Thirteen Warriors
THE ASHEN RIDERS
Well seems us old war dogs are getting our time to tell our tale…about damn time that we can speak the truth about the horrors of the Tir Invasion. Our tale has been nearly eradicated as the Iron Wolves or simply the Alpha’s have been cut down to only 13 warriors from a USMC Company of 20,000 souls. Our brothers in the 401st and 82nd fought in the English Countryside and Bath and paid dearly for their time in the trenches; we fought in the frigid lochs of Scotland. We stood proud with the Nordic, Icelandic, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Battalions numbering another 15,000 men; When the dust would settle on the last day of fighting only 13 men would be carried out on stretchers heading for a MASH Unit.
We would survive when thousands would perish in the fires of hell that would forever scorch and stain the landscape, our bones and ashes would become one with the Scottish Highlands and forever become the resting place for many including my wife who served proudly with the 51st as Marine Nurse and Field Medic. We were called to action and deployed to Scotland in September of 2018 and we dug in deep to be prepared for the hellish magical assaults that would be coming our way, the Scottish landscape made trench warfare nearly impossible; our commander General Oxford would decide that we needed to dig foxholes and hold the ground at all costs. The Nordic forces dug in and spread out to cover additional flanks that the Tir military would be coming in from. Intelligence stated that we would be expecting an assault from the west, but the ever paranoid and prepared Oxford would make certain we secured all flanks and with a joint effort the Finnish and Norwegian forces would cover our rear in the rare chance they came from behind….no Cambodian Cut Off for this Company of men.
The air was frigid up in the Scottish North and the Lochs where starting to freeze over the ground crunched under our feet and our boots soaked. The Highlands stared down on us with a welcoming gaze yet the dark clouds gave us concern as a storm was coming and boy was their ever. It was early October the 3rd to be exact and if you have ever been in Northern Scotland it’s already cold in the early fall, well in 2018 it was unseasonably cold and that meant we were about to be dumped on by snow and ice. For our Nordic brothers this was normal and they enjoyed the cold, for us Americans this was about to be hell on a biblical level.
Our scouts reported Tir movement at 0400 on the 3rd as the sky darkened and starlight faded under the clouds, the winds picked up and the ambient temperature dropped quickly. Chills raced through our spines as snow began to fall and quickly layer the earth in a blanket of the years first snow, this serine sight would be forever ruined as the blanket of snow would become littered with blood, mud, gore, and bodies over the next three days.
The Tir forces would arrive by 0500 and the ground was already covered by three inches of snow and it was starting to come down in near whiteout conditions…this lasted for many hours and many men on both sides would freeze to death from exposure to the elements. Nothing more horrifying than watching men slowly freeze to death as they fall under hypothermia’s blissful forever sleep. Though by 0600 the Tir where in our sights and scattered through the countryside, the weather had given us a huge advantage as it destroyed sight thus removing the advantage of the magical division. Though what we would not be prepared for would be the additional forces supplied by France, Spain, Germany, Poland, China, and Russia…this is before Vladimir Sablin took control of Russia.
Their numbers where great and we suddenly felt like a pimple on a dogs ass, we were greatly out numbered and the weather was playing havoc on our big guns and armour units. I could hear Brenner barking commands and our multi shot artillery began to pepper the enemy, our armour units rolled out into the wilds and the Swedish and Scottish units would march behind the tanks to engage the enemy directly as we dug in deeper. Machine gun fire would erupt through the early morning and so it would begin at 0630 on October 3rd. Mortars exploding all around, mines removing men with extreme prejudice…though the extreme cold reeked havoc on our mine fields and as the ground froze the mines would prematurely explode, thus alerting the enemy to their location.
Once the fighting started no one was safe and it was all hands on deck, I heard the officers barking “Men this is what we prepared for, give’em hell boys!!” The NCO’s taking up the mantle and guiding the men into battle and so began the War of all Wars. The Armies of the world gathered on Great Britain’s soil and in under a week it would all be over, though for us it would be three days and by the wee hours on the 7th it would be trip to the hospital for some and a trip to the grave for many. Over 50,000 men and women would perish in Scotland a casualty rate not scene since the first Civil War and something that would take the nations generations to recover from. Some countries are still recovering and left a direct opening for further conflict and invasions while others simply licked their wounds and moved on.
