grenades worked better than Smithy could have hoped. The Ukrainians were struggling with their protective masks when Smithy's 3rd Platoon came out of the white cloud and fell upon Biryukov's men.
The run from the border into the center of Uzhgorod was fast, wild, and unopposed. Following the cavalry troop that led the 1st Brigade into the Ukraine, Company C, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, under the command of Captain Nancy Kozak, prepared to turn south on the road for Chop. While her driver kept the last vehicle of the cavalry troop in sight, Kozak stood upright in the open hatch of her M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, alternating between looking down at the map she held in one hand and up as she tried to read the street signs and look for landmarks she had been briefed on. Not wanting to miss her turn, Kozak paid scant attention to the scene around her. She noted that the streetlights were still on, indicating that the Ukrainians were taken by complete surprise, and wondered how long that would last. Kozak didn't pay any attention to the people of Uzhgorod, shaken out of a sound sleep by the rumbling of the cavalry troop's sixty-three-ton tanks, as they pulled the shades of their bedroom windows back to see who was invading their country this time. Kozak didn't even seem to be aware of a police car, lights flashing, as it came out of a side street, stopping just short of the main road leading from the border. The startled policeman driving saw the armored vehicles, slammed on the brakes, and immediately backed up without hesitation or looking behind him. Though the policeman had no idea who or why his city was being overrun by armored vehicles, he knew that at that moment there was little he could do.
When Kozak saw the turnoff, she keyed the intercom on her helmet and shouted to her driver to make a hard right. Gripping onto the lip of her hatch, Kozak hung on as the Bradley made the sharp turn that almost carried them into a line of parked cars that lined the street. Once they were on the road to Chop, Kozak leaned over and looked to her rear to make sure that the platoon following her also made the turn. In the bright light provided by the overhead streetlights, Kozak began counting vehicles as they made the turn until her own Bradley went around a slight curve that blocked her view. By that time, she had seen all four Bradleys of her 2nd Platoon, as well as the lead tank of the attached tank platoon, make the turn.
Satisfied that everyone in her company team would make the turn and that they were on the right road, Kozak turned to the front, looking at the shops and apartment buildings that lined the street on either side. There was little difference between the streets and shops here and those they had seen in Czech towns and villages. Those, in turn, had reminded her of the towns and villages in Germany, except that the German buildings were more modern, cleaner, and more colorful. Before turning her thoughts back toward her mission, it dawned upon Kozak that this whole region, with its buildings and dingy towns nestled in the hills and mountains connected by twisting roads, reminded her of Pittsburgh. Strange, she thought. In her two years in Germany she had been with armored columns running through towns and across the countryside without giving it a second thought. The idea of doing so in Pittsburgh, however, was totally beyond her. When the last of the streetlights whizzed by as her Bradley raced out of the narrow streets of the town and into the dark countryside, Kozak looked back at Uzhgorod one more time. I guess, she thought, these people are used to this sort of thing by now.
From the second-story window of his small bedroom, a middle-aged Ukrainian shopkeeper watched the parade of armored vehicles roll by in the street below. Across the room, sitting up in their bed, his wife waited, struggling to overcome her fright and join her husband. Unable to do so, she called from the bed, 'Josef, is it the Russians?'
At first he didn't answer. It had been a long time since he had served in the Red Army. But as a gunner on a tank stationed in East Germany, he had been trained well to recognize enemy vehicles. The sight of those vehicles right there under his own bedroom window was a shock. Finally, when he did answer, Josef meekly mumbled, 'No, not Russians.'
That statement made his wife's eyes grow large as she threw her hands up over her mouth. 'Oh, my God, not the Germans, again?'
Turning, Josef looked at his wife. He was about to ridicule her for making such a silly statement, but then stopped. In this world of theirs, turned upside down, anything, including their worst nightmare, was possible. So instead of chiding his wife for making such a foolish comment, Josef walked across the darkened room, reassuring her as he did so. 'No, it's only the Americans.'
The high-pitched whine of a BTR armored personnel carrier racing up the road toward their position caused Ilvanich to turn his attention away from the echo of gunfire and grenade blasts coming from the tunnel and to the road outside the chainlink fence. It was the reaction force, finally. Looking at his watch, Ilvanich noted the time. Slow, he thought. They were too slow and now too late. A Russian reaction force, he reasoned, would have been there in half the time. How fortunate for the Americans, Ilvanich thought, that they are only pitted against Ukrainians and not Russians.
