Defense of Hill 781 (10 page)

Back at the TOC the staff was waiting for him with an update on the intelligence picture, a weather report, and recommendations on modifications of the mission. Major Rogers had done a superb job of integrating the efforts of the several staff officers, who with the exception of the aviation officer had completed their coordination down to the company level. The limitation on helicopters flying at night had forced the liaison officer from the aviation battalion to depart at dark; he, therefore, had missed some of the late-breaking intelligence. Despite this bothersome omission, Always was able to complete his guidance to the staff as the final order took form.

The task force would cross the line of departure at 0400 along two axes of advance. The main effort would be made in the north toward Objective JAB along Axis LEFT, Team Delta leading, followed by Team Alpha, then by the engineer platoon and Echo Company with only one platoon left under its command and control.

The supporting attack would proceed along Axis RIGHT, led by Team Charlie. Team Bravo, with only one platoon of infantrymen staying with it, would advance to Objective HOOK, where the scouts had located a platoon of BMPs waiting in ambush. They had already reduced an obstacle that was set at CP 2, but which the enemy had left uncovered. The scouts would leave an element there all night to ensure it was not reset. Bravo would additionally have a platoon from E Company attached to
it. Once HOOK was reduced, Bravo would follow Team Charlie (two tank platoons, one platoon of Bradley’s without dismounts) onto Objective CROSS to the east of Hill 781. The airmobile assault consisting of two platoons of infantry from Bravo would take off at 0415 and go into a landing zone (LZ) south of Objective CHOPPER. One scout team was making its way up there now to mark the LZ.

At the culminating point of the attack, pressure would be put on Hill 781 from the east, west, and south. Always was trying hard to achieve the mass he had missed the previous morning. To ensure that he got it the helicopters would approach along the high ground north and west of Axis LEFT, adding their fires on Objective JAB and then on Hill 781 at the crucial moments. Since the winds would be blowing from the northwest, smoke would be used to cover the crossing of the LD at 0400 and the approach of Bravo on HOOK. As the task force approached JAB and CROSS, the infantrymen on CHOPPER would fire up their smoke pots to screen their approach from direct fire. Artillery priority would go to Team D, mortar priority to Charlie. Since the pass at CP 4 was a possible enemy avenue of approach into the flank, an artillery-emplaced mine field would be planned northwest of the checkpoint, where the pass narrowed to single vehicle width. Air defense would be split left and right to cover both approaches. Always had been careful to give explicit instructions for the command and control of the air defense assets.

The operations officer would go with Team C to overlook the supporting attack. The fire support officer and the air force laison officer would come with Always in an armored personnel carrier following behind his Bradley along Axis LEFT, tucked in behind Delta. The colonel wanted to be sure he did not lose control of either critical fire support officer, although the air force officer protested that he would be severely restricted without his jeep to talk to the air force. After some severe squeezing
by the infantry colonel, the young lieutenant admitted he had a portable radio, but protested it did not work very well. Always growled at his communications officer to fix the necessary radios to keep him in contact with his fire support. The whole business seemed excessively unwieldy to the task force commander.

At 0045 Always made his way over to his Bradley to get some sleep before the intelligence update at 0330. Spivey and Sharp had stretched out a cot between the infantry vehicle and the jeep. With a quiet word of thanks, and without taking off any of his uniform, Always collapsed on the cot and drifted into a deep sleep.

A voice from way off in space called Always back from the bottomless well into which he had sunk. “Sir, it’s three-twenty. It’s time for you to get up.” Sharp talking.

Always’ tongue must have swollen three times its normal size. Either that or he had a sock stuffed in his mouth. Sand and dried sweat combined to seal his eyes shut. He was struggling to come out of his sleep. A chill shook his body in the relative cool of the desert predawn. He regretted he had not put a poncho over himself when he laid down. The stitches over his eye throbbed, and his head felt like it would split open as he brought himself to a sitting position. Altogether, he felt like be was on the losing end of a fifteen-round decision.

“Have you set the radios, Sharp?” Always would never have dropped the rank if he had been more awake. It was a rule he set for himself.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s my call sign?”

“You’re Romeo 36 today, sir. Here’s the ‘cheat sheet.’” Sharp handed him the board with markings of the battalion’s call signs and frequencies.

Always tried to memorize the critical alphanumerics as he relieved himself, his eyes straining in the faint moonlight.

Wearily he climbed into the commander’s cupola to establish radio contact. He was tempted to walk back over to the TOC for the exercise, but knew he had to ensure that he could talk to everyone from his own radios. Even the artillery officer and the air force liaison, themselves just getting up into the personnel carrier only fifteen feet away, would be compelled to check in over the radio.

While answering the colonel’s question Sharp had stripped away the sleeping gear, cleared the jeep and the Bradley for action, and departed with the jeep. Everyone in the battalion was ready to move.

Two scout vehicles had been fired upon in the night, one apparently destroyed since no further word had come from it after the initial report of contact. The other had escaped after being chased back from the vicinity of Hill 781. It had been able to drop off a dismount team with a radio, smoke, and a panel marker to bring in the airmobile assault. Precise locations had been given on the enemy vehicles on Objective HOOK. Always told his artillery officer to plan a fire mission to put in on them at precisely 0415, the time he figured Team Bravo would be deploying for its assault. The winds were as predicted; Always confirmed the smoke missions. With a final response from all parties on the net, Always closed out the conversation and moved with Delta to an attack position just short of the line of departure. At 0400 the battalion started to move across.

