Battlefield Korea

Surrounded — Nuts

Lieutenant Taylor looked at the remnants of his platoon, sprawled out in the back room of the store, trying to get some sleep. He wished he could join them. He was exhausted, but his presence had been requested by the area commander, a major from one of the 173rd Airborne units that was also trapped in Kiev. The Russians had broken through the Ukrainian and NATO defensive line and rushed units around the city in hopes of trapping the retreating forces before they could escape. Their speed and exceptional air support had allowed them to quickly get behind the retreating NATO forces; they had successfully trapped nearly a third of the Allied forces in the city. A German tank and infantry battalion was trapped in Kiev, along with part of a British armored unit, a battalion from the US 1st Armor division, a battalion of paratroopers from the 173^rd, a battalion from the 82^nd Airborne, and what was left of the 2nd cavalry regiment.

Lieutenant Taylor poked his head out of the door in the alleyway, doing a quick check to make sure he didn’t see or hear any Russian helicopters or aircraft, and then walked out into the alley to head to a building not far from where his platoon was sheltering. As he was ambling through alleyway, Taylor looked up and saw that a new storm was rolling in.

“Great, more rain,” he grumbled to himself. He crossed the alleyway and entered the back door of another building, where he was guided down to the basement where a makeshift headquarters had been set up.

As he walked into the main room, he saw several soldiers talking on a couple of different radio systems to some group or another.

“I hope that they are talking to someone outside the city,” he thought. “Maybe we will get lucky and they can figure out how to relieve us before we run out of ammunition.”

A captain waved to Lt. Taylor getting his attention; they were meeting in a nearby room and he wanted Taylor to join them. As he walked in, he received a warm welcome.

“Lt. Taylor, I’m glad you were able to make it. For a little while, we thought your platoon might have gotten cut off,” said Major Graham, an Airborne officer from the 173^rd who was acting as their battalion commander. Nearly all of the units trapped in the city were at 50 % to 60 % strength and short on officers and experienced NCOs. Major Graham just happened to be the most senior officer in this sector of the city they were held up in, and he had assumed command of the units operating in his area. The prior evening, Lt. Taylor’s platoon had carried out a dangerous mission to blow up one of the major bridges crossing into the city. They were successful, but they had lost three more soldiers and were nearly cut off by a nearby Russian unit.

Lt. Taylor just nodded, too tired to say much. All he wanted right now was to get some sleep. He had been running on fumes since they arrived in Kiev. He didn’t know how his platoon sergeant could run on so little sleep; he had to remind himself that he was also a former Ranger. It was probably his Special Forces training that enabled him to be able to operate on so little slumber.

Turning back to the rest of the officers, Major Graham began the meeting. “OK, here is the situation. We’ve been cut off now for five days. The Russians seem to be more intent on chasing the remaining NATO forces out of Ukraine than they are on finishing us off. Our drones and the intelligence that we are receiving from the outside confirmed that several Russian divisions moved around our positions and began to move throughout the rest of the country. They are not massing for a major attack on us, at least not right now.”

The room filled with a collective sigh of relief at this news.

“This morning, General Fenzol received an offer for surrender from the Russian Commander. Well, just like General McAuliffe from the 101^st told the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, he said, ‘Nuts,’ and sent them packing.”

Everyone started laughing at that reference. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans had the 101^st Airborne Division surrounded in Bastogne. German General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz issued General McAuliffe an ultimatum to surrender or be destroyed. The American general simply sent back a one worded reply, “Nuts.”

Returning to a serious tone again, the Major continued, “General Fenzol is working to organize a breakout. With the Russians placing so much focus on other parts of Ukraine, they have left a few points in their defensive line weak. Tonight, under the cover of darkness, the few armored vehicles and tanks we have will move towards those parts of the line and will attempt to punch a hole for us to go through. Even before that attack though, our group has been tasked with trying to infiltrate the line to see what kind of chaos we can cause. We are specifically going to look for anti-tank guns or other strong points that might cause the armor some problems.”

A British captain interrupted to ask, “So once we start this ‘chaos,’ is that when our armor attack is going to start?”

Major Graham looked at him and nodded, “Exactly. Once we start to sow our disorder and confusion, the armored units will make their move while the Russians are distracted with what’s going on behind them. If things go well, they will be able to punch a large enough hole through the enemy positions for the other units to collapse the outer perimeter and escape through the hole in the line we’ll have created.”

He sighed for a second, taking a drink of some water while everyone appeared to be hanging on to what he might say next. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this. If we are not successful, then a lot of us are probably going to die, and everyone will most likely have to surrender at some point. I, for one, would rather try and break ourselves out of this cursed city than have to surrender to the Russians.”

Major Graham could also see the long, tired looks on their faces. These men were exhausted, and he was about to demand a lot from them tonight. He knew they would need some sleep before the festivities started. “We push off for the attack around 1800, and we’ll cross into the Russian lines around 2100 hours. Right now, I want everyone to go back to your units and get some rest… just have your men moved to this location and ready to push off at 1800 hours, understood?”

