Chernobyl 1986
Yet they fly.
And they pour concrete into the reactor, and the citizens of Russia, men, women and children live, the pilots do not. Their graves state they are the greatest heroes of Russia, I disagree, they are the greatest human beings of mankind.
America's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) nightmare
As people are trampled to death, cars collide in the parking lot and burn as thousands of fans run for their lives from the "death cloud".
The Illinois Governor's Mansion
Leviathan: "Then who the hell does?"
COS: "The National Guard has a RAID and Emergency Response Company in Iowa"
Leviathan: "Well?"
COS: "They are on the way...they are inside CH-47D helicopters en route as we speak".
Leviathan: "What about the panic?...what will we tell the people to do? ...this cloud is headed towards our biggest city!!!"
COS: "The National Guard is living up to its nickname on this one. They had all their Soldiers keep BDUs, boots and a MOPP suit/mask in the trunk of their cars for this type emergency...most were watching the game and reported to their armories immediately..they are on the outskirts now of the stadium..."
Leviathan: "So we have the situation under control?"
COS: "Not quite, sir. Their suits are breathable for a combat environment, they are only good for a few hours, after that they HAVE TO BE PULLED OUT".
Leviathan: "My GOD".
"Can't they go in now and contain the spill?"
COS: "Noone can get in there. All the wheeled vehicles are stopped by the burning wrecks leading from the stadium. The closest to the stadium is the Guard troops, but their suits will be compromised where they sweat...they will die if they go in there...
Leviathan: "We are screwed."
COS: "Our only hope is to FLY IN and contain the spill".
Iowa Army National Guard Headquarters
A nuclear reactor out of control...if it continues to spew forth radioactive particles thousands will die..there is no time....Russian pilots must FLY IN to contain the spill...the pilots cannot wear protective suits and fly their helicopters, there is simply no time. This will be their last mission. The radiation will kill them.
The Chicago Bears are hosting the Dallas Cowboys "America's Team" at Soldier field in Chicago, Illinois on Thanksgiving day; televised to the whole nation on holiday. Suddenly a smoke bomb goes off. The camera pans right to see a group of security guards rushing to the smoke cloud. They pass out. Then others around them begin convulsing and dying. Incredibly on national TV pandemonium breaks out as the fans run wildly to get out of the stadium.
Governor Jim Leviathan saw it all on TV and couldn't believe it, not his city, not his watch. But there it is. His Chief Of Staff (COS) walks in; "Sir FEMA can't reach the site. There's a traffic jam all over the city emanating from the stadium. They don't have decon teams ready".
The CH-47Ds were lined up and loaded......both giant rotors spinning...UH-60 Blackhawks and UH-1H Hueys were already airborne and en route...
Major Charles Larnot was getting ready to board the lead Chinook... The Adjutant General was before him...
"Chuck...YOU MUST contain and stop that agent or whatever it is, WHATEVER THE COST....YOU and your men are IT..."
The two men shook hands.
"Save the day, Major Larnot".
Major Larnot, used to these kinds of challenges since him and his men had came just in time earlier to stop the North Koreans from seizing our last airfield, smiled eagerly not revealing the anguish he felt for his men being sent on a suicide mission.
"On the way, Sir!"
As he saluted the General, he could see tears streaming from the old man's eyes.
The Huey Flight
LTC Richard Stiebert was wondering what the heck was going on....He was watching thanksgiving football and now he was flying into the face of sure death. Beside him was his S-3, Major Emery Nielson and a Polaris diesel All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) slung underneath. Their mission: to relieve the Guardsmen around the perimeter, and evacuate as many of the dying and trampled in the stadium to MEDEVAC them in special "body bags" to the nearby hospital set-up to receive WMD patients. Each ATV could carry one stretcher and he had some larger Kawasaki MULE ATVs inside the Chinooks that could haul 3 at a time. They were now 1 hour away from Soldier field..how ironic that 6 decades after it was so named for returning WWII Soldiers that they would be returning to fight there on battlefield Hometown U.S.A.
One hour away from insertion they donned their FPMs and raised the hoods of their new Joint Services Protective suits, which while far better than the old CPOGS the Chicago Guardmen had below was still only good for a few days at best. Every man had written a letter home "just in case". Their only way home was to contain this spill pronto. There was no turning back.
The Hueys began to circle over Soldier field, scores of bodies and burning cars littered the road. They moved to an upwind hovering insertion point and flared--level----the crew chiefs guiding the pilots over the intercom---"Steady..Steady...."
The ATV sling loads were released. Next, Stiebert and Nielson hooked up their 120 foot nylon climbing ropes to their Swiss seats tied at their waists...and assumed a "L" shape on the Huey's skids. "ON RAPPEL" they shouted through their masks even though noone could hear them...out of habit...
