The Weekend Warriors

The Weekend Warriors

Copyright © 2013 by James W. Burke Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-1276-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-1277-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918987

iUniverse rev. date: 11/17/2015

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Kind Of War On Which They Are Embarking

Chapter 2 Planning And Preparing

Chapter 3 Morning Colors

Chapter 4 And We’re Saying Good-Bye To Them All

Chapter 5 Setting The Stage

Chapter 6 Nothing So Exhilarating

Chapter 7 Paying The Price—First Installment

Chapter 8 Just Before The Battle

Chapter 9 The Success Of His Fighting

Chapter 10 Paying The Price—Second Installment

Chapter 11 Pause Between Battles

Chapter 12 Unto The Breach

Glossary

To All The Soldiers, Regular, Reserve, And National Guard, It Has Been My Privilege And Honor To Serve With, Particularly Vincent B. Lee, 2Lt, Usmcr (1945-1969), And John L. Burke, Col, Usar (Ret) (1932-1989). In Addition, Most Particularly, James W. Burke, Ltc Usar (Ret) (1924-1999), And Charles A. Bauer, Ltcdr, Usnr (Ret) (1914-1989).

All That I Am And All I Ever Shall Be, I Owe To My First Detail New Cadet Barracks Squad Leader, Who Wishes To Remain Anonymous For Reasons That Are Intuitively Obvious To The Casual Observer.

(Fourth Class Knowledge, New Cadet Barracks, West Point, 1968)

Prologue

Okecie International Airport

Warsaw, Poland

The Polish premier sat in the rear cabin of the Polish Air Force executive jet carrying him back to Warsaw, meditating over his private meeting with the chairman of the USSR. Perestroika and glasnost notwithstanding, the Russian bear still had claws and was not averse to showing them in private.

We are walking on the edge of a razor blade, the premier said to his private secretary in a tone of weary resignation.

You know that our political movement has split into two camps. The moderates in our party, like us, want only gradual change. We are willing to accommodate the Russians as long as they stay in their barracks, allow Poland to be Poland, and pay for their presence. Most of all, these soldiers provide a counterweight to Germany. And the radicals, the hawks look back on the days when Poland was completely free from foreign domination. They remember that Polish soldiers drove the Bolshevik legions of Trotsky from the walls of Warsaw and even conquered part of the Ukraine. They will accept no accommodations with the Russians and their commonwealth. They want them out now and will use force to remove them if necessary.

He sighed mournfully. They don’t understand that the West will not help us against them, except with words. If the Russian tanks roll today, we will receive many fine words but no help. Moreover, if our bank payments are late, we may not even receive the words. The world has not changed that much since 1939.

The private secretary was used to these monologues by the premier and continued studying the documents he held in his lap.

An added factor in the equation that the radicals fail to consider is Poland’s burden of debt to the West. The premier sprawled in the aisle seat opposite his private secretary and began filling his pipe, a well-worn, blackened, hunk of briarroot.

Money from the West for our economic reconstruction has been only slowly forthcoming. Western banks and governments, regardless of our economic situation, will demand repayment. The Russians and Ukrainians are being openhanded in supplying oil and natural gas to us. They ask only a secret mutual defense pact in return. In addition, they will provide us with fuel and food in payment for the military bases. Can’t these fools see that we can live with Russian bases but we are slowly bleeding to death trying to repay the West and their bankers? Our harvests are bad, and the bankers say only that the interest will increase if we miss payments.

Ten thousand feet below and ten miles away from the jet, a nondescript van stopped on a dirt road just outside the boundary fence of Okecie International Airport. Four men got out and removed a battered wooden shipping crate. One of the four pulled open the crate and removed a long, slender tube wrapped in canvas with a bulbous protrusion on one end. As he removed the wrappings, the shape of a Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher became visible.

The American hefted the missile to his shoulder and began the pre-operation checks. The three Poles watched with great interest.

The leader stood to one side. Are you certain you can do what we require of you? You will have only one chance.

Shit, man. I spent six years working with Stingers and qualified for distinguished gunner four times.