The meeting broke up after a few more orders were handed down. Lt. Taylor walked back to where his platoon was sleeping and planned on joining them. However, upon approaching the alleyway door to where his platoon was sacking out in, he suddenly smelled something amazing. Then, Sergeant Childers walked up to him as he entered the room and handed him a bowl of some piping hot Borscht.

“Where did you get this?” he asked as he gratefully took the bowl and spoon being offered.

Smiling, Sergeant Childers replied, “One of the families staying above us came down with a pot full, and even brought some bowls. There is some bread over there, and some beer, if you want it.” He pointed to a table, where several of his soldiers who should have been sleeping were helping themselves to some bread. One of the soldiers held out a beer for him as he walked towards them.

“I suppose General Order Number One doesn’t really matter if you are surrounded by a division of Russian soldiers, does it?” the lieutenant said jokingly as he took the beer, lifting it to his lips and taking a long drink. Typically, US Forces are not allowed to consume alcohol in a combat zone, but being surrounded and cut off from the world did have its advantages.

As the soldiers ate their soup, bread and beer, their exhaustion returned. Many of the men who had finished eating now found a spot to curl up on the floor and quickly went to sleep. Soon, Sergeant Childers was the only person left at the table with him.

Lieutenant Taylor thought back to their conversation a couple of days ago, about why they had joined the Army. “Hey, you never did get to finish telling me why you joined the Army. I told you my story,” he said jokingly as he took another drink of his beer.

“I suppose it’s only fair. I still can’t believe you went to Yale and here you are, leading a platoon of infantry in Ukraine,” Childers replied in jest.

Luke sighed before continuing. He stared out one of the windows as he remembered back. “Before September 11^th, I was a mess. I was in my sophomore year at the University of Texas A&M. I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I spent most of my time partying, getting drunk, or smoking weed. Then, one day, I got in trouble on campus and it looked like I was going to get expelled. Somehow, I managed to talk my way out of that problem, but I was still unsure of what I really wanted to do. I decided to take a year off school and get a job.”

“My uncle worked for an oil company, drilling wells. He offered to help get me a job, so I could make some money and figure out if I really wanted to finish college or just work with him. I was making good money too, $35 an hour, but it was backbreaking hard work. I had been working with him for almost three months when the Towers were hit. I couldn’t believe someone had attacked us like that. Watching those people at the top floors jumping out of the windows, falling to their deaths like that… well, it angered me. I made up my mind that I was going to join the Army.”

Pausing for a second to finish polishing off his beer, Childers continued, “My father had served in Vietnam, and my grandfather had served in World War II, so it wasn’t an uncommon thing for people in my family to volunteer. When I joined, I said I wanted to be a Ranger. My recruiter laughed at me, but signed me up for it anyways. After completing infantry school and jump school, I was sent to try out for the Rangers. After a few grueling months, I made it. I was placed with the 75th Ranger Battalion, just in time to deploy to Iraq for the invasion.”

Sergeant Childers rubbed his face and eyes for a second, looking out the window again, lost in thought. “Following the invasion of Iraq, my unit deployed to Afghanistan. We lost a couple of guys on that deployment. Then, we were sent back to Iraq again in 2006 and 2007. During the Surge in Iraq, my unit was deployed up in Mosul. We were out on a mission to snatch a high value target, some Al Qaeda leader. When we broke into the guy’s house, I was moving up the stairs to the clear the second floor with a couple of other guys. As I rounded the top of the stairs, I saw several flashes from a muzzle. I felt something hit me in the chest and legs. I went down immediately, before I could get a shot off. The guy following behind me shot the attacker.”

Childers began to rub his left thigh, which seemed to be having phantom pain from the memory he was talking about. “I was out. The next thing I knew, I woke up at a hospital in Balad. They said I had been shot twice in my left leg, shattering my femur. One round hit me in my right shoulder. The docs told me that were flying me back to Germany to have my leg fixed. I ended up spending the next eighteen months rehabilitating my leg. I wasn’t able to walk on it with any weight for nearly six months while the bone healed. They had to place a rod and a lot of screws in there to hold everything together. Unfortunately, my jump days were over, so I was out of the Rangers.”

He sighed, and then continued. “After I was released back to active duty again, they sent me to be a drill sergeant. I did that for a couple of years, continuing to strengthen my leg and shoulder, and then I got orders to the 2^nd Cav. I couldn’t have been happier. I was going to pin on Master Sergeant in a couple more weeks, before we got sent over here. I suppose my promotion has probably come through,” he said, snickering.

Lieutenant Taylor let out a soft whistle. “Man, that’s a crazy story Luke. Well, I for one am glad you made it out of Iraq all right; we’d be in rough shape without you here with us.”

Childers nodded slightly, the left side of his mouth coming up in a half smile. He didn’t really know how to respond to direct praise like that.

“So, what’s the scoop from the meeting?” the sergeant asked, changing topics.

Lietenant Taylor pulled out a map and showed Luke the rally point where they would be linking up near the Russian lines. Taylor spent a little bit of time bringing him up to speed on the details of the night mission, and then the two of them joined the rest of their men in getting a few hours of shut eye before the action started.