It was total chaos in the Lochs, blood pooled and than froze, bodies littered the battlefield and where covered in snow in minutes; men would step on the bodies of the fallen or simply trip over them as the ground had become a hazard. Enemy bombers blindly dropped their payloads onto the fields of despair as our gunners fired hoping to hit there targets. By 1200 hours the snow was falling at such a rate that visibility was zero and that meant firing your rifle could mean killing one of your brothers. This didn’t stale the enemies approach, the worse the weather the faster they came at us, the wind howling so loudly as if the Gods themselves where displeased. Bullets ripped through the air and punched into flesh and bone, cries could be heard all around as men and child where falling, some luck enough to die right away others would suffer and freeze in the blizzard unable to get to help and simply hoping to found…..the entire situation would invoke a feeling of hopelessness.
At 1500 hours on the 3rd the temperature would drop once again as the snow became ice and pelted us, the winds would turn the falling ice into near glass as each one would sting and cut into our exposed skin. I would find myself having to jump from foxhole to foxhole simply to keep moving as being stationary would turn out to be the greatest killer in these hostile conditions, yet moving anywhere increased the risk of being killed by friendly fire.
I know that the other tales were a bot more descriptive of the engagements….and I agree, but this is from my point of view and it was total chaos in Scotland. Visibility was nearly zero, men dug in everywhere and fighting from all sides as the Korean forces would come in from the North with India coming in from the east. As I said it was total chaos and hell on earth, though that would start at 2300 hours on the 3rd when the ice storm was tearing down trees, freezing the armour and causing their guns to misfire, our mines to remove our own people. Brenner’s guns kept barking throughout the battle, unknowing if they were hitting their mark or being stolen by the wind and landing in no mans land.
Though at 2300 the Tir bombers took to the skies once again and deployed chlorine bombs, mustard gas and agent orange blindly onto the battlefields and simply crash from the flying ice and high winds. The weather had neutered their magical assault and forced the magi to fight fairly, though the chemical warfare was about to even the odds….not something the Tir had planned on I guess, all US Marines carry chemical gear and it go used quickly. The weather was turning the gas into a liquid and sending the poisonous air all around and no one was safe including their own men, the filters needed to be changed often as they would freeze over and yet the wind and ice would end up saving us in the long haul as the gas would not stick around for long. Though the ground and everything would be coated in the toxic sludge.
They would bombard with chemical agents from 2300 to 0700 on the 4th when the storm would begin to subside. Yet the worst was still to come, there is a reason they call us the Ashen Riders and it would eventually go from freezing temperatures to hell’s inferno. Our medical unit was the first to be hit by the enemy next would be our supply line, they seemed to know exactly where everything was and they would hit us hard and fast.
Well it seems my brothers in the 51st have been busy adding their two cents and doing as I requested, though they did lock me out for many hours and I can already see the messages coming in from Asmar that he is not pleased with being locked out….well your brother got me earlier. Okay well you have already learned that the weather was not in our favour, our communications had been cut off by 1200 hours on the first day and we would have to suffer under the nightmare of chemical warfare. All in all one can say that this situation was one that would be lost and we would end up in the history books as the defeated and the Tir or as our commander called them the Inishmore would be victories.
Well that would not be the case as they would also fall victim to their own chemical warfare and their allies would as well fall asunder. This battle would take a quick turn once our lines where crashed and the enemy would charge unrelentingly into our holes. They would attack like animals possessed and yet they would be haunted and tormented by their own sick weapon as they were already dead and didn’t know it. Their bodies destroyed and minds polluted but yet their bodies still functioned. They gave us everything they had left and more. We fought with every ounce of our bodies and many of us would fall during that part of this play.
I was already severely wounded and held together by stitching and duct tape, my legs and arms mangled and bones broken but I am a Marine and we were taught the fight through the pain and never die until ordered to die…seeing I am a Major that wasn’t going to happen. During the hellish fighting I would eventually be unable to fight any further and yet I damn well tried even with my body punctured and my blood flowing I would still give them hell. My mask would be cracked as well my hand powdered by the spade of a shovel that I would end up needing to block from crushing my skull, me second 1LT Kennith Baxter would see me in danger and he would throw himself into the hornets nest. He would end up killing the bastard and dragging me out by my straps and then over his shoulder to the medical line that was more like the medical deli counter….take a number and pray.
