| Subject: ...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 26e, part one |
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TxJAG_b
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Date Posted: 08:49:13 11/03/09 Tue
In reply to:
TxJAG_b
's message, "...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 25d, part two - continued" on 16:25:09 01/08/09 Thu
A/N 1: Thanks to my trio of editors [Mary Ann, Janlaw and Karen] for their usual fine job.
A/N 2: Hopefully I've explained all the military terms given below - if not, drop me a line.
A/N 3: Thanks for your patience while I battled through H1N1 - it does take a month to fully recover. How did I get it? That's a long story.....but enough of that - let's find out what Mac and Harm are up to....
…For Meritorious Service, Chapter 26e
Shark Two
Somewhere NW of Mirbullah
Mac’s unit was making good time through the brush and scrub of this arid countryside.
The Light Colonel checked her official orders again. Darcy was using the original waypoints and the original objective route as defined by Colonel Briggs. She sensed that if Darcy were .going to try something, it would be soon.
The Leader of Shark Two looked over and noticed that Kayce was shaking her head disgustedly. She looked up at Mac when she noticed her staring. “The Black Widow was right ma’am,”
“About?” Mac replied, her curiosity piqued.
Kayce looked out the passenger window of the truck. “Walking point, or in this case, ma’am, riding point, equals sniper bait.”
“Ebbits’ law number one oh nine,” Don said as he negotiated yet another rocky slope.
“Come again?” Mac said, still confused by what they meant.
“The Lieutenant had a set of laws that he used to keep us out of trouble…” Don began to explain.
“…And to explain some of the situations we came across, like the one we faced yesterday.” Kayce finished for him.
“You mean when we can came across that mine field…”
“Yes ma’am,” Kayce replied.
Don gave the Colonel a brief smile before turning his attention back to his driving. “Ebbit’s law number twenty one; ‘the easy way is always mined’.”
Mac smiled faintly, remembering that Bosnia Force Recon leader, Captain Falls, telling her about similar ‘laws’. She looked down at her GPS unit. “We’ve reached our next waypoint Corporal, pull over here.”
The three vehicle convoy pulled off onto the shoulder of the rutted and rocky trail. They were on the reverse slope of a brush-covered hill. As the rest of Shark Two formed a defensive perimeter, Mac motioned to Sergeant Dallas. “Take Danvers and Stallings to the crest of the hill and see if you can spot anything,”
“Aye, aye, ma’am; Danvers, Stallings, let’s go.”
The three Force Recon Marines hustled up to the crest of the rocky hill. As Mac watched them crawl to the top of the slope, she heard Evan Mickens, who was the rear guard, call out.
“Colonel! We got company!!”
Everyone stationed around the three vehicles dove for cover. Corporal Willet in the tail end pickup truck, hurriedly climbed into its bed and cocked the pedestal mounted .50 caliber machinegun, aiming it back down the trail.
Mac and Gunny hustled to the tail end truck, joining Mickens who was lying beside the vehicle.
Mac focused her binoculars back down the trail to where Mickens was pointing. She couldn’t see anything.
“It was there a moment ago ma’am. I saw it; a vehicle shadowing us….” replied the Force Recon Scout.
Victor Galindez looked up at Willet who was still manning the machine gun.
“Do you see anything?”
Eddie swallowed and nodded as he trained his weapon on the target. “Check Master Guns; gotta smoking vehicle off to our nine o’clock making its way slowly the same way we’re heading, but on a parallel course.”
“Have they spotted us yet?” hissed Victor.
I don’t think so, Master Guns. They’re raising a lot of smoke….”
Mac moved her binoculars in the direction Willet indicated. Now she could see it; a pretty banged up Dodge pickup that looked suspiciously like one of theirs. What was more troubling to her was all the windows that were visible were starred and cracked.
“Who the hell is that?” wondered Evan aloud.
He cut a quick glance over to Mac. “Sorry ma’am, I didn’t mean to say ‘hell’,”
Mac gave him a quick annoyed look. “Do I look like a flower to you, Mickens? If you throw some salty words at me, I guarantee you I will not wilt. Besides you only said what I was going to say…”
“Yes ma’am.” Mickens said grinning sheepishly.
“What should we do, Colonel?” asked Victor.
“We’ve got to find out who it is and what they are doing out here.”
