Too young to die, Goose couldn’t help thinking. But he knew that fact didn’t stop death from happening. A number of young soldiers had died or disappeared today, and more probably would join them before the dawn of the next day. That knowledge left a congealed lump of dread in Goose’s stomach, and he could only ask God for the strength to get through it.
The sonic booms of the passing jets faded from Goose’s ears. His injured knee had swollen further. Thankfully, the screaming pain had died down to a dulled throb, something he could hold at bay thanks to fatigue and analgesics. His clothing remained soaked and gritty despite the dry heat that baked the broken land around him. At least the smoke and dust haze had mostly cleared out. He could take a deep breath without the kerchief on his face and not launch into a coughing fit.
“Our air force will try to keep flights up at irregular intervals until after sundown,” Mkchian said. “But if our losses grow to be too great, they will stop sending those pilots.”
Goose nodded. He couldn’t blame the Turkish military. The F-4Es were their primary offensive and defensive weapons. Every insertion the Turk Hava Kuvvetleri made into Syria that resulted in a lost unit was going to take the Turkish government months—maybe years—to replace. Both planes and pilots were scarce resources, and finding new ones would be difficult indeed.
Valuable resources were being gambled to try to save the embattled Turkish military as well as the U.N. peacekeeping forces and the Rangers. But the Syrian troops were firmly entrenched in the positions twenty klicks behind the border. They’d had all their luck with the ground war, though. Every time the Syrians had tried to send an aerial attack, the remnants of the Marine wing, the Harriers and the Apache gunships, had shot them down. Since then, though, two more of the Harriers and one of the Apaches had been knocked from the sky. Luckily, only one of the pilots had been killed. A few of the Syrian bombs and one of the falling aircraft had resulted in more casualties among the Turkish and U.N. peacekeeping forces. The Rangers, it seemed at the time, had already paid their blood price for survival.
“We’ll make the best of it till that happens, Captain,” Goose promised.
“I fear your men are pushing themselves too hard,” Mkchian said. Goose surveyed the activity before them. Rangers still led the way on the salvage operations going on among the wreckage left from the SCUD attacks. His men had been busy, scrounging salvageable weapons, ammunition, and foodstuffs. They’d gathered everything useful, from spare tires that hadn’t been damaged or weren’t too badly damaged to the fuel in Syrian Jeeps, tanks, APCs, and helicopters that could be pumped from the gas tanks into fifty-five-gallon drums to tents, cots, and other gear.
The plan was to pull back to Sanliurfa, regroup, and watch to see if the Syrian forces kept pushing once they made it across the border. After they reached Sanliurfa, the three armies would further retreat to Diyarbakir to figure out how they were going to hold the Syrians from the rest of the country. The thinking was that if the Turkish army stationed at the border, complemented by the U.N. peacekeeping teams and the 75th Rangers, reached Diyarbakir, they could pose enough of a threat of attacking any army that marched on Ankara that the Syrians might not even make the attempt.
The trick lay in getting from their present predicament to Sanliurfa, and from there to Diyarbakir. It wasn’t going to be easy.
“Those men are Rangers,” Goose said. “When it comes to pushing, they only know one way to get the job done.”
“Still, they are doing so much work, and it will be for naught by this time tomorrow.”
“If this little ruse holds till this time tomorrow, Captain,” Goose said, “I’ll be a happy man.” And we’ll all be in Sanliurfa. Then he thought about Bill Townsend, who had vanished, and the other men who had died and gone missing, and he knew that not all of them would be in Sanliurfa. The Rangers would have to leave their dead as well, and that thought pained him because he knew from past experience that the Syrian troops would savage the bodies and use them as psychological weapons.
Along the southern perimeter of the destruction on the other side of the border, the Ranger squads filled sandbags and dug fighting holes. They used Jeeps and the RSOVs to pull wrecked vehicles closer together to form barriers. Long scars showed in the crater-filled earth where wrecks had already been towed.
The media groups had gathered along the no-man’s-land that marked the border. Some of them had returned from Sanliurfa with more crew and more equipment. Goose found it hard to believe that the reporters were brave enough—or foolish enough, as some Rangers had openly stated—to risk their lives just to get a story plenty of other people were already getting.
“I could have my men help you,” Mkchian offered.
“I appreciate that, Captain,” Goose said, “but those men down there are used to working together. They’re up against the clock, and they’re having to look over their shoulders during that work. It’s working right now. Besides the occasional language barrier issues with working with your guys, too many men trying to do everything is going to get someone hurt. So let’s leave it. For the time being.”
Mkchian nodded. “That was what your Captain Remington relayed to me.”
“Captain Remington is a fine officer,” Goose said. “He knows what he’s talking about.”
“Have you served with him long, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you trust him?”
“With my life, sir,” Goose answered without hesitation. “And with the lives of my men. If it ever came down to it, I believe Captain Remington would die for the men of his command.”
The Turkish captain eyed Goose in open speculation. “Not many soldiers would say that about their commanding officers.”
“No,
