Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III (Revised & Expanded Edition)

CHAPTER 8 R AND R

The damned fly kept bothering him. It wasn’t the buzzing so much. Bannon could block that out. It was the fact that the bastard kept landing on the cut on the side of his face and irritating it. He’d no sooner shoo it away with a halfhearted wave of his hand then it would come back and land. How could he get any sleep with that damned fly bothering him. Sleep.

“SLEEP! MY GOD, I’VE FALLEN ASLEEP!” The thought stunned Bannon. Shooting upright and opening his eyes, he greeted by the sight of a bright, morning sun. Instinctively his right arm shot up to check the time on his watch. 0548. The Team had missed its move-out time by over two hours! Even worse, the opportunity to slip away under the cover of darkness was gone.

Looking over and down into the loader’s hatch, he saw Newman slouched over in his seat, leaning against the turret wall sound asleep. A quick scan of the tight circle of tank and PCs failed to reveal any sign of movement. Instead of being alert and watching their sectors, track commanders were slumped across their machineguns asleep. Scattered about their tracks, infantrymen lay curled up on the ground asleep where they had fallen. Even the wounded were quiet. The calamity was complete. To a man, Team Yankee had dozed off.

Dropping down, Bannon took to waking the crew of 55 starting with the gunner, who was lying up against the main gun. “Sergeant GWENT! Sergeant GWENT! WAKE UP!”

Startled, Gwent sat up, shook his head before jerking upright in his seat when he realized he had fallen asleep. “Oh shit! I fell asleep. Goddamn, I’m sorry sir.”

“Well, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. Everyone is asleep.” It took a second for Gwent to appreciate what Bannon was saying. When he did, his eyes grew as big as hen’s eggs, “You mean we didn’t pull off that hill yet? We’re still behind enemy lines?”

“Target. Now, get the rest of the crew up while I wake the Team up. AND DON’T CRANK THE TANK.”

Without waiting for a response, Bannon scrambled out his hatch and began to dismount the tank, forgetting in his haste that the spaghetti cord connecting his CVC to the intercom was still plugged in. Only when he felt his head jerked backwards did he pause long enough to disconnect it before jumping off 55. Once on the ground, he headed for the track nearest Alpha 55 first.

There he found the Mech Infantry platoon sergeant leaning against the side of a tree with his M-16 cradled in his arms, asleep. After being shaken a moment, Polgar eyes opened into narrow slits, looked to the left, then to the right, and finally at Bannon. Just as Bannon before him, when he realized what had happened, his eyes flew wide open. “SHIT! I fell asleep.”

“Well, Sergeant Polgar, you ain’t alone. Wake up the XO and your people while I get the tank crews. Gather the leadership at 55 when they’re up. AND DON’T START ANY ENGINES. Clear?”

“Clear.” With that, Polgar was up in a flash, hustling from body to body, waking each one up with kicks, shakes, and curses while Bannon trotted over to 31.

Garger was leaning over backwards in the open hatch of his tank, asleep. With his arms extended off to the side and stiff, he looked as if he had been shot. “Gerry! Gerry! Lieutenant Garger! WAKE UP!”

His eyes opened in tiny slits. Like Polgar, he looked at Bannon for a moment, then jumped upright. “OH SHIT!”

It occurred to Bannon that instead of good morning, “Oh shit!” was fast becoming the standard greeting for the Team. He imagined had their predicament not been as serious as it was, this whole situation would have been comical.

“Gerry, get the rest of the tank crews up and have the TCs meet me over at 55. And tell the TCs not to crank the tanks.” As Bannon was getting off, Garger scootched down and gave his gunner a swift kick between his shoulder blades, yelling for him to wake up as he did so.

As he headed back to 55, Bannon began to work on a way out of this one. There would be no slipping away unseen, not in broad daylight. That thought was disturbing. But staying here to face a new series of Russian attacks was equally distasteful. The collapse of the Team’s security confirmed his belief that it was at the end of its tether. The Russians were sure to come back with more people and tanks, sooner rather than later. Bannon didn’t dare face a wounded bear with a handful of punch-drunk tankers and grunts who were running low on ammunition of all types. They had to pull out.

Once the leaders were together, he issued his orders. The Team would go out the way they had planned. Since the Soviets had not hit them from the south, that was the direction the Team would take. Alpha 55 and 31 would lead, traveling abreast once they were in the open. The PCs would come next, followed by 24 and 22. The Team would move around the west side of the hill that had been Objective LOG and go back into friendly lines the same way they had come out. The only difference in the plan was that rather than creep along in an effort to sneak out, they would roll as fast as the PCs would allow. In addition, the tanks would fire up their smoke generators and blow smoke the entire way back. While 55 and 31 would be exposed to the front and flanks, the PCs and the other two tanks would be hidden in a rolling cloud of smoke.

As they were about to break up and return to their vehicles, a volley of artillery fire impacted to the south in the vicinity of Hill 214. As one, everyone’s head snapped in that direction. When a second volley confirmed their fears, all eyes turned back on Bannon. They had been too late. The Russians were coming back.

“All right, Sergeant Polgar, you come with me. We’re going to go up there and see what’s going on. Bob, you’re in charge while we’re gone. Be ready to crank up and roll if the Russians come. Until then, stay alert and keep quiet. If the Russians come before we’re back, leave without us. Move in the opposite direction of the Russian attack until you’re in the open. Then carry out the plan as we have discussed. Any questions?”