Victor turned around and motioned to Sergeant Szymas. Casmir Szymas nodded and motioned for ‘Lance Criminal’ Crockett to follow him. He noticed that Burges and Williams had climbed into the beds of their trucks and were now tracking the vehicle with their pedestal mounted machineguns as well.
Mac watched as Szymas and Crockett slowly, carefully made their way toward the slow moving truck.
Whoever was driving was obviously putting all their concentration to the task at hand and not paying any attention at all to a possible ambush. Mac could see the truck was really beginning to smoke. She wondered if it was going to burst into flame.
Szymas and Crockett were now fairly close to whomever it was. Mac saw Szymas give her the hand signal indicating it was a friendly and not an insurgent vehicle.
Mac, though, was still wary. Darcy was a trained killer. This could be a trap. Still, there was little she could do to warn her two Recon Marines.
The smoking Dodge pickup’s engine burped and coughed, causing the truck to lurch to a halt. Szymas and Crockett, using two man search method, approached the now silent vehicle.
Szymas yanked the door open and smoke billowed out of the cab. He reached in and pulled a seemingly unconscious Force Recon Marine from the truck and laid him on the ground.
“It’s Corporal Flemminger, Colonel!” Called out Casmir Szymas. “He’s hurt pretty bad!!”
“He’s been shot Colonel!” reported ‘Lance Criminal’ Crockett as Szymas attended to Flemminger. “And his truck’s been chewed up pretty good too!!”
Multi-National Division – Central [MND-C]
Camp November, 12th Szczecin Mechanized Division
Near al-Diwaniyah, Iraq
Pulkownik (Colonel) Luisa Baranova gave a ‘thumbs up’ sign to Porucznik (1st Lieutenant) Tomaz Wawrzyniak and Podporucznik (2nd Lieutenant) Stefan Jodlowski as their Mil-24 W ‘Hind’ helicopter gunships rose from the camp’s airstrip and flew off into the brightening Iraqi sky.
Standing with her, Kapitan Stanislaus Chirdorz watched as the pair of Polish gunships disappeared into the distance, headed in the direction of Mirbullah.
“You know of course, Colonel, that Colonel Briggs will be most displeased with you,” Stanislaus said as he kept looking at the now empty sky. There was a smile on the Captain’s face.
“Why Captain Chidorz, I can’t believe you would accuse me of such a thing,” Luisa said with mock indignation. “After all, *I* didn’t send them to provide Close Air Support to Colonel Briggs’ unit. *They* are merely out on patrol in the same area. If they just *happen* to be there when the American Marines need support, I would call that good fortune.”
“Absolutely Colonel,” Stanislaus said with a perfectly neutral face. “Good fortune.”
They stood quietly for a few moments watching the last of the stars fade as the sun began to fill the horizon.
“Captain, what do you say we take the unit for a morning exercise? You know, to get their blood pumping….”
The younger Polish officer turned and smiled at his senior officer. “I would say that is an excellent idea, Colonel.”
“I thought you might.” Luisa said, turning and mirroring his smile.
“May I inquire as to our destination, Colonel?” Stanislaus had been her best ally since they were deployed to Iraq.
“Oh, let’s just keep it a surprise, shall we, Captain?” Luisa said with a twinkle in her eye.
“As you wish, Colonel; by your leave--” Captain Chidorz started to salute and head over to the unit’s barracks.
However, Luisa Baranova was not finished with her orders. “But do tell them, Captain, that we will be in the heart of insurgent territory, so I want everyone to treat this as combat mission.”
He smiled again and nodded his agreement with her ‘suggestion’. “Understood Colonel.”
GATORFORCE TWO
Forward Area of the Battle (FEBA), Northeast of Mirbullah
As the dense white smoke from Fuller’s LAVs of GATORFORCE TWO blanketed the area in front of them, both recon teams and their vehicles fell back. At the same time, Lieutenant Pope’s Combined Anti-Armor Teams surged forward taking their place.
“Pick your targets! We got plenty to choose from!!” Barked Pope as he switched his rifle to semi-auto and began firing at the insurgent’s trench line. “Fire teams! Sustained grazing fire on those trenches!!”
As Ralph Pope’s riflemen began firing toward the insurgent lines, two squads lead by Sergeant Yancy Berry and Corporal Anson Brick moved into position on either side of Pope’s men. One group set up a missile on a tripod mount. The other had one shouldered a launching tube that looked like a bazooka.
“Corporal!” Sergeant Berry barked “Does your man have the target!?”
