Chapter 4
I called both Delta company and Rose company together so Colonel Talbot could let them know they would be reassigned to other companies and he had me come up to call out the men I would be keeping in my White Rose recon squad. As soon as the men I was keeping for my squad were called out we were dismissed so I could go over what we would be doing.
At twenty-one hundred hours we were all on the C-130 taxiing down the runway on our way to try saving the lives of two companies of army regulars who had lost their commanders and were still pinned down and running out of supplies.
“Captain we're ten minutes out. The plan is we dump the supplies and swing back for another pass and you and your team go,” the Captain piloting the aircraft said.
“Can I ask whose plan that is Captain?” I asked.
“That's the orders we received,” he said.
“Do those orders have any room in them for modification? If so I want my men on the ground with the first pass and the supplies on the return pass,” I said.
“It's your call, it doesn't make any never mind to me one way or the other. Right now we're just waiting for the fast movers to clear the enemy out a little to give our men a chance of getting to the supplies before the enemy can get them,” he said.
“Are you in contact with the fighters?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good tell them to hold off on the run for fifteen minutes to give us time to be on the ground. Fifteen minutes from the time we bail have the fighter come in on their run then do your supply drop,” I said.
“If that's what you want. We were told once we left you'd be calling the shots. If you're interested we'll be over the drop point in two minutes,” he said.
The jump lights came on and my men all stood hooking their tethers waiting for the go. One minute later we were all free falling and had orders not to open the chutes until the last moment to make it harder for the enemy to find us coming down. As soon as we were on the ground everyone knew they needed to get out of the strafing area as quickly as possible because the fighters were under orders that fifteen minutes from the time we bailed they were to start their strafing run regardless of anything else.
As soon as the fighters had made three strafing runs I saw the chutes for the supplies, and my men were all moving to collect the supplies as soon as they were on the ground.
“Sargent, I think you might want to put that gun away. We're here to get you men home, if you give my men some help with those supplies, I'd like to see the officer in charge here,” I said.
I noticed Mac arguing with someone half his size and hollered for him to stop picking on the babies and see everything got brought into the camp as quickly as possible.
“Sir this is Lieutenant Strong he's the highest ranking officer that isn't wounded so bad they can't get around,” the Sargent said.
“Lieutenant I'm Captain Waters special forces. I'm taking over command here and would appreciate you letting your men know not to get in the way of me or my men. If you'll all cooperate we should have you home in a few days,” I said.
“Thank god we thought they forgot about us,” he said.
It took a couple hours to get the supplies divided up so everyone had ammunition again. The medical supplies went straight to the area that had been setup to deal with the wounded. I had Mac form two three man teams to scout the area and get me enemy positions and strength. It was going to take some creative planning to get all these men out of here along with the wounded.
The scouting teams were given permission to take out any immediate threats they came across, but to do so with as little noise as possible. I started going through the camp and saw several things I felt needed changing as soon as possible but wanted to finish my evaluation before starting to give any orders or take any suggestions. At the hospital tent I held outside for what seemed an eternity debating whether I really wanted to go in or not.
Inside I saw a section cordoned off and noticed officers were all that were in the less crowed section.
“What is going on here medic? Why do these men have so much more room than anyone else?” I demanded.
“They're officers sir,” was the reply I got back.
“I see so we over crowd the wounded enlisted men so officers can be a little more comfortable? I want every man in here given the same amount of room, and before you tell me you can't do that think about whether or not you want to join the men keeping the enemy from being able to reach this tent,” I said.
“And just who the hell do you think you are to come into my unit and start giving orders Captain,” one of the officers said.
“General I see you aren't as wounded as I was lead to believe. Let me ask you General, just how wounded are you that when I got here I was met by a Lieutenant and told he was the ranking office in charge? If you want to over rule my orders, then I will gladly allow you to resume command and I'll take my men and go home,” I said.
“And just how many men did you bring in here Captain?” he asked.