One member of the group pointed to the east. The small jetliner was visible as a rapidly growing speck, a black mote against the sky. The gunner shouldered his launcher and began the acquisition sequence. The missile’s infrared seeker picked up the aircraft’s exhaust, and a tone sounded in the gunner’s ear. He set the aircraft in the reticule pattern and listened as the growl grew in intensity.

I have a good lock, he told the others. Stand clear of the back blast area. I’m firing on three. The gunner counted to three and squeezed his trigger, and the rocket motor ignited with a roar.

The missile leaped from the launcher and seemed to waver until the sustainer motors kicked in. Then it arced upward toward the engines of the jet, leaving behind a slight trail of brown smoke.

In the cockpit, the copilot was going over the landing checklist when something caught his eye. There, off to the right, on the ground, he saw a flash and a climbing smoke trail heading for the aircraft.

Fuck my mother! he screamed in the intercom at the pilot. Stinger! Stinger!

He had flown fighter-bombers in Afghanistan and knew what the flash meant and what was now climbing toward them. The pilot threw the aircraft into a violent diving turn, trying to break the missile seeker’s lock on his engines.

He called the control tower. I am being shot at! A missile is coming at me! A missile is coming at me!

The beauty of the Stinger is that it can outturn any aircraft it is aimed at, and only expensive, highly complex countermeasure systems, which the small passenger jet lacked, could foil its seeker. The pilot’s violent evasive maneuvers spilled some of the passengers out of their seats. The premier was thrown against the rear bulkhead, breaking his arm, while his private secretary was knocked unconscious. Slumped against the cabin wall, the premier reached for the badge of the Black Virgin of Czestochowa he wore on the lapel of his navy suit. But his arm wouldn’t work.

Another violent corkscrew turn threw him the length of the cabin as he began to pray in a weak voice, Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy… .

Not that any of this mattered. The engines were mounted on the tail above the passenger cabin, and when the missile’s proximity fuse detonated, the fragments killed the passengers before the exploding fuel consumed their bodies. The pilot and copilot, pinned in their seats by centrifugal force, lived a little longer until the flaming remnants of the jet met the ground at six hundred knots.

The pilot’s message stunned the control tower operators into silence.

Poland One, say again your transmission. What do you mean you have a missile coming toward you? the senior controller finally responded after seconds of delay.

His answer was the hiss of the carrier wave.

Poland One, what is your status? What is going on up there? The flight from Moscow just disappeared from our screens. Can you see anything? What is happening up there?

The telephone from the ground control radar rang. By now, a column of black smoke was visible in the distance.

Once the missile was on its way, the gunner threw the launcher back into the shipping crate. One man went to start the van while the leader and the third man helped the gunner rewrap the launcher, load it into the crate, and shove the container back into the van. The co-driver produced a bottle of vodka for toasts of celebration as the van passed the outlying suburbs of Warsaw.

At an intersection, the driver ran a stop sign. A column of Russian BTR-80 eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers, returning from a live fire exercise, was entering the intersection on the priority road. The driver of the lead carrier slammed on his brakes but still clipped the front of the van, knocking it off the road and onto the shoulder. The APC skidded through the intersection and halted about twenty meters from the van, broadside to it.

What would have been a minor traffic accident resulting in disciplinary action for all Russian soldiers involved became tragedy. As the sergeant commanding the lead carrier dismounted to examine the damage, one of the Poles in the van panicked. He produced a pistol from under his seat and opened fire at the soldier. The Russian dropped with a bullet in his head. The troops in the first carrier immediately opened fire on the van with their rifles and the carrier’s heavy machine gun and killed all four occupants.

The firing stopped when the soldiers ran out of ammunition. The company commander ran forward to examine the riddled van with his second-in-command. Both were contemplating long terms in Siberia for the problems this incident would create with the authorities, both civilian and military. The commander waved some soldiers out to pick up the body of the dead soldier and to begin blocking traffic through the intersection.

His second-in-command looked inside the van. The senior lieutenant swallowed convulsively several times as he pulled open the side door and two bodies rolled out onto the road. He noticed the wooden crate and pulled it open. He expected some form of black market goods and was not surprised to see a weapon in the crate. Some soldiers were selling arms and equipment for vodka and blue jeans.