It was nearly 1800 hours as Lt. Taylor’s platoon approached what remained of their company and another American unit that would be going through the tunnel first. When they entered Ukraine, they had started with 128 soldiers in their company, but now they were down to just 39 fighters. All of the others had either been killed or wounded.

Taylor saw Major Graham walking towards him, and asked “What’s going on, Sir?” He hoped nothing was wrong.

“I just wanted to make sure your guys are ready. Do you have full loads of ammo and grenades? We have some extra over near that Humvee,” Graham explained, pointing to a vehicle that had a small group of soldiers eagerly collecting additional ammunition for their weapons.

“No, we loaded up earlier,” Lieutenant Taylor answered. “My guys are ready to go. Do you still want my platoon to lead the way?” He secretly hoped that another unit may have been chosen instead.

Graham just nodded, “Yeah, I want your group to try and penetrate through that area,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map. “That old guy we talked about earlier said there is a bar there that was run by the Ukrainian mafia that has a tunnel running underneath it. The passageway connects to another bar on the other side of the Russian lines, here,” he said, pointing to the two locations.

“Once your men get through, I want your group to try and identify if there are any anti-tank guns and take them out. If you are able to, I want your guys to hit those objectives quietly. Once the shooting officially starts, that platoon of German tanks over there is going to try and push through to your location.”

Major Graham spent another ten minutes going over everything with Lt. Taylor and SFC Childers. Following their platoon would be the rest of their company, and then a British infantry unit would pick up the tail. The one thing that gave them pause was the uncertainty of whether or not the Russians had a quick reaction force (QRF) nearby to rush to that position once the gunfire began.

Childers looked at the map, and then back up at Major Graham. “We’ll cause some chaos, Sir. Just make sure those tanks press home their attack once the shooting starts. If there is a Russian QRF, we won’t last long without backup.”

The major nodded, and then moved down to another unit that was also forming up to let them know what their part in the operation would be. If their attack was successful, then the entire NATO force trapped in Kiev might be able to break out.

An hour later, SFC Childers led his platoon down the stairs in the back room of that mafia-run bar to the basement. When they reached the basement, a crusty older man (probably the owner) was there to greet them.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in thickly-accented English, a smile broadly gleaming on his face. As he flashed his teeth, the group saw that one of his front incisors had been boldly covered in gold. The man’s arms were covered in tattoos from his wrist to the elbow, where his sleeves had been rolled up. It was obvious without asking that he was a member of the Ukrainian mafia. Under any other circumstances, meeting this man would have been extremely dangerous, but since he hated the Russian military as much or more than they did, today he was a friend.

Without being told, he guided them down the dark, damp passageway, and began to lead them through it. After what felt like an hour (but was probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes), they made it to the end of the tunnel, which began to lead up to another door.

The old man told them, “The exit leads to the basement of another mafia-run bar. Hopefully, it will be empty.”

Childers calmly directed the man, “Please step aside, Sir. We will need to clear the room.”

He passed the word to the soldiers behind him to turn their flashlights off and get their night vision goggles on. They would start to use light discipline now that they were going to enter an unknown building. Childers reached down and grabbed the six-inch knife he carried on the side of his right leg, near his pistol holster. He slowly opened the door and began to look inside the room. As he panned from left to right, he saw that the room was indeed empty. He let out a short sigh of relief.

“We’re clear,” he announced, and then he signaled with his hands to let the others still in the tunnel know it was safe to start entering the room.

As the soldiers began to empty out of the tunnel, he used hand signals to direct several of them to follow him up the stairs to clear the ground floor and see where they were at.

When they got to the ground floor, the men systematically cleared the various rooms in the bar, cautiously making sure there were no signs of Russian soldiers. All they found were piles of broken and empty beer and vodka bottles.

“The Russians have definitely been here,” said Childers, “but it looks like they have cleaned the place out of whatever it was that they were looking for.”

While one of his soldiers went downstairs to let the others know it was safe to come up, Luke carefully peered outside one of the windows near the entrance. About two blocks away, near the entrance of the intersection, he spotted what appeared to be a Russian tank. He wasn’t sure what type of tank, but he could clearly make out the turret and the barrel. Looking above the tank, in the windows of the buildings adjacent to the intersection, Childers saw that several balconies had been piled high with sandbags and then topped with heavy machine guns. Those spots would make fairly effective makeshift machine gun bunkers; they had excellent fields of fire, protecting each other and the tank below them.

“Those guns will need to be taken out before we attack that tank,” Childers realized.

“Sergeant, what do you have for me?” asked Lieutenant Taylor as he approached Luke.

Childers signaled for them to walk away from the window before he spoke. “Down the block at the corner, there is a tank. There may be another armored vehicle, but I can’t fully see it from this vantage point. What I could definitely make out though are the machine gun bunkers on the balconies of the apartments that overlook that intersection. We are going to need to take out those gun emplacements before we disable that tank.”

As they were talking, the ground floor of the bar was starting to fill up with soldiers coming up from the tunnel in the basement. Major Graham was among the soldiers exiting the basement; he immediately walked over to Lt. Taylor and SFC Childers, who brought him up to speed on what they saw outside the building and down the street.

“I assume you have a plan to deal with those machine gun positions,” Major Graham asserted, looking pointedly at Childers.