There were none. What else could they do? Bannon turned to Polgar, “Do you have an extra M-16?”

“Yes, sir. I can take one from one of the wounded.”

“Good, get me one, a couple of magazines, and meet me back here, pronto.” Polgar nodded before hustling over to one of the tracks. Bannon turned to Uleski. “Bob, no heroics. If there’s trouble and we’re not back, get out of here. Clear?”

“Clear.”

By the time Polgar had returned with the rifle, Bannon had his helmet and web gear on. After inserting a magazine and chambering a round, the two turned and started to head south. Polgar followed Bannon at a distance of five meters and a little to his right. The assembled leaders watched them go. When they were no longer in sight, Uleski turned back to face the track commanders with him and ordered them to mount up and be ready to move.

Bannon and Polgar had gone about a hundred meters when the artillery stopped. Pausing, they both squatted down and took to listening for a moment. In the silence that followed, the distinct sound of tracked vehicles moving could be heard to the south. Taking the lead, Bannon motioned to Polgar to follow.

It wasn’t until they were nearing the crest of the hill and the tree line that Bannon caught sight of movement to his front. Instinctively, he dropped into a prone firing position behind the nearest tree. Both he and Polgar watched and waited.

To the left Bannon noticed a movement. Then he noticed there was more to the front at a distance of fifty meters. As they watched, a line of figures approached through the woods. He turned to Polgar and whispered, “When I start shooting, run like hell back to the XO and tell him to go east out of here.”

Polgar thought about it. “You’re the Team commander, I’ll cover you. You go back and tell the XO.”

“Damn it, Sergeant, I gave you an order. You better be ready to move when I let go. Clear?” Polgar didn’t reply. He only nodded.

Turning his attention back to front, Bannon watched the line of figures continue forward. Slowly he raised the M-16 up to his shoulder and began to sight in on the nearest figure. This was going to be a very short fight.

As Bannon watched the lead figure in his sight, it occurred to him that the uniform was very familiar. It was camouflaged. So far the Russians they had faced weren’t wearing camouflage. Then he noticed the rifle. It was an M-16. They were Americans. “They’re ours,” he whispered to Polgar.

Upon hearing this, Polgar stuck his head up a little higher, looked, and then smiled.

Remembering what had occurred the day before when he was a bit too hasty in trying to get Polgar’s attention after he’d abandoned 66, Bannon was a little more circumspect in letting the advancing infantry know he was there and he was friendly. He let the line of infantry get within twenty meters before he bellowed out “HALT!”

The line of infantry froze where they stood, ready to drop and fire. Heads slowly turned to find the origin of the voice.

“Advance and be recognized.”

This time, all heads snapped as one to where Bannon was. Ever so slowly, one of them rose up to the kneeling position while keeping his rifle trained on Bannon. When he was sure the wasn’t going to be shot, the lead infantryman began to move toward Bannon.

When he was close enough, Bannon repeated the order, “Halt.” At that point, he found he was unable to recall the challenge and password. He had to do something fast before the people in front of him got excited and fired. “We’re Team Yankee, Task Force 3rd of the 78th. We were cut off. Who are you?”

“What’s the challenge?”

“I don’t know. We were cut off yesterday. I’m Captain Bannon, the team commander.”

As this exchange was taking place, Bannon noticed the line of infantry was slowly beginning to spread out. Things were not working out well at all.

From behind, Polgar called out, “Hey, Kerch. Is that your mob of dirt bags out there?”

The infantryman in front of Bannon straightened up, let the muzzle of his rifle drop some, and turned toward Polgar’s voice. “Polgar, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, you worthless sack of shit. Now tell your thugs to ease up so the captain and I can get up.” With that, Polgar stood up and began to come over to where Sergeant First Class Kerch, A Company 3rd of the 78th Mechanized Infantry and Bannon had been holding each other at gunpoint. Team Yankee had been relieved.

Polgar led Kerch and his people through the woods to where Team Yankee was located. Bannon made his way up to the top of Hill 214 where he was told the battalion command group was. It occurred to him as he was doing so that while he’d been here for over twenty hours, had fought for the hill, and done his damnedest to hold it, he had never been on top of it. He was finally going to see what the Team had paid for so dearly.

At the wood line he passed the tracks from a platoon of the 3rd of the 78th that had been attached to the 1st of the 4th Armor. They were waiting for word to go in and pick up the dismounted element he and Polgar had encountered. Just below the crest of the hill, two tanks and a PC sat, peering over the top toward Arnsdorf below. Three officers were standing next to the PC looking at a map board. When one of them saw Bannon approaching, he motioned to him to join them. The other two looked up, put down the map board, and started towards him. They were the battalion commander, XO, and S-3 of the 1st Battalion, 4th Armor, Team Yankee’s parent battalion.

As he closed, Bannon saluted and, as nonchalantly as possible, greeted Team Yankee’s saviors. “Well, fancy meeting you here, sir.”

Surprised but pleased, LTC Hall extended a welcoming hand to Bannon. “Sean, Colonel Reynolds told us you had been wiped out last night.”

“Sir, the news of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. Alpha Company is reporting for duty.” Not that they could do anything given how little of it that was left, but what the hell, it sounded good.

Maj. Frank Shell, the S-3, looked him over for a moment, then turned to the battalion commander. “If the rest of his people look as bad as Sean, the infantry was right, Team Yankee was wiped out.” Then he turned back to Bannon and, seriously this time, asked if the rest of the Team did look like him.