Comrade Captain! he shouted to his commander. These guys have a Strela in their van.

The commander walked over to look at what his lieutenant found. He first glanced at the crate uninterestedly and then did a startled double take. Shit! That’s not a Strela. That’s a Stinger launcher. No wonder they started shooting. Put a guard on this box and the van. Then get the spooks out here. If these guys had an American SAM in their hands, we may be off the hook.

A Polish police car responding to the aircraft crash stopped when they saw the bullet-riddled van and dead Russian soldier in the road. The senior police officer talked to the Russian officers and called his superiors. Polish and Russian security officers descended on the site like a dark cloud. A gray Mercedes with tinted windows arrived on the scene. A flock of gray men in gray overcoats flowed out of the car.

One approached the company commander. Pay book and name, Comrade Captain.

Razov, Pieter Mikhailovich. Captain, 237th Motorized Rifles.

The gray man rifled through the pay book, noting the three tours in Afghanistan. Do you know what happened here?

There’s an empty Stinger launcher in the van and a column of smoke over there, Razov said with a wave of a hand.

Someone shot a plane down. Your presence says it was an important aircraft. If I listen to American shortwave radio tonight, I will most likely learn what you’re not going to tell me after you remind me of my socialist duty.

Will your soldiers talk about what happened here? Have they listened to any of the conversations going on?

They are Uzbeks and Kazaks, Comrade. They barely understand enough Russian to obey orders. You think they understand Polish?

"Do not speak of this to anyone, Comrade Captain, and ensure your soldiers do not as well.

We have long ears and even longer memories. You are dismissed. Return with your men to your barracks.

The security teams moved the Stinger launcher and the four bodies to a heavily guarded storage building near the Russian embassy in Warsaw.

Chapter 1

The Kind Of War On Which They Are Embarking

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish… the kind of war on which they are embarking.
 

—Karl von Clausewitz

Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap

North Atlantic

When the Russian BEAR-H maritime reconnaissance aircraft left its base in the Kola Peninsula, the crew expected the usual dull flight out over the Atlantic, around Iceland, and down the Canadian and US coasts to Cuba.

I know twelve hours in our beloved BEAR is boring, the aircraft commander said to his crew as the bomber climbed to its cruise altitude. Our friends in Iceland have returned to full strength and are sending out F-15s to keep us company. Keep a watch out for them. It’s about time for the new edition of Playboy to appear.

Even then, the electronic warfare officer told the tail gunner, a new recruit making his first flight, if you’ve seen one F-15, you’ve seen them all.

As the bomber crossed the Barents Sea and rounded the North Cape, just south of Jan Mayen Island, the pilot descended to a hundred feet above sea level and turned off all electronic emitters.

I will remind those of you who slept through my briefing before takeoff, the aircraft commander announced over the intercom. We will fly a simulated attack profile against Iceland with a low approach, a pop up to cruise altitude to simulate a missile launch, and break back to sea level for our escape. Our goal is testing the NATO radar on Iceland to see how close to the island our BEAR can come before the radar finds us and scrambles the F-15s at Keflavik Air Station. So, tail gunner, stay alert back there, and keep a watch for the Americans.

An American E-3 AWACS, call sign REDCAP, picked up the BEAR three hundred miles away. REDCAP requested the alert patrol at Keflavik, two F-15s with call signs GRAYBACK 01 and 02, to intercept the intruder. The Russian EWO detected the E-3 as its radar painted the BEAR and could tell that the American aircraft was sending messages somewhere. Once the AWACS found them, the pilot climbed to launch altitude with a warning to the crew, particularly the tail gunner, to watch for the Americans.

REDCAP steered the F-15s to a position within visual range above and behind the Russian bomber. GRAYBACK 02 spotted the Russian first and waggled his wings to attract the leader’s attention. Once 01 saw the target, he placed himself directly behind and three hundred feet above the bomber. Then he rolled into a dive, pushing his throttles to full military power. A half-mile from the BEAR, he turned on all his radars.