“Enough to get these two companies back home if I'm in command, if you'd rather take command however, I doubt your chances of making it out of here are worth much, and as I said my men and I will be leaving at first light,” I said.
“I'm going to have you up on charges Captain,” he said.
“When we get back to base General, you're more than welcome to do so. But if you want the chance to bring me up on charges, I suggest you shut the fuck up, and let me and my men do our jobs,” I said.
The look I got from this General told me everything I needed to know. He thought he should know everything about how I planned to get these men out and since I wasn't going to keep him in the loop he intended to make my job as hard as he could. I gave the medic I had given the order to equalize the room, a look that said if he didn't start following my orders, and now I really was going to move him to the front line when we started our push toward home.
The General continued trying to give orders as I walked out with the top raking medic right on my heels.
“Sir, he isn't going to like us following your orders over his,” the medic said.
“Sargent if he scares you so much you now have enough medications you should be able to knock him out for days, if that doesn't work let me know and I'll remedy the situation by handing him over to the enemy just to get him out of my hair. Either way Sargent, the General is compromised and unable to command leaving me in command as the highest ranking officer here still capable. You of all people should know that part of military protocol,” I said.
“Yes sir, I'll keep him out of your way somehow, and I'll see things in here are equalized better so we can treat all the wounded rather than just the brass,” he said.
I didn't say anything more, I didn't think I needed to. That General was going to file charges against me no matter what I did since there was no way I was letting him have any say in what I did toward getting everyone back home where all the wounded could receive proper treatment.
I started looking over the maps I had of the area we were in and where we needed to get to in order to get medivac choppers in to get the wounded out. One place stood out more than any other for getting the choppers in, but trying to move the entire camp would be logistically impossible. I needed the information Mac and the other three man squads were gather before I could even make an attempt at figuring anything, so I sat there trying to come up with how I was going to deal with the problem of that over baring arrogant General.
“Curtis get me Colonel Talbot on the horn. Don't settle for anyone but Talbot either,” I said.
“Yes sir. Sir, is seems Colonel Talbot wants to talk to you,” he said a few minutes later.
He handed me the hand set and sure enough Colonel Talbot was on the other end.
“Sam I hope you're in that camp and can give me some information. The last thing we heard from them was that some Lieutenant was in charge and they were running low on supplies,” Colonel Talbot said.
“I'm here Colonel and we didn't get here any to soon. Thanks for not letting them know you were sending help in along with supplies, I always wondered what it would be like to look down the barrel of a forty-five, now I don't need to wonder any longer,” I said.
“We didn't tell them for your safety Sam. So what's the word?” he asked.
“The word is I have a General here that seems to think I'm supposed to run everything past him first. Also, they have several wounded I would love to get out of here by air if possible. I have a couple teams scouting the area for me and as soon as I can get a pickup point for the wounded I'll let you know time and place. Night pickup would probably be best if possible and I want this asshole to be one of the first gone even though he plans to file charges against me when he gets where he can,” I said.
“Just keep in touch and get those men home,” Colonel Talbot said.
I handed the handset back to Curtis and went to see if I could find something to eat.
It was almost daylight when Mac and the other teams got back with my information. I told them to get something to eat and I'd talk to them after that. This was going to be a long day of meetings and chances were as soon as it was light the enemy would be moving to try over running us. I hoped my teams had set some nasty surprises for them and perhaps they might become discouraged and give up, though from everything I had seen since getting involved in this war that didn't seem a likely possibility.
“Sir are you ready for our report?” Mac asked.
“Come on in Mac. First I want to know about sector three. Have we got a way of getting to the clearing and how hard would it be to defend while medivacing the wounded out?” I asked.
“Sector two has a better place for that, it would be more easily accessed and more easily defended,” he said.
I needed the maps to follow along what they were trying to tell me so asked we wait until we were in the command tent before continuing their report. With the maps in front of us they were able to show me everything they tried to tell me in my tent, but I wasn't able to grasp with how short the time was I had spent with the maps before deciding the best thing to do would be if at all possible get the wounded out by chopper.