Sergeant Childers shot him a devilish grin. “When does a Ranger not have a plan?” he snickered, causing the others to let out a soft laugh. The comment cut through the palpable tension in the air, at least a little bit.

After a brief pause, Major Graham replied, “All right, Childers… so, what is it?”

“I’m going to take Sgt. Crockett, Specialist Duncan, and Specialist Cross with me to disable those guns.” He pulled out a map, and began pointing to where they were. “We’ll use the alleyway behind us to sneak up to this building here, right at the corner. The backs of these buildings all have water drainpipes that come down from the roof above. We are going to scale up the side of one of these buildings here, and gain entry over here.”

“Once inside, we’ll make our way to the first machine gun position. We’ll take them out silently, and then move into position to hit the others. I want two of the guys coming with me to have M203s. When the time comes, they will fire them directly across the intersection into the other gun positions and take them out. The third guy needs to be carrying one of the AT4s. He’ll be able to lean over the edge of the balcony and hit that tank from the top, where the armor is weakest. We won’t have much time, but we shouldn’t need it if we hit all these positions at once,” Sergeant Childers finished explaining.

Several of the soldiers around him nodded their heads in approval. They knew if anyone could pull this off, it would be Sergeant Childers. The guy had more combat experience than anyone in their regiment.

Thinking about the plan for a second, Graham smiled and nodded in approval. “It’s bold; I’ll give you that. I think it just might work. Get your crew ready and stand by. We need to figure out what we are going to do about these other two blocks before you guys head out. We need to try and sync this attack as much as possible. Once the shooting starts, all hell is going to break loose and we need to make sure we hit these guys hard right off the bat,” the Major said, giving Childers the green light.

“That Sergeant is crazy,” thought Major Graham. “However, if he can pull this off, I’m putting him in for one heck of a medal.” He didn’t linger long, but instead rushed off to get the other attacks organized.

Thirty minutes later, the ground floor of the bar was really becoming packed. A lot of soldiers had filtered through the tunnel and many more were still waiting below ground.

“Luke, you want me to come with you on this mission?” asked Lt. Taylor, using Childers’ first name for the first time in a few weeks.

Luke looked up at the young lieutenant; he could see genuine concern on his face about this mission.

“The fact that he is offering to come with me on this dangerous mission tells me that he has grown up a lot as an infantry officer; he is willing to put himself in harm’s way so one of his soldiers won’t have to,” Childers’ thought. “He’s also got a baby and a wife to go home to…”

“No, Sir. I think it would be best for you to stay here with the rest of the platoon. Once you hear the fireworks, get to the corner and secure it quickly. We’ll do what we can to cover you from above in the gun position,” he told his platoon leader, entrusting him with just as important of a task as the one he was about to head out on.

Luke turned to look at the three other soldiers that would be proceeding on the mission with him-a sergeant he barely knew from a different platoon and two specialists that he trusted completely. The sergeant would be carrying the AT4 with him while the two specialists had swapped out their M4s with two other soldiers, so that their M4s would be equipped with M203 grenade launchers underneath the barrel. They had each pocketed three additional grenade rounds in their cargo pants, in case they needed more than the one shot.

“OK, let’s head out. It’s time,” he announced to his little three-man team. They quickly followed him into the alleyway behind the bar. Several other small attack teams also filtered out into the alleyway, heading to their own objectives. So far, no Russian soldiers had patrolled the streets nearby or managed to spot them. Major Graham had placed a couple of sentries near the exits of the alleyways, equipped with silencers for their M4s. Those were few and far between, but if they needed to use them, they would.

“I wish we had extra silencers. I sure could use them on this little mission,” Childers thought to himself as he approached the guards. Luke shrugged and continued to lead his small team to the end of the alleyway, next to the sentry that was keeping watch.

“Spotted anything recently?” he inquired.

“Nothing, Sergeant. Everything looks clear. I’ve been watching this spot for nearly thirty minutes. I haven’t seen anyone moving around, and I haven’t spotted anything suspicious in any of the windows or down either end of the street,” the soldier replied. This was definitely good news.

As they prepared to cross the street to hustle into the next alleyway, a soft mist started to fall. Then, the sky broke open and the air was filled with the percussion of many large raindrops falling.

“I’ve never been so happy to see rain in my life,” thought Sergeant Childers. “This will help to cover any noise we may make while we move into position.”

Luke looked back at his team and signaled for them to follow him across the street. One by one, they quickly made their way to the darkened alley. Once there, they moved slowly and cautiously along the back edge of the buildings, until they were at the other end of the alleyway near the next street. It only took them a few minutes to reach the targeted building.

Childers looked up and saw what he was looking for-the pipe that allowed the water from the roof to drain down to the alleyway below. He grabbed the pipe and gave it a slight wobble, then a harder shake. He smiled, adequately satisfied that the structure was firmly attached to the wall of the building.

