I couldn’t suppress a smile in response to his naive gushing about the train and parenthetical reference to the fact that we were on our way to a war. “Well then let’s just hope the Chinese don’t mind that we’re coming to kill them.”
Williams was an earnest enough kid. He was in the Army for a paycheck, but at least he had ambitions. He came from one of those families too rich to get financial aid and too poor to pick up the check for his education. The Army paid for his engineering degree, and he was planning to leave the Army to cash in after two years. He was always talking about how he wanted to work at Merlin, the 3D printing outfit founded by the guy behind the Lafayette Initiative.
The ride went by very quickly, not just because the train rocketed along at 150 miles per hour, but also due to the short length of our trip. In less time than it had taken to walk to the train station in Yilan, we reached the town of Pinglin. It was about 1:30 in the morning local time, and the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division was officially in harm’s way.
After the company disembarked and gathered in its assigned portion on the street in front of the train station, Colonel Brown came by and briefed me in on the overall plan. “We’re staying here in Pinglin just for tonight. Apparently, the fighting northwest of here has been intense for the past few days, but it’s tapered off over the past few hours. Taiwanese high command wants to make sure that this is still the area where they need reinforcements the most before they commit us to the front line. Sounds like it’ll be a quiet night. After your men are assembled, head to the high school gymnasium down the street to bunk down.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
As the company gathered and the squad leaders ensured that every soldier had their kit, I walked outside of the station to take a look at the area. Outside of the hustle and bustle of the station, the first thing I noticed was the sound of sporadic artillery and tank fire in the distance. Pinglin was only about six miles behind the main Taiwanese lines east of Taipei, where the People’s Liberation Army had been attacking for the better part of two weeks. There were many hills and mountains between us and the front line, however, so only the heavier weapons were audible. Back in Iraq, when we were out in the desert, you could easily hear small arms fire from that far away.
I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to think about Iraq.
The air in Pinglin was remarkably clear, a testament to its location in the mountainous interior of the island. Perched on the bank of the Jingualiao River, Pinglin is a small town of about seven thousand people halfway between Taipei and Yilan. There was one main street overlooking the river, and it looked almost like a small American town’s main street, except that the signs were all in Mandarin. There were no townspeople about at this late hour, but I imagined the citizenry would be mostly older folks who maintained and operated the nearby farms and small businesses.
Across the river from Pinglin’s main street was a tea plantation, with terraced rows of plants ascending a hill and a small farmhouse. The area was littered with tea plantations and farms; they covered many of the hills surrounding the town. I could see three bridges connecting the two banks, a rail bridge, a road bridge, and a footbridge. The river itself was perhaps eighty feet wide and not very deep-looking, but the steep banks — forty-foot cliffs — meant that the only plausible way for a vehicle to cross the river would be on one of the bridges.
All of the main routes to Yilan from Taipei funnel over these bridges.
That thought jumped unbidden into my mind. We were only supposed to be in Pinglin for twelve hours. Long enough to get our forces organized from the trip, get a good night’s sleep, and head off to wherever we’d be most needed on the front. Looking around, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about how defensible Pinglin was. But Pinglin was relatively quiet, the front miles away.
Then, as I stood looking at the river, I saw the reflection of three flashes close behind me, almost as if someone had taken a photograph. I imagined some idiot soldier under my command (hopefully not, though very possibly, an officer) taking selfies at night less than ten miles from the front lines of a war.
I turned to see who I’d be chewing out, but saw instead three rising mushroom clouds rising to the northwest.
My stomach froze. Nuclear weapons.
After staring at the growing mushroom clouds for two seconds, I snapped back to reality. The nukes had gone off in the direction of the Taiwanese front lines.
The Chinese were blasting a hole in Taiwanese lines before we could get to the front. They were deliberately avoiding nuking Americans. They wanted to burst through and end the war before Americans arrived in force.
I radioed Colonel Brown. “Empathy One, this is Empathy Four. We’ve got a big fucking problem, over.”
Twenty panicked minutes later, I followed Brown into an auditorium at the Pinglin Junior High School. General Gutierrez had called a meeting of company-level officers and above. I looked at the faces of the dozens of officers assembled and saw cold fear.
Gutierrez cleared his throat and began speaking, his voice uneven despite his clear attempt to contain his own gnawing doubt. “The Pentagon has informed me that the atomic bombings were limited to Taiwanese troop concentrations east of Taipei. The Chinese are claiming the weapons were Taiwanese. The Pentagon assesses that claim as unlikely.”
I laughed, thinking that was a joke. Of course the goddamn weapons weren’t Taiwanese. Taiwan didn’t have nuclear weapons. They’re also the most technologically advanced country in the world — they could probably avoid having three of their nuclear weapons go off at the same time in the middle of their own lines. No one else thought it was funny, however, and Colonel Brown shot me a “shut up” glare.
Gutierrez continued, “We don’t have time to worry about who did it. The strategic implication of the explosions is clear. The bombings have opened up several mile-long gaps in the Taiwanese lines. Technical experts at the Pentagon have advised me that the Chinese will wait another half-hour or so for the radiation in the area to cool down a bit and then begin driving their armored forces through the holes.”
Gutierrez gestured to a topographical map of Taiwan laid out on a digital projector. The island’s extensive mountain range dominated the middle of the country, running north-south. The People’s Liberation Army controlled the west coast and was pushing against Taiwan’s mountain defense line, consisting of fortifications of the various mountain passes and the relatively flat areas to the north and south of the mountains.
“We are in Pinglin, about five miles southwest of the front. To our north is Route 67, running from Taipei to Yilan and Taiwan’s east coast, the last bit of Taiwan that China hasn’t managed to occupy. The Taiwanese military is down to its final reserves, which have been committed to holding the line in the southern and far northern portions of the island. No one is coming to help until the heavy cav units arrive a few days from now.”
A bead of sweat stood out on Gutierrez’s face, and his voice cracked as he pointed down to the floor. “This war is going to be decided right here in Pinglin. By us and whatever the Chinese can throw at us for the next several days.”
Silence fell on the room. Not since the defense of Little Round Top by the 20th Maine had the fate of a war rested on a single American unit.