“Aye Sergeant! We do!”
“Then fire at will!!”
“On the way!!”
Before al-Sahood’s men could react, both teams fired their Javelin Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and their Shoulder Launched Multi-Purpose Assault Weapons (SMAWs) at the blockhouses and a just spotted concrete bunker. The blockhouse crews had, up to this point, thought they had defeated the American Marines. That smug superiority disappeared in the flash of two detonating thermobaric 83mm rounds which immolated them. The previously unseen concrete bunker crumbled as the Javelin anti-tank missile buried itself in it’s the roof and exploded.
Thick black smoke covered the hillside as unused rounds from the 45mm guns in the burning blockhouses and 120mm mortar rounds from the smoking bunker detonated, obliterating any trace of the buildings.
GATORFORCE ONE
FEBA, Somewhere Northeast of Mirbullah
The Predator reconnaissance drones were late. As the battle continued unabated to their south, Sergeant Sewett, NCOIC of Rover Three decided they needed to find out just how tough the front line was in this sector.
Standing in the hatch of his LAV, he motioned to ‘Arif (Corporal) Rafid T’lass who slowly moved his Bronirovannaya Razvedivatelnaya Dozornaya Mashina (BRDM) reconnaissance vehicle up to the tree line.
For Rafid, this wasn’t anything like driving a TR-77 main battle tank, but then being a former Republican Guard soldier, he was lucky to be involved at all, much less commanding an armored reconnaissance vehicle. ‘Arif T’lass did not like crossing into this field. He was certain that if it wasn’t mined, then it most likely was protected by insurgent strongholds. He stood up in his hatch and looked over at his friend, Khalil As’sam, as he led a dismounted patrol out into the sorghum field. He hoped Allah was watching over them.
Ra’is (Sergeant) As’sam felt odd being in combat without the armor of tank wrapped around him. Still he was glad Ra’id (Captain) Azeri had recommended them to Ra’id Muhaim, the head of this reconnaissance unit. Safid Muhaim was a member of the rebuilt Iraqi Army and the recently formed 4th Brigade. Safid was a practical man; he knew that both Rafid and Khalil would be an asset to the fledging mechanized unit. So he put the two former Republican Guard tankers into his reconnaissance unit.
Khalil motioned to his squad to hold their positions. He looked back at the Marine fire team disembarking from Rover One and making their way toward them.
Rafid’s gunner kept his 14.5mm KPV heavy machine gun trained just ahead of Rover One’s scout team. Ra’is Tariq moved his BRDM-2, mounting four Konkurs ATGMs, so that it could cover both the LAV and the BRDM-2 recon car. Supporting them was Ra’is Hammami’s Mnogotselevoi Tyagach-Legko Bronirovanniy (MT-LB) personnel carrier and his squad.
Corporal Vick Dremmond led his scout team out into the tall fields of sorghum. His assistant, Corporal Rick Bauer, brought up the rear of the team, keeping occasional eye contact with Rover One, and the Iraqi recon vehicles.
To their right, Corporal Jon Dillman was inching his vehicle forward, trying to keep the Iraqi and Marine scout teams in sight. Nerves combined with fatigue caused Dillman’s foot to slip, making his HMMWV weapons carrier break cover.
The sudden appearance of the AM General M-1097 weapons carrier’s front end sticking out of the tree line was all the insurgents needed as a viable target. The rattle of small arms fire was punctuated by the chatter of a heavier machine gun.
Realizing what had happened, Corporal Dillman threw the Hum-Vee into reverse and stomped on the accelerator, throwing up divots of grass and ramming the weapons carrier back into the tree line. The rest of the Iraqi-Marine recon unit opened fire in the direction of the insurgent gunfire, hoping to make them take cover. They succeeded and unknown to them, they also threw off the aim of the OT-64’s ATGM gunner.
The Sagger missile wobbled erratically as it headed in the general direction of Dillman’s weapons carrier, the missile gunner either having been wounded or killed by the gunfire from Khalil and Vick’s soldiers.
“SAGGER!” Vick Dremmond yelled above the roar of the ongoing battle. “TAKE IT OUT BEFORE IT GETS TO THE VEHICLES!!”
The Iraqi and American soldiers dove to ground level, each one hoping and praying the errant missile wouldn’t find them instead. All begin firing toward the bobbling guided missile.