He let his rifle hang by its sling, and pushed it behind his body so it wouldn’t brush against the wall of the building. Then he grabbed the metal pipe, and positioned one of his legs against the indent in the wall. Slowly, he began to scale the wall. As he reached the top of the patio that opened into the alleyway, he slowly began to lift his head above it to see if anyone was visible. When he didn’t see anyone, he turned to check the window of the room behind the patio. As Childers confirmed that the coast was clear, he hoisted himself the rest of the way up, slowly crawling over the patio wall until his feet were once again on solid ground.

Luke unhooked the rope he had brought with him, tied it off and let it drop to the others below. They used the rope and the metal pipe to climb up to the patio to join him. As Specialist Cross made it over the patio wall, he quietly told him, “I’m going to go into the building and start to clear the first room. I want you to wait for me to come back and let you know it’s safe to go inside.”

The young soldier just nodded and went back to helping his comrades get onto the patio.

Luke reached down and grabbed his knife with his right hand. He left his M4 slung behind him as he slowly opened the patio door. “Thank God, it’s unlocked,” he thought as the handle turned and he entered the building.

With his night vision goggles still on, he could clearly see that he was in the kitchen. He slowly moved to a hallway and peered into it. He saw there where two rooms down one end of the hallway, along with a bathroom. Down the other end, it looked like the door opened into a living room, which would probably lead him to the front balcony where the gun position was.

Childers turned back to the patio and gestured for the other soldiers to enter the kitchen with him, slowly and quietly. They did as instructed and waited. He signaled for Sergeant Crockett and one of the specialists to head down one direction of the hallway and see if it was clear. If they found any Russian soldiers in the rooms, they were to do their best to kill them silently, with their knives. He and Specialist Duncan would move towards the living room.

Luke slowly moved down the hallway until he reached the entrance to the living room. As soon as he could see inside the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. Nearly two feet away was a recliner chair with a Russian soldier sleeping in it. He signaled for Specialist Duncan to stay put for the moment.

Sergeant Childers slowly and quietly tiptoed towards the slumbering enemy combatant. He moved his left hand to cover the soldier’s mouth while he moved his knife into position. In one swift motion, his hand grabbed the Russian soldier’s mouth as he pushed his blade right through the side of the soldier’s neck, directly into his throat. Blood instantly gushed through Luke’s fingers. The well-muscled man tried to fight briefly, making a gurgling sound when he tried to scream, until Luke twisted the knife in the soldier’s neck, severing his spinal cord and killing him instantly.

Childers withdrew his knife and began to move away from the now lifeless soldier. Just as he was about to stand back up and begin to move deeper into the living room, a Russian soldier walked into the room from where the balcony must have been. As he spotted his friend, covered in blood and an American soldier half-crouched, half standing, with a large knife in his hand, the Russian managed to shout one word before SFC Childers’ knife flew across the room and hit him in the upper chest, just below his throat. The soldier instantly collapsed backwards to the floor from the shock of impact.

Luke sprang to his feet and rushed over to the Russian before he could get up. He jerked his knife out of the man’s chest with one hand while placing his other over the enemy soldier’s mouth before he could say another word. He quickly stabbed the fighter several more times with his knife, until he could feel the life drain from him.

Specialist Duncan became concerned when he heard the second man yell, and rushed into the room just as Childers was finishing off the second soldier. He was momentarily stunned as he realized that Luke had just killed the two Russians in front of him with his knife.

Just as Duncan began to move towards Luke (who was now on his knees), another Russian soldier walked into the room to find out what was going on, and immediately spotted Specialist Duncan. The Russian moved faster than Childers could, and he fired a quick burst from his AK-74, right into Duncan’s chest, who fell backwards and slumped to the floor, dead before he knew what had happened him.

This third Russian soldier had not initially seen Luke, until he lunged at him, plunging his knife deep into the man’s sternum. Luke pushed the man to the wall and stabbed him three more times in quick succession.

Sergeant Crockett and Specialist Cross came running into the room when they heard the gunfire. “Toss me Duncan’s rifle!” Childers yelled to them as he looked into the room that led to the patio. Luke turned back just in time to catch Duncan’s M4 with the grenade launcher, and ran into the next room, yelling at Crockett and Cross to follow and take out the machine gun positions on the opposite sides of the street corner.

Luke covered the short distance through the room to the balcony, just as another Russian was about to enter. He fired several quick shots into the man’s chest, then pushed him through the entrance and right over the balcony. As Luke entered the balcony, he saw several shocked Russian soldiers across the street on the other balconies, which were also manning a machine gun position. He took quick aim with the M203 and fired the high explosive fragmentation grenade right into the first gun position, not more than 100 feet away.

As the blast exploded, Specialist Cross made it onto the balcony with Childers and fired his M203 at another machine gun position, killing the soldiers who had been manning that stronghold as well.

Just as the soldiers in the third balcony began to turn their heavy machine on Sergeant Childers, Luke grabbed the machine gun that had been sitting on the sandbag position in front of him and fired a quick burst from the gun into them, killing the two Russian soldiers instantly. He then took aim at the walls and room behind them and fired a long string of bullets into the area, ensuring he had killed anyone else who might be available to take over firing that machine gun.

While he was doing this, Sergeant Crockett had unslung his AT4 and moved quickly to the balcony edge. He leaned over and aimed the AT4 at the top of the tank. Just as he was about to fire the rocket, a Russian soldier from one of the balconies across the way fired several rounds from his AK-74 and hit Crockett in the head, killing him instantly.