Bannon’s eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles around them. Every exposed patch of skin was filthy. He had two-days growth of beard. The cut on the side of his face had become swollen from infection, and there was dried blood on his face, neck and around his collar. There was also dried blood on the chest and sleeves of his chemical suit from pulling Ortelli from 66. This was mixed with diesel and oil stains. Without needing to see what he actually looked like, Bannon guessed he couldn’t have looked much worse.

As they walked over to the PC Colonel Hall was using as a command track, Bannon explained the Team’s situation and requested that an ambulance be sent immediately to the trail junction to bring out the wounded. The battalion XO got on it and had an M-113 ambulance rumbling down to the Team in minutes. Stopping when they’d reached the tanks where Colonel Hall was, Bannon and Major Shell looked down into Arnsdorf. There were still wisps of smoke rising from some of the burned-out Soviet vehicles. Scores of dead Russians and smashed vehicles littered the field. The battalion commander looked at Bannon, “I take it you did that last night.”

In the clear light of day, the scene before Bannon seemed so unreal, so foreign. He had difficulty equating what he was looking at with the horror show he and his Team had been through but a few short hours ago. Tilting his head back, Bannon gazed up at the clear blue morning sky, then across the valley to the green hill to the north, and finally over at the battalion commander before replying. “Yes, sir. We did that, and more.”

After the battalion commander and XO left to go down into Arnsdorf and follow the attack, Major Shell updated Bannon on what had happened since yesterday morning and how 1st of the 4th had come into play. The Mech Battalion that Team Yankee was part of had become scattered throughout the division’s rear area during the night road march. While passing through one of the larger towns, part of the column had taken a wrong turn. The people leading the two line companies, Charlie and Delta, the battalion trains, and the battalion CP all realized their mistakes at different times and tried to get back onto the proper route on their own without bothering to inform any of the units following them or battalion that was what they were doing. This led to confusion and more errors, just as First Sergeant Harrert had reported.

Delta Company was the first to show up and join Team Bravo on its overwatch position at 1730 hours. Charlie Company didn’t turn around until after it had wandered into the rear areas of the German panzer division that was to the south. By then, it was running low on fuel. By the time a division staff officer managed to get collect Charlie and lead it back, the division commander decided to hang onto it as a reserve. And though the battalion trains finally managed to make it to where it was supposed to go sometime in middle of the night, they never told anyone. When Major Jordan found them by accident, the S-4, in charge of the trains, told him he thought the battalion was still under radio listening silence, never realizing the net had been jammed, and the battalion had moved to another frequency. Team Bravo, which had been in position to support Yankee, moved up to LOG but was thrown off it by a dismounted counterattack from Lemm after Team Yankee had taken Hill 214.

When all this had been sorted out by the battalion and brigade commanders, it was decided to pull the 3rd of the 78th Mech out and throw in the 1st of the 4th Armor. As Team Bravo was combat ineffective, and everyone thought that, except for recovered tracks, Team Yankee was gone, the 3rd of the 78th was sent to the rear to reconstitute and act as reserve. The 1st of the 4th relieved the Mech Battalion at 0300 and went into the attack at 0530, just before the Team woke up.

“We, the commander, the XO, and I were trying to figure out what had happened to all the Russians that the 3rd of the 78th had reported and who had done all the damage in Arnsdorf when you showed up,” Major Shell explained. “I expect the good news is that Bravo, 3rd of the 78th held LOG long enough for First Sergeant Harrert to gather up the Team’s wounded and recover those tracks that had only been damaged.”

To Bannon’s surprise, Shell went on to inform Bannon that his first sergeant had four tanks and two PCs, including the HQ PC, most in varying states of repair, with him.

Exhausted and somewhat frazzled. It took Bannon a minute or two to realize that the attack against LOG had cost his Team only two tanks totally destroyed, 21 and 66, one PC, the 1st Squad of the Mech Platoon, and the FIST track. Casualties, not counting the men who were killed on Hill 214, amounted to fifteen killed and six wounded, which at first seemed to be out of proportion. Only when as he thought about it did it made sense. Alpha 21, the infantry PC and the squad that was aboard it alone accounted for thirteen of the dead.

While Bannon was mulling these revelations over, Major Shell contacted brigade, informed them they’d found Team Yankee and asked if they had orders for them. The Team, Shell was told, was to road march to the rear and rejoin the 3rd of the 78th in reserve. After getting the location of the Mech Battalion’s new CP in the rear and the route the Team was to use from Major Shell, Bannon asked for and received permission to stop by the 1st of the 4th’s combat trains and top-off the tracks with him. With that, the S-3 wish Bannon luck, mounted his PC, and headed down into Arnsdorf to join his commander, leaving Bannon free to make his way back to Team Yankee, relieved in every sense of the word.

With the formal portion of the morning briefing at the Tenth Corps Headquarters over, the commanding general rose from his seat and walked over to the two maps that were displayed before him. The large-scale map displayed the overall situation facing NATO throughout Germany. It was not good. Up in NORTHAG’s AO Hamburg and Bremerhaven had fallen. Though there had not been a breakthrough, several portions of the front were threatened with collapse as the Soviets prepared to continue their drive to the Dutch border. Already two corps commanders had requested the release of tactical nuclear weapons in order to break up concentrations of follow-on Soviet, Polish, and East German units that were moving toward the front to resume the attack.