My wife 1LT Cynthia Blake was our field nurse and medic…well one of them and at this moment, she would be one of the few remaining. She was already finishing up with one soldier that was beyond treatment and it was now my turn, I never thought in a million years that I would be in this situation…having my wife a combat medic have to decide if I live or die and well in my situation death seemed like a blessing over the pain throughout my body and well if you ever broke every bone in your hand well you will wish for death. Cynthia would work on me for what seemed like hours and eventually she would inject me with a shot of morphine and it would be lights out. Though the last thing I would see would be my beloved falling dead at my side as a snipers bullet would punch through her helmet as her blood pooled with mine, my heart broke but this is war and we knew and understood the risks…not like I had to like it though.
I would be saved from the hellfire by Doctor Apples and his quick thinking, he would bury many of us in the melted muck and shove tubes in our mouths as we were buried alive. Many that would employ this tactic would be boiled till death and others would simply drown or freeze to death, for those that survived it would not be without a grave cost as we would be overheated, burned and scorched. Our lungs damaged from the extreme heat and our vision scared from having our eyes dried, our hearing damaged from the explosions and heat…all in all I am alive and I count my lucky stars but life without my Cynthia is hard and knowing that for the next 57 years we would be spit on and hated for what we did in Scotland still gets my goat.
As Jamestown said many frauds try to claim the death benefits of the fallen, they try to claim the hazard pay and combat pay claiming to be a survivor since many bodies where unrecoverable do to the poison and the ashen fields. This makes me sick to think about, seeing that many of the fallen where only given 500 US Dollars towards there funerals and burials and we in the Thirteen had to pay for the remainder and nearly bankrupting us as we are only soldiers and not millionaires. Many of the fallen we specifically honour for their known sacrifices but we honour and light a candle for each and everyone of the fallen as their stories may be untold but their sacrifices are not forgotten.
This battle changed us for the better as we have been able to rise from the ashes and become stronger for it, we might be war torn and forever changed but we are the Alpha Wolves and we rode on the Ashen Fields and lived to tell the tale. We support all our veterans and brothers of the Inishmore Invasion as Oxford likes to call it and we still stay in touch with each other, the government had failed us as we were relics of the old world and they wished to simply toss us aside. The people hated us for actions we never took, and others believe that we simply ignored an order to surrender with the 401st and 82nd….well sorry folks that simply never happened, we had no communications after 1200 hours in October 3rd and the 401st would rather die than surrender those blokes are truly the Original Bad Assess.
The 82nd well if they hadn’t kept fighting London would have fallen and wait for it…..their communications went down on October 4th, the 401st still had communications and the 82nd’s radios would be choppy at best seeing most of it was inside Jeffrey Coppers chest and back. Sorry for my ranting but this does get my goat and make me very unhappy, I watched as US Marines where dishonoured and forgotten, the people lied to and the fallen disgraced. The Axis of Evil would dump chlorine gas on us and use firebombs and yet the young of this world don’t seem to be bothered by this fact…they seem to rally behind them and claim well we should have simply surrendered….let me tell you, if they were willing to dump sarin gas on soldiers what the hell do you think they would do to civilians? Let me answer that, they would enslave and imprison you; we in the United States Marine Corps fought and died for your freedom, we fought for you to hate us and we fought for you to live free. All we ask is for some simple respect, you may dislike us and not understand what the war was all about but don’t let ignorance be your bride and educate yourself on the events of this engagement…..war is hell and we lived through the ashen rain.
SEMPER FI
MAJ. Richard “Unc“ Blake ret.
THE ALPHA’S
LT. COL. Roy Apples (Cider): Well written my dear man, Unc you are a true statesman and patriot. This is weird that you asked me to prepare some words for this page as it is normally polluted by the rantings of the Demur or as they spell it “Demure” funny to think they consider themselves to be reserved or modest women….well this old man can laugh at their ignorance of the English language. Though here it goes, as you all know I am Dr.Apples and one of the premier medical examiners for the city of Seattle and medical professional of the 76th US Elite Medical Division.
Though my days in the military started when I was a young man growing up in Missouri. I come from a military family, my father, uncle, grandfather, great uncle, great grandfather and so on all served before me and my children have gone off to serve as well. So for me joining the military was in my blood and the only question was witch branch after high school not if but when. I picked the Marine Corps based on its distinguished history and a way to stick it to my older brother who was in the Army.
I won’t delve to deep into my service record here but I can tell you this much I have been all over the world and been through many conflict zones and fought in multiple wars including the Korean and Vietnam Conflict. I have always had a passion for medicine and caring for others, so after World War 2 I went for medical training and became a doctor and eventual meatball surgeon working for multiple MASH units including the famous 4077 and the 5073.