Luke turned the machine gun on the Russian and riddled him with bullets. “Grab the AT4 and take that tank out!” yelled Luke to Specialist Cross.

The young soldier ran to Crockett’s now lifeless body and grabbed the AT4 from him. He aimed at the tank below and squeezed the trigger. The rocket leapt from the launcher and hit the top of the turret less than forty feet below, blowing a small hole through it into the compartment below. In less than a second, the tank rounds inside the turret began to cook off, causing a much larger explosion. A piece of shrapnel flew back and hit Cross in his left shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

While the chaos was unfolding around them, the rest of Childers’ platoon was now moving down the street heading towards them, engaging Russian soldiers along the way as they saw them. Then, several Russians began to pour out of one of the buildings not far from his platoon. Within moments, they had managed to pin down Lt. Taylor and his men. Luke turned the heavy machine gun and began to open fire on the backs of the Russian soldiers below, killing many of them outright.

Luke looked back to the road in front of them when Cross pointed to more enemy soldiers. He quickly turned the machine gun loose on them as well, cutting many of them down before they realized that one of their gun positions had been compromised.

“Cross, get me more ammo,” ordered Childers with a sense of urgency. “We need to keep providing covering fire for the rest of the platoon.”

As Specialist Cross was grabbing an ammo can near the edge of the balcony, a hand grenade flew towards them. Without thinking, Sergeant Childers grabbed his M4 that was still slung behind him and swung it towards the grenade like a baseball bat. He hit the grenade, sending it flying away from the balcony; in seconds, it exploded over the center of the street crossing. A piece of hot shrapnel hit Luke on the side of his cheek and his left arm, knocking him to the ground briefly.

Specialist Cross ran over to him. “Are you alright Sergeant Childers?” he asked, genuinely concerned despite his own shrapnel wound.

Luke was holding his left arm as pain shot down it to his hand and fingers. He could feel some blood starting to ooze through his fingers. “Yeah, I’ll be all right. I think I just got clipped. Get the machine gun reloaded. We need to keep providing covering fire,” he replied as he pulled open a bandage from his tactical vest and began to wrap his wound. He didn’t dwell on the injury very long as he moved back to the machine gun just as soon as he could.

With another 100-round belt attached, he began to lay down covering fire for the rest of the American soldiers still moving to the corner below them. While they were shooting away at the Russians, they could hear what sounded like a cacophony of machine gun fire echoing from the various cross streets. It was pure chaos as they saw green and red tracer fire zig zagging back and forth between the various groups of soldiers. Above the din, Childers could also hear the roar of a lot of vehicles starting their engines, and the unmistakable sound of tank treads as they rumbled down the city streets. As Childers was keeping a group of Russian soldiers pinned down, he suddenly saw a tank rumbling in their direction. When the turret began to turn towards them, he knew they had seconds to vacate the area before that 125mm gun fired.

Childers got up and grabbed Specialist Cross by his individual body armor (IBA) and yelled at him, “Run back into the building!”

They had made it a couple of feet into the living room when the balcony exploded from the high explosive round the tank had just fired. As Luke was moving through the living room, he felt the sudden pressure change in the air around him, then the immense heat from the explosion. His body was thrown to the floor by the concussion of the blast. Specialist Cross was just slightly in front of him, so Luke had absorbed most of the blast preventing him from being too seriously injured.

As Childers laid there on the floor, he fought to keep his mind from drifting off into la la land and the blackness that was beckoning him. He felt a sharp burning pain in his legs and lower back, though he could still feel his toes and wiggle them. “That’s a good sign,” he thought to himself.

Specialist Cross got up and moved to Childers. He began to apply a couple of bandages to his legs and tried to help him up. “We need to get you out of here, Sarge. You’re hit pretty bad,” he said in an anxious and shaken voice.

“Agreed. Let’s try and move down the stairs over there and get to the ground floor. The rest of the platoon should be here by now,” Luke replied through gritted teeth. As they made their way to the ground floor, several American soldiers entered the house and began to move to several of the windows. They were on their way to set up a couple of machine guns.

“Hey, we need a medic over here!” Cross yelled to the soldiers who had just entered the room.

When the men turned and saw that the injured soldier was Sergeant Childers, they instantly yelled out for the platoon’s only medic to come help them. A minute later, the medic came in with several other soldiers, many of them wounded. They immediately began to place the wounded on the chairs and couches, turning the first floor of the building into a makeshift aid station.

Lieutenant Taylor walked into the room, carrying another wounded soldier. He saw Childers and came over to him. “How bad are you hurt, Luke?” he asked as he surveyed his comrade in concern.

“I think they got my legs and my left shoulder pretty good. How is the rest of the attack going? Are we breaking out of the city yet?” Luke asked, hoping all of their efforts were not in vain as he continued to fight to stay conscious.

“It’s starting to look like it’s going to work,” Taylor answered. “I saw a couple of the German tanks just a couple of blocks away. I think we are going to bust out of this hole, so you just hang in there. We’ll get help and hopefully a medivac for the wounded once we are able to place some distance between the city and the Russian lines.”