In the CENTAG area of operations, where the Tenth Corps was, the situation was much better. The terrain there was not the best for armored warfare. In addition, French forces were readily at hand and beginning to reach the front.

Turning to his small-scale map that depicted the corps’ area of operation and current situation, the Corps commander began to run his finger along the front line trace of his units, stopping every so often to study Warsaw Pact forces that were opposing the corps. At one point, he stopped with his finger resting on a map symbol that represented a group of Soviet units and turned to his G-2. “George, these people here, you said that they are continuing west?”

“Yes, sir. We expect them to be in the vicinity of Kassel by tomorrow morning at the latest unless we can get the Air Force to slow them down some.”

“What’s coming up behind them? Who is going to be in the Leipzig area two to four days from now?”

“Well sir, as best we can tell, no one. There is one Polish division here that could be in that area,” the Corps G-2 informed his commander as he pointed to the map symbol representing the Pols. “But as of now, that’s about it.”

Without turning away from the map, and motioning with his hand as he spoke, the general began to issue instructions to his operations officer. “Frank, get your plans people to work on an attack centered around the 21st Panzer Division. As soon as the French relieve it, I want the 21st to move here and attack north into the Thuringer Wald. The mission of the 21st is to breach the Soviet security screen and then cross the IZB here. The second phase of the operation will be a passage of lines by either the 52nd or 54th Division with orders to continue the attack north across the Saale River towards Leipzig. I want this operation to commence in three days. Have your people prepared to present me a decision briefing by 1800 hours tonight. What are your questions?”

The operations officer studied the map for a moment, then turned to the general. “Sir, can I plan on using the 25th Armored Division? Also, how far do you want us to plan after we reach Leipzig?”

“Frank, I want you to use everything we’ve got. For planning purposes you will consider our axis of advance from where we are to Leipzig, Berlin, and finally the Baltic coast. If I can convince the CINC, I intend to go for broke. Until one of the Jedi knights in the G-3 Plans section comes up with a more fearsome name, we’re calling this operation Winner Take All.”

Having grown used to their commanding general’s aggressive nature and willingness to take risks, the briefing broke up without further ado. With all the initial planning guidance they needed in hand, the staff officers scattered to prepare for the evening briefing.

This road march was, for the most part, uneventful. Team Yankee had forty-five kilometers to cover and could have done it in an hour had it not been for the traffic. As it was going to the rear this time, and its movement had not been scheduled or coordinated by the division’s movement control center, it was bumped by higher priority traffic going to the front, or forced to yield the road in order to allow wounded headed for the rear to get by.

After spending most of the last few days along the forward edge of the division’s sector, Bannon was amazed at just how many vehicles there were driving around in division’s rear. As they sat on the side of the road waiting for a convoy to go by before the Team could move again, Garger wondered if someone was really in charge of all this. There were long convoys made up of supply and fuel trucks, artillery batteries, columns of ambulances with wounded aboard moving rearward while others making a return trip to pick up more, a field hospital moving forward, engineers everywhere you looked, and equipment he had never seen before and whose purpose he had no idea what it did. That anyone could bring order out of this apparent chaos, keep people fed, vehicles fueled, and units arriving at the right place at the right time was a source of wonder to him.

The biggest problem Bannon had during the long pauses while the Team waited for a break in the traffic was waking everyone up when it was time to move again. It seemed that each time they stopped, the drivers, and more than a few TCs, slumped down in their seats and fell asleep. Once, when a break in the traffic appeared, it took so long to wake everyone up that by the time they were ready to roll, a new convoy came by, leaving the Team no choice but to wait for it to pass. Naturally the men immediately went back to sleep.

The worst part of the march was seeing the suffering the local Germans who had stayed in place were having to endure. As the Team rolled past them, the few who bothered to look up at the passing American tanks and PCs regarded the men belonging to Team Yankee with blank stares. Bannon shuddered to think what was going through their minds, especially those of the old people. For them, this was the second time in their lives they had seen war. In one village the Team passed through, an old woman who bore an eerie resemblance to his own mother stopped pushing a cart and watched. Bannon could see tears running down her cheeks as Alpha 55 went by. He would never know for whom she was crying. Not that it mattered. By the time this war was over, he expected there would be many a tear shed, and not just for the dead.

It was the sight of the children that bothered him the most. During peacetime maneuvers through the German countryside they would wave and laugh as they ran along the side of the tanks, yelling to the soldiers to throw them candy or rations. American soldiers often did. But now the children didn’t come. Instead, when they heard the rumble of the tanks, they ran and hid. Only a few of the bolder ones peeked to see whose tanks they were. Even when they saw that the tanks were American, their eyes betrayed the terror and fear they felt.

Such scenes allowed Bannon to understand for the first time why the pacifist movement had been so large in Europe. The children of the last war, who had witnessed his uncle’s Sherman tank roll through their villages had not wanted their children to experience the same horror. Unfortunately, the good intentions of those parents were no match for the intentions of the Russian leaders. As had happened too often in the past, well-meaning people who desired peace at any price were no match for cold steel and people willing to use it.

Inevitably, the children he saw caused Bannon to wonder about his own. He still didn’t know if all the families had made it out before hostilities. It was the nagging fear that they hadn’t, and what he would do if that proved to be the case, that caused him begin to turn away whenever he saw a child, for the thoughts they evoked were simply too painful.