Though all my years of medical training and military training would not prepare me for what was to come on October 3rd through the 7th. That battle would put all my skills and endurance to the test and force me to adapt my medical knowledge to the basics and push myself to work beyond my capacity. I was within the medical tent behind the lines within the rear of the conflict and we would be put to the test from the start, I was in command of 300 men and women whom all volunteered for service and would be made up of Doctors, Nurses, Orderlies, Clerks and Sentries; not the most combative of units and we would be far enough away from the front as to not breach Articles of War or put ourselves in the direct line of fire, though close enough to be an acting Aid Station.
What would happen on the first day would forever stain my memory and haunt me till this day, only a few hours after the fighting commenced we would be flooded with wounded coming in to be treated, decreed dead or sent off to a MASH unit for further care. What we didn’t know was that we were directly in the enemies sight and the Russians would be joining the fight and coming in from the East. The weather was cold, icy and snowy something I haven’t dealt with since Korea yet we were prepared for the long haul. Enemy bombs and mortars pounded us from the start but we kept working patching up friend and enemy alike, though at 1100 hours on the 3rd our Aid Station would be overrun by Russian forces and they would begin killing my medical personnel and nearly myself.
When the Russians would invade the Aid Station grounds we would be in for a fight, many of my staff working hard to save lives and others preparing our boys for their final trip home. The bullets started to fly and I could hear screams of pain and terror as many of my staff have never been in a combat situation before and this was hell on earth. I was in emergency surgery working on a young man that had a severe chest wound and needed to be stabilised before he could be transferred to a MASH. The enemy would bust into our make shift operating theatre and begin shooting, machine gun fire would rip through the OR as my staff would dive for cover and others trying to protect the venerable wounded and pay with their lives.
I would be shot in the right shoulder and left knee, the impact and pain would drop me to the ground, the oxygen tanks would begin rupturing and exploding sending shrapnel everywhere. I would be littered with tiny pieces of metal that would puncture my body and force me to perform major surgery on myself to re-inflate my own lung in the process and keep doing it throughout the fight. After the Russians blasted the Operating Room they would begin to scavenge our supplies and execute anyone that appeared to be still alive, my chest wound was enough to spare me a bullet in the head. I could here them say “Well and Apple a Day didn’t keep this doctor away or alive…suffer you American Pig.” Gasping to breath all I could think was this was how it was going to end, suffocating and drowning on my own blood.
As fast as they struck they left and I would learn they would strike the other Aid Stations early in the fight and render medical personnel nearly extinct. Attacking an Aid Station directly was a violation of war and a criminal action but the enemy didn’t seem to care about war violations. After they left I would crawl with all my might to my office seeing they left it alone and I had reserve supplies within. Never thought I would need to work on myself and that this officer would outlive his men….thats not how it’s supposed to work in war.
I will leave the grisly details out about my very painful self surgery and what I needed to do to survive my wounds on that day…though I can tell you it does involve a heated knife blade and tweezers, not to mention fire and whiskey. My shoulder had a bullet lodged in it that made moving my arm painful and difficult, I would have to work through the pain and I knew that if something wasn’t done soon permanent muscle and nerve damage would sink in. My knee was shattered and part of my kneecap was missing completely and tendons and ligaments had been destroyed, my ankle didn’t fair well either as the shock wave from the explosion had destroyed the tiny little bones and well I had a large piece of shrapnel driven deep in. My wrist suffered the same fate and thank god it wasn’t my now good arm….but for a surgeon our hands are our lively hood.
Needless to say I would survive and after fighting off shock and drugging myself, I mentally turned off so much is a fog throughout the remainder of the battle. What I do remember is gathering the supplies and crawling out of my office to the blood bath of an operating theatre, blood lined the tent flaps, the ground frozen and cold was coated in a pool of frozen blood and gore, and bodies littered the ground and tables. Anger filled my heart as well as sorrow…how could someone do this to doctors, we were not combat troops, we took an oath to help not harm. Well in war things change and well I would be forced to become both a killer and surgeon, I would not be able to walk and would have to pull myself into a wheel chair, grab a sentries riffle and ammunition and prepare my sidearm. With supplies in my bag on my lap I rolled out of the OR and headed for the front lines to meet up with the field medics.
