And they were many.

The helicopters finally dropped us in a small village, named Forbach, in the middle of the Black Forest, where we would regroup. But I suspected there would be many dead. And there were. Among the known dead: Peter, Jon, Dave, Sara and Cindy. Decimated platoons, the 5th, the 6th, the 7th, where the Russians completely broke through, the 1st and the 2nd where the Russians eventually outflanked us. All units of the French Foreign Legion died in **** attempts to hold the line, to give us time to flee. The few people of the American Special Forces that were at the line died as well. The rest are now behind enemy lines sabotaging supply lines. Heavily reduced in numbers were the 3rd platoon, the 4th, the 8th, the 9th. The 10th didn’t fare that much better with sections more or less cut in half.

The survivors were happy and sad at the same time, guilty and relieved, ashamed and joyful just for being alive. It was being either dead or alive in my section, no wounded were transported away from us. For the rest of my platoon I would love to say the same, but I couldn’t.

Silently we said our goodbyes, in a circle we built of stones, making small rock formations. Tom was devastated losing his soccer friends from his life before the war. Kara, she could become Jenna again if she so wished, but she didn’t, cried for the longest time for the loss of Sara and Cindy. Kate cried, having connected with all of them, but most of all for the losses her brother suffered. Kylie couldn’t stand it, and isolated herself for long periods of time. I must admit, I wasn’t in a good place that time. I was numbed, like a zombie, like a formed shell of myself. Full of self-hatred, full of hate, sad and angry.

Too soon the leadership wanted to replenish the ranks, I cursed them away, with gun in hand. They saw in my eyes I would have used it, if they didn’t bugger off fast. We didn’t bother to occupy the houses, the forest had become our home. We slowly set up our camp, digging again. We were resupplied with guns, ammo, sleeping bags, and food. My tenth platoon disintegrated into other platoons, but as section we refused to be part of something new. We couldn’t stand the idea of losing new members, but we felt we couldn’t leave the war efforts yet. We would be a free roaming section from now on, helping others where we wanted to help.

We nested ourselves at a wooded area near Forbach, on a hill next to a sports complex of sorts, where you could tennis or learn to shoot with bow and arrow. We would use that nest as more of a permanent home where we relaxed, and came home to. Work was in the trenches, foxholes at the east of the mountains and forests, where a massive army had been busy fortifying the region in line after line. Work meant inspecting the fortifications, the newly minted soldiers, the equipment installations, platoon formations, platoon dynamics. We had the mandate to transfer soldiers from one platoon to another, finding better matches to increase their efficiency. After all, we were battle hardened veterans now and were looked upon in awe for having seen battle, surviving the onslaught.

We didn’t see it that way, far from it, we were lucky survivors, having done our best but having failed to protect most of our comrades. Probably in the vain hope we would contribute more, upper management promoted me to captain, my surviving team members to sergeants. As if it mattered.

I ordered my section to train in multiple disciplines: sharp shooting, demolition, advanced medical care, AT-launching and machine gunnery. To keep ourselves busy, but also to be together doing something useful. We were now a team of six. As for our housing, we did dig foxholes at first, but later resorted to digging into the hill, supporting the inside chambers with wooden beams. We wanted to be able to hide more thoroughly, or have an emotional link to real housing, or being more connected in our foxholes I don’t know. It kept us busy even more.

The Russians did suffer badly at the Main. After we fled, the whole area was heavily bombed by stealth bombers, using heavy ordinance, napalm and fragmentation bombs. Still, more than half survived and were reinforced by troops in the area behind them.

My suggestion to Mister Blue had its effect, I was very surprised to hear. After dropping heavy propaganda and warning leaflets, Russians living in the zone between Black Sea and Baltic Sea were scared away, not wanting to be victim of high intensity bombing, nuclear attacks or high altitude chemical bombing. A lot of them fled to the east, sad to leave their houses, and very angry to have to because their leaders wanted to wage a war that was senseless in every way. Revolutionary cells were forming, small uprisings were quelled, but it was only the prelude to mass revolt. In the meantime, antiradar drones flew low over the Russian earth and dropped small black canisters above the entire mapped zone. The canisters exploded and in a radius of five kilometers yellow dust was dispersed carrying nuclear waste particles. They dropped on the ground, but were also present in the air for quite some time. They repeated the process over the entire zone a few times until a very heavy layer of deadly radioactive pollution was impregnating the earth and air. The effect was immediately felt and seen. Trees died, animals died, people still left in the area died. Millions upon millions fled or died on their way. Soldiers sent to rescue died.

Those at the borders of the zone survived, but those at the wrong side of the border were shot, taken prisoner and shot. Only children and women survived at the wrong side of the border. None had a lot of patience or empathy with the men of Russia. It was mass ****, it was genocide, it was war. And I was that far gone to not give a damn. I was not proud, I didn’t boast about my role in it, I kept my mouth shut, but overall I didn’t care.

Russians soldiers in protective gear could still cross the zone, but not for too long and only too few had protective gear. The Russian army was not outfitted for mass radiation zones. Reinforcement from Russia itself effectively ceased to continue. The Russians in Europe knew it, and desperation had set in. Returning after the war was no longer an option. No one would see their family again. The only option was to move forward, conquer Europe and hope they could carve out a country or safe zones for their own and later to return home unharmed via south or north of the Yellow border. If they were allowed to return. Tensions at home increased, revolution was hanging in the Russian air.

Not having sufficient resources, the Russians started to withdraw as many as they safely could from the eastern countries. Mass **** ensued relentlessly. Mini wars were fought between the resistance and the recently set up occupational forces. Entire villages were bombed just to be able to withdraw troops to reinforce their armies in the west. This would be the last battle and friends and enemies alike knew it.

So while the Russians were regrouping and reinforcing their troops with all and anything they could find, we in the mountains and those behind the Rhine were experiencing some form of peace since a long time. Or at least we tried to find our peace of mind again.