It was near noon when Team Yankee finally rolled into the town where the 3rd of the 78th was supposed to be. As the Team entered it, they passed a group of American soldiers sitting in front of a house cleaning their weapons. All were stripped down to their T-shirts or bare chests, enjoying the weather and in no hurry to finish the tasks at hand. Some of the men didn’t even have their boots on. A PC Bannon assumed was theirs was parked in an alley. Clothes and towels were draped all over it to dry. A shirt was even hanging on the barrel of the caliber .50.

Bannon stopped Alpha 55 and signaled the rest of the column to halt. Turning to the group of soldiers, he called out, “Who’s in charge here?”

A couple of the soldiers looked up at Bannon before chattering among themselves. One young soldier finally turned and yelled back. “Who the fuck wants to know?”

Garger later told Bannon that he had never seen him move so fast. When the soldier gave him that reply, he was up and out of the turret of 55 and on the ground headed for the man at a dead run all in one motion. “ON YOUR FEET, YOU SORRY SON-OF-A-BITCH! ALL OF YOU! YOU TOO!” he added, thrusting his arm out at a soldier who wasn’t moving fast enough.

Suddenly realizing that perhaps they were talking to an officer, they came to their feet. Not that there was any way they could tell Bannon was an officer. About the only thing different about him since his meeting with the Tank Battalion command group that morning had been the cleaning of the wound on the side of his face.

“All right, soldier, I’ll ask you one more time,” Bannon growled as he shoved his face into the face of the man who’d spoken out. “And before you answer,” he added as he narrowed his eyes, “if you give me a smartass answer like you just did, they’ll be sending your remains home in a very small envelope. Is that clear?”

The soldier took stock of this god-awful looking and foul smelling figure before him. Taking no more chances, he came to attention. “Sir, our squad leader is not here.”

“That’s not what I asked you, soldier. I asked you who is in charge. There is someone in charge of this cluster fuck, isn’t there?”

“I guess I am, sir.”

“YOU GUESS! YOU GUESS! DON’T YOU KNOW?”

“Yes, sir, I am in charge, sir.”

“What unit are you soldier?”

“Charlie Company sir.”

“Good, great! You wouldn’t happen to know what battalion you belong to, would you?”

“Sir, the Fighting Third of the 78th, sir.”

By this time, the tracks in Team Yankee had shut down and were listening to the conversation. When the soldier Bannon was dressing down came out with the fighting first comment, everyone in the Team broke out in uproarious laughter. From struggling to keep his rage in check, Bannon suddenly found himself fighting to hold back his laughter as well. He lost. Now it was the turn of the Charlie Company soldiers to become peeved over being the object of laughter. Wisely, none of them said or did a thing. They were not about to tempt the wrath of a column of soldiers who looked no different than Bannon. They simply stood at attention and bit their tongues.

After regaining control of himself, barely, Bannon continued, “All right, soldier. Where is your Battalion CP?” The soldier informed him that it was in a school just down the street and how to get there. With that, Bannon turned and climbed aboard 55, gave the hand and arm signal to crank up and move out, then led Team Yankee at a dead run to the headquarters of the Fighting Third.

As Bannon and Uleski walked down the corridors of the German school, Bannon was overcome with the odd feeling he was out of place here. In the field he felt at ease. They belonged in the field. That was where they worked. But this was a school, a place where young children came to learn about the world and to prepare for the future. Bannon was a soldier whose job was to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. In short, to kill. He had no business here, in a place dedicated to the future. With that thought in mind, the two hurried down the corridors in silence so as not to offend the spirit of the school.

When they entered the classroom where the battalion staff and company commanders were having a command and staff briefing, they felt even more out of place. Though hard to imagine, the battalion staff appeared to be even cleaner than they had been two days ago, when the order to take Hill 214 had been given. It could have been that Bannon was just dirtier.

Both he and the XO had gone tromping into the room like two men storming into a strange bar looking to pick a fight with the first man who said boo. They stood just inside the room for a moment, surveying the assembled group who returned their stares. It reminded Bannon of a scene from a B-grade western. He looked at Uleski, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, causing him to stifle a snicker.

Major Jordan was the first to come over and greeted them with a sincere smile and a handshake as if they were long-lost cousins. The battalion commander and the other company commanders followed. Only the Charlie Company commander hung back. Bannon imagined it was from embarrassment. When the greetings were over, Colonel Reynolds took him to the front of the group and sat him on the seat next to his, displacing the Charlie Company commander. This move shocked Bannon since Captain Cravin, commander of Charlie Company, had always been Colonel Reynolds’s fair-haired boy. Whatever Cravin did was good and right. Major Jordan, who didn’t think much of Cravin or his company, smiled at the sight of the colonel’s wunderkind being taken down a notch.

As the meeting continued, Reynolds would stop, turn to Bannon, and ask what Team Yankee needed from the battalion motor officer, the S-4, the S-l, and so on. It quickly became apparent that the colonel was prepared to give Team Yankee first choice of whatever was available. Given the opportunity, Bannon grabbed it and ran. When the S-l wanted to know about personnel needs, Bannon told him that the Team needed eighteen infantrymen to replace Polgar’s losses. The S-l stated that it would not be possible to replace them now. Upon hearing this, Bannon turned to the battalion commander and told him that since Charlie and Delta companies were still up to strength, if each of their squads gave up one man, Polgar could easily be brought up to strength. He had meant this as a cheap shot at the two companies. To his surprise, the colonel told the S-l to see that this was done and to ensure that only the best soldiers went. He then turned to the S-4 and told him that if the S-4 couldn’t get another PC for Polgar right away, Charlie Company was to turn one over to Team Yankee.

