In addition to doubling the size of the MEF, each company was doubled in size, which meant a company could accomplish a lot more now than they used to be able to. “My men will get it done Sir. They are pretty wired up right now, and I’ll make sure they stay wound up. We all know this is the opportunity to knock the Russians out of the war,” Lieutenant Thornton said with conviction. The glint in his eyes showed an iron will and no lack of determination.
Two hours later, Lieutenant Thornton’s Company was in the air heading towards the Beirut airport. The Army Rangers were already in the city, securing half a dozen key bridges for the armor units and other strategic targets throughout the city. The 101st Airborne was landing airborne troopers east of the city via hundreds of Razorbacks, and was forming up to secure their corridors and targets. The 82nd Airborne parachuted in at Chtaura, hitting the Russian supply depots and blocking any reinforcements from Damascus. With nearly 60,000 airborne troops dropping from the sky and 40,000 Marines assaulting from the sea, this was the largest airborne assault since the Normandy invasion of France during World War II.
Lieutenant Thornton’s Company was coming into sight of the airport as they flew over dozens of Marine landing craft and vehicles hitting the beaches below. Dozens of green tracers started to reach out for his Razorback as they continued to fly towards the airport. The pilot began taking evasive action, and counter-fired a slew of anti-tank missiles and rockets at the targets that had been shooting at them. One of the crew chiefs swiveled his mini-gun towards several of the buildings as the aircraft got closer to landing, and he began to rake the buildings with bullets to keep the enemy heads down while they landed. As they neared the landing zone, the Razorback took several hits, jarring it a bit. Luckily, the Razorback was so heavily armored that the rounds bounced off the protective covering harmlessly.
The Razorback began to flare as it landed. Lieutenant Thornton yelled to everyone in the cabin. “Start identifying targets, and take them out fast! Shoot and move, and do it quickly!” he yelled as he readied himself to jump once the craft leveled out.
Within seconds, they were on the ground and coming under heavy enemy fire. One of Thornton’s men was hit in the face and fell to the ground in front of him, dead. Seconds later, an anti-tank rocket flew from one of the nearby buildings and struck the Razorback just as it was starting to gain altitude… it blew up instantly. The explosion threw Lieutenant Thornton to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. He laid on his back for a few seconds to regain his composure and breathe before getting back up and leading a charge with his men to the buildings where the rocket had originated from. They needed to get off the taxi-way; they were sitting ducks out in the open like this.
As Thornton ran towards the building, he had his rifle at his shoulder and was firing while moving. His HUD continued to identify new targets as it was able to distinguish friend from foe through the blue force tracker his men used. He continued to fire round after round as he and his men advanced to the buildings and then into the terminals. Once inside the terminal, they began to stack against the walls of one of the hallways. They then started to clear the rooms one at a time as the platoons made their way through the terminals, hallways, and other rooms they encountered. Russian soldiers were everywhere.
The control tower had a small hallway that connected it to the rest of the terminal. It also had an exterior exit, which is where the Marine team immediately headed towards. They wanted to avoid entering it through the terminal fearing that that entrance may be a trap. As the team headed for the control tower, they were met by heavy machine gun fire, killing several Marines.
While the remaining Marines were getting into position to breach the tower, a Russian soldier threw a satchel out of one of the windows in the tower towards the jarheads below. The Marines saw the bag charge, and immediately began to scatter, which enabled the Russian machine gunners to once again pummel the American forces. Then the satchel exploded, killing and wounding the rest of the Marines who had been in its vicinity.
The Russians had very cleverly set up several heavy machine guns and a couple of snipers in the tower at various levels. Despite the tower not being a very large structure, it provided the Russians with enough cover to cause the Marines a lot of trouble securing the airport. Having lost nearly two squads trying to secure this one objective, the platoon sergeant had three of his Marines pull out their AT6 rockets in order to destroy the tower.
The Marines were also coming under a lot of sniper fire from buildings next to the airport, forcing them to have to extend their perimeter farther beyond the airport than where they had originally wanted to attack. The dilemma for the jarheads was that they were operating under a short timeframe to secure the airport. Follow-on forces were on their way, and though the C17s could land under enemy fire, it would be better if they didn’t. The Russians were everywhere. They fired relentlessly, killing a number of Thornton’s men despite the losses they were taking.
After ninety minutes of continuous fighting, building to building, room to room, and expanding the perimeter beyond the airport, they finally secured the area. Lieutenant Thornton called the battalion headquarters and requested the QRF be sent to his position and for several medivacs. His company had taken heavy casualties capturing the airport and so did Bravo Company, which had the southern end of the airport that had housed most of the Russian Air Force personnel manning the airport.
In addition to securing the airport and the perimeter, they also had to move numerous destroyed and disabled vehicles from the runway and taxi-ways. The Russians had moved as many vehicles as possible to prevent aircraft from landing on the runways, in addition to blowing up several large holes in its surface. Fortunately, a couple of front-end loaders from an engineering unit were brought in by helicopter thirty minutes after the first Marines attacked the airport. They immediately began to move dirt to fill in the holes, and helped to move the numerous damaged and disabled vehicles blocking the runway, getting it ready to receive aircraft. A few dozen Air Force controllers and other personnel also arrived with the engineers and began to coordinate initial air operations.
Major Lee came on the radio and to give his congratulations. “Lieutenant Thornton, good job on securing the airport. Brigade has twelve Razorbacks in-bound to your location, with additional troops and equipment. That flight of transports I told you about is inbound as well, so look for them and make sure nothing happens to them,” he said, and he quickly signed off the radio. Thornton could hear a lot of machine gun fire over the radio and assumed the Major was still in the process of securing his own position.
“Sergeant Miller, get on the radio and let Bravo Company know we have transports and Razorbacks in-bound. He needs to make sure the runway is secured and protected, understood?” Thornton called to his radioman.
Ten minutes later, several medivac helicopters landed and began to evacuate the dead and wounded. Minutes after they left, twelve Razorbacks joined the tarmac, along with their aircrews and additional equipment. Thornton ran out to one of the Razorbacks and met the Brigade Commander Colonel Ladd and his staff. They spoke briefly before Thornton pointed in the direction of the terminals for them to head towards. “Sir, we’ve secured the terminals and the airport, Terminal B is the least shot up area for you to set up, if you would like.”