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

Site Delta

Up ahead were tanks. My brain identified them as older T series design, hell, some of them were older than the tanks we'd wiped out in Desert Storm. Most of them were T-55 and T-62, with none of the addon packages we'd seen out at Atlas.

No T-72 or T-80 series. Neither were a match for the M-1 series, but we were infantry with AT-4, not a main battle tank company.

The stared at us as we went by, tank commanders staring down from the hatches on the cupolas. Again I noticed that most of them were unshaven, no regulation head gear, none of them wearing standard uniforms.

It was like Iraq all over again.

I wish they'd given a better briefing. We knew who the players were, but not why the players were, and that always bothered me. Yeah, they'd mentioned Greater Serbia and all of that, but for the most part they'd avoided saying why beyond a desire for Greater Serbia and Bosnian expansionists to establish various nations.

Ethnic cleansing was a hell of a thing, but the briefing had repeatedly skipped over what was causing it. What was driving them? Racial tensions, religious incompatibility, government type, what?

It bothered me that the Navy had skipped that. Our UN briefing had skipped it. Even our Cav briefing had skipped it.

Some kind of dirty little secret.

I wished I had a CIA agent to choke the secret out of.

Still, looking at the tanks we were passing I noticed something more.

Sheer arrogance, lack of discipline, and the stares were more attempts at intimidation than gauging us.

I was looking at the tanks, the design, what mountings were on the hull, whatever I could gather for data. From running gear to armor type to reactive armor mounts. How battle damage was repaired, what damage had gone unrepaired, and what tanks weren't damaged.

T-72 tanks were largely undamaged, which told me that they'd been held back for some reason.

I could tell, looking at the tank commanders who were staring at us, that all they saw was an unmarked humvee in woodland camouflage with a SAW on it.

SALUTE, motherfucker, do you do it?

Not all armies were equal.

When we reached the Sarajevo Airport there was another blockade. This one, I could tell, was more serious. Tanks, mounted machineguns. Two barrels tracked us coming in.

"Stop here," I ordered. I triggered the headset. "All Six elements, hold back. I'm going to try to open the perimeter block."

"Falcon is on standby, moving a team up to lase," Foxtrot-Alpha, AKA Gunnery Sergeant Malik stated.

"Squelch twice when lased. Out," I told him, getting out of the vehicle.

The day was warm, humid, and I could smell the distinctive smell of burning modern building. I walked up to the leader, who had climbed out of Mercedes and was swaggering toward me with an arrogant expression. He was wearing old Soviet woodland with his thumbs in the belt.

I tapped my M-3 against my leg, drawing his attention to it. His lip curled and he tapped his fingers on his Uzi, of all things.

Christ, this was one step from a fucking bandit army.

I knew I was being arrogant in my own way. I shoved it away, reminding myself not to go off of looks. The mujahideen of Afghanistan looked unprofessional but they'd stopped the Soviet Union dead in its tracks, eventually forcing them out of Afghanistan. The Viet Cong had looked like rabble, but they'd kicked the shit out of us until the politicians had pulled us out despite winning every battle.