At the end of the meeting Bannon and Uleski briefed the colonel and the S-3 on what had happened after Team Yankee had crossed the line of departure. The Colonel and S-3 frequently stop them and ask questions about certain aspects of the operation, effects of weapons, where their soldiers seemed to be wanting, how the Soviets had reacted, and so on. At the conclusion of Bannon’s impromptu update, Major Jordan recommended that the leadership of Team Yankee prepare a briefing for the officers and NCOs of the battalion. He pointed out that this way, lessons learned at such a high cost could be passed on to those officers and senior NCOs who had yet seen any action. Reynolds endorsed the idea without hesitation.

After being given the location where the first sergeant had the rest of Team Yankee and congratulating both him and Uleski on a job well done, both Reynolds and Jordan left in order to make it to a another meeting.

When they were gone, Bannon and Uleski sat in the silent room, staring at the floor in front of them. Without looking up, Uleski quietly asked, “Did we really do as well as they seem to think we did?”

Bannon thought for a moment. In the discussion, it had all seemed so easy. It was as if they had been discussing a tactical exercise at Fort Knox, not a battle that had meant life and death for the thirty-five men that had set out to defend Hill 214 yesterday. Their discussion had covered the effects of weapons, the deployment of forces, and the application of firepower. In the cool, quiet setting of the German classroom it all seemed to make sense, to fit together. The dread and fear of dying was absent. The stinging, cutting emotional pain he had felt as the crew of 66 removed Ortelli’s shattered body from the burning tank had not been covered. The disgust and anger he had experienced when it seemed that Team Yankee had been wiped out was not important to their discussion. The battle they had talked about and the one Team Yankee had fought were not the same, and never would be. At least not for those who had been there.

Bannon turned to Uleski, “What do you think, Bob?”

The XO stared at Bannon for a moment before answering, “I think we were lucky. Damned lucky.”

“You know, Bob, I think you’re right.” With that, they left the classroom and went about rebuilding the Team.

Over the next three days Team Yankee licked its wounds and pulled itself back together in an assembly area a kilometer outside of town First Sergeant Harrert had found and claimed. Soon after arriving, Bannon found out why he had picked it.

In the center of a well-tended patch of forest was a small gasthaus where Germans taking long weekend walks through the forest had frequented before the war. The old man and woman who ran the place were indifferent to the Team at first. That quickly changed when the old woman discovered First Sergeant Harriet was more than ready to see to it she and her husband got whatever he could spare in the way of food, fuel, and the use of a generator Harrert had “found” during his forays through the Division’s rear area. By end of the second day, the old woman was cooking for them and doing their laundry. She said that since she couldn’t take care of her son, and since their mothers couldn’t take care of them, she would. After the old man finally warmed up to the Americans, he told them his son was a panzer trooper like them before regaling anyone who would listen of his own experiences in what he called The Last War, taking care to make sure they understood he’d only fought the Russians, never the Americans.

Replacements arrived in dribs and drabs in for men, equipment, ammunition, uniforms, weapons, radios, and a myriad of other things modern war required. The first people they got were the infantrymen stripped from the other companies. While the Team didn’t exactly get the pick of the litter, those they were sent were at least competent and reliable according to Polgar. The first thing he did whenever a new batch of fresh faced grunts reported to him was to lay down the law according to Polgar. The first rule he made sure they understood was that they were never to forget they now belonged to Team Yankee. The emphasis he put on this at first struck Bannon a little odd. In the past, a mech platoon belonging to 3rd of the 78th Infantry that was attached to Bannon’s company considered that assignment akin to being exiled to Siberia. Now, it was a matter of pride. As one of the new men who volunteered to come over to Team Yankee told Polgar when asked why he had done so, regarded Polgar as if he’d just been asked the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “If I have to be in this war,” the soldier replied. “I wanted to be with people who know what they’re doing.”

The Team was not as fortunate in the replacements they received for the tank crews. Most of them came straight from the advanced individual training course at Fort Knox. Some had never even been in a tank when a round had been fired. Bob Uleski was only half joking when he told Bannon they, the Team, were fortunate that most of the newbies were at least able to recognize a tank two out of three times. Given that sad state of affairs, the Team’s number-one priority became integrating them into the crews as quickly as possible and training them as best the tank commanders could in what little time they had.

One of the most interesting transitions that had occurred in the Team that Bannon could not help but take note of was in the way Pfc. Richard Kelp went about his duties. Before the war he had always been an average soldier, nothing more, nothing less. Since the Team had come off Hill 214, however, he had become a man possessed. When they picked up a replacement tank from war stocks, Kelp was the first man on it. Instead of Folk having to keep on him to stay on task, it was Folk who now found he was having to scramble to keep up with him.

With the new Alpha 66 came a new man. As it is easier to train a loader, Kelp was reassigned as the driver and given the mission of training Pvt. Leo Dowd as the loader. After conducting several hours of crew drills on the second day, Bannon asked Dowd how things were going. At first the street smart African-American Chicago native was reluctant to say anything. When he finally did after some coxing, he informed Bannon that he thought Kelp was being too hard on him. “I’m doing the best I can, but that is never good enough to Kelp.”