Needless to say it would be many field transfusions, medication and antibiotics that would keep me alive. The one thing in war is the dead no longer need their blood and if types match well that works though for only so long. From what I was told by McCain I would work till nearly dead re-inflate my lung and hook a fallen solider up to my IV and keep going. I would try to save many lives and a few of the 13 are here today thanks to me. The chemical warfare would nearly kill me as I had to plug my lung tube and blood became a rare commodity for transfusions, though quick thinking and training would spare my a gruesome death.
Though in the end I survived and that is a miracle unto itself, I survived the initial execution attempt, I survived the chemical warfare and even the fires from hell unleashing upon us from napalm and being firebombed for hours. The land would become a blazing inferno and the heat would melt the ground, the extreme heat would send many into shock and thawing ground would begin to swallow others as the water table would rise causing quick area flooding. I would simply survive the fire of hell by submerging myself into the mud and water and using a tube to breath, when the fires subsided thats when we would be rescued and taken for proper medical treatment.
It was total chaos out there and every survivor has a different account based on what they saw and went through and this is normal in warfare, especially with foxholes scattered and visibility being nearly zero for most of the fighting. We of the Thirteen are the Ashen Riders, we escaped Hell and crawled out of the inferno only to forever scared and damaged, yet we have become stronger from it and we are the Alpha Wolves, we are the Iron Wolves and what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, simply why fear death….if it happens you won’t know about it and while we are still hear we can keep forging ahead and proving you cant kill an Alpha Wolf…Once a Marine Always a Marine UCMC SEMPER FI!!
MAJ. Richard Blake (Unc): Well I feel it’s best if I say a few words about everyone’s favourite uncle. Well Unc it’s been a long road and we have crawled out of the Ashen Fields smelling like a chlorine soaked torched bushel of shit. We are alive and we are truly stronger for it, I know you have told your story above and hence why I felt it best to thank you for your service and thank you for your courage out there.
I know that we were unable to recover your wife’s body and she is one of the many poor souls forever buried within the ashen fields, I can tell you that she is a true hero and I am a better man for simply knowing her. I can tell you this about your wife brother and she was one hell of a medic and she put this humpty dumpty back together again out there. I would not be here nor walking if it wasn’t for the skilled hands of Cynthia Blake and I can tell you Beachworth, Reid, Crane and others can all be thankful she worked so diligently alongside Apples out there.
I understand that her death is traumatic, I can fully relate Blake as my own son would not return from the Inishmore Battle and would end being buried within the Ashen Fields alongside so many other dear friends. I would have to raise my granddaughter on my own with only my brother to help and yet it wouldn’t be the same, I know I still had my wife at home but brother a father is not supposed to outlive his children…..I am sorry to compare my loss to yours as I know you are still hurting like so many of us.
Unc you are a true hero and your actions out there would allow for so many soldiers to keep fighting for another day and yes only God and a higher ranking Marine Officer can tell you when it’s time to die and seeing God was absent on that day, no Marine Officer above you would allow you to die….hell Oxford told me Ness, I order you to keep fighting and give the Grim Reaper the finger….I did just that and I can say Oorah!!
I will leave this here and not get very long winded as you have already told us all what you went through, I can say this dear friend my heart goes out to you and my family has always accepted you as one of us….you are a Ness now Unc and that means we all have your back. I understand that the Thirteen are family and we will always be family but my dear friend you have been there for us and we for you. You helped our dear friends the DiCane’s out of the kindness of your heart and now let us help you brother, I welcome you into the US Elite and hope your service here will bring a smile to your face once again. I know the agent orange makes that hard but we are all your brothers and well once a Wolf always a Wolf…..Oorah Blake welcome to the Pack!!
Semper Fi
COL. Elliot “Gunslinger” Ness
CPT. Baldur Hilmarsson (Blizzard): Good Day All…It’s a fine day to be alive, the blasted UCAS is under the crushing defeat of the Resistance and the European Legion is on the run. We will be watching with honour as the UCAS puts the 401st and 82nd into the White House….something I thought I would never see. Well to all my brothers in the Ashen Riders a bold and mighty Hail is long over do as we have made it another year, thank you to Unc for including me in this recounting and accounting in the events of that fateful battle.
I am Captain Baldur Hilmarsson of the 719th Icelandic Brigade, I have served with the Icelandic Military for quite some time with my brother Asmar and we are the defenders of Asgard….keeping a old viking tradition alive and well in the modern world. Well when war would come to Scotland it would be simply ironic that they would seek the Nordic people for aid, seeing our long and sundered past…though those days are long gone and we are a more civilised people now.
