Chapter 9

Spoils of War

A long time ago, Peters had come to the conclusion that world leaders dealt with war like a game of chess. Like pawns, they sacrificed their soldiers and people solely to fulfill greedy, intricate ambitions. Every move on a chessboard has a particular consequence. Players must strategize constantly, playing a mental game of cat and mouse. One wrong move and the consequences reverberate throughout the rest of the game. But on the world stage, these reverberating consequences have much greater implications.

Years of combat experience had shown Peters the horrors of war. He had witnessed the sadness, pain, and agony that war caused. As far as he could tell war was in fact a demon that pummeled and demolished everything in its path. War made no distinction between civilian and soldier. Its hunger was only satisfied with the spilled blood of many.

Apparently, Yuktobanian brass hadn't quite understood war's true intentions. With anger, Peters watched as Zu-23-2 antiaircraft guns were set up on the rooftops. BTR-70s guarded the roads and DShK machine guns were set up in windows. Ardovka was a beautiful town, not a fortress. Ardovka's beauty was now tainted with the appearance of tanks and troops. The once busy, cheerful streets of the Yuktobanian town were now empty. Not a soul dared to enter the streets, for fear of getting caught in a crossfire.

Peters could have complained to the Yuktobanian brass. But all the trouble he would have to go through just to voice his opinions was too much. The Yuktobanian Army commanders just wouldn't take his suggestions into consideration, besides they believed that were fighting the war the right way. Some people were foolish enough, not to listen.

Most often times, Peters was known to voice his opinions to his men. Of the eleven marines under his command, Tomas was the one most likely to add his two cents on anything that Peters talked about. Usually what Tomas had to say wasn't what Peters wanted to hear. But Peters preferred the truth more over than anything.

Tomas and Peters walked along the streets of Ardovka, musing on the martial transitions dawning upon the beautiful town.

"There are two ways a man can fight a war, Tomas." Peters said walking down Ardovka's main road.

"Either as a coward or a soldier?" Tomas replied in the form of a question.

"Couldn't have said it better myself." Peters beckoned toward the AA guns, "Men who fight and men who hide."

"Making a reference to those double A's I see. But I'd hate to bust your bubble here sir, but war ain't exactly got a set of rules."

"Never has and never will." Peters sighed, "War is what you make it nowadays."

"Fun and games, war of attrition, holy war. The list of names goes on and on." Tomas added sarcastically. "But no matter how you look at it, war never changes. Its just a contest of body counts."

"And to think we've put up with it for this long. Guess we've become numb to killing people."

"Hopefully, you don't mean killing people in a collective sense. Now you know I can kill a man without feeling bad about it. But even I have a conscience sir, killing civilians or hiding behind them isn't on my to-do list."

"Not on mine either. It really is sad that our military assumes that the Oseans won't hit our equipment in a civilian area."

"Well, you know what they say about assume. Makes an a$$ outta you and me. Civilian casualties are just as big a part of war as military casualties and for our boys to assume that the Oseans won't take care of business, is a big mistake."

"Even we, meaning me and everyone in my squad have had to call in airstrikes in heavily populated areas. Didn't like it, but that's just a part of war we all have to contend with."

"Looks that way don't it? But I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. We're not the ones who order strikes in civilian areas so I'm not worrying."

"We're just the pawns in this deadly game. We mean nothing in the grand scheme of things."

"And neither do the innocent."

--

A few miles away, it was work as usual. Osean patrols were sent out to investigate enemy movements while others remained to guard the barnyard. More paratroopers were expected to drop in any moment, which made some of the paratroopers feel more at ease.

Athos was once again with his squad keeping watch for suspicious activity. It was a great time for conversation to perk back up again.

"Had a nightmare this afternoon sir?" Andersen asked.

"You weren't supposed to know that?" Athos replied, "Which means someone obviously couldn't keep their mouth shut." Athos shot Addison a look.

"Sorry 'bout that, Sarge. Just thought we all should know about it." Addison said.

"And why is that?" Athos asked angrily.

"Um… Because… Uh… Well, you know sir, we're blood brothers out here and…" Addison stumbled.

"First of all, I don't wanna be your blood brother. Second of all, you're not going to hear about my dream because it's about a bad experience."

"What breaking up with your girlfriend?" Myers smirked.

"You know what Private. Keep talking like that and you'll end up with a foot up your ass." Athos hissed, "And if you can tell I'm not having a good day. So shut your damn mouth and look out for the enemy. Is that, understood, Private?

"Won't let it happen again sir?" Myers cowered.

"Great job buddy. You succeeded in pissing off the Sergeant." James said sarcastically.

"Not like I planned to a$$hole. Besides what do you know about war?" Myers shot back angrily.

"Enough to keep my mouth shut." James answered.

"HEY! I don't lead a bunch of little girls here." Athos nearly yelled.

"Now do your damn jobs before you miss something."

"Yes sir!" The two soldiers replied.

Quiet came over the squad. Everyone was obviously on edge because of the heat but also because of tension. Athos was still getting over the nightmare he had. Reliving bad experiences, especially at a time like this, didn't leave people in the best of spirits. But getting mad at his men wasn't going to make things any better.

"Alright, sorry about that." Athos said blankly.

"Apology accepted." Addison whispered quietly.

"Don't push it, Corporal. You're lucky I didn't shoot you."

"And I thank you for not shooting me, Sarge. So if ya don't mind telling us, what the hell was this nightmare all about?" Addison replied.

"It's a recurring dream I have every now and then. Basically a bad firefight on my first combat jump."

"That bad sir?" Blake asked.

"Yeah." Athos looked at Blake, "That bad."

"You're still here, sir. You obviously must have done something right during that firefight, especially for a guy who fought for the first time." James said.

