effort, they overflew the control vehicles, wiggling their wings as they skimmed along at treetop level.
No sooner had the aircraft cleared the area than 155mm. artillery firing high-explosive and white phosphorus rounds began to hit the hill. The first mech infantry platoon was joined by a second platoon that followed it out from the tree line and came up on its left.
Together, the two platoons advanced on their objective as the tanks and the artillery continued to work it over. This continued until the M-113s of the two mech platoons reached a predesignated point less than five hundred meters from the hill.
When they did, the artillery-fire-support officer issued a curt order to the firing battery. On cue, the guns lifted and shifted fires to a new target beyond the hill. The tanks continued to fire, but now concentrated on targets on either side of their objective.
With the fire lifted and only two hundred meters to go, the M-113s stopped and dropped their ramps. Infantrymen of the Tennessee National Guard came pouring out, running to either side of the M-113s in staggered lines. On signal, the M-113s and the lines of infantry began to advance. Only when the dismounted troops and the M113s masked the tanks' fields of fire did they cease fire. The track commanders of the M-113s stood upright, firing their.50-caliber machine guns while the dismounted infantry fired from the hip as they went into the dust and smoke that now shrouded the hill.
From their observation point the battalion commander and the executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 354th Infantry, watched the end of the last run of the day of the company combined-arms live fire exercise.
Turning to his XO, the battalion commander asked why they had never been able to do that in Tennessee. The XO, Major Ed Lewis, simply stated, 'When the Army got serious about sending the unit to war, all kinds of wonderful things were possible. The last ten days are ample proof of that.'
After being mobilized, the battalion had assembled at Fort Campbell in accordance with its mobilization plans. Surprisingly, its first mission was to prepare its equipment and ship it to New Orleans for embarkation. This was quickly accomplished, but left the unit nothing to complete its post mobilization training with. Initially, the battalion had been slated to move immediately to Fort Hood to join its parent Active Army unit, the 2nd Brigade, 25th Armored Division. This, however, was canceled. Fort Hood was already overcrowded with units trying to train with small amounts of borrowed equipment. Instead, the 2nd Battalion of the 354th Infantry was left at Campbell. Heated discussions between the unit commander, the state, the National Guard Bureau and anyone who would listen did not change the ill-conceived peacetime mobilization plan.
Instead of training for war with its parent unit, the battalion was left to its own device', training in isolation while the rest of the 25th Division rushed to complete its preparation for war.
Training at Fort Campbell, however, did have its advantages. With the 12th Infantry Division in the throes of deploying, there were plenty of maneuver areas and ranges available. The 2nd of the 354th, being a round-out unit and high on the deployment list, had a higher priority over other Guard and Reserve units assembling at Campbell. Equipment, including a fully manned tank company with which to train, was borrowed from the Kentucky National Guard. Although the personnel carriers were the old M-113s instead of the M-2 Bradleys, they were better than nothing.
In addition to equipment, ammunition for live fire training was not a problem. Whatever the 12th Division left at the ammo storage point on Campbell was given to the 2nd of the 354th. It was in live fire training that the battalion spent most of its time. The commander felt that the men needed to get used to handling their weapons and getting the feel for what it would be like when everyone was blasting away. Men who had been assigned to the unit as TOW and Dragon antitank-guided-missile gunners for years finally had an opportunity to fire a live missile. Sometimes the results were quite embarrassing, as when the shock of firing their first live missile caused the gunners to jump and send the missile spiraling into the ground. As Lewis, the battalion XO and full-time training officer, said, 'Better to miss at Campbell and be embarrassed than miss in Iran and be dead.'
While training was progressing well, Lewis was worried about what was coming next. It was all well and good to get their equipment off to the Persian Gulf as soon as possible; and, likewise, using the time while the equipment was in transit for post mobilization training made sense.
It was the act of getting the men and the equipment together again that concerned Lewis. To off load the ships in Iran, the Army needed at least one secure and functional seaport. Likewise, to get the troops in, a secure and functional airfield was needed in close proximity to the seaport. More than that, the air over these facilities had to be relatively free of enemy air activity. It would do no good to have all the equipment arrive in port and have the people who were to man it spattered on a runway in Iran by a hotshot Russian jet-fighter jock as the transport plane came in for a landing. A lot of coordination between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force needed to happen. to make this operation work.
There was serious work to do, however, right there at Fort Campbell.
What happened in Iran was still in the future. Lewis' main concern at that moment was to prepare the battalion for battle as best he could.
Success or failure of the deployment phase of the operation was in the hands of other people, people he would never know. As his jeep, also borrowed from the Kentucky National Guard, bounced along the tank trail back to battalion headquarters, Lewis flipped through the unit training schedules for the next day to ensure that everything had been coordinated and set. There was precious little time for screwups.
In any profession there are requirements and duties that are necessary and important but unpleasant. Often, as an unwritten rule, these jobs are given to the most junior man. This practice is passed off as being part of the new man's development, while in fact it is nothing more than passing off a dirty chore to someone else. An equally common practice is to continue passing off unpleasant duties until there is no one else to push the duty off onto. The Army is probably the greatest practitioner of this method of dealing with its dirty little jobs. Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Ilvanich knew this from his training as a cadet and a junior officer. It was part of the system. This rationalization, however, did not make his current task any easier.
Since being relieved by the 28th CAA, the 285th Guards Airborne Regiment had been recovering and reorganizing. Ilvanich's company was typical of the condition of the regiment as a whole. The company had dropped into Tabriz with seven officers and seventy-eight enlisted men.
After six days of sustained combat, there were only two officers and thirty-three enlisted men who were not dead or wounded when the ground forces finally arrived.
The 285th Regiment's parent division was equally depleted, requiring reorganization and amalgamation of units. During this effort, the 285th was assigned garrison and patrol duties in and around Tabriz while the 28th CAA continued to advance south and west.
One of these duties was the apprehension and punishment of Iranians who violated the curfew. The punishment was death. Ilvanich did not realize what he and his men would be required to do when he reported to the garrison headquarters on the afternoon of the fourth. He was taken to a KGB major who would brief him and supervise him and his platoon during the performance of their duties. The KGB major was relatively young, Ilvanich guessed not more than thirty-two. He stood a bit over six foot and had a medium build. His looks and dress were average. But the fact that he was KGB made him different, a difference that one did not dare forget.
At first Ilvanich thought that his men were to be prison guards.
Slowly, as the KGB major talked, it dawned upon him that he was going to lead a firing squad and summarily execute anyone who had been apprehended for violating the curfew. Anyone, that is, who was not shot by the patrols.
When this revelation finally hit him, Ilvanich flushed. For a moment he felt lightheaded, as if he were going to faint. Then he noticed the KGB major staring at him. The major asked whether there was something wrong. livanich, mustering all the strength he could, collected himself and replied that he was simply tired, not fully recovered from his first battle. The KGB major appeared to accept that, heaping praise on the bravery and sacrifice of the airborne soldiers before carrying on with his briefing. When he got to the portion of the briefing where he described the duties of the officer in charge of the firing squad, he spoke slowly and looked into Ilvanich's eyes. The KGB major was searching for weakness or hesitation. Ilvanich returned the stare, turning his thoughts away from the task he was being given.
That night, for the first time in his career, Ilvanich struggled with his duties and his conscience. In the dark room where he was billeted, sleep did not come. He tossed and turned in his sweat-soaked bunk, trying to clear his mind and to reason out his current problem. His whole life revolved around duty to the State and the Army. The two