They rappeled down quickly and unhooked from the ropes which were dropped. The Hueys flew away. They were all alone in a nightmare of dead bodies and burning cars.
A natural leader, Stiebert took charge and got his MEDEVAC and security teams going into positions UPWIND of the unidentified agents. What was this? Anthrax? Radioactive stuff? Noone knew.
The Chinook flight
The American pilots knew the risks. They MUST deliver the RAID and SERC Soldiers at ALL COSTS. This includes their aircraft and their lives. But they had one "ace in the hole"....they were better prepared than the Russians were for Chernobyl....
They had Wiesel 2 light tracked armored vehicles in their CH-47D fuselages with the National Guard Air Assault infantry of the SERC and RAID Soldiers inside in a pressurized, filtered hull. Inside the Wiesel 2, they would be safe from all WMD agents. They would land upwind using Stiebert's Pathfinders' smoke signals and offload the Wiesels/men who would then drive the remaining distance through hell to the center of Soldier field. If they were lucky, they could not get contaminated and fly back safely, if they were to get sick they were told to crash their helicopter quickly into the nearest area away from civilians and put themselves out of their agony. If you remember the Charlton Heston film, "The Omega Man" this is what happened when an Army doctor with the only serum for a biological agent attack lost his pilot enroute. Such were the "Hobson choice" realities that few civilians even begin to understand that the military serviceman has faced for decades in dirty hell holes all around the world to preserve their freedom to call them "narrow minded war mongers" and deny recruiters from speaking to their valueless teenagers in school. Now hell had landed in their hometown and they were all terrified.
Maj Larnot was in the first Wiesel 2 to roll off the first Chinook as it flared for a landing in the only clear area the Pathfinders could, ehh find. As he looked out through the Commander's vision slots he saw a scene from Dantes' inferno....a hellish nightmare that only his tiny Wiesels could squeeze through, and what they couldn't go through, they could rumble over with their tracks...the closer they got to the playing field, the thicker the agent would be, and the greater the danger....
Governor's Mansion
That Chief of Staff ran into his office where he saw the Governor and staff huddled around the MSNBC broadcast...
COS: "The Wiesels have landed"
The Governor jumped up...
Leviathan: "Good work! We might get through this after all..."
Another secretary asked for him...
"Sir, the marines are on the line..they say they can be here in 24 hours with their special response team if we supply them with Air Guard aircraft"
The self-procliamed "911" force was wondering why noone had bothered to call...
Leviathan: "Tell them to standby. By the time they get here we might all be dead".
COS: "Sir, the reporters are waiting for you in the Press room"...
The Governor brushed himself off and walked into the room..cameras clicking....questions, desperate panic, deer-in-headlights stares...the whole room slowed to a blur of slow motion..his heart pounding...
He turned into the people assembled, fearing for their own lives.....
"People..."
Then he faced the cameras head-on...this would be his finest hour of public service...
"Of Chicago and Illinois..and America..."
Silence. Not a pin dropped.
"We will contain this attack. We have brave men on the ground in Soldier Field laying it all on the line. They are going to prevail..WE are going to prevail over this terrorist attack. We don't know what the agent is yet...
BUT...we are in a state of Marshall Law. Noone is to leave their homes except emergency service personnel. A TV message following this press conference will show you how to seal a room in your home or apartment and wait out this evil cloud"....
Immediately the assembled reporters showed signs of life, their hope had been restored....he could hear things again, the slow motion was over...
"I call on each of you to turn to your Bibles and pray for the men fighting for us---all of us---as we speak---in the middle of that evil cloud"....
"That their equipment does not fail them..."
Soldier field
Larnot was at the stadium entrance...all the service exits were blocked....burning cars everywhere....a radio message...
"Wiesel Command, this is Wiesel Alpha..."
"Go Wiesel Alpha"...
"Sir, we can't push the cars through, too many...."
"WE go OVER them"....
Slowly, one by one, owing to their long ancestry to the tracked tanks of WWI that rumbled over wire and trenches, the Wiesel 2s rumbled over the burning cars blocking their way to stop the evil chemical agent attack as the "Douhghboys" had done in 1918 to make the "world safe for democracy". We had the democracy now for sure, but a violent one given to expression via acts of "super terrorism" in order to gain headlines in a world jaded by the constant stream of media reported catastrophes...Whoever wanted the attention this time was willing to kill thousands....and will succeed unless they can stop the attack...here..now..in Soldier's field....not football..but life and death...
As the column of Wiesel 2s rumbled inside the stadium, the horror was indescribable....bodies lying everywhere..some twitching still...football players..cheerleaders..fans...some people alive running around! Who were they?
"There it is!"
