Out of the Ashes

“No, sir,” Krigel said, a calmness and finality in his voice. “I will not obey that order.” He removed his pistol from leather and handed it to General Como. “I'm through, Paul—that's it.”

General Como, red-faced and trembling, looked at the .45 in his hand, then backhanded his friend with his other hand. Blood trickled from Krigel's mouth. Krigel did not move.

Como turned to a sergeant major, who had stood impassively by throughout the exchange between the generals. “Sergeant Major, I want this man placed under arrest. If he attempts to resist, use whatever force is necessary to subdue him. Understood?” He gave the sergeant major Krigel's .45.

The sergeant major gripped General Krigel's arm and nodded. He didn't like the order just given him. He'd been a member of an LRRP team in Vietnam—back when he was a young buck—and the idea of special troops fighting special troops didn't set well with him. American fighting American was wrong, no matter how you cut it up.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant major said, but he was thinking: just let me get General Krigel out of this area and by God, we'll both link up with Raines's Rebels. Us, and a bunch of other men.

General Como turned to his aide, Captain Shaw. “Tell General Hazen he is now in charge of the Eighty-second. Get his troopers dropped. Those that won't go, have them placed under arrest. If they resist, shoot them. Tell General Cruger to get his marines across those borders and take their objectives. Start it. Right now! Those troopers should have already been on the ground.”

Shaw nodded his understanding, if not his agreement. The young captain was career military, and he had his orders, just as he was sure Raines's people had theirs.

“Yes, sir.” He walked away. “Right away, sir.”

General Como blinked rapidly several times. He was very close to tears, and then he was crying, the tears running down his tanned cheeks. “Goddamn it,” he whispered. “What a fucking lash-up.”

The first few companies of marines and their spearheaders, the force recon, hit the edge of the strip and died there. The area had been softened up with artillery and heavy-mortar fire, but Ben's people were in tunneled bunkers, and when the shelling stopped, up they popped.

The marines established a beachhead, or, in this case, a secure perimeter, taking the first three thousand yards. They always take their objective—that's why they are marines—but the price was hideous. Neither side gave the other any mercy or quarter. For every meter gained that morning and early afternoon, the price was paid in human suffering.

The Rebels of the Tri-states waited until the paratroopers were on the ground and free of their ‘chutes before opening fire. Those were Ben's orders, and the only act of mercy shown on either side. The first troopers to hit the DZs were killed almost instantly, raked with heavy .50-caliber machine-gun fire ... or blown to bits with mortar fire.

By evening of the second day, the government troops were well inside the Tri-states’ borders, coming in from north to south, east and west, hoping to trap the Rebels in a pocket. But Ben's people had reverted to guerrilla tactics and scattered; they had no group larger than battalion size, and most were platoon or company size. They hit hard, then they ran, and they booby-trapped everything.

The government troops who stormed the Tri-states soon learned what hell must be like. Everything they came into contact with either blew up, shot at them, bit them, or poisoned them. The older men thought they'd seen war at its worst in ‘Nam, but this surpassed anything they'd ever experienced.

Earlier, the medical people in the Tri-states had discovered packs of rabid animals and captured them, keeping them alive as long as possible, transferring the infected cultures into the bloodstreams of every warm-blooded animal they could find. The day the invasion began, the animals were turned loose all over the area. It was cruel. Isn't war always?

The government troops began their search-and-destroy missions. They entered hospitals and nursing homes and found the patients had been armed. The very old and sick and dying fought just as savagely as the young and strong and healthy. Old people, with tubes hanging from their bodies, some barely able to crawl, hurled grenades and shot at the special troops. And the young men in their jump boots and berets and silver wings wept as they killed the old people. Tough marines cried at the carnage.

Many of the young soldiers threw down their weapons and walked away, refusing to take part in more killing. It was not cowardice on their part—not at all. These young men would have fought to the death against a threat to liberty; but the people of the Tri-states were no threat to their liberty. And the young troops finally learned the lesson their forefathers died for at Valley Forge: people have a right to be free, to live and work and play in peace and personal freedom—and to govern themselves.