Ben fought back tears. His voice shook when he spoke. “Children, all children. What are their ages, Sergeant?”
The sergeant cleared his throat. Had one hell of a lump building there. “I believe, sir, their ages range from eight to sixteen or so.” “Eight!” Ben’s reply was almost a shout. “Those are babies.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.
Ben shook his head in disbelief and walked away from the small group just as Juan and Mark walked up. They had stood in silence as the sergeant read the messages. They had heard it all. “Ninos,” Juan said. “Little children with guns. Brave little boys and girls.”
“What kind of war is this to be?” Mark pondered aloud. “Little children facing grown men. It’s shameful.”
Just before Chase walked away to join his medical teams, he said, “I used to hope I’d make it to the year 2000. Now I’m not so certain I’m entirely happy about it.”
Ben found Gale in the lightening darkness and put his arms around her. “This time, lady, you don’t argue with me. You’re assigned to the field hospitals in the rear.”
“I know, Ben,” she said softly. “I won’t argue about it.”
“We might not see each other for days, Gale,” he reminded her.
“I know that, too,” she said, pressing against him, taking comfort from the bulk of the man.
“If conditions start going from bad to worse,” Ben said, “I’m sending you to Georgia, to Captain Rayle’s command. And I don’t want any static out of you about it.”
“There won’t be, Ben.” She looked up into his face. “Ben, I want you to know I think you are a fine, good man. You could have walked away from all this, but you didn’t.”
“Yeah.” He smiled down at her. “But then I would have had to listen to you bitch about it for the next fifty years.”
“You got that right, buster.”
He kissed her mouth and then, grinning, patted her on the butt. She slapped his hand away. “OK, babe-take off. I’ll see you whenever and wherever I can.”
She returned the kiss and, grinning, patted him on the butt. She broke free of his arms and walked away into the dim light of early morning, the faint silver from the east picking up pockets of lights in her shortcut, dark hair. The mist hung about her in the Missouri morning.
She looked so small and vulnerable.
Ben walked back to the main column and gave the orders. “Crank them up,” he said.
The morning was filled with the coughing of powerful engines fired into sudden life from the cold metal.
“Colonel Gray?”
“Sir?”
“Scouts out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hector?”
“Sir?”
Ben held out his hand and the man shook it. “Luck to you, Hec.”
Hector’s teeth flashed white against the olive of his face. “See you after we kick ass, Ben.”
Ben nodded. Both men knew the odds of them kicking
the ass of the IPF were hard against. He looked at Cecil, held out his hand.
“Luck to you, Ben,” the black man said, gripping the hand.
“Take care, old soldier.”
Cecil walked away to join his command.
Juan and Mark shook hands with Ben and the two of them left to link up with their respective commands.
Ben looked at Ike. The ex-navy SEAL grinned boyishly. He said, “Here we go again, El Presidente. Seems like we just got through doing this.”
“I know the feeling,” Ben replied. “Ike, we’ve got to make the first punch hard enough to knock them down. Then we’ve got to stomp them while they’re down. We’ve got to make this as dirty and vicious as we know how. And we’re going to take a lot of casualties doing it.”
“It’s worth it, Ben-you know that. None of us could have lived with ourselves if we’d turned our backs to this.”
“I know. I was only delaying the inevitable.” He held out his hand and the two friends shook hands.
“Luck to you, old warrior,” Ike said.
“Luck to you, old friend,” Ben replied.
The men walked away in opposite directions.
Ben stood in the center of Highway 67 just as dawn hit the horizon, casting his shadow long down the highway. He looked toward the north and lifted his hand, pointing a finger straight north.
“Let’s go!” he yelled. “Go, go, go!” PART THREE Be ashamed to die unless you have won some victory for humanity.
-Horace Mann
CHAPTER ONE
Thousands of tons of men and machines and instruments of war and destruction lunged forward from southeast Missouri. At the same time, young boys and girls moved forward from South Dakota and Indiana. To the north, old soldiers were telling their wives and sweethearts goodbye.
“You’re entirely too old for this nonsense, Sonny,” a woman said, kissing her husband of forty years goods- bye. “But I am so proud of you for doing it.”
The veteran of the early days of Vietnam kissed his wife and grinned at her. She patted the top of his bald head as he said, “Honey, I think civilization will either begin or end within the next few weeks. That is my firm belief. I can’t sit back and watch it all go down the tube.”
She smiled at him. “I want you to come back to me, Sonny. But I can’t help but remember what the Spartan mother told her son as he was leaving for the wars.”
“Either come back behind your shield, or on it,” the husband said.
“I love you, you crazy old soldier.” “Love you, baby.”
The aging warrior picked up his rifle and walked away before his wife could begin weeping.
“Tanner, you old goat,” the retired general was told by his wife, “how many damn times do I have to tell you goodbye?”
“Hopefully, this is the last time, camp-follower,” he said with a grin.
“Yes.”
“You know the drill, lady, should I not return from this campaign.”
“Up into Canada to the cabins. There the rest of us old gals will live out our lives in peace,” she repeated in rote, a dry tone to her voice.
“The cabins are well-stocked. You’re no slouch with a garden. You’ll have adequate medical supplies to last you for years. You all should get by quite nicely.”
“But I want to get by with you at my side. So come back to me, Art.”
“I shall certainly try, Becky.”
He kissed her and was gone.
“Take care of yourself, honey,” the man said. “I shall. And you come back to me.” “Do the best I can.”
“Look, old girl, this is something that must be done, you know that.”
“Of course I do, Lewis. And don’t get amorous, old man,” she said with a smile, removing his hand from her rump. “We don’t have the time for that. You just do your duty and come back to me.”
“You got your high blood pressure pills, Bob?”
“Right here in my pocket, honey.”
“You come back to be me, lover.”
“I’ll be back.”
But he would never be back.
“After thirty-five years in the military,” a wife told her husband, trying her best to maintain a brave face,