The American reaction to this new threat, however, was not slow. Along the perimeter fence, near the cinder block guard shack, one of the squad leaders shouted back to his platoon leader, 'BTR on the road, coming up fast and dumb.' At first Ilvanich considered the sergeant's report to be rather flippant and unmilitary. Then after thinking about it for a moment, Ilvanich chuckled. As he peered into the night beyond the glare of the bright security lights in an effort to spot the reaction force's BTR armored personnel carrier, Ilvanich decided that the American sergeant's report was in fact quite accurate. The Ukrainians were coming on too fast and in a manner that all but guaranteed their demise. Though dumb was not quite the word he would have chosen, Ilvanich reminded himself that the Americans had a unique unmilitary style that defied all logic and common sense.
Deciding that it would not be a good idea to stay next to the cinder block building once the shooting started, Ilvanich looked for a spot on the firing line along the chainlink fence that would offer both cover and a vantage point. When he saw what he was looking for next to a soldier with a squad automatic weapon, Ilvanich glanced down at his assault rifle to ensure that the safety was engaged before moving over to his new position. His pace was deliberate, not hurried, and he continued to look into the darkness for the approaching BTR.
Kevin Pape could feel himself getting excited. This was it! This was no bullshit, for a real enemy armored personnel carrier was coming after them. It wasn't a plywood panel like the ones they used on the squad assault range at Grafenwohr. It wasn't a vismod, a mock vehicle with a fiberglass and sheet-metal shell made up to look like a BTR like the ones they went against at the maneuver training area at Hohenfels. This one was real, brim full of pissed-off Ukrainians who were coming after him and the rest of 2nd Squad. Pape didn't feel the cold. He didn't notice the Russian major settle down into a prone position next to him. All Pape's attention was focused where the road disappeared into the darkness as he listened to the noise of the BTR grow as it closed on their position. Flexing his right index finger, Pape lightly stroked the trigger of his weapon and waited.
To Pape's right, Sergeant Couvelha called out to his men armed with AT-4 anti-tank rocket launchers. 'Billy, you fire first. And make sure you call out your range before you do.' Couvelha twisted his head toward the second soldier. 'Ned, listen up for Billy's range and watch where his rocket hits. Make your correction if you need to, then fire. Got it?'
Billy, intently staring through the sight of his rocket launcher, said nothing. He only nodded, a nod that Couvelha didn't see, not that he needed to. Billy was young but he was solid and dependable. Couvelha knew Billy had heard. Ned, a smile on his face, turned to Couvelha. 'No sweat, Sarge.'
Couvelha shook his head. Unlike Billy, Ned was a little too cool, too cocksure of himself for Couvelha, which is why Ned fired second. He was about to tell Ned that he had better pay attention to his front when Billy yelled, 'RANGE, TWO HUNDRED METERS! FIRING!'
Billy's announcement gave everyone on the firing line a second to prepare themselves. Half of the men, looking elsewhere, hadn't seen the BTR as it emerged from the darkness. Even when he followed the road, Pape still could not see it. 'WHERE? WHERE IS THE FUCKER? I DON'T SEE?'
The snap that announced the ignition of the AT-4's rocket motor, followed by a whoosh as the rocket left the tube, cut Pape short. Watching the rocket, Pape was blinded when the shaped-charge warhead made contact with the BTR head-on. The jet stream formed by the explosion of the rocket's inverted cone-shaped warhead cut through the armor of the BTR's front slope just below the roof. Missing the driver's head by inches, the jet stream hit the BTR's gunner square in the stomach after cutting through the ammunition feed chute that fed linked rounds to the BTR's 14.5mm machine gun. The driver was startled by the sudden explosion on the BTR's front slope, followed by the spray of molten metal thrown off by the jet stream as it raced past his head, and the screams of the gunner accompanied by the pop, pop, pop of 14.5mm rounds going off behind him. His first reaction was to slam on the BTR's brakes and duck his head, a motion that caused him to jerk the wheel to the left.
Watching where Billy's round struck, and noting that it appeared a little high, Ned laid the two-hundred- meter range line of his rocket launcher's sight on the center of the BTR, now slowing and offering an oblique shot as