Stifling an urge to chuckle, Bannon put on his official company commander’s face and told Dowd that everything Kelp was doing was for his own good. He added that if Dowd paid attention to everything Kelp was telling him, maybe, just maybe he would make it out of this war alive. “The one thing I’ve been told there’s no shortage of is body bags,” Bannon concluded. “So unless you’re in a hurry to fill one of them, do what you’re told.” After that, there were no more complaints, at least not any that Dowd shared with his tank commander.

Along with his new direction in life, Kelp received official recognition for his efforts in the defense of Hill 214. After questioning both of the privates who had come back from the tank-killing detail that night, Polgar put each of them in for Bronze Stars with V device. As the Dragon gunner who had been killed had led the group out and had taken out the first tank, Bannon added him for a posthumous award. By the time the citations made it to division level, the efforts of the three men took on epic proportions. The story was enhanced ever so slightly until the killing of the two tanks became the pivotal event for the battle of Hill 214 that caused the whole Soviet battalion to withdraw. In reality, things weren’t that clear cut, but Bannon went along with it since it expedited the awards.

One change that had taken place that was not to Bannon’s liking at all. It concerned the outlook on life Bob Uleski had adopted. The injury to his arm had been minor, a dislocated shoulder that was easily tended to without his needing to go any further than 1st of the 4th Armor’s aid station where the battalion physician’s assistant had popped it back into place while the cut on Bannon’s face was being cleaned and dressed by a medic. Despite a recommendation that Uleski be allowed to spend a few days in a field hospital in order to give his arm a chance to heal properly, he refused. As the Team was short of officers, Bannon did not object, allowing him to stay with the Team as long as he could perform his duties.

For the most part, the XO reverted back to being his usual, good natured self. That façade, however, quickly gave way to a very different demeanor, for he was now unable to tolerate even the slightest error or any action that was not up to his standard, whether it concerned training or carrying out routine maintenance on the Team’s vehicles. When drilling his crew, he would turn on them with a vengeance if their times or actions were not to his liking. When Bannon made mention of this to him, Uleski simply shrugged it off as nerves. Bannon, of course, knew there was more to his XO’s behavior than nerves. Everyone who had started out with the Team and had made it this far had changed, including him. The problem was, in Bannon’s opinion, Uleski’s had not been for the better. With that in mind, he made a point of watching his XO more closely.

One of the duties that Bannon had dreaded most began the first night in the assembly area. After the Team had stood down for the night, and only those personnel required for minimal security were posted, he sat alone at a table in the gasthaus. In the quiet of the night, with no noise but the hiss of the Coleman lantern to distract him, he began to write letters to the families of those who had died.

As he wrote the letters, the images of those who had been lost came back. In his mind’s eye he could see 21 hanging on the edge of the ditch, burning and shaking as onboard ammo cooked off and detonated. The sight of Ortelli, wrapped in his sleeping bag as if he were sleeping were as clear to him as he sat there as they had been that day. Lorriet’s eyes, eyes that stared up at him but did not see caused him to shutter every time he thought of him. His memories of the severed arm belonging to a soldier Bannon didn’t even know that he stepped on was just as repulsive now as they had been when he had looked down and saw it. Those images, and so many more came flooding back to him as he wrote each and every letter to parents, wives, and loved ones who had yet to learn what had happened to the men he had been responsible for. In all his readings, in all the classes he had attended, nothing had prepared him for this. Each commander was left to deal with the images of the dead in his own way.

On the afternoon of the second day the first sergeant returned to the Team’s assembly area from a scavenging foray with 2nd Lt. Randall Avery in tow. As he was hauling his gear out of the first sergeant’s vehicle, Avery noticed Garger going through a sand table exercise with his tank commanders. As the two lieutenants had both been in the same officer basic course at Fort Knox, Avery was thrilled to see a familiar face in the sea of strangers he been swept up in. Eager to let him know he was there, he called out to Garger.

To Avery’s surprise, instead of setting aside what he was doing and coming over to greet him, Garger merely acknowledged the new lieutenant’s presence with an expressionless nod before turning his full attention back to what he had been doing. Taken aback by this cold reception, Avery wondered if the stories he’d often read about concerning the way veterans treated replacements were true. The reception he got from Bannon further reinforced his apprehensions on this matter.

Bannon and Uleski sitting at a table on the terrace in front of the gasthaus going over the next day’s schedule of training and maintenance when Harrert brought Avery over. “Captain Bannon, this is Lieutenant Avery,” Harrert declared matter-of-factly as he waved his hands at the young officer next to him. “He’s straight out of Knox and has been assigned to take over the 2nd Platoon.”

With that introduction, Avery came to attention, saluted, and reported as he had taught to do during his four years as an ROTC cadet and at Fort Knox. “Sir, Second Lieutenant Avery reporting for duty.”

Before responding in any way, Bannon and Uleski glanced at each other, then over at the first sergeant before Bannon took to eyeing Avery from head to toe. With nothing more than a nod, he acknowledged the lieutenant’s salute, leaving Avery standing there and unsure what to do.

Realizing the young officer was flummoxed, Bannon sighed. “At ease, Lieutenant. We don’t do much saluting in the company area, or anywhere else for that matter. Where is it you said you were coming from?”

“Fort Knox, sir. I was attending the motor officers’ course after AOB when things started to get serious over here.”

Unable to help himself, Uleski glanced over at Bannon. “Serious?”

“I think he’s talking about the war, U,” Bannon replied with a straight face.

“Oh yeah, that. I guess you could say that was serious. What do you think, First Sergeant?”

“It’s serious enough for me, sir,” Harrert replied in an off handed manner.

