Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

Damn You, Colonel Krait

Logbase-Tango
(Decomissioned Urban Warfare Center)
Jackingtonville, Abanstan
(North Fort Hood, Texas)
Eastern Europe
(CONUS)
17 February, 1992
2100 Hours
Day One of Operation Copperhead

My vision had come back after lunch, but I was still extremely light sensitive. Charlie and Alpha, working together, had managed to secure, then fortify and set up in the concrete building. They'd worked furiously, CS grenades and smoke grenades thrown from the buildings around us urging them on. Twice they'd been aggressed, probing attacks that pulled back as soon as there was any resistance.

Captain Arthur had been pulled from his vehicle by OP4, his officers and upper NCO's all killed off by the determined attacks of the insurgents.

He was still missing, considered MIA.

At twenty-hundred hours two Chinooks had landed, dropping off "reinforcements" in the way of everyone who had been killed that morning and afternoon. We were using the roof of the building as a helipad, men ground-guiding in the helicopters by hand.

The second Chinook had landed and someone started firing off an M-60 or M-240b. Just blanks, but no blank adapter. Just sound and light to keep everyone honest. It kept people down, and the few independent rifle shots that plinked at people either sent their MILES howling or resulted in the M-60 firing if the person had their MILES keyed.

The first day of the field exercise, named "Operation Copperhead" on the paperwork, was a complete disaster as far as almost everyone in the battalion was concerned. Even our sister units and the units we were supposed to support were off balance after having III Corps graders tell them that their entire unit was dead.

It had been a slaughter. A lot of people were pissed off that OP4 had played them so completely, quite a few officers were swearing that they'd be taking it up with Range Control and III Corps's graders about the ambushes, simulated truck bombs, and everything else.

Now Donovan was next to me as we moved into one of the interior rooms.

Every access door now had guards after two privates from Alpha Company had realized that the guy digging in the MRE's was an insurgent in Lieutenant Johnson's uniform. They'd given chase when the 'insurgent' took off running.

Neither of them had come back. We had both men listed as MIA (PD) right now.

Colonel Krait, his arm in a sling to simulate a gunshot to his shoulder, was sitting in one of the chairs. SGM Ferris was in another, with a bandage around his head. The blood on his bandage was real. He'd taken a hard knock to the head fighting with one of OP4 who had tried to pull him from his vehicle, but he'd held out.

Major Cribbs was the only other officer in the room who had survived the day so far.

"Be seated," Colonel Krait said, waving his hand at the folding chairs.

Captain Hiddle looked shaken as he sat down. His First Sergeant had a black eyes and a split lip, but the big Iowan had managed to keep the insurgents from dragging him from his vehicle. The other upper NCO's and officers from the battalion shuffled in, all looking somewhat shocky.

Colonel Krait waited until we'd all settled down, lit our cigarettes, and brought out our notebooks.

"This OP4 is a determined enemy," He opened up with. "According to our briefings, the Abanstan Liberation Front has been fighting the French and the British for nearly fifteen years. They have extensive stocks of weaponry provided by the former Soviet Union, and have significant forces outside our area."

He stood up and tapped a map of a fake country. "The city we're in, Jackingtonville, is the former capital, and its civilian populace has lived under siege over the last two years. They will be untrusting, unwilling to take chances, probably not act as informants, as well as harbor insurgents."