What I can regale you with is the absolute cluster of a situation that we had at hand in 2018, besides the weather and the sheer number of Axis forces and the Inishmore that where assaulting us. We would have to overcome our commanders incompetence. You see the Nordic Lands have been in a time of peace for quite some time, and in such our leaders could’t lead a starving man to a feast. Everything our Generals knew was from text books and seminars and they hadn’t scene an actual conflict in their pathetic lives let alone careers, me on the other hand have spent a life time fighting and engaging the enemy at all costs so war was not new to me nor my brother Asmar.
I will try to keep this short as I know many of the Ashen Riders can be very log winded…yes Atari I am looking right at you and don’t think for a second you are dodging my gaze Alcatraz, you know I am simply joshing you both as I love you guys. Well we got the request from Parliament to lend aid in September of 2018 and do to some incompetent stuffed shirts the paperwork got delayed and we would show up a few days before the shit show began and a bit after the Americans. The entire tactical setting was a nightmare as we where scattered throughout the Scottish Mores and supposed to dig trenches into the swampy and marshy landscape…..well that wasn’t going to happen.
Foxholes where the closest that we where able to dig and even those would soon become watery graves for our men, the weather initially was par for the course and seasonable acceptable. Though as the morning sun was getting ready to rise on the 3rd it would turn ugly quickly and it would be a storm that even us from the land of ice and snow would be ill prepared for. You would think that we of all people would be prepared for the harshest of conditions…well again see our commanders that should have buried their heads in the volcanoes and left the war games to us.
I would have to argue with General Olaf Travis about securing additional troops to secure or Eastern Flank to make certain that we weren’t overrun on that front. Well after being degraded in front of the men and punched in the eye by that wannabe warrior, he granted me the men when Colonel Macbeth would alert him that is was a sound tactical manoeuvre. He would grant 3,000 men to help secure the Americans flank and than he would order me to go and fight on the front lines with the Americans. Now I know he was trying to insult me with removing me from command and putting me with the American Marines….well I enjoyed the Marines company as they knew how to party and fight.. joke was on him.
Now yes I know that my idea helped save our skin from the Russians that would assault from the East and save Dr. Apples life in the process…for that I am grateful, though I wish I had been able to fight alongside my men and I know that would mean I would be dead and gone now. Anyways the Gods had other plans for me and I would prove that killing an Asatru is harder than it seems as we are blessed by Odin and looked after by Thor.
I all accounts I should be dead from my wounds and I will thank Odin for my surviving on that day. I should be within the Golden Mead Halls of Valhalla and drinking with the other hero’s, but I am here today and well it’s one more day to drive my sword and axe through the skulls of the oppressor…to that I will raise my horn and drink. I would be stuck deep in the shit about 2 clicks from the front directly in the shit storm that was brewing. I would be serving with the Americans and it would be our job to cut the Inishmore in half as they passed our flank, this normally wouldn’t be an issue but seeing they fucking cheated with chemical warfare and firebombs this would be a serious issue.
I unlike many of the Nordic forces was equipped with chemical gear that I paid for out of pocket, my brother the same…we were smart Icelandic’s. My fight would begin at 0400 on the 3rd as we were about 2 kilometres from the front and directly in the path of the enemy. This war was fought very old fashioned with armies marching on each other and not simply ambushing each other and moving, we had a no mans land, a kill zone and well two forces that really wanted each other dead. Mortars, bombs, and grenades would explode all around us we would have white death tearing over our heads and no visibility. Men where falling dead to hypothermia and loosing digits to frostbite before the hot death of a bullet could take them to Valhalla.
Before the main fighting would commence I would be wounded with a round straight through my vest and shoulder. I would simply shove frozen mud and snow into the wound and keep going, I would learn to regret that idea but our aid station was well non existent and our medics where under heavy fire. Seems as if the Axis sharpshooters where aiming for anyone with a Red Cross on their helmet or arm. Loosing men is one thing, loosing medics is another, in war there are rules…..the first rule is DON’T SHOOT THE MEDICS!!
We in that company would have to improvise and use whatever medical training we did have to save each others skin, though in the long run only I would escape death….some got to live a bit longer and give them hell before dying. I would get shot numerous times and I swear they were trying to turn me into a bloody pencil with how much lead was in me, I kept injecting myself with pain med’s and stitching up the bullet wounds till I needed to burn that shit closed, I can only thank the Gods for granting me the power to keep going as when it turned into hand to hand….well thats where a Viking excels.
