Aftermath A
Colonel Thomas Williams, commander of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade, stood just outside the entrance to the headquarters building of one of his subordinate battalions, the 309th MI, and conferred with his subordinate commander. All around them, soldiers of the 309th went about their post-battle tasks. A string of yellow-and-white party canopies scavenged from somewhere in town had been erected in the parking lot, and picnic benches had been put in place underneath the canopies. Soldiers sat in long rows, cleaning weapons. Attempting to gauge the mood of his troops when he first approached the 309th headquarters, Williams noticed that the soldiers were almost silent as they worked. Occasionally, one would stop what he or she was doing and stare into the distance. After a time, a neighbor would notice and gently urge the staring soldier back to business.
As brigade commander, Williams could have summoned the commander of the 309th to the brigade headquarters. On this day, Williams preferred to see the line units for himself. Things appeared to be going as they should. The soldiers were busy preparing their equipment for the next round of fighting, whether that be later in the day or in a month. The weapons always came first; Williams had been pleased to discover that the machine guns, mortars, rifles, and grenade launchers of the able-bodied soldiers had been handled already. This morning, a detachment of soldiers was working on the recovered weapons of the fallen. NCOs were present, but none were barking orders. Everyone seemed to know what had to be done.
Water was available, Williams had noticed. Soup had been put out on a small cart at the end of several of the benches, along with ersatz coffee. Battle gear—helmets, load bearing equipment with magazine pouches, canteens, BDU jackets, packs, and cleaned rifles, squad automatic weapons, and machine guns—was arranged in tidy rows behind the benches. Clearly, the platoon sergeants had been active earlier.
“Sir,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ann Petrowicz, the 309th Battalion commander, “I don’t remember the headcount for Bravo Company. I’ve got it in my office. Do you want to go inside?”
“No,” said Williams, smiling wryly. “I know I sprung this meeting on you. Go ahead and get it. Bring your S-3 and sergeant major back with you. There are some things we need to discuss, but I want to do it out here.”
When Petrowicz had gone inside her headquarters, Williams turned and walked out into the parking lot and into the blazing summer sun of southeastern Arizona. It was only nine in the morning, but already the temperature had climbed into the low nineties. Williams was certain it would be over one hundred degrees today, as it had been for the past several days. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it had been in Yuma, he reflected. Early June temperatures in Yuma typically were near one hundred twenty degrees—warmer on the pavement where much of the fighting had taken place. At nearly a mile in elevation, Sierra Vista was just on the bearable side of torrid in the summer, provided one had plenty of water. Just stepping out of the shade of the overhang of headquarters roof, Williams felt himself getting warmer instantly.
Williams looked up into the flawlessly blue southern Arizona sky. The monsoon wouldn’t come for another month. Until then, the land would bake by day and simmer by night. Absently, Williams wondered if there was something wrong with him for feeling a strong attachment to a place where life could be so difficult.
The brigade commander took a deep breath, tasting the air. Fort Huachuca still smelled like a battle. The overwhelming smell was of fire: ash and smoke. Mixed in was the sickeningly sweet scent of burned flesh, along with the unmistakable smell of gunpowder. The Molotov cocktails used in the last-ditch defense of the post had been a good idea, if a desperate one. Unfortunately, all that uncontrolled flame in vegetation that hadn’t received rain in at least five months had ignited a very substantial grass fire. Many, many acres had gone up in smoke. For a time, the fire threatened to enter the main post. As nature would have it, though, the grass fires hadn’t been hot enough to ignite the mesquite trees, although many of them lost a lot of leaves. The fire had also inspired a lot of the Mexican troops to surrender or flee. Though it was impossible to say that the flames had decided the fight for Fort Huachuca, the fire certainly appeared to have been an ally. That ally seemed determined to remind everyone on post of its contribution. Despite the work of a large contingent of civilian volunteers with shovels and buckets of precious water, the burned ground on the west side of post continued to issue forth lazy streamers of smoke and flying ash.
With a rueful grin, Williams said to himself, “Smells like victory.”
With a few exceptions, the buildings between Williams and the source of the smoke looked much as they had before the war—before the nukes. The battalions of the 111th were housed in a long double row of one-story and two-story buildings with wide footprints, walls of dull red blocks of simulated sandstone, Spanish-style red tile roofs, and surrounds of gravel with small islands of mesquite trees, ornamental grasses, and succulents. The landscaping still looked reasonably good, Williams mused, because there were always soldiers in need of additional duties. The buildings looked like they had last year, before the nuclear exchange started in Europe. The buildings looked like they had when the nation was prosperous and vital and everything was still plentiful: like when Williams could take a few minutes out of the day to drive out Buffalo Soldier Gate and into Sierra Vista to get a giant cup of coffee with three tubs of creamer and four packages of sugar at the Circle K.
Ah, don’t go down that road, Williams warned himself.
