Chapter 6

When I met with Lieutenant Nichols just before the others joined me, my decision to leave this morning was justified. She told me that there was going to be a big push in our area tomorrow. They wanted me to instill confusion into the nets of the armor and artillery units directly in front of us. The theater commander had decreed that this front had become too static and he wanted some movement. I was told that 1st Cav to our north, and 1st AD to our south were going to push at the same time, but 2nd AD was expected to break through and get to the rear of their area.

Wolfelt, Fleming, and I got all the info we should need to plan a proper mission to back up the division. Lt. Nichols promised to keep us up to date on the time frame and attack area.

Ann had done her job and we were loaded, fueled and on our way before noon. I wanted a hide position well in the rear to get all three systems in one place to do our planning. I expected to stay together for one night and move to individual positions tomorrow morning to await jump off time.

Rodriguez joined Lani in the goat as security and navigator. This put Stretch in the track with Kat and me. If I had the time when we got done with this mission, I was going to have an intercom put into this beast. I had so many things I wanted to discuss with both girls, and hand gestures were not going to do it.

At the hide site I spread the maps out. We used the trailer of the jeep from team 2 as a table because it had a plywood top. This was going to be the most complicated mission we had done yet. There were five nets to be targeted to one extent or another, and we would be using two teams active, and one in motion. I was going to start with team 1 and two active. Team one would drop after about five minutes and team three would start up. Team one would move and as soon as they came back up, team two would drop and move. We would continue this rotation until one of us was targeted. At that point we would all drop and reposition. I didn't expect this to last too long. Our impact on the battlefield would not be able to be planned much after the action started. We would be reduced to targets of opportunity. We needed to plan for both success and failure as well. If the push succeeded, we would need new sites east of where we were now, but if it failed we would have to retreat and be prepared to run.

After dinner I was introduced to the other two new members of the teams. Cpl Williams was a small woman who had been a Boston Police Officer brought up from the reserves; she was working with Ann on team 2. Sgt Ron Wilson looked like he could lose some weight, until you noticed the arms bulging the sleeves of his BDU's. This man was built like a wrestler and was not to be trifled with. He should do well with Wolfelt.

By dinnertime all the planning was done, and all that was left was to wait for zero hour. All three teams were monitoring the stations they had been assigned and making recordings to use.

That night Stretch's cot joined Kat's and mine. There was no hanky panky and of course we all had guard duty.

Once we had breakfast we split up and proceeded to our sites to prepare for action.

Nineteen-thirty zulu was jump off time, and this time I waited till 1930z to begin operations. We did not want to warn the enemy. The attack needed to be a surprise, and a surprise it was. Our plans broke down within minutes of the start. Several of the units I was targeted against were off the net right away. Our artillery was pounding the shit out of them and nets were dropping left and right. We could feel the rounds landing miles away through the floor of the track. Our highest priority targets were the surface to air rocket sites. There were no SA-2's in this area, but there was an SA-4 net and an SA-6. I heard the Hornets scream overhead and the Wild Weasels took out the anti-air almost as soon as they popped their heads up.

Five minutes into operations Lani hit our scram button. Team 2 had joined the fight and it was time for us to move.

When we got to the next site we all piled out and I headed to the rear of the track. Suddenly I heard two shots ring out and Kat yelled, "NA PRAVA, ONI NA PRAVA"

I dropped to my belly at the rear of the track facing out to the wooded area to the left of the vehicle and flipped my rifle off safe. "RODRIGUEZ, 3 O'CLOCK, STRETCH, GET THE 6, LANI, THE 12, I HAVE 9." All positions in a site were relative to the TACJAM, it was always pointing at 12 o'clock. I didn't give a command to Kat because I was sure that she would join me if she could. I saw movement in the trees ahead of me and snapped off a shot with my M-16. I wasn't sure whether or not I hit the target, but I could not see it anymore. There were several shots behind me and I heard a couple hit the side of the TACJAM. A moment later a small body dropped next to me and Kat touched my shoulder.

"I go to put down rod and see man in woods pointing gun at goat. I shoot same time he did and he drop. We near where farm was, maybe same people burn my familia. Maybe I kill one of them, I hope so."

Kat's English took a bad turn when she was not able to give attention to it. She would slip in Russian words without realizing it; especially if the Russian word was near the sound of the English word she was looking for, such as "familia" for "family". She would also drop most of the small words, like "the" and "a", and verb tenses and persons would go by the way as well. I was used to this as the Russian teachers at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey were all native speakers and when they got excited they would do the same thing.