I was busting skulls, breaking necks and gutting the Inishmore…well till the chem bombs started falling than I would be shot through the hand trying to get my mask on and end up having my knee and ankle shattered as a parting gift from the shock wave. They bombed the crap out of us till the air was so thick with chlorine gas that I could no longer see the snow only green and a sickly green at that. The heat from the chemical attack would begin to melt the snow and ground around us, turning the swampland into a bloody mess of chlorine and gore.
My fight would end up being over during the steady chemical bombing and PVT Richard Young would drag me by my straps and carry me over 2 clicks to medical where I would meet up with an over worked and nearly dead Dr. Apples and his damned burning stick….stay the hell away from me with that shit Doc!! I would learn that PVT Young would loose his life when he returned to the front to pull more men to safety and to that I raise my horns and salute his sacrifice.
I survived the firebombs by being shoved into the blood soaked ground of the Mores and given a tube to breath through. Well it was cold than it was bloody hot, I nearly went into shock as my skin burned and gear melted to my flesh. When the smoke cleared I would emerge and look around as my eyes burned from being dry and nothing remained, everything was covered in ash , the tree’s burned to a crisp, charred skeletal remains stuck out of the ground, the air a sickly green and hazy grey overcast and the scent of burning flesh overpowered everything. Our rescue would come from the US Army Medical Corps and they would some how find the 13 that survived with ease, also when taken to the MASH unit I would notice that it was only 2 clicks from the front and guess what….thats the fucking front!!
How did they not get gassed to shit, how did they not get cooked in the fires, how did the Russians miss them….to many fucking questions and I get angry simply thinking about it. Well I am now one of the Ashen Riders and one of two from the Nordic forces to survive, my brother Asmar would be the other to survive that engagement. In the end I mourn the loss of my men and the loss of all those I fought with, though we are all soldiers and laying our life down is part of the job, though some would prove that in the heat of chaos under Loki’s watchful eye that they would remain true and risk everything to save a few. Many of the Thirteen would not be here if it wasn’t for the sacrifices of others and even when Loki was trying to destroy us all some managed to receive the blessings of the All Father and live to fight another day.
I am now one of the Son’s of Odin and I have partnered up with the US Elite Naval Division to guide the next generation into battle, I have joined to honour those that sacrificed so I could live and not let their deaths be in vein. Well it seems that even I am long winded….well Atari you are forgiven LOL. In closing I give a BOLD AND MIGHTY HAIL TO MY BROTHERS IN THE 51ST!!! SEMPER FI BROTHERS!!!
MGySgt. Asmar Hilmarsson (Iceberg);
COL. Kennedy B McCain (Alcatraz): Well I guess its my turn to talk about our painful history and for me this fight was even more real than many actually knew. I am a native born Scotsman and immigrated to the US when I was a teenager after my parents where killed in an auto accident and I was sent to live with my Aunt and Uncle in the states. We fought on the same ground I used to hunt and fish in, I was taught the bagpipes by my grandfather when I visited the Scottish Lochs during the summer and holidays. I spent many a summer looking for Nessy…needless to say I am very proud of my Scottish heritage yet after the battle in the swamps of Scotland I can not return without pain and tears.
I lived in San Francisco after arriving in the States and hence I was given the name Alcatraz when I joined the Marine Corps by the Drills and it simply stuck. I joined the service to pay back the country that had adopted this orphan from the Highlands and to earn my citizenship, it was a time of piece so I figured it would be an easy four years and done. Well I fell in love with the Corps and decided to make it my career even going to the Citadel and earning my degree and becoming an officer,
My men thought it was funny that this old American never lost his accent and I would get Star Trek jokes daily….Beam Me Up Scotty, seriously enough is enough; just kidding keep it coming. I would play the pipes at funerals and gatherings keeping my skill up and staying true for my family but yet I had become an American and yet my heart still longed for Scotland.
I never thought in a million years that I would return home to defend her from the Axis of Evil and watch my beloved Scottish Lochs become a toxic wasteland and become the ashen fields. Yes I know not all the Lochs where destroyed but even one makes me hurt, now we fought near the lochs and that region is still very marshy and swampy, not all that much fun to dig in and fight for your life.
I was in command of the Infantry Division and would have thousands of able bodied men under my stead, yet even loosing one hurt I was not a callous commander that saw men as simply numbers and stayed at HQ. No I was out there with them in the thick of the shit, I fought alongside them and I was in a foxhole with a young man that had just joined the Corps only a few months prior and my division was his first post and this was his first deployment and it would be his last RIP PVT Gregory Welsh. I owe my life to that young man and having him pull my wounded ass out of the hole by my straps.
