster.
“Man, we have a lot of young soldiers in this platoon,” Childers realized.
PV2 Jesus Torres looked over the top of his fighting position with his M4 at the enemy soldiers, heading towards their position. He did just as Sergeant Childers told him; he found a Russian soldier that was bounding from one covered position to another, stopping every few minutes to fire his AK-47 at their positions. He placed the red dot on the soldier’s center mass, just as he had been taught in Basic Combat Training at Ft. Benning, and gently squeezed the trigger. He felt his rifle bark once and recoil back. The enemy soldier clutched his chest, and fell to the ground. He had hit him.
PV2 Torres then slid down the side of his fighting position, his heart and mind racing.
He looked at Childers, “Sergeant, I did it. I got one of them!” he yelled over the now continuous popping of the platoon’s weapons.
Looking at the young soldier, Luke responded, “Great job, Torres! I told you that you could do it. Now, keep going. We have to stop these guys and the platoon is depending on you!”
Sergeant Childers spotted what appeared to be a Russian officer. He was the only guy he saw yelling at the soldiers, pointing them to various parts of the American lines where they would pour machine gun fire on. Childers took careful aim, and gently squeezed the trigger, just as he had done so many times throughout his military career. He released a three-round burst which hit the Russian officer in the chest. The officer dropped to the ground, dead. The soldiers near the officer suddenly looked up and pointed directly at Childers. Childers and Torres then found their position being heavily raked over with enemy gunfire. Pieces of dirt, grass, and tree leaves were all being kicked up around them as the enemy lit up their position.
Childers put his hand on Torres’ shoulder, indicating for him to stay down a bit longer. “Let the enemy fire at us for a while. Once they believe they got us, they’ll move on to the next position. Then we can get up and start shooting at them again, OK?”
After what felt like an eternity (but was probably no more than thirty-seconds), Childers popped back up and brought his rifle to bear. He sighted in a group of Russian soldiers moving towards their position. They were being smart about it. Two of them would run, while the other three would lay down covering fire. One of the soldiers had an RPG-7 and would stop from time to time to fire a rocket at the American lines. Childers looked down at Torres, and signaled for him to get up.
“See that group of soldiers over there to our ten o’clock? Try and take out the guy with the RPG. I’m going to try and take out the other guys around him, OK?”
Torres just nodded, still rattled from all the gunfire happening around them. Childers took aim at one of the attackers. He had stopped shooting to change out magazines; that’s when Childers placed the red dot on him and squeezed the trigger. The Russian soldier fell backwards. His buddy to the left looked right at Childers just as he squeezed the trigger a second time, hitting the soldier in the face.
It was practically dark now. The Americans had moved to using their night vision goggles. Roughly half the Russian soldiers had them. The other half didn’t; they were just running and attacking in the direction they were told. As night descended on the battle, it turned into complete chaos. Red and green tracer fire was crisscrossing back and forth across the battle lines while soldiers and armored vehicles attempted to race between them. Explosions could be heard everywhere. Bullets were whipping through the air, striking tree trunks, branches, vehicles and human flesh. It was the sickening sound of war as the cacophony just continued unabated, both sides trying relentlessly to kill each other.
The ground attack lasted nearly two hours before the Russians broke off their attack. They had not penetrated the American positions, but they had bloodied the Americans up pretty well. For the moment, the Americans had delayed a significantly larger enemy force from moving on to capture the international airport and the capital — at least for several hours, maybe more.
Disunity at the Top
The Secret Service was still requesting to move the President to a more secured command bunker. “Mr. President,” pressed one of the agents. “This is a shooting war with Russia, a nation that has nuclear capability and submarines potentially off the east coast. Our concern is for your safety.”
The President waved them off. “I respect your opinion, but I need to stay in the White House and project strength and calm until the situation changes,” he responded calmly. He felt confident in his assessment that Russia had no more desire to make this a nuclear war than he did.
As to the broader picture, however, the President had admitted privately to his closest advisors that he did not have any serious military experience or understanding of how these things worked. He was relying heavily on their experience and knowledge. Right now, it appeared to him they had completely underestimated the Russians resolve to stand their ground, and their ability to strike at the US and NATO. The only person he had spoken to in the last few days that had signaled any sort of warning was that Ambassador in Ukraine. “I’ll have to speak with him more. He seems to know what he’s talking about,” the President thought.