Time Out for a Movie

The top crouched low, scurrying from man to man making sure his troops were well dug in; that the foxholes were deep, deep enough to survive whatever was thrown at them….HE, tree bursts, shrapnel; and that the men knew, despite the quiet, another assault was on the way.
He checked the fire team at the advance listening post. “Nothing, Sarge,” they said. “Not a peep. Maybe it’s over.”
Top knew better. The enemy was relentless. Merciless. Vengeful. They’d never forgive how the troops took the high ground. It was rich country, the high ground, simply bursting with opportunities to loot and no one with the will or ability to stop them from taking what they wanted. “Take what’s not nailed down,” was the start of their motto. “And if we can pry it up, it ain’t nailed down,” went the rest.
It had been a bloody fight to take that high ground. Victory was sweet. Now, it was mostly gone,….he and the boys, what was left of ‘em, were hanging on by their fingernails.

Where were the reinforcements? Where were the reserves? There had to be reserves. Didn’t there?
Where was TR to lead the boys up San Juan Hill?
Where was Farragut hanging in the rigging screaming “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” as ships around him were blowing up?
Where was McAuliffe that Christmas in Bastogne, to say “Nuts!” to the Panzer-riding Hun?
Or was it gonna be a repeat of Patton's idea of valor, ”Our blood, his guts.”

He thought about guys in similar situations….

Wainwright’s troops on Bataan waiting in vain for the Pacific Fleet to come to the rescue…and that fleet at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and the war in Europe the first priority.
Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and Travis waiting for Houston to come to the Alamo and chase Santa Anna’s army back to Mexico. The Top remembers the Alamo, and what happened to its defenders.
Custer at the Little Big Horn. Surely the army that had beaten Lee, Jackson and the Rebs could beat a bunch of half-naked savages.
The Cuban Refugee Army at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA had assured them America would back their invasion of Castro’s Cuba….except when they looked from the beach to the sea and the sky for support, all they saw were seagulls.
Cornwallis at Yorktown and the only time the French Navy beats the English fleet keeps his relief outa Chesapeake Bay….or poor ole Burgoyne, with his ten-mile supply train and the best trained army in the world beaten by Benedict Arnold and a bunch of colonials at Saratoga.

He thinks of the glorious defeats: Wake Island and “Send us more Japs;” Washington getting whupped in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and at White Plains in 1776; the third day at Gettysburg and Pickett’s advance to the “high point of the Confederacy;” the Coral Sea, Ironbottom Sound, and the first half of the Battle of the Atlantic; the Brits in the Blitz; the Canadians at Dieppe; Frozen Chosin; the Anzacs at Gallipoli….and how reading about those fights is a lot different than fighting through those fights.

Those far-off, long-ago soldiers live gloriously in our memory and in our history. But they died alone and in mortal agony. What made them do it? Courage? Resolve? Principles? Money?

Or was it as the Sergeant-Major says in the movie “Zulu” when asked, “Why us?” by the young private, as the last men of the 24rd Regiment of Foot face a mass attack by 3,000 Zulus, “Because we’re here, lad.”

Well, thinks Sarg, here we are. The wagons are in a circle, the enemy has us surrounded, and everyone is looking for the cavalry to come to the rescue…..

Okay, who wants to finish the script. How will this one end?