Pandemonium reigned aboard the BEAR. Threat warning receivers warbled and wailed as the EWO shouted, They’ve found us! They’ve found us! An F-15 is out there, and he’s got a good lock!

GRAYBACK 01 roared by the BEAR at a distance of less than a hundred feet at twice the speed of sound. The F-15 was a gray blur that flashed over the cockpit of the bomber, shaking the giant four-engine BEAR as a terrier shakes a rat. As he flew over the Russian, 01 broke into a violent dive across the nose of the BEAR. The Russian pilots reflexively pulled up into an abrupt steep climb to avoid a collision.

As the sudden loss of airspeed caused the BEAR to wallow and stall, the copilot swore. Goddamned cowboy! That fucking American is going to kill us!

Where did he go? Mother of God, he will kill us if he is not stopped. Can you see him, gunner? Can you track him? the pilot shouted.

He’s painting us! the EWO cried. His fire control radar is on! Watch him!

The tail gunner was on his first mission. The sudden appearance of the American fighter from nowhere badly frightened him. Isolated in his tail turret, the gunner could hear only excited voices over the intercom. The gunner reached to his control panel and turned on his fire control radars. As he did, his eyes caught the rapidly approaching blur of GRAYBACK 02, and he froze. Frightened, he did not call a warning of the new fighter. When 02 turned on his radar, it caused a second shock to the flight deck crew.

GRAYBACK 02 flashed over the right side of the BEAR as its tail guns swiveled in response to the radar controls. The F-15’s own Radar Warning Receiver warbled when the Russian’s fire control radar painted the American.

As the BEAR bounced in the turbulence of his passage, GRAYBACK 02 broke radio silence. Lead, this is Two. BEAR has uncaged his guns and turned on his fire control radar. We’ve got him good enough. Let’s quit now.

GRAYBACK 01 completed a circle behind the BEAR, ready for a second pass. The startled faces of the flight deck crew made the first pass fun. He was ready for one more before he stopped.

Two, Lead. Negative. I’m going back in. He won’t do anything.

REDCAP, watching the action on his radar and listening to the conversation, broke in. GRAYBACK 01, REDCAP. Do not. I say again. Do not approach BEAR again. Take up position above and in front of BEAR, and escort him from the area into international air space.

GRAYBACK 01 already began his second run on the Russian, and he was too close to break off, so he ignored REDCAP. GRAYBACK was at the same altitude as the Russian aircraft, and the tail gunner saw only a rapidly growing F-15 heading directly at him. He could hear the wail of the RWRs in his earphones. As the copilot shouted that the Americans were out to kill them all, the gunner squeezed his triggers.

Two streams of green tracers blossomed from the tail of the BEAR and converged on the F-15. As GRAYBACK saw the muzzles of the twin cannons begin to sparkle, he jerked his control stick back to climb out of the path of the guns. The cannon fire caught the underside of his aircraft and shredded the right wing and engine.

As his F-15 shuddered under the impact of the cannon fire, the pilot shouted into his radio, GRAYBACK 01 is taking fire! Mayday! Mayday! I’m hit! I’m hit! I’ve lost one engine! Mayday!

REDCAP screamed, GRAYBACK, get the fuck out of there! Do not. Repeat. Do not return fire! 01, where are you? 02, where are you? Can you see 01? What is his status?

On board the BEAR, the cannons’ blast brought everyone to startled speechlessness.

Then the pilot roared. Gunner, what are you firing at? What are you doing? Who shot at us? Navigator! Flight engineer! Get back there and stop him before the fool gets us all killed!

Tensions tightened another notch. The Russians accepted American assurances that GRAYBACK 01, who survived his bailout and raft trip in the North Atlantic with minor injuries, acted on his own in violation of regulations and policies and would be disciplined, but they did not believe them.

The Americans, for their part, publicly accepted the Russian story of the berserk airman who had panicked and fired on the F-15 but privately discounted it. It was common knowledge that Russian service members did nothing without orders and close supervision from their superiors, so obviously the whole mission was a setup to shoot down an American fighter plane.