"Let's just say I got lucky that time. Fastest seven minutes of my life and by far the scariest. Belka is not a fun place to be."

"Belka actually had an army, sir? I thought they had just a couple of nuts with guns." Andersen said.

"All of us young paratroopers thought the same thing at the time. But we got more than we bargained for. You see, we thought that after the '95 war that there wasn't much left of Belka's army and we were right to some extent. It just turned out that our drop zone was near a high concentration of the last Belkan troops. Some intelligence officer screwed up and because of that screw up, about 150 of our guys died in that single engagement."

"Well how did they surprise you guys?" Wilkes asked.

"Hid behind trees on a hillside, at least a couple hundred of 'em. We were on a road, which is just about the dumbest place you can be during wartime. Anyways, these guys emerge from the wooded hillside like ghosts and start stampeding down the hill at us. Fortunately I found me a good spot in a ditch. Saved my life if you ask me."

"How come the Belkans didn't kill you then? Weren't there like hundreds of 'em?" Jenkins asked.

"Yeah, they could have had us. But by some God given miracle, some allied pilots from an ISAF squadron known as, Mobius, returning from a mission gave us some much needed close air support. Owe those flyboys my life, 'cause if it weren't for their napalm strike, we would have been toast." Athos explained.

"Heard of Mobius squadron before. Destroyed that Stonehenge thingy about a good ten yeas ago. Got the best 64 pilots on the continent I've heard." Blake informed everyone.

"Well, whoever those guys were, they saved our a$$es." Athos said.

"So if you don't mind me asking, Sarge. You kill anyone that day?" Andersen asked.

"Yeah, and in the moment of doing it I had no second thoughts. I was simply trying to survive. And let me tell you, for those first couple of seconds, the sight of tracers and hearing those bullets zipping by, was practically paralyzing. But realizing that I wanted to live, I just started shooting and the feeling is a lot different than shooting a M-16 down range and paper targets. Your brain makes you do horrible things to survive." Athos explained.

"You kill any more men since that they?" Jenkins asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm a soldier and paratrooper at that. I have to kill people to accomplish a mission and to save my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers. After a while I soon came to grips with taking a man's life."

"How does one do that, sir? I mean none of us can really rationalize killing another human being." Blake said.

"Yes and no, Private. I say yes in the sense that you have to kill another soldier to accomplish an objective and prevent him from killing you and others. But I also say no, because that soldier you're killing could be a father, son, brother. Damn, he's related to somebody, y'know? But getting accustomed to killing wasn't easy."

"I bet it wasn't Sarge. After all who wants to kill someone?" Jenkins said.

"Commanders, fellow soldiers, and my own musing helped me to reach a conclusion. I figured that the man I'm trained to kill is trained to kill me. If I don't cut him down, he'll do the deed for me. That was the first realization I had. Later I learned that sometimes you have to kill another person to save the lives of others. Now, that may seem ridiculous to some but let me say this. Say a guy is holding an RPG, and ready to shoot down a chopper full of wounded men. Now if I'm standing right beside him and have a sudden change of conscience, that guy with the RPG, is going to kill about twelve wounded men. You see where I'm going with this? If I don't shoot that guy with the RPG, I'm just as responsible for the deaths of the wounded soldiers as that guy with the RPG is."

"Wow sir." James said.

"Make's a whole hell'uva lot of sense."

"Same here, Sarge." Blake added, "Makes me feel a little bit better."

"Well, for one thing those incoming C-17s are…"

"Oh, my, God." Jenkins said quietly.

In the distance, two C-17s were trying to evade some missiles.

Athos stood up, "C'mon guys shake 'em off!" Athos growled.

The others watched in horror as the planes desperately tried to maneuver away from the missiles. Flares were dispersed to try and spoof the missiles, but the giant cargo planes proved too slow. Then in one last seeming act of defiance, the C-17's leveled out to disperse their cargo.

"Holy sh!t their dropping troops while being shot at!"

Only a handful of paratroopers made it out of one plane before a missile slammed into the fuselage of one of the lumbering aircraft. In a sickening display of fireworks, the aircraft disintegrated into a ball of fire.

"God dammit! They can't do a damn thing!" Wilkes yelled.

The other aircraft dropped some more troops but not before a missile impacted right off its tail. Soon afterwards the aircraft began to spin rapidly out of control. Small specks started falling out of the aircraft as the plane hurtled towards the ground. Unfortunately, the small specks were human beings.

"Mother f#k! There it goes!" Addison yelled.

Helplessly, Athos and his squad watched the aircraft hurtle towards the earth with the sickening whine of a dying beast. Then, as the aircraft disappeared below the horizon a hellish flame ripped into the sky, with a deafening roar. No one survived.

"We just gonna sit here Sarge or check for survivors! Guys could still be alive out there." Blake suggested in a distressed voice.

"Calm down Private, we'll do something. For now we just stay put." Athos said in a hearty voice.

"I'm sure as hell anxious to do something, Sarge. I'm ready." Andersen said angrily.

"Me too sir." Addison followed cocking his rifle.

"Sorry to be an asshole gentlemen! But that doesn't mean a God damned thing until you shoot the son of a bitch! Understood? So don't be a hero unless you know what you're getting yourself into." Athos yelled.

"But men are dying out there, Sarge! We just can't sit on our asses and let 'em die!" James said.

"You think I don't know that soldier!" Athos' asked with a fiery look in his eyes.

"Listen, this happened too damn fast and we don't have any orders right now! So until we are given orders, we will stay right here!" Athos commanded.

"But, Sarge!" Myers protested.

"This isn't debatable soldier! You get your head on and get ready for what ever the hell comes next!"

The real war had just begun.