The smoke covered the attackers well and blew to the southeast, hiding their advance up the valley. It had a slowing effect on the movements of the columns, but the ground, particularly along Axis LEFT (Always had made his reconnaissance along Axis RIGHT the day before), was so rough as to force them to a five-mile-per-hour pace. The combined effects were advantageous to the task force. It was moving unheard and unseen along its attack routes with no interference from the enemy. Captain
Baker, on his toes this morning, called and asked to defer the artillery strike until 0430. Always approved and passed the order to his FSO.

Remarkably, everyone’s radio was operating in secure. The colonel was thankful for small miracles. He had been driven almost mad switching back and forth the day before. As bad as his head ached this morning, he did not want to repeat that grief. He munched on a hunk of chocolate cake from his MRE stock. His only difficulty at the moment was the beating he was taking in the cupola as the vehicle lurched up and down a maze of wadis wildly intersecting the valley floor. A belt held him in his collapsible seat, exacerbating Always’ savage pivoting as it pressed against his hips. He didn’t know how Sergeant Kelso could stand to keep his eye pressed against the gunner’s sight under these conditions. The colonel concluded his gunner was one tough hombre.

Baker hit HOOK just as the artillery lifted and before Carter emerged from the smoke to come under the guns of the enemy. The ambushers were ambushed, and Baker did a good job in mopping them up. The three BMPs that survived the artillery concentration were destroyed by the approaching Bradleys, who picked them out with their thermal sights through the smoke. The defenders never saw what hit them. The only setback came when a dismounted Sagger missile hit one of Baker’s Bradleys, destroying the vehicle, wounding the gunner, and killing three of the infantrymen riding in back. Instinctively, Always knew that it was a mistake to ride the infantrymen into close combat like that. The Bradley was a tough vehicle, but anything that moves can be destroyed if something big enough hits it. The tactics should have been a little more carefully worked out. There was no reason why they could not have dismounted a little earlier, at least before they emerged from the smoke. He recorded that thought in the back of his mind. There would be casualties enough in the battle. No need giving any away.

The airmobile assault had lifted off on time. A report came in that they had landed all right, but shortly after, that radio communication had been lost. The range was too great, and the infantrymen were staying much too low—as they must—to keep the radio waves on line. Always hoped Bravo could reestablish communication as he closed in on its infantrymen.

Brigade called at 0500 to report that the armor battalion on the right was being held up by a stiff defense by the enemy. The higher headquarters also reported a buildup of enemy forces to the north of Always’ objectives. For the moment, the orders still stood, but the brigade commander implied that a change might be forthcoming. The situation would have to develop a bit before any reassessments could be made.

In the vicinity of Checkpoint 3 an obstacle was located that had not been found by the scouts during the night. Cautiously, Team Delta deployed its infantry dismounts into the high ground to the west. The conservatism paid off as they found an enemy scout after a forty-five-minute hunt, drove him to ground, and killed him. A tough bastard, he had fought to the last, in the final moments throwing his radio off a cliff in order to protect whatever frequency it had been set on. The crush of time negated sending down a team to retrieve it.

Subsequently, the engineers came up and removed the mines from in front of the obstacle, allowing the task force to resume its movement. An artillery barrage came in, but missed by a wide margin; the dead enemy scout was to have adjusted it. Although the attack was being slowed (the supporting attack was held up to allow for coordinated movement), there was no way around the mine field. Every pass through the wadis at this juncture had been similarly mined. Always would have to reduce them methodically.

Nonetheless, things were going fairly smoothly. With only a few casualties, the task force had moved approximately half the distance planned. The ambush had been nullified and the
obstacles were being reduced. Only the lack of communication with the infantry on CHOPPER bothered Always. He was reassured, however, by the fact that the TOC reported that all helicopters had made it back safely. They had gone in unharmed. Yet, time was slipping away. It was almost 0700, and they still had a way to go. For mechanized forces that were able to sprint at more than forty miles an hour, they were moving at a snail’s pace. Always tried to control his impatience.

He did not know, could not know, how critical time was to his mission. The armor battalion on his right was suffering heavy casualties at the moment, faltering in its attack, and relieving enemy concerns from that direction. Having deduced that Always was making progress, albeit slow, the enemy shifted forces to defeat him before he could mount his final assault. The defenders had seen the airmobile insertion, and although they could not react immediately, they were mustering two motorized platoons with an attached section of tanks to destroy Bravo’s infantry. In the meantime they made life as uncomfortable as they could for the dismounted force by plastering the area with mortar and artillery fire. Lieutenant Rodriguez, in command of the two-platoon force, was having to move out of the fire, strapped with increasing numbers of casualties. His attempt to reach his commander on the radio met with repeated failures. It was only by dint of his strong leadership that he held his men together, determined to press on with his mission.

At 0800 the attack helicopters appeared, approaching from the task force’s left rear.

“Romeo 36, this is Sierra 82. I’ve got your dust in sight. What is your situation?” It was the lead company commander.

“Shit!” Always cursed over the intercom. The aviator was talking on his radio in the unsecure mode (in the “red”).

“This is Romeo 36. Go secure. I repeat, go green.” Always had switched his radio off secure.

“Uh, negative. Can’t do that. We don’t have your cipher. I’ve got to stay red. Where do you want us?”

Always was furious. Trying to control his temper, he told the captain he was not ready for his fires yet, that he estimated it would be another forty-five minutes before he was in position to assault, and that he needed the aviators to get the right cipher before coming up on the battalion net.

The aviator responded that he could not burn fuel for the next forty-five minutes and still have enough for the fight, that he was not sure he could find the cipher, and that he would have to go back and set down to conserve fuel. With that he led his element back down the valley.