Though not as accurate as the BMPs that were firing from the stationary positions, they appeared to be more threatening as they moved forward.
Two more Iranians came out of the building-now enveloped in flames-with their hands up. But their gestures were ignored as all seven BMPs turned their machine guns on them.
Kurpov let his binoculars drop slowly. For a moment, he took in the whole scene before him. The BMPs were now passing the burning building. As they went by, the two nearest the building turned their turrets toward it and sprayed it with machine-gun fire. The bodies of a dozen Iranians lay strewn about, cut down before they had had a chance to fire a single round.
So, this is war. Kurpov held that thought as he scrambled down the sand dune to his BRDM reconnaissance vehicle.
The conference room was slowly filling with commanders and staff officers of the St. with Brigade, so called be cause of the stand its heraldic predecessor had made at Saint-with, Belgium, against overwhelming odds during World War II. The brigade executive officer stood at the front of the room giving last-minute directions to the enlisted men setting up the room, while mentally taking note of who was still missing from the orders group.
As his eyes swept the room, they stopped when he came to the brigade assistant intelligence officer off to the side, going over briefing notes.
The intelligence officer, or S-2, could not be contacted, off camping somewhere. Ordinarily this situation would have been chalked up to poor timing or bad luck and left to the assistant to handle. But both the brigade commander and the executive officer had serious reservations about the ability of this assistant S-2, First Lieutenant Matthews-who not only was new to the staff, recently transferred from the 10th Corps G-2 section, but was the first female officer to serve on the brigade staff.
Despite years of equal-opportunity training and the slow evolutionary change of the character of the U.S. Army, the XO was ill at ease having Lieutenant Matthews on the staff. At five foot seven, Amanda Matthews had a figure that looked good even in her baggy BDUs. Her short blond hair framed a face that could only be described as stunning. The XO thought how terribly out of place she seemed. In a few minutes they would be talking about war, a real war that was going on as they sat there. A war that they were preparing to join. One tour in the closing days of Vietnam had shown the XO what war could do to people, mentally as well as physically. In his mind, he could not picture Lieutenant Matthews in battle. At home, yes.
Modeling on Madison Avenue, yes. Crawling along a ditch, under fire, in some Godforsaken country, no. Lieutenant Matthews looked up at that moment and met his eyes. The XO felt himself blush, then turned away to continue his check of who was still missing.
Lieutenant Matthews paused for a moment and continued to stare at the XO. She knew what was going on in his mind: Is she good enough to do the job? How well will she hold up when the shit really hits the fan?..
Nothing changed. Every time she came into a unit, from 20 her first day at West Point to her assignments at Fort Hood, she had had to fight the same attitude. At least in the past she had not been the first or the only female officer in the unit. This assignment, however, was different. Since coming down to the brigade, she had been treated with the respect due an officer but not the confidence or trust that was accorded to the other junior staff officers. She had been warned by friends of hers on the staff of the 25th Armored Division that the brigade commander and the S-2 had fought tool and nail against her assignment. They had even stated that it was better to leave the position open rather than put a female in a tactical headquarters that would operate as far forward as the brigade would. In the end, the division commander had told the brigade commander to shut up and accept her. This he did, but reluctantly and with barely concealed hostility.
She had been warned it was not going to be easy. She felt, however, as if she were starting with two strikes against her.
Feeling rage slowly building, Lieutenant Matthews turned her thoughts away from her plight and to the notes she had for the briefing. She knew she was ready, having spent most of the previous night at corps G-2 reviewing every bit of information coming in on Soviet activities and Iranian reactions.
She had rummaged through the files, dragging out every old intelligence report and study on the area that she could find. Her preparation even included a trip to the post library, where she had pulled everything she could find on Iran, from National Geographic articles to area study books.
Maps of Iran were at a premium that day on Fort Hood. Everyone wanted one.
That's where having friends in the right place paid off. The 2nd Brigade was probably the only brigade in the corps that had a full range of maps not only of Iran but of the Gulf states and the southern USSR.
With the XO's announcement "Gentlemen, the brigade commander," the briefing began. After being introduced by the XO, Lieutenant Matthews began her briefing with an overview of the topography and demographics of Iran. "Iran lies on a large plateau bordered in the south by the Persian Gulf, in the north by the Caspian Sea and the Soviet Union, in the west by Turkey and Iraq, and in the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Major terrain features are the Zagros Mountains that start in the northwest and run southwest, parallel with the Iraqi border, to the Persian Gulf. The second major mountain range, the Elburz Mountains, also starts in the northwest but runs almost due east, where it ends just short of Afghanistan.
In the center of the country, between the two mountain ranges, are two large deserts, the Dasht-e-Kavir, or Great Salt Desert, in the north and the Dasht-e-Lut to the south. Dasht is a word used for the gravel slopes that surround the kavir, a salt crust that covers marshes of black mud.
As the crust is easily broken, many parts of these deserts remain unexplored.
Iran's oil reserves are concentrated in the southwest near the Iraqi border, and offshore in the Persian Gulf.
"Less than fourteen percent of the country receives over fifty-two percent of the annual rainfall. This is mostly in the northwest, in the area that runs from Tehran to the Soviet and Turkish borders. Even though the land is quite mountainous, it is in this region, in the valleys, that the majority of the population and agriculture is located. Temperatures range from below the freezing point during the winter to a high of one hundred thirty two degrees in the summer, but there are parts of the Elburz Mountains where snow never disappears."
Lieutenant Matthews stopped for a moment while her NCO changed maps to show population densities and divisions. She looked at both the brigade commander and the XO to see whether they were tracking the briefing. The XO gave her a nod of approval.
"Last estimates place the population at approximately thirty-five million.
Because of the growth rate and the generally poor quality of the medical care, the population is an extremely young one, with a median age in the low twenties. While the majority of the population in the central region is
Persian with Indo-European origins, there are several minorities. The most important of these are the Turkomans in the northwest, who are interrelated with other members of this group in both Turkey and the Soviet Union; the Kurds in the west, who are related to compatriots in Iraq; and the Baluchis in the southeast, who are related to the Baluchis in
Pakistan. Ninety-eight percent of the population is Muslim. Iran is the only country in the world where the majority of the population is Shiite. Only among the Kurds, Baluchis, Turkomans and Arabs living in the country does the Sunni Muslim belief predominate."