Incidents between Germany and Poland began flaring up. A German fishing trawler wandered into the Polish twelve-mile limit in the Baltic and loaded its nets with illegal herring. When a Polish coast guard vessel challenged it, the German trawler attempted to run for open seas. The Polish vessel fired a warning shot across the bow of the German ship, who ignored it. The Polish cutter then fired on the trawler and sank it, drowning two crewmembers. The Poles rescued the survivors and charged them with violating Polish fishing laws. The Polish government ignored German protests and sentenced the fishermen to three months in jail. After this incident, German naval vessels with orders to shoot to protect their charges escorted German trawlers in the eastern Baltic.

When a Polish patrol boat tried to halt a German trawler escorted by the German frigate, FGS Neckar, the situation blew up, in all senses of the word. The Polish patrol boat fired across the fishing boat’s bow with its 40 mm cannon. The Neckar responded with its 76 mm main gun and blew the patrol boat out of the water. When Warsaw denounced the Neckar’s action, the German government produced records and charts showing the incident had taken place in international waters and stated that the Neckar’s actions were reasonable and prudent. The Neckar was only protecting herself and an innocent fishing trawler against an unprovoked assault.

Supreme High Command Presentation to the Warsaw Pact Council of Ministers

Our unanimous assessment is that NATO is in disarray and incapable of decisive unified action at this time and for the foreseeable future. Following the debacle of the Iranian Revolution, the former American president won election on building up the American military and made some small progress to that end. However, his disastrous interventions in Central and South American destroyed his regime and led the American public to totally repudiate his administration and party. Over the past five years, the current administration has turned its attention to domestic affairs and increasingly pulled back from international commitments. In the process, they have eliminated whatever improvements had been made to their armed forces and reduced the remainder to a shell. This gives us a window of opportunity to strike Western Europe, defeat our NATO adversaries, and secure unfettered access to the economic resources we need to provide for our own future.

Our analysis is that a major offensive launched into Western Europe with all available Pact forces will result in the rapid seizure of West Germany to the Rhine River, as well as the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark.

Our success in Western Europe will give us leverage in the Mediterranean and allow us to move against Iran when we choose to seize their oil fields. Success will also destroy the spirit of the populations and governments of the surviving NATO nations. The loss of West Germany as a forward base will allow us to consolidate our hold swiftly without interference.

We propose mobilizing all available forces under the guise of a major military exercise celebrating the forty-fifth anniversary of our victory in the Great Patriotic War. We anticipate the mobilization and deployment will take thirty-five days to move all forces to their start positions. The announced start date of the exercise, five days later, will actually launch our offensive.

Our general plan of attack will be two thrusts. The major effort will be across the North German Plain along the Hamburg-Bremen-Rotterdam general line. The second supporting thrust will be through the Fulda Gap along the Fulda-Frankfurt-Wiesbaden line. The primary purpose of this thrust will be to pin the American forces in place and prevent their movement north to reinforce NATO’s Northern Army Group on the North German Plain.

When we have secured our objectives, we shall pause and present our terms to the surviving Western European governments. The destruction of their militaries will force these governments to accept whatever terms we present. With Western Europe neutralized and their premier military force destroyed, the United States will have no other option than to accept our terms.

Washington, DC

The voice of the television anchor was solemn. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States is speaking to the nation in a special broadcast. The White House requested this broadcast with little advance notice and no explanation. And now, the president.

Tension exaggerated the New England accent as the president began. "Good evening. I am speaking to you this evening to discuss the current situation in Europe. Despite repeated appeals by me and the leaders of Western Europe, Russia and its Warsaw Pact allies have continued to mobilize their forces and deploy them closer to the borders of Germany. Our repeated efforts to defuse the tense situation in Central Europe and to gain a fair settlement of the problems existing there have failed. The response of the Russians and their allies has been intransigent hostility and ever-increasing levels of military threat.

"In view of this, and at the recommendation of my military advisors and the leaders of Congress, I have this day called up two hundred thousand members of the Armed Forces Reserves and National Guard for a minimum