From the way they described the area they found in sector two I thought it might be better to move everything since even the map showed it as more defensible than where we were.
“Mark can you go find me that Lieutenant that met me when we got here?” I asked.
He was gone before I even finished. Five minutes later the Lieutenant was standing in front of me looking like he was still mostly asleep.
“Lieutenant I need to know what I can count on from your men,” I said.
“Sir as the senior officer they'll follow whatever orders you give,” he said.
“Fine then tell me whose bright idea it was to set up camp here,” I demanded.
“That would be the General sir. He said it would be the most defensible place big enough to hold us all,” he said.
The more I heard the angrier I got about this damned General and his idea of warfare. He couldn't have picked a worse place to defend if he had tried and in this cluster everyone was packed together so tight nobody could do anything for fear of shooting one of our own.
We didn't have much choice until night fall to do much other than defend what we had, but as soon as it started getting dark I was determined we were moving somewhere we could get the wounded out and have room to move.
“Sargent if we move this camp to sector two could we defend well enough to get the choppers in during the day do you think?” I asked.
“We would have better access to air support day or night sir,” he replied.
“Lieutenant I want you to have your men defend this camp just as they've done for the last couple days. Do you think you can handle that?” I asked.
“Yes sir, I'm sure we can handle that sir,” he replied.
As soon as the sun set I wanted to start getting everything moved to our new site. That meant my men rather than helping defend the camp needed to work on making it possible to move everyone when we got the cover of darkness again.
I needed to let Colonel Talbot know what I was planning and where I would need the choppers once the move was complete. I asked about air support to get us through the day and was promised fighters would be make three to four strafing runs an hour until night fall.
An hour before night fall I called for all the officers and NCO's to meet with me in the command tent and laid out the plan of moving the camp to the locations scouted out by my men that we would be less hard pressed to defend and would be able to get our wounded out so they could receive proper medical attention.
When I opened the floor after laying out the plan I had five of the senior NCO's ask if I'd run the plan by the General and if not swore they wouldn't follow my orders. Mac stood up and I waved him to have a seat.
“Sargent, do you see your precious General in this room? He isn't here because he is laying in a bed in your hospital tent because he made a mistake. I'm not saying I have the Generals experience in battle strategy, he probably has more than I am old, in fact you probably have more than I am old. But these bars on my shoulders give me the authority to tell you what to do, and since the General is in the hospital he was unavailable for consultation in this plan. Now Sargent, if you can come up with a plan that will get the wounded out of here where they can get medical treatment from our doctors rather than the enemies doctors, I'm all ears. The problem is we can't get choppers in here so we need to move to somewhere we can get choppers in. The other problem is this camp is exposed on all sides where the valley we want to move to is move defensible, and will even give us an advantage in other ways that will make it possible for us to push the enemy back like your company was supposed to have done in the first place,” I said.
All of those who wanted to defend the General as still being in charge sat down so I could finish making sure all questions were answered and we were all on the same page.
My men selected several men from the company and posted them along the route to the new camp so no one would get lost, and so there were armed guards along the route in case the enemy decided to engage in night warfare which they hadn't done to this point. I brought up the rear making sure everyone was out of the old camp and setting a few surprises for the enemy if they decided to see why no one was shooting back at them come morning.
When I got to the new camp the command tent and the medical tent were neither one setup yet and all the wounded men with the exception of the General and his command officers were laying out in the open. I was sure I had given instructions that the hospital tent and command tents were to be the first tents setup, yet they weren't even laid out to be setup yet and several other tents were up and occupied already.
Each tent I came to that was setup and occupied I collapsed on top of whoever happened to be in it. I wasn't in any mood to have my orders disobeyed so blatantly. These men thought they could make up their own rules they could damn sure find their own way out of this mess they were in without my help. What were they going to do when the wounded were gone and it was time to head for home? Their precious General wouldn't be there any longer since I was going to make sure he was on the first chopper when they got there.