The fighting was fierce and hard, often devolving into hand-to-hand hostilities and close-quarter combat. The mixed NATO units fought like men possessed along this part of the Russian line; within the first thirty minutes of heavy fighting, the German tank unit that was leading the charge broke through the Russian positions, which were quickly followed by a battalion of tanks from the 1st Armored Division. Next came dozens of Strykers and other armored vehicles and trucks. When a group of transport vehicles drove towards Lt. Taylor’s position, they stopped and loaded their wounded into the truck, along with the rest of their platoon and company.

The fighting lasted through most of the night and into the early hours of the morning as the NATO Forces opened a fairly wide hole in the Russian lines. The Ukrainian units that were trapped with NATO were fighting with everything in them to try and roll up the Russian positions, giving the rest of NATO more time to get their soldiers out of the city. The NATO tank units were doing their best to support the Ukrainians and give their forces as much time as possible to get out as well.

Just prior to the breakout, General Fenzol had contacted Lieutenant General (LTG) Isaac Zotti, the Commander of Three Corps and the NATO Ground Commander near Novohrad-Volynskyi. He had informed LTG Zotti of their plan to break out of the city and requested as much air support as he could possibly get. In response, the NATO Ground Commander told General Fenzol that if he could get his force to the city of Kmytiv, roughly 110 kilometers west of Kiev, they would try to get him additional reinforcements, supplies and medivacs.

While NATO and Russian aircraft battled over the skies of Kiev and the surrounding area, roughly 80 Blackhawks, Chinooks, and British Puma helicopters began to head towards the city of Kmytiv and the city of Zhytomyr. Once the area had been secured, the Air Force would send in a few dozen C-130 cargo aircraft to drop in fuel, munitions, and other supplies Fenzol had requested. General Zotti was under no illusions; he realized that this was purely a rescue effort, not an attempt to grab and hold this city from the Russians. He estimated the Russians would launch a massive counterattack against Kiev and try to encircle General Fenzol’s meager force once again. They needed to get munitions and fuel to his force ASAP and hope they could keep on the move long enough to get back to the NATO lines.

Major Dale Young (call sign “Honey Badger”) was cruising along at 650 knots with his wingman, Captain Jorge Montoya (call sign “Iceman”) looking for targets. Below them were 80+ NATO helicopters and close to 30 C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, all vigorously carrying out a daring rescue operation. The past several hours had been absolute chaos as their fighter squadron scrambled to get airborne and support this last-minute operation.

“I have no idea who drew this operation up, but it’s clear that it’s being done by the seat of their pants,” Major Young lamented to himself.

Their Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) support aircraft buzzed through on the satellite link. “Raptor 66, this is Looking Glass. We are tracking 10 MiGs heading towards your location from Rostov-on-Don. Their altitude is roughly 100 meters, moving at 680 knots. How copy, over?”

“This is Raptor 66. We copy. Send the targeting data. We are going to descend to 5,000 feet and will engage the MiGs shortly,” Major Young said calmly as he led his wingman down through the cloud cover on their attack. They were three minutes away from being within weapons’ range, and they needed to lose a lot of altitude if they were going to get in position.

Young and his wingman descended quickly, lining up for their attack. They needed to intercept these MiGs before they got in range of the helicopter force. Above Raptor 66, another flight of four F-15s was swooping in to help support them. It was a risky move for the U.S. to vector in those F-15s; NATO had already lost 29 aircraft from Russian surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the area. Unfortunately, the F-16s performing the Wild Weasel missions had been getting hammered hard trying to suppress the SAMs.

“Iceman, I only have three missiles left,” Major Young explained to his wingman. “I want you to fire your remaining missiles at the same time that I do. Then we’ll head back to base, rearm, and get back on station again. How copy?”

“Copy that, Honey Badger. Between my four missiles, and your three, we’ll hopefully scare these guys off from their attack,” Captain Montoya replied.

“I wish the rest of our squadron hadn’t gotten re-routed to head to Kiev,” Major Young thought. “If only these Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft hadn’t started mauling the Ukrainian armored vehicles along the E-40 highway.”

As they descended to 5,000 feet, their AWACs sent them the targeting data they needed for their missiles. Major Young had missile lock with all three missiles, and quickly depressed the firing button three separate times. In rapid succession, each missile dropped from his internal missile bay and began to streak towards the incoming MiGs. Major Young and his wingman banked hard to their left and headed in the direction of Kiev.

They watched briefly as their missiles shot across the sky towards the Russian MiGs. Once the enemy aircraft detected the missiles, they began to take evasive maneuvers, trying their best to survive. Four of their seven missiles struck the MiGs dead on, exploding the aircraft in glorious balls of fire. Three of the missiles exploded without connecting to their targets; the evasive maneuvers had been successful for a few of the Russian aircraft. Now it was up to the F-15s to finish off the remaining six MiGs.

As they leveled out over the E-40 highway, their radar display began to show a series of SAMs firing at the F-15s. Major Young watched in horror as he counted twelve missiles from at least two SA-21 missile batteries streaking across the sky to destroy the F-15s that had been sent to help them.

