Total U.S. military personnel directly involved in TWILIGHT operations remains at 1,500. In my opinion, that is sufficient at this time. This figure includes the ten Special Forces A teams currently deployed and two preparing for deployment. To date, no U.S. military personnel have been involved in military operations that fall within the South African sphere of influence. We do, however, exchange critical intelligence that concerns Soviet-backed operations and movements.
Soviet response to TWILIGHT operations has been minimal. We have seen some increase in force levels. The no-bullshit strengths I have are; Angola: 2,800 Soviet and 15,000 Cuban; Ethiopia: 3,000 Soviet and 20,000 Cuban; Libya: 1,600 Soviet and 9,000 Cuban; Mozambique: 750 Soviet and 2,000 Cuban. An additional 900 Soviets, 2,500 Cubans, and 1,800 Warsaw Pact personnel are spread throughout the continent. I believe the Reds will continue to downplay their role in Africa so long as they can do so without losing any more face or ground. All bets are off, however, if they perceive that one of their client states is about to go down the tubes. After they took a beating in Afghanistan and Iran, the last thing the Soviets can afford is another defeat, real or apparent, even if it involves one of their proxies.
Herein lies the danger: how much and how hard do you want me to push? I can keep the bastards off balance and from spreading conflicts with what I have, given our current budget. If, however, our operations, or those of our client states, become too successful, the Soviets may simply say "Screw public relations" and throw in their combat troops or Cubans. There are sufficient Soviet and Cuban personnel currently deployed in Africa, if pooled, to present a combat force capable of defeating any standing African army, outside of the South Africans and possibly the Egyptians. Please keep that in mind the next time you talk to The Man.
I would not have presented you a problem without a solution. My people tell me that if we cut the Army's ground component of BRIGHT STAR by one brigade, and transfer funds saved there to TWILIGHT operations, we will be able to carry on with TWILIGHT at current levels for the balance of this fiscal year without dipping into other funds. Currently, the 16th Armored Division is scheduled to deploy with two of its armored brigades and one brigade, reinforced, from the 11th Air Assault Division. We can, in my opinion, accomplish the same training, vis-a-vis deployment, and the same political goals, by deploying only one armored brigade and one reinforced air assault brigade under the control of the 16th Armored. As this is a no-notice deployment exercise, and we have not yet finalized the exercise plan or our troop list with the Egyptian government, we will lose no credibility with any foreign governments or the public. The other option is cutting the Marine brigade. That, however, would be very unpopular, with both the Marines and the press. You know how the media loves seeing Chesty's boys wading ashore. Makes good copy.
Regards to the wife and family. Hope your oldest is having a better plebe year at the Point than you and I did.
Robert Horn
General, U.S. A.
CinC, CENTCOM
Chapter 2
Guerrillas never win wars but their adversaries often lose them.
The journey from Kassala in the Sudan to Gondar, Ethiopia, had been a hard one for Kinsly and his men. In eight days they had covered the 150 kilometers, or 92 miles, straight-line distance from the drop-off point north of Gallabat on the east bank of the Atbara River on the border of Ethiopia. The march had been uphill all the way, with the drop point being a thousand feet above sea level and the target, an airfield at Gondar, a little more than seventy-five hundred feet above sea level. Carrying weapons, a full combat load, and three weeks' rations while traveling only at night over broken and rocky terrain in a hostile country had been no easy feat. But they had done it — and without a single mishap or contact of any kind.
Kinsly had been concerned about the men, his own and the Sudanese. He shouldn't have been — they were tough and ready. Each American Green Beret in Kinsly's A Team, Kinsly included, was a volunteer and a veteran of either the war in Iran or antidrug operations in Central and South America. Some, like Sergeant First Class Hcctor Veldez, were veterans of both. The Sudanese, now clad in shoddy, faded uniforms similar to those of the Eritrean rebels, had been toughened by an unending guerrilla war. Despite an appearance that reminded Kinsly of men on the verge of starvation, in a fight they were, man for man, every bit as capable as Kinsly's own.
What really bothered Kinsly during their quiet march toward the Ethiopian airfield was the realization that he had lost faith in himself and what he was doing. When he had volunteered for Special Forces, he had done so for the simple reason that he wanted to be on the cutting edge — out in the boonies, making things happen. Special Forces, he had been told, would make a difference. "We go in when the war is small," Dedinger had told him during his initial in-brief, "and we keep it small." While there was some merit in what the colonel said, eight months in the Sudan, training and advising a counterguerrilla unit, had convinced him not only that he was in the wrong place but that he was there for all the wrong reasons.
The glamour of special operations, training "indigenous" personnel to defend themselves and being where "the action" was, had faded in the harsh conditions, rank poverty, and confused political situation of the Sudan. The savage civil war that had no discernible beginning and no foreseeable end completed the ravage of southern Sudan. It didn't take Kinsly long to realize that the Sudanese had been killing each other before he came and would no doubt keep on doing so after he had left. The Sudanese government itself was walking a picket fence, attempting to keep the communists out of power without seriously offending their powerful neighbor to the south or the Soviet Union, backer for both Ethiopia and the Sudanese rebels in southern Sudan. In the midst of all this, the most Kinsly and his men could do was to make the killing process slightly more efficient.
Even had he been able to reconcile himself to the absurdity of the military situation and his role in it, Kinsly was unable to accept the pitiful conditions to which war and famine had reduced the country's population. His middle-class upbringing had done nothing to prepare him for working and living with a people so stricken with perpetual famine, drought, and war that it left them teetering on the edge of survival. As hard as he tried, Kinsly had difficulty embracing the people he was expected to help.
Nor could he turn off his emotions or harden himself to the suffering that surrounded him, as SFC Veldez did. It was the children that got to him. Every child between the age of three and five reminded him of his own daughter. In the beginning he had tried participating in civil assistance operations, projects designed to help the "indigenous" population and win their hearts and minds away from the communists. But that didn't last long. One day, while helping his team's paramedic inoculate children, he saw a young girl, not more than five, sitting alone under a lone tree that was as malnourished as the child seeking its shade. Kinsly squatted down and tried to strike up a conversation with the girl while she waited patiently to be seen by his team's medic. His efforts were for nought. The girl's only response was to stare at him with large, vacant, unblinking eyes. Her face was a frozen mask of despair.