When I got to the biggest tent that was setup I heard the Generals voice coming from inside and made a decision that regardless of what might happen to me this son-of-a-bitch wasn't in charge and he would either follow protocol or suffer the consequences and I had no doubt he was the one who ordered this tent be setup caring nothing for the men laying out in the open who couldn't care for themselves.
“Sargent are you one of the medics here?” I asked.
“Yes sir since our doctor was wounded I'm now the chief medic for the company,” he said.
“Who told you to put this tent here. The hospital tent is supposed to be here and this tent next to the command tent,” I said.
“Sir the General.
..” he started and I cut him off.
“Thank you Sargent since this tent is now in the way set the hospital tent up right there and anything in the way will have to be moved somewhere else. Get however many men you need to help, but I want these wounded men in the hospital tent within the hour,” I ordered.
I started pulling the tent pegs for the tent that shouldn't have been where it was as soon as the Sargent headed off to find men to help him get the hospital tent set up.
“You're going to have someone awfully upset with you dropping that tent on them like that, Captain,” Mac said.
“I hope so, but I'm sure their anger with me will be nothing compared to my anger with them at the moment. Feel like helping? I promise I'll take all the blame, and if anyone asks tell them you're just following orders,” I said.
“I think you need this release more than I do, but I wouldn't mind watching if that's alright,” Mac said.
“Suit yourself, but it isn't everyday you get to drop a tent on a General,” I said smiling.
“Sir, if you don't get court-martialed for this I'll be surprised,” Mac said.
“Just enjoy the show Mac,” I said.
I pulled the rest of the pegs and sat back as the tent started collapsing and those inside started hollering.
Several men came running over and for each one I told them if the hospital tent wasn't up and the wounded inside before anyone did anything to help those inside the tent I collapsed I'd make sure they were on the front line when any shooting started.
It didn't take long and the hospital tent was up and all the wounded were inside being tended once everyone understood I wasn't going to play the games it seemed they all wanted to play. I might be young and lack experience, but I was picked for this assignment because I was the person they were sure could get the job done. Everyone of my men made sure to remind those from the company we were there to rescue that we were there because every company sent so far to rescue them had failed.
“I want to know whose bright idea it was to drop that tent on me and my officers,” General Long demanded.
“That would be me General,” I said. “And the next time you try giving an order that counters one of mine the man following your order will be standing front and center in any shooting match the enemy decides to have with us. Four companies have tried to get here to rescue you and your men and failed in the attempt. Me and my men are here and in a couple hours the wounded here will be medivacced out so all we have to worry about are those health enough to travel. So you know General you'll be on the first chopper out of here so I don't have to put up with anymore of your shit. I didn't come here to get me or my men killed I 'm here to insure these men can make it back home to their families. So unless you want to get everyone killed I suggest you lay in your bed and keep your mouth shut so we can do our job. When you get back to base you can file all the reports you want and cause as much trouble for me as you feel I deserve, but because you are wounded badly enough to be laying in that bed you are not in a command position and as the ranking officer here I am.”
“Enjoy your little victory Captain because I can assure you when you get back you'll be spending the rest of your life behind bars,” he said.
“Sargent I want this man out of here as soon as those choppers get here. I don't care if he is the only one on that chopper he is to be the first one loaded so I don't have to deal with anymore shit from this company, is that clear?” I demanded.
“Crystal sir,” he said.
I headed for the command tent and asked the radio man to get me Colonel Talbot.
“I understand your having some problems Sam,” Colonel Talbot said.
“None that can't be remedied by those choppers that are supposed to be here sir,” I said.
“About those choppers. I'm sorry Sam, but we can't get any there until tomorrow at the earliest,” he said.
“Then I'm going to need some supplies dropped. Some of these men are wounded pretty bad, and we don't have all the medical supplies we'll need to take care of them for another day. Also, this General seems to think he can counter every decision I make, and as long as he is here his men will listen to him over me, I need that bastard out of here if at all possible sir,” I said.