“My God, I wish I had known there was an SA-21 in the area,” Major Young lamented to himself. “My F-22 is largely invisible to radar though, so it’s not like we’ve been shot at or painted by the SAMs… I would have warned them! Ugh, the Russian SA-21s have been wreaking havoc on our ability to secure air supremacy over Ukraine since the start of this war…”

Breaking his train of thought, his wingman’s voice came over the radio. “Where are we going, Honey Badger? The base is in the other direction,” his wingman said jokingly.

“I know, I just want to head up the E-40 for a little bit and see if we can spot the convoy we are providing air support for,” he replied to his wingman’s question.

As they flew along the highway, they eventually spotted the ragtag group that had busted their way out of Kiev. The convoy stretched for miles as nearly any vehicle that could drive and carry soldiers was on the road. It was a mix of military vehicles, busses, taxis and civilian vehicles. Towards the end of the convoy, they saw dozens upon dozens of pyres of black smoke rising into the sky. It looked like the images he had seen as a child of the so-called “Highway of Death” in Kuwait.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the US Air Force had caught a couple of Iraqi divisions fleeing Kuwait to Iraq, and had wasted no time in sending nearly everything they could to wipe them out. After the attack, the highway had been renamed “The Highway of Death” for all the burned-out vehicles and charred bodies strewn across the road. It was a gruesome sight. It looked like the Russians had delivered their own version on the E-40.

“Geez-I wonder how many people we lost during this air raid?” Major Young wondered. “I wish we would have been able to prevent this.”

Helpless, Honey Badger turned his aircraft around and began to head towards home. He began to add altitude, bringing their aircraft up to roughly 20,000 feet, their optimal cruising altitude, they steadily made their way back to the NATO airbase in western Poland they were now flying out of.

Luke had been utterly exhausted when they loaded him into the back of a truck after he had been wounded. Even though he heard the near-constant sound of gunfire, tanks, explosions, helicopters, aircraft, and the occasional bullet hitting their vehicle as they drove out of the city and onto the E-40 highway, he soon fell asleep.

The medics yelled at him, “You need to stay awake!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have given me a shot of morphine then,” Luke grumbled in a sleepy haze, and then he went right back to the world of dreams.

When he woke up next, he felt comfortable and strangely clean. As he slowly opened his eyes, he saw white ceiling tiles above him and a light shining overhead. As he regained more of his senses, he realized his head was resting against a pillow and he had a blanket over him. He raised his right arm to rub his eyes. He felt some stitches on his left cheek, and saw an IV in his right wrist.

“I must be in a hospital,” he realized, “but where, and what day is it?”

Just then, a nurse walked over to the side of his bed. “Ah. Hello Master Sergeant Childers. Glad to see you are awake. I’ll go get the doctor,” she said kindly, and then darted off before he had a chance to ask her anything.

A few minutes later a clinician walked into his room and came over to his bed. “Good afternoon Master Sergeant. It’s good to see you up. You had been unconscious for a while,” the doctor said, reading from his medical chart as he spoke.

Luke could see he was a military doctor, and an American, which meant they had broken out of the Russian lines and made it back to safety, or at least he had somehow. “How long have I been out? What about the others in my unit?” he blurted out impatiently.

The doctor held up a hand to tell Childers to slow down. “I know you have a lot of questions, and I will do my best to pass along what little information I know. You were brought to Germany two days ago, along with several hundred additional soldiers who escaped from Kiev. I cannot tell you anything about your unit, or who else made it out. I only know that many hundreds of wounded soldiers were evacuated.”

Luke processed that information for a moment before shooting out his next question. “How bad am I hurt, and how soon can I get back to my unit?”

The doctor smiled at the spunk of the man in front of him. “The good news is you are not in that bad of shape. You needed a few stitches on your left cheek and left arm from what appeared to be a shrapnel wound. You had several pieces of shrapnel in both of your legs that we took out, and a bad contusion on your lower back. You are going to be sore and will need some time to recoup, but with a little bit of physical therapy you should be able to return back to duty within a month, maybe two, pending nothing gets infected.”

Childers let out a sigh of relief.

Just as the doctor was about to leave, he turned around and said one more thing. “By the way, congratulations on your promotion, Master Sergeant. I was told you had been in constant contact with the enemy the last month and a half, but the promotion came through nearly a month ago.” The doctor shook his hand and then left to go see the next patient on his rounds.

Luke laid there for a minute, just thinking. Another voice interrupted his thoughts, and then he suddenly realized that there were two other soldiers that were patients in the same room with him. He hadn’t even noticed them up to this point.

He overheard one telling the other, “Hey, I just read in this newspaper that the nurse gave me that a lot of NATO units that had been trapped in Kiev broke out and made it back to the NATO lines.” The two soldiers chatted with each other about it, speaking as if some sort of miracle had occurred.

Luke felt better, knowing that a lot of his unit had probably made it out. Filled with a renewed sense of peace, he closed his eyes. Almost instantaneously, he fell asleep. He did have six weeks of sleep deprivation to catch up on, after all.

Note: The following chapter begins about 18 months before the start of hostilities in Ukraine, and the timeline continues forward from that point.