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Goodman and Wilson sat waiting in an idling Humvee.
“Come on, Rios,” Goodman said. “The 82nd Airborne’s going to relieve us for a while. Let’s grab some food and get a little sleep while we’ve got the chance.”
“Yeah,” Wilson said. “Let’s go find out if the Russians got the mess hall.”
In a fog, Rios staggered over to the Humvee. The weary airman, numb in body, mind, and spirit, crawled into the backseat. Hot food and a soft bed were far more than he’d dreamed he’d ever see again. At least in this lifetime.
The Humvee headed toward the smoldering flight line. After hours of battling the intense fires that raged all over the base, the firefighting crews were letting the final ones burn themselves out.
Wilson leaped from the Humvee the moment they reached the mess hall. “Let’s go. I don’t care what they’ve got on the menu—I’m having two of everything.”
“Man, look at that,” Goodman said. He pointed to the bullet holes and burn marks on all the buildings in the area.
Rios stared at the smoking rubble down the street. A few hours earlier, a huge, four-story building had stood on the spot. “Goodman, our barracks is gone!”
“Christ, all our stuff was in there,” Goodman said. “What are we gonna do now?”
“This place sure got hit hard,” Wilson said. “How many planes did the driver tell you we lost?”
“I think he said thirty or forty on the ground and another sixty in this morning’s air battle,” Goodman said.
They threw open the mess-hall doors and entered. Inside the warm building, Rios stripped off his tattered gloves and parka. For the first time, he got a good look at the nasty burns on his forearms. The sudden warmth of the mess hall caused his frozen hands to ache. The heat began bringing each swollen finger back to life. Fourteen hours in the bitter weather, and the intense battle with the parachutists, had taken a severe toll on the young airman.
Wilson sauntered up to the chow line. With his M-4 slung over his shoulder, he looked every bit the savvy combat veteran. He surveyed the long row of steaming food.
“Give me a little of whatever you got. Then give me a whole lot more.”
While they ate, Wilson jabbered on about anything and everything. Goodman enjoyed the comfort of a full belly and the relief of being alive. He often pushed his ill-fitting glasses up on his nose, and occasionally added something to the conversation.
The significance of what he’d done this morning was slowly sinking into Rios’s muddled mind. He heard little of the conversation and said even less.
When the feast was over, Goodman looked up at the mess sergeant. “Hey, Sarge, our barracks burned down. Where can we find a place to sleep?”
“Hell, there are so many dead, all you have to do is go to any barracks and climb into whatever bunk you want. No one’s going to care.”
Wilson and Goodman picked up their M-4s. The trio wandered over to the nearest barracks. With the exception of a few soundly sleeping airmen, the building was deserted. Each picked out an inviting bunk. They pulled off their parkas and stripped off their boots. All three lay down on a soft mattress. In minutes, Rios was fast asleep.
• • •
At the same moment the 24th Infantry’s Bradleys and tanks, and the 82nd Airborne’s Humvees, drove through Ramstein’s main gate, five hundred miles east, the final regiment of the 103rd Parachute Division entered their transports. The cargo planes were soon heading down the Ukrainian base’s runways. In two hundred aircraft, twenty-four hundred men and four hundred combat vehicles headed into the late-afternoon sky. Their target was the American air base at Ramstein. Two MiGs flew on every transport’s wingtips to protect them from the enemy’s planes and air defenses.
The regiment’s soldiers had sat on their parachutes all day, eagerly waiting to join in the fight. Word had arrived in midafternoon. Ramstein still stood. The highest-priority target had been severely damaged. But it hadn’t been destroyed. The regiment’s orders were clear—eliminate the American air base at all cost. While they hooked up their static lines and prepared to jump, the parachutists were convinced they wouldn’t fail. All traces of the enemy base would be wiped from the face of the earth by the time an early moon rose into the night sky.
The regimental commander was completely unaware that the Americans had diverted a battalion of their best soldiers to protect the embattled fighter base.
While the parachutists flew across Germany, the American air forces were licking their deep wounds. Ramstein’s runways were still out. Nearly half the Patriot air-defense systems were nothing more than unrecognizable wreckage littering the scarred snows. This time, there was little organized resistance to challenge the Russian transports. A few fighters out of Lakenheath met the incoming threat. The escorting MiGs chased the F-35s off with minimal losses. A handful of air-defense missiles reached up from the surviving Patriots to snatch the plodding transports from the heavens. Yet for most of the regiment, the American defenses turned out to be little more than a minor irritant. Twenty-two hundred parachutists survived the perilous journey through the enemy skies. With dusk fast approaching, the final regiment’s parachutes cascaded down upon the broad fields of western Germany.
For the most part, the drop went well. The regiment’s losses were minimal. Over two thousand attackers rose from their drop zone northwest of the base. They hurried to their vehicles. In another hour, darkness would be full upon them. The time had come to wrap their powerful coils around Ramstein and swallow their vulnerable victim whole. Within minutes of the first parachutist’s feet touching the snows, the regiment moved toward the southeast with single-minded focus.
• • •
An air policeman rushed into the barracks. “Wake up! Wake up!” he yelled. “Another Russian unit just parachuted in. They’ll be here in a few minutes. Grab your rifles and return to your defensive positions.”
“Rios!” Wilson said. “Wake up! The Russians are about to attack again!”
Rios was more asleep than awake. The half-light of the onrushing night confused him. “What time is it?”
“Almost four.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“I don’t know. About twenty minutes, I guess. Who cares? The Russians have returned. They’re getting ready to attack. We’ve been ordered back to the fence.”
With rifle in hand, Goodman walked up to Rios’s bunk. “Come on, Rios, let’s go. The Humvee’s waiting.”
Rios reluctantly raised himself to a sitting position. He swung his feet over the side of the bed. The dazed airman reached down and slowly started putting on his boots.
“Come on, Rios, hurry it up!” Goodman said.
Wilson and Goodman ran down the hallway and out the door.
• • •
The wind whistled through the Humvee while they raced toward the eastern fence.
“Russians parachuted in northwest of here this time,” their air-police driver said. “The base commander says that after all the planes they destroyed this morning, we can’t afford any more losses. The 82nd Airborne’s going to head out and hit them as far away from here as they can.”
“What about us?” Goodman asked.
“You guys are going back to the same spot on the fence line. We’ve rebuilt all the bunkers along the eastern fence. We’re sending out more airmen to man them. There should be four replacements waiting at your bunker when you get there.”
And there were. The four were standing by the bunker as the Humvee neared. The moment they spotted the Humvee approaching, the burgundy berets who’d relieved them earlier raced off in their vehicle to join their battalion.