“How many severely wounded are there?” he asked.
“Sir there are to many for me to begin to try getting these men out of here if we have to carry them too. If you can get me three choppers I can probably manage trying to make it so another company can get in here and help. I've been working on a plan that if we have a company like Delta or Rose company working from the other side we could probably break the enemy and get everyone out in no time,” I said.
“Sam when you get the details of this plan worked out you let me know and I'll see about sending Alpha company in to help. By the way Sam, when you get back I've been ordered to send you home for a month, when you get back from leave you'll be second for Alpha company,” he said.
“Thank you sir, but when I get out of here I might be facing a court-martial for some of the things I've done to try getting a little respect here and get these army pukes to realize this isn't some game back home, that this enemy is shooting real bullet with the intent to wound, or kill as many of us as they can. As for the transfer to Alpha company if Mac isn't going with I'd rather keep my recon unit,” I said.
I headed back to the hospital tent and told them to prepare any of the wounded not capable of walking or in critical condition for transport the choppers would be here by noon, but not enough to get all the wounded out.
From the hospital I headed for the mess hall to find all the senior members in the camp. On the way I ran into Mac and asked if he could get all the senior NCO's and what few officers there were and have them meet me in the command tent so I could go over strategy on getting everyone back home.
“Mac when we get back you and I are going to be forced to take a thirty day leave to see our families,” I said.
“You are my family, sir,” he said.
“I feel the same Mac, but I have been feeling I really should go home and see my folks. I haven't talked to them since I left for basic. I don't even know if they know I'm an officer now, and I'm sure they have no idea what I'm doing over here,” I said.
“I ain't got no family to go see Captain. My folks were killed when I was little and I spent most of my growing up bouncing from one foster home to another. Since you and I met up at training you're the closest thing I have to family,” he said.
“You're welcome to come visit my family with me. I'm sure they'd love to meet you, but they'll probably think you're there to protect me and wouldn't believe either of us if we told them I could whoop your ass if push came to shove,” I said.
“If I could fight with my head the way you do, you wouldn't stand a chance sir,” he said.
“No doubt,” I replied.
“It'll take about an hour to get everyone gathered. Sir what about the choppers that were supposed to be here by now?” he asked.
“They were called off somewhere else. Colonel Talbot said he'd try to get us enough to get the most severely wounded out of here and they should be here about noon,” I said.
“Any idea how many?” he asked.
“Let me worry about that, you worry about making sure we don't end up with more wounded so we're the only ones walking out of here,” I replied.
I started going over my plan of getting everyone back home when the sounds of the first chopper interrupted the meeting and I excused myself to make sure the medics knew they were going to need to get just as many wounded men on each chopper as they could since we weren't going to be getting very many choppers in to take the wounded out.
When I got up where the choppers were I saw that the General was already on the chopper and was refusing to allow them to put anyone else on with him. I got the attention of the pilot and told him if he took off with only the General on board he wouldn't need to worry about the enemy shooting him down because I'd have m
y men do the job for them. He powered back down and four more men were loaded on his chopper causing the General to have a fit and try getting off.
“General if you get off that chopper you better be able to get around because we don't have enough choppers coming in as it is and I'll be damned if I'm risking any of these mens lives to carry you out of here. And since we have so few choppers coming in I want just as many men on them as is safe so I can get the men who need the medical attention we can't provide here and can't walk out to make it so we can move faster when the time comes,” I said.
He gave me a dirty look and I knew I had just scored another report from him. I was going to be so glad when that man was out of my hair so I could actually get something done. Once the chopper had six of the wounded on board I gave the okay for them to lift off and as soon as they did another landed and just as many of the wounded were loaded onto it before it took off.
We had choppers coming in all day taking out the wounded and dead so when we struck camp we would be able to not worry about taking care of men that would leave us short handed trying to protect against attack.
