REPORT - Operation End of Days - 05/02/2011

           WELCOME TO THE POOR DEAD BASTARDS CLUB

      A last minute change of orders just as we landed on the LZ would ultimately send almost half of Alpha Wolf Company, of the 101st Infantry, to the Promised Land… whose promise and whose land is still in question to this very day.   The break from the jungle and getting bunker-duty on base was exciting to a bunch of grunts on their first tour.  We needed a break from the bush, we’d earned it! 
      As we grouped together on the LZ our sergeant came rushing toward our group of jungle-orphans from the supply area and dropped an emotional bomb on our heads. Echo Wolf Company, our reconnaissance company, had been sweeping an area surrounding the "Oil Drum Alley" and had lost almost half of the company due to enemy mines and booby-traps. We were aware of their situation due to continual radio-traffic and knew their losses were tremendous. What was so frightening, however, was the fact that they had never made enemy contact.
      We moved out at dawn; what would prove to be the longest day of my life. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when our point-man stepped on a booby-trap. A deafening explosion rang out in the fog-covered, misty morning and the battlefield cries of dying soldiers permeated the smoke and debris. “Medic, medic,” was screamed from the point. Our point-man immediately lost one leg to a huge amount of paint!
"It looked like someone had thrown a bucket of emulshon on him!"  Shouted Fenrir as we scanned the horizon for na enemy ambush.  Two KIA’s, and several were wounded. As I assisted one soldier torn open at the stomach by six paintballs and a paint grenade, awaiting the Medi-vacs, in his panic-stricken voice, he screamed for his “mother;” and was walked off the field by a laughing marshal.

     After wrestling for another point-man, Heretic and his Black Ops team volunteered to take the point. Ultimately, we called in a dog-team to sniff out the underground devices. Still cloudy from the storm the night before we were starting to cross a series of  trenches when we came under rocket fire. Fortunately, the rockets overshot our position; I felt myself aging. I recall with vivid clarity, thinking, “Thank God I wore my brown camos today.” Believe me, when rockets start blasting near by you can really feel the brown gunge run down your leg!
We eventually moved up to higher grown as paint flew and blasted round our ears. Heretics team moved right into the mist, disquising their movements and eventually took up position north of the village.  Our commander seemed to be cracking-up, giving orders and almost immediately retracting them. It was clearly noticeable to us and very unsettling. When our leader became fanatical it wasn’t comforting to the soldiers “at all.”   We’d lost around eight men already that day and there was a very long  night ahead of us. We started to dig-in for the night. The atmosphere was charged with death and the overcast sky only attributed to our restlessness.

      A former air strike had placed a few huge craters in the center of what would  be our night defense perimeter. Being the grenadier for the Command Post I claimed one of the craters for my fox-hole. One of the new guys was standing a couple of feet from me when he took a direct hit from an incoming RGP. Obviously, the rocket signaled an enemy assault and our position become hell.  More and more mortar fire followed soon after, the ground trembled and dust flew in the air and filled our mask vents making the air unbreathable.  Paint flak hit the air above my head as I became pebble dashed in florescent yellow, a guy screamed to my right as a mortar exploded leaving only his paint ridden boots where he once stood.

     Although I had both eyes covered I could hear the incoming rockets and small arms fire intensifying. The concussion from the hit above my head, was starting to subside somewhat and I could faintly recognize the explosions.  I felt like I knew where the rockets were fired from and tried to tell our lieutenant but I’m sure he thought I was in shock. Finally, I heard the blessed rotor blades of the Medi Vacs as they cut through the air in bound. However, I noticed they were circling our position and wasn’t attempting to land. I screamed out at whoever was around and declared, “Why aren’t they coming in to get us?” Some voice replied, “We’re under to heavy an assault, they’re waiting on gun-ship escort.”. There was no mistaking the Cobra’s. When they arrived the enemy hid…quick. The gunship fired a twenty millimeter cannon that fired 6000 rounds of paint a minute; the sound was frightening, much like that of a chainsaw running at full throttle.  A spine chilling scream soon came after as the enemy appeared over the ridge and pushed in east of the village to try and flank our defensive position.  Ten minutes into the fight, Heretic followed by the black ops team charged the enemy flank forcing the enemy on the defencive.  An air strike soon followed, as the sky darkened with air to ground missile fumes.  The enemy flew as rockets burst on the ground around them forcing them back to the ridge.  Fenrir called out his battle cry as he lifted his MP5 and charged out of his fox hole followed by the rest of the Wolf Pack. Three hours later and the mist had cleared leaving a battle torn field and a paint stricken village.



"thats my point of view...  Yours is invalid!"