A baptism of fire.
10.30 hours:
A group of Special Forces troops have taken control of the water purification plant and are holding off attacking militia forces but badly need reinforcement, our squad has been ordered to give that reinforcement. We patrolled through the woods near the plant with me as point man. I saw some movement over on the buildings and called a halt before taking cover and checking out what was ahead. My squad leader came up to lead the patrol on a different route, while I stood ready to lay down covering fire if needed but, luckily, we weren’t spotted.
A squad lays down some fire while a spotter susses out where the bad guys areWhen we got to the plant the fire was coming in from all directions so we had to lay down a base of covering fire to cross the open ground between us and the plant. You sure have to trust your squad when legging it across the ground as you cross their lines of fire and have no option but to hope they’ll stop shooting as you run in front of them. We all made it across safely.
We fanned out to the south-west of the plant, pushing forward to make contact and establish a defensive perimeter. I got separated from the rest of the squad when the Africans brought in a heavy machine gun… three of my squad got hit trying to flank around and take it out, but it bought us enough time to regroup with the last guy over the other side. We flanked around the known enemy position before throwing grenades and then following that up with covering fire. Matt got two before he was shot and I took at least one down before several Africans opened up from behind the trees and chopped me to bits…