I headed back to the command tent after making sure the medics understood they were to get as many men on each chopper as was safe before moving on to another chopper. I demanded that the wounded not able to walk or carry a weapon be the priority since they would have needed to be carried out and the dead were to be loaded on the choppers before any of the wounded that were ambulatory. I didn't need anyone who couldn't walk if at all possible left to care for.
The last chopper to come in had to be unloaded before the last of the wounded or dead could be loaded. Colonel Talbot understood my request for supplies and sent in everything we hadn't been able to bring when we jumped in.
The plan was to have Alpha company trying to get to us from the outside while we worked to get to them from the inside. With any luck the enemy would be so tied down fighting us they wouldn't know about Alpha company until they hit and then it would be to late and the enemy would be cut from both sides and a hole torn in their center big enough to bring ten companies of regular army through without much worry of anyone getting hurt.
I had my men disperse the new supplies making sure they kept the specialty equipment to themselves. These army jocks weren't trained on this equipment and I didn't need the headaches of them getting someone killed trying to figure it out.
“Mac we have two days to get our surprise ready for the enemy and I want it to be such a big surprise they'll think twice before thinking of trying to hit us once we move out. Use our men only and do all you can to keep the men who tried backing that General in the dark. I want them wondering just what happened that the enemy is leery of trying any of their games from this point on. In other words Mac, I want what we had from the men we tested out of training with, only this time I want it faster,” I said.
He didn't need to respond I knew he knew exactly what I wanted and when. I also knew he would find a way of making it happen without those asses who thought I wasn't old enough to command knowing anything about it.
Two days and I wanted a hot meal before hell broke loose. I knew once we moved from this camp hot meals were out of the question. Even sleep would be a luxury, much of the time. I had the men dig a pit and as soon as they finished Curtis came in asking if he could get some help with a couple cows that had wondered into some traps set by the enemy. He'd checked and for some reason he couldn't explain this trap had killed the cows while he watched, but hadn't been laced with the usual poison that would have made the meat unsafe to eat.
Mark came in right behind him and said he found some wild potatoes or at least something like potatoes that he knew were safe to eat and thought how nice it might be if we dug some of them up so we could have something besides C-rations.
My men were the best at what they did and I had no doubt Curtis had killed those cows not some trap setup by the enemy, and the roots Mark found were all over the place so weren't really that much of a surprise either. I had both men take however many men they thought they would need to butcher the cows and dig the roots so we could have that hot meal which would be our last until we got back to base.
Everyone seemed to be in a celebratory mood now that the General was out of our hair. Even the men that seemed to think his orders should supersede mine seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“May I have your attention. I'm glad to see everyone enjoying themselves, but I do want to remind you we still have a long way to go and we won't be getting out the way the wounded did. Tomorrow will be a rough day getting everything ready to move so while I do want you to enjoy yourselves keep in mind we aren't out of here yet. This feast will be the last until we are back on base. And with any luck most of you will get to return home to your families,” I said.
I headed back to my tent and started going over the plan again. Something wasn't right, but I couldn't figure out what. I knew I hadn't missed anything, but something just kept nagging at me.
I sat in the middle of the tent and crossed my legs as I had done on every mission starting with the mission that ended my Special Forces training. I tried to clear my mind and just let the energy fill me and the world around me changed and here I was the me I had always been in my dreams. I noticed something different this time but couldn't figure out what it was.
I chanted the same words as always saying them in the body I had now rather than the one I would have and felt a peace come over me. Everything was going to be fine, sure a few men were going to get hurt, but not because of anything I did. I couldn't tell why or how they got hurt only that we would need to slow the pace so they could keep up and slowing the pace at this point was a good idea anyway. We were almost home and if we stayed to the pace we had been going we would have walked right into a trap that would have gotten most of the men killed.
Why hadn't my scouts warned me of the trap? No that wasn't right, we slowed our pace and the men scouting did warn us in time we were able to turn the trap in on itself and rather than be killed we captured several hundred enemy troops.
Again the words came to mind and again I repeated them knowing every man under my command was now protected to the best of my ability.