Dillman’s gunner fired off a long rippling burst from their HMMWV’s .50 caliber machine gun in a final desperate effort to detonate the missile before it could find a target. Arif T’lass’s gunner joined the fusillade, providing cover fire for Dremmond’s Marines and As’sam’s Scouts.
The Sagger missile, hammered by .50 caliber and 14.5 millimeter bullets, finally began to shred under the punishment. As the ATGM began to lose its structural integrity, it detonated, spraying the area with molten metal fragments.
Jon Dillman’s Hum-Vee was spared anything other superficial damage, being protected by a canopy of date trees and a pile of underbrush. Dremmond and his Marines, however, weren’t as lucky.
Vick grunted as hot searing metal lanced into his legs. He fought the urge to scream in agony while praying that the deadly ‘rainfall’ was over. By the time he started checking his injuries; Corporal Bauer had made his way over to him.
“Take it easy Vick,” replied Bauer, as he tore open what was left of the man’s trousers and began sprinkling anti-burn powder over the ghastly burns on Dremmond’s legs.
Vick grabbed his assistant’s arm. “Don’t worry about me, Rick; it’s your team now! Take care of them!”
Rick nodded in grim agreement. “Simmons! You and Berkhaulter give us cover fire!!”
“Aye, aye Corporal!!” Simmons barked as he and the other PFC began firing again at the insurgent positions.
Khalil As’sam hustled over to the two men. Without saying a word, Khalil threw Dremmond’s right arm over his shoulder as Rick grabbed his left arm. Before Vick could say anything they began moving him away from the battle, deeper into the crops.
The explosion had signaled another apex in the fight for these farm fields, and now once again, only scattered small arms fire could be heard. But that relative calm was merely illusory. Arif (Corporal)Tariq’s and Arif Saad’s gunners had spotted the hull down insurgent personnel carrier that had fired at them and now a pair of Konkurs missiles were headed toward the target.
Rover 3’s NCOIC, Kyle Sewett, saw this as the best opportunity to rescue As’sam and Dremmond’s men.
“Gunner! AP and HE on that APC!!”
“On the way Sergeant!!” Snapped the gunner.
“Danny! Let’s go get our scouts!!”
Aye, aye, Sergeant!
Rover three’s 25 millimeter chain gun began pumping rounds towards the Czech-built (Stredni Kolovy) Obreny Transporter (OT-64). But Sewett’s LAV only made it a third of the way out to the Marines and Iraqi scouts before sustained fire from the insurgent APC and its two adjacent concrete pillboxes forced a battered Rover three to back away under a cloud of protective smoke.
His aborted charge was succeeded by Ra’is (Sergeant) Hammami’s MT-LB dashing in and banging opening its rear doors next to the stunned soldiers at the same time as the Iraqi unit’s only operational BMP executed the exact same maneuver.
The bang of the visible insurgent APC exploding was the signal. Working together while dodging insurgent incoming Sagger missiles, the crews and scouts aboard the MT-LB and the BMP personnel carriers helped Corporal Bauer and Ra’is As’sam get their men out of the enemy’s range.
As Arif Tariq and Arif Saad’s BRDMs avoided being hit by the Sagger missile counter-fire, the Iraqi MT-LB and BMP pulled back under the protective cover of the smoke with their rescued Marines and Iraqi soldiers.
But the rescue operation was not without cost. Three of Hussein’s men were badly wounded by sniper fire. This, added to the wounds of Bauer, Simmons and Berkhaulter plus Dremmond’s injuries brought the number of wounded on the Coalition’s side of the battlefield to eleven.
*~*
‘Hawk One’ Sergeant DeWald was not happy. “Where the hell is our mortar support Corporal Roca?”
The forward observer for the mortar unit looked up from his radio and at DeWald. “The Lieutenant said he’s almost in position, Sergeant.”
Stephen DeWald grunted. He wanted to tell Dye to get ‘into position’ a little faster, but it’s kind of hard for a three-striper Sergeant to tell a First Lieutenant what to do. If Dye were a Second Lieutenant, it would be a little easier….
He shifted his gaze to his ANGLICO liaison. “Yamura, tell me you have some good news,”
Kevin Yamura smiled. “How about a pair of Harriers courtesy of Colonel Briggs?”
DeWald was flabbergasted. “The Colonel released them?”
Yamura, a Hilo native, nodded. “He sure did, Sergeant; they’re inbound now.”
---To be continued tomorrow...
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