Casting about for something to bring him back to the present, Williams turned his attention to the soldiers cleaning weapons under the canopies. Almost all of them had doffed their camouflage outer layer—technically called a jacket but more like a thick button-down shirt—and were working in their issue brown T-shirts. They were all sweating in the gathering heat. Dark spots had grown under their arms and along their backs. Again, Williams was struck by their quiet diligence. These were the same people who had volunteered to join the Army as Military Intelligence soldiers who had been thrust into the role of Military Police following the admittedly limited nuclear strikes on the United States last November and December. They had endured months of civil defense missions in all their ugly forms. These former MI soldiers, some of whom had never even seen a regular unit, distributed emergency supplies and engaged in firefights with desperate and angry civilians. These former MI soldiers had been thrust into the role of infantry and had persevered. They had fought at Nogales, Yuma, and Casa Adobes. The survivors in front of him had seen two of every three comrades fall by the wayside in seven months. They had refused to commit suicide or desert, as so many of their fellows had. They had repulsed the enemy and overrun his defenses. They had fought for their homeland and triumphed at awful cost in friends and comrades. And now they sat and worked and quietly prepared themselves for the next opportunity to give their lives. Williams felt a sudden, nearly overwhelming surge of affection for these young men and women. He had harbored grave doubts that they would be able to take the Mexican position at Casa Abodes. Yet despite losses that should have turned them back, these ill-trained riflemen had struggled over the bodies of their fellows to tackle the enemy and wrestle him into submission. It was nothing short of inspirational.
“Sir, I’ve got those headcounts,” said a voice from behind Williams.
Knot in his throat, Williams turned and nodded. Petrowicz had brought her operations officer and senior noncommissioned officer, as Williams had directed. If any of them noticed the play of emotions on Williams’ face, they were discrete enough to make no mention of it. The four of them conferred for a time on the much-reduced manpower of the battalion and juggled ideas for making the battalion combat ready as soon as possible. After a while, the 309th command sergeant major pointed over Williams’ shoulder.
“Sir, I think there’s someone here for you.”
Walking down the broad sidewalk linking the battalion buildings was a small knot of soldiers. The soldier in the lead was unmistakably the post commander; although he looked much like any other officer on post with his standard-issue BDUs, boots, patrol cap, and sidearm in a holster under his left shoulder, the twin bright silver stars on his patrol cap made it impossible to confuse Major General Charles Thomason with anyone else on Fort Huachuca. Thomason was accompanied by his aide/bodyguard, a couple of staffers from headquarters, and a civilian Williams didn’t recognize. Thomason’s left arm was in a sling, and his forearm was heavily bandaged. The others in the group fell back as Thomason approached Williams.
The post commander stopped in front of the little group standing in the entrance to the 309th Battalion headquarters. He was not a big man, but he spoke like a man accustomed to getting his way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, can I steal your CO for a few minutes?” When the other three quickly nodded their assent, Thomason said: “Walk with me, Tom.”
The commanding general of Fort Huachuca and the commanding officer of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade walked across the parking lot and down the sidewalk fronting the main avenue adjacent to the long row of battalion buildings until they were effectively alone.
Thomason said, “You did a hell of a job, Tom. You saved us all.”
Williams said, “The way I hear it, sir, you didn’t need any saving.” After a moment, he added, “How’s that arm?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” Thomason said with a grimace. “So you heard about General Smith?”
Williams nodded. “He was a good man.”
Thomason grunted noncommittally. “He died a soldier’s death. He’d be happy.”
The pair walked another few steps. Then Thomason said, “I need a new deputy. Interested?”
“Sir, if you’ll pardon my saying so, aren’t there a couple of more senior colonels on post?”
“Those days are over, Colonel. Those men ended up running garbage projects for a reason. Would you really recommend either of them to replace me if this wing of mine gets gangrene?”
Williams said, “No, sir, I wouldn’t.” He waited three more paces before asking, “Who’ll replace me?”
“Who do you recommend?”
Without hesitation, Williams said, “Dave Alipranti. I couldn’t have done it without him. He’s the real deal, sir. Don’t get me wrong, sir—my XO did a good job. J.C. Comeau is a good officer, but that S-3 really came through for us.”
Thomason nodded. “I agree. I have another job for J.C., anyway. Refresh my memory—what’s Alipranti’s story?”
“Twenty-Fourth ID in Kuwait, sir. He was a battalion XO when the Republican Guard came south again. His commander got hit on the second day of the fight. Dave took over and commanded until July, I think. His track hit a mine, and he got flown back here for surgery. Didn’t you pin him light colonel last October?”
“I did,” Thomason said. “We’re lucky it worked out for us.”
“That we are, sir. Can I ask what you have in mind for J.C.?”
“I don’t want Major Bonnfeld running the 326th. How do you feel about him?”
Williams paused for a moment to give the impression he was considering his answer. “I don’t think he’s ready for battalion command.” He walked four more paces. “I take it there’s something I don’t know about Colonel Olsen, other than he went on sick call this morning?”
Matter-of-factly, Thomason said, “His wife found him about thirty minutes ago.”
Williams cursed softly. “He seemed okay in the field. He ran 326th just fine. He did a good job.”
Sounding resigned, Thomason said, “Well, let me know what you think he’s earned. That goes for all of your people, Tom. I hear you have a mess of lieutenants who are going to need posthumous Bronze and Silver Stars. When you come up to headquarters, bring me a list of who you want to commission to replace them, and we’ll do a proper ceremony.”
Williams realized that Thomason had walked them in a half-loop that brought them back to the parking lot outside the 309th Battalion headquarters. Thomason turned to go. He extended his hand.
“You did a hell of a job, Tom.”
Williams shook hands with his commander. “It’s a hell of a business, sir.”
Webstral
I couldn't resist working on this a little bit, even though I have more than enough legitimate work to do this weekend.
|