Larnot's driver saw it first...a silver cannister on the 20 yard line hissing and emitting a steady stream of smoke....
Shots began to ring out bouncing off their Wiesel 2 armored skin...
"We are taking fire!"
It was a trap....
The terrorists had wanted the first responders to rush in and then to pick them off in the open....but they hadn't counted on the armored Wiesel 2s protecting them...or that they would be heavily armed Soldiers...
"Dragoon Actual, this is Wiesel Command, over"
Stiebert answered the call as best as he could through his mask.
"We have armed gunmen in MOPP gear in the heights overlooking the stadium...."
Stiebert couldn't believe it....
"We are going to flush them out to you...cover the exits and get them..we need to know WHO is behind this..."
Stiebert called his leaders together and set up a perimeter around the stadium as Larnot got his dismounts ready....
Larnot: "Lt Sharks, I need you to get those guys or force them into the Dragoons surrounding the stadium..we will contain the device.... "
The two men looked at each other..they knew the risks....one tear in their suits or the mask seal compromised by movement and the men outside the protective caccoon of the Wiesel 2 would die...
"Airborne, Sir!"
Larnot: "All the way, Son".
"Prepare to de-pressurize!"
Swarms of angry National Guard Air Assault infantry began to pour out the back of their Wiesel 2s, as shots ring out across the stadium...they begin to move skillfully by fire team bounds...as one team fires, the other moves up the steep stairs towards the top of the stadium where the terrorist snipers were...
Lt Sharks threw smoke grenades to shield his men and fired at the fleeting terrorists using his M68 reflex sight that enabled his men to get a fast sight alignment/sight picture that was just enough advantage to carry the day against the terrorists with only iron sights and unable to aim properly...4 dead terrorists lay at the top of the stadium....
Meanwhile Stiebert and his men had killed one and captured one ALIVE----Stiebert called in for an immediate evacuation of EPW...a UH-1H with STABO harness would come in and lift out the EPW and fly him like a human sling load to the FBI/FEMA Command Post several miles upwind of the stadium...he would be the key to the puzzle of who would pay for this crime against mankind...
Larnot and the ticking bomb
Meanwhile Larnot stood watch as the RAID team measured the clouds emanating from the device...an EOD qualified Guardsmen examined the device and fed real time video imagery back to Headquarters where the best experts were debating what to do next...in fact the entire drama was seen by everyone on National TV as it occured....
The consensus was to pick the device up and contain it.
A Wiesel 2 drove up to the device towing a bomb trailer with a crane. The dismounted RAID team members gingerly wrapped a sling around the device, unhitched the trailer and then by remote control from a safe distance raised the device by the crane into the trailer body. Which then closed around it. After jarring and shocking the device, in case it exploded, it was now contained. No oxygen left for it to continue burning.
"We have got it, Sir!"
Around the world, cheers rose up as people watched the drama!
MSNBC Commentator Brian Jennings cuts in.
"It appears the WMD device in Soldier Field has been contained".
The detector equipment inside the vehicle came to life.
"Major, we have a reading".
"A Combination of Nerve agent and anthrax spores."
Major Larnot knew exactly what to do next.
"Patch me into the Center for Disease Control..."
"Yes, I want every single person who made it home from Soldier field located immediately and anti-biotics administered at once to them IN THEIR HOMES. Its anthrax and nerve agents. We have the nerve agents contained, however some of the anthrax spores are in some of the people who were here that got back home...they need anit-biotics NOW as a preventative measure before they show symptoms which would then be too late.."
EPILOGUE
"The Battle for Soldier field" won by Soldiers marked the first domestic attack on American home soil since Japanese submarines had shelled the Pacific coast in the early days of WWII. It was the first acknowledged battle of Martin Van Crevald's "4th generation War" where the target was the hearts, minds and bodies of the PEOPLE themselves and not their Army. But the U.S. Army was ready with its National Guard "Minutemen" as they were ready over 200 years ago one fateful day on Concord's plains when the freedom of mankind was endangered as it was yet again. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and its NEVER cheap. The dozens of dead from the catastrophe and not hundreds and thousands served as a reminder that we MUST today get ready. In the first battle of 4th GenWar, the scoreboard read:
Army Wiesels 12,000,000 saved...WMD, 83 dead, 56 wounded....
It is up to EACH generation to fight the evil of its day....
Our DAY......has come...
It is NOW.
AIRBORNE!
FEEDBACK!
A military commentator notes:
"The problem is their would be no cameras to capture all this heroism and the only press pictures would be of marines dismounting from their vehicles (which are wheeled and unable to get close to the Stadium). At the press conference after everything is in hand, the Governor (an ex-marine) and a marine General, will speak in glowing terms about the great job the marine did in bringing the situation under control. There will be no mention of the Army."