Ignoring Uleski’s attempt to have some fun at his expense, and eager to get on with the task of reporting in, Avery latched onto to the first thing that popped in his head. “I was in the same AOB class as Gerry, I mean Lieutenant Garger. We were friends, sir.”

Again Bannon and Uleski exchanged glances. “That’s nice. What college did you graduate from?”

“Texas A and M, sir.”

Uleski couldn’t help himself as he let out three loud whoops. Neither First Sergeant Harrert nor Bannon could keep from breaking out in laughter. Though he didn’t much like being the butt of the XO’s joke, Avery appreciated he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it.

Seeing the lieutenant’s discomfort, Bannon put his official, no bullshit company commander’s face back on. “You’re going to the 2nd Platoon,” he informed Avery in an even tone of voice. “The man you are replacing was a damned good platoon leader who was killed four days ago. I hope you have better luck.”

After allowing this grim thought to linger in the young officer’s mind a moment, Bannon continued. “Your platoon sergeant is Sergeant First Class Hebrock. He’s been running the platoon since Lieutenant McAlister was killed. Your only hope of surviving this folderol is to listen to what that man says and tells you what you need to do. Since I haven’t a clue as to how much time we’ll have before we move out and head off back into the meat grinder, my advice to you, lieutenant, is not to waste a second of it. Is that clear?”

Taken aback by this cheerless how-do-you-do, Avery simply replied, “Yes, sir,” and waited for the next shock.

Closing his notebook, Bannon turned to the XO. “Bob, we’ll finish this up later during the evening meal. In the meantime, take the lieutenant down to 2nd Platoon and turn him over to Sergeant Hebrock. Then you best get down to battalion CP and check on the replacement for our FIST track. I damned sure don’t want to let battalion let that one slip.”

“OK. You need anything else from battalion while I’m there?”

“Just the usual. Mail, if there is such a thing, and a fresh can of give-a-shit. The one I have is almost empty.”

With a straight face, Uleski got up, gathered up his notebook and map, and took off at a fast pace. “Come on Avery, this way.”

After giving Bannon a quick salute, Avery gathered up his gear and took off at a trot to catch up to Uleski who was already thirty meters away, thinking as he went that his greeting to Team Yankee and the attitude of its commanding officer was not at all what he had been expecting. This sent his mind to racing off in all different directions as he tried to figure out what was going to happen next.

It wasn’t until the evening meal that Avery had a chance to talk to Gerry Garger. The whole afternoon had been one rude shock after another. The greeting from the Team commander had been warm compared to that received from the platoon. Although Randy Avery was no fool and knew not to expect open arms and warm smiles, he had at least thought he’d be greeted with a handshake and a welcome aboard. What he got instead was a reception that ranged from indifferent to almost hostile. Sergeant First Class Hebrock had been proper, but short, following the same line that the Team commander had taken. “We’ve a lot to do and not much time, so you need to pay attention, sir.” The sir had been added almost as an afterthought and in a manner that Avery thought to be as surly as a soldier could get without crossing the line that separated proper military protocol and disrespect. Hebrock then continued with the training under way.

Sergeant Tessman, the gunner on 21, was less than happy to see the new TC and made little effort to hide it. Even the tank was not what he had expected. Unlike the new Alpha 66, which had been drawn from war stocks, the new Alpha 21 had belonged to another unit, been damaged on the opening day of the war, repaired, and reissued. Inside the turret there were still burn marks and blackened areas. The welds to repair the damage had been done quickly, crudely, and had not been painted. Tessman made a special effort to show his new TC the stains where the former TC had bled all over the tank commander’s seat.

Even Gerry Garger came across as standoffish when they finally got together late in the afternoon and acknowledged him with an offhanded hello while they ate their evening meal. He showed little interest in talking about the Team, what it had done to date, and what combat was really like. Whenever Avery asked him about the war and his thoughts on it, Garger would give simple, short answers, such as, “It’s hard” or “It’s not at all like our training at Knox.” By the end of the day, Randall Avery was feeling alone, confused, and very apprehensive.

Uleski returned from battalion with something that was almost as valuable as news that the war was over, the first letters from families in the States. The announcement that there was news from home brought everything to a stop. Even Bannon could not hide his excitement and hopes, hope that he had a letter, just one letter. This was counterbalanced by a fear there wouldn’t be one for him.

Knowing full well what a letter to his commanding officer would mean to him, Uleski wasted no time in handing Bannon his. After giving silent thanks to God, the Postmaster General, the Division Postal Detachment, and anyone he could think, he headed off in search of a quiet spot where he could be alone for a few minutes, taking no notice of those who still stood gathered around the XO in silence, waiting to see if they, too, would be lucky.

Pat and the children were safe and staying with her parents. He read that line four times before he went on. It was as if nothing else mattered. His family was safe. After having experienced emotional highs and lows in rapid succession over the past six days, the elation he felt over this news set an all-time high. Not even the ending of the war could have boosted him any higher. It was because of that elation that Bannon did not detect the subtle implications in what his wife wrote until he had read the letter for the sixth time the next day. In reading it more carefully, what she didn’t tell him spoke louder than what she had. Not all was well with her or the children. This realization dulled his joy, giving rise to new apprehensions. Even though they were safe, something terrible had happened. It would be weeks before Pat would be able to bring herself to fully recount the story of their departure from Europe. In that time, the war rolled on, taking new and ominous turns no one could foresee or predict, just as all wars have a tendency to do.