Now it's time for me to do mine.' With that he stood up and began to gather up his briefcase and hat.
Horn stood up also and walked across the room to bid his friend farewell.
With a few pleasantries, the two men parted. After Weir had left, Horn went to the window and stared out at the Potomac. He could not escape the thought that he had not only failed his friend but condemned him to death.
How easy, he thought, it had been in Vietnam when they were young lieutenants. At least they knew what they were doing then and didn't have to bother with the politicians, both in and out of uniform.
Chapter 3
I offer neither pay nor quarters nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart, and not his lips only, follow me
Lieutenant Kurpov's scout-car platoon began to stir. The 89th Reconnaissance Battalion had less than an hour to get ready and move out on its next mission. The promise of resupply by air and a twenty-four-hour rest halt had to wait until the airfield outside Birjand had been secured.
The battalion had closed on Birjand on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth after a trek of over three hundred kilometers through the desert. An attempt of the recon battalion, reinforced only by the advance guard, to rush the town and seize the airfield had been repulsed by Islamic Guards dug in along the approaches. Attempts to find a weak point north of the town had also failed. It was therefore decided to wait until the lead motorized rifle regiment and division artillery closed up before trying again. In the meantime, the recon battalion was to bypass the town to the west and check out an unguarded route that had been found the night before. If the route was clear, the recon battalion was to use it to lead a motorized rifle battalion past the town. Once south of the town, the rifle battalion would support the main attack by hitting the Iranians from the rear.
As the officers of the recon company received last minute instructions, the crews of the BRDM armored cars and BMP reconnaissance vehicles began to crank up their engines and check their weapons. Sand, heat and lack of water were greater problems than the officers and men in the recon battalion had expected. The division had deployed from a garrison in Poltava in the Ukraine to the desert and then into the attack with little time for acclimation. Neither had they received any special instructions on desert warfare or how to deal with the conditions they would find. It was therefore natural that the men would continue to operate as they had been trained while in the Ukraine. The result was a high number of maintenance failures and weapons stoppages. The light coat of oil that had protected their machine guns from the spring rains in the Ukraine attracted sand that jammed them in the desert. During their first serious run-in with an Iranian roadblock on the second day of the invasion, Lieutenant Kurpov's platoon was embarrassed when only one machine gun in the entire platoon fired. In a panic the platoon pulled back into a wadi, where in record time the crews broke down their weapons and cleaned them. Since that time, the men faithfully checked their weapons and kept them clean and free of oil.
Kurpov watched impassively as the other scout-car platoon moved out of their laager and headed west. Behind them went two BMPs. Kurpov's platoon would follow at a distance, ready to lead the rifle battalion through or swing farther west if the route taken by the lead platoon was blocked. This suited Kurpov fine. He had grown tired of being in the lead, always out front, always the first to find the enemy or be found by him. On two separate occasions his BRDM had barely survived a direct hit by rocket-propelled antitank grenades. It would be a welcome relief to follow someone for a change. A bright three-quarter moon made it easy to track the progress of the lead scout-car platoon. Kurpov felt as though the whole world were staring down on them as they swung west onto a narrow dirt track.
Through his vision blocks he monitored the progress of his other vehicles and the rifle battalion's advance guard behind them. It was following far too close. If the Iranians hit them, the rifle battalion would have little room to maneuver or back out. They were becoming sloppy, too lax.
The BMPs, now about one thousand meters to his front, turned slightly to the left and continued forward into the shadows of the surrounding hills.
Ahead of them the BRDMs had already entered the dark void and were out of sight. Despite the cool of the night, Kurpov could feel the sweat roll down his spine. This was no good, far too easy. It was inconceivable that such a route would be left open.
A flash, a streak of flame and the detonation of an antitank missile on a BMP raped the stillness of the night and heralded a rush of pandemonium and violence. Contact. Green and red tracer rounds crisscrossed as Iranians engaged the lead scout-car platoon and were in turn engaged by the BRDMs and the remaining BMP. The reports coming from the platoon leader of the scout-car platoon betrayed his confusion and panic. The recon company commander yelled back, demanding a clear and accurate report, but got no response as artillery began to strike.
Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do. He stared through his vision blocks, trying hard to make sense of what was going on before him. But that was not possible. The flashes of gunfire, the bright streaks of tracers and the impact of artillery merged with blotches and fading images of rounds long since fired, distorting Kurpov's sight. Another bright flash and a streak of flame from the shadows of the hills sought out the second BMP. This time the impact of the missile resulted in a thunderous explosion as the BMP's own ammo and fuel ripped it apart, sending a ball of fire into the sky. Men were dying. His comrades.
And still Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do.
The Iranians were no fools. What appeared to Kurpov as random and uncontrolled violence was as methodical as it was deadly. They knew exactly what they were doing. The heavy antitank guided missiles were used to destroy the greatest Soviet threat, the better-armed and-armored BMPs.
With the BMPs destroyed, the BRDMs were no match for dug-in troops who could easily dispose of them with heavy machine guns and hand-held rocket launchers. The shower of tracers that mesmerized Kurpov came from dug-in50-caliber machine guns and from the BRDMs' own machine guns' returning fire.
It was an uneven contest as the Iranian machine gunners raked the thin-skinned BRDMs with telling effect while the BRDMs simply thrashed about, firing wildly and randomly. The platoon leader of the lead scout-car platoon never gained control of his three BRDMs. Each fought its own battle and died a hard, slow death. A burst of machine-gun fire hit the flank of the platoon leader's BRDM, killing the driver. It careened wildly, hit a shallow ditch and rolled over on its side. The panicked crew clawed at the hatches in an effort to escape, oblivious to the fact that all guns that could be brought to bear were now hitting the BRDM. As the first man emerged he was hit by a burst of well-directed machine-gun fire. He simply dropped, half in and half out of the vehicle, dead. His comrade behind him screamed and pushed on the body, not realizing the man was dead. With strength born of desperation and fear, the second crewman pushed the body clear and in his turn was killed as he began to emerge. The platoon leader could not reach the hatch. Machine-gun rounds, ripping through the bottom of the BRDM, had hit him. As he lay there against the side of his vehicle, bleeding to death in the dark, he blocked out the horror and noise of the battle outside and dreamed of his home and his family.
Gone from his mind were war and death. Before him were images of white puffy clouds racing across a blue sky above windswept seas of sunflowers rooted in the dark Ukrainian earth. For a moment, the young lieutenant smiled as he slipped into the dark abyss.
Without waiting for orders, Kurpov's platoon and the accompanying BMP had gone to ground, seeking cover in a shallow wadi. Kurpov's own driver, reacting to a strong sense of survival as well as to his training, had brought the BRDM to a halt in the wadi next to the BMP.
The destruction of the lead scout-car platoon and the two BMPs had bought time for Kurpov and his platoon to find cover and get a grasp on the situation. That was, after all, part of the recon battalion's job.
Somewhat composed now, Kurpov opened his hatch and stood on his seat in order to peer over the lip of the wadi they were in. The wild firing had died down. In the distance he could see the BMPs and the BRDMs burning. The stillness that had descended was punctured by random pops and detonations as on-board ammunition cooked