I will leave the boring details to General Oxford and just regale you morbidly curious readers about the events that I saw and went through. I had a inkling of an idea we were about to go to war in the UK when the diplomatic talks where failing and when diplomacy fails call the Marines. I also noticed that we were getting more men than we could house each month and I figured that was a bad sign…the suits in Washington figured that numbers were needed and many would never return home, well bot where they right about that.
All of our hands in the high brass where tied, we noticed that our men were under trained or not even trained at all, simply dumped on our post. I booted over a hundred men that I discovered where under eighteen and it wouldn’t be till I was preparing for war in Scotland that I would learn that men where there that had been drafted and not volunteers. That made me sick and got my my Scottish blood boiling, I confronted General Oxford and even he had no idea and only just learned of the cluster.
We decided that the draftees would go home so we sent them to the rear of the line, and to the medical aid station to be safe seeing they didn’t want to be there at all. Well that worked with the ones we knew about or told us the truth, Private Christopher Douglas was one we didn’t know about till SGT Rodgers told us and by than it was to late. He is a hero and his actions will never be forgotten.
Though once the Axis was in sight all focus turned on keeping the enemy at bay and holding them back at all costs, we did what we had been trained to do and that was fight and kill. The weather was against us and they somehow knocked out communications as my radio officer was broadcasting static, the snow was piling up and our gunnery line was pounding blindly…this was going to be hell on earth and I was in Vietnam. I hunkered down in my hole and returned fire with everything I had to give and than I gave more, my supply Sargents kept the munitions flowing and I barked orders to one NCO and it kept going down the chain of holes this battle had become an unorganised cluster and we would pay the ultimate price do to events that were out of our control….but as they say war is organised chaos and fought in Washington.
Well our job was to hold the line and we had no way to report in, the tinny chatter died early in the fighting and we were on our own using air horns and flare guns for communication this would have been enough if all the men had been trained but nope DC poodle fucked us on that one too. Once the bullets started flying than the chemical agents it became a battle simply to survive and no longer about holding the line, that would be done on it’s own and we played are part in that play.
I was first wounded on October 6th I believe though it could have been the 5th time was nigh impossible to tell and looking down at our watches could have gotten you killed also try reading a watch through a gas mask, in the snow and while getting shot at….honestly the fact I was still breathing was good enough and I would sort out the finer details later. The first bullet would tear through the soft spot in my vest and blow out the back, my radio operate turned out to be a medic in the civilian world and yes I was annoyed he lied to me about not being drafted…,though at that exact moment I was glad he was their to patch me up so I could keep commanding and fighting.
The next wounding would be the big one that would take me out of action, we had to evacuate our hole seeing they were going to blow it to kingdom come. No warning unlike in Nam when they would announce it in Vietnamese but we learned quick what Fire In the Hole meant in that language, though the Axis was just blowing the holes with the men in them, now a grenade is one thing….an RPG is another. We got lucky and I noticed it and we evacuated to the cope of trees and BOOM good bye to the sandbags and cover, now it was just a hole in the ground.
On the way out I was shot again in the lower back region and hit the ground hard, PVT Walter Franks was killed trying to get back to the hole, PVT Gregory Welsh and my Radio Officer PFC Leon East would get back into the hole with me. Welsh would return fire and East would take to my wounds, they knew they needed to get me back to the line for more medical treatment but that would have been suicide or us all. I ordered East to grab a piece of burning lumber from what was our hole cover and sear the wound closed. He tried to argue with me against it and I again gave him a direct order….well all these years later I regret that decision but in the thick of it, well it seemed like a sound idea.
Welsh fought hard and once the wound was seared closed East and I returned fire as well. After a while East would get hit in the head and it was lights out RIP PFC Leon East, and again a bullet entered my body and travelled from my hand and blew out by the elbow. I went down hard and Welsh knew I needed medical, he grabbed my straps and yanked me out of the hole while under heavy fire, I was no longer with it and simply figured I was dead…my memory is a little foggy from this point forward. I know Gregory Welsh carried me for a while till he simply couldn’t go on any further and would fall dead on the ground.
The next thing I remember is being loaded onto a stretcher and being carried off to a waiting ambulance, than I was back in the states. I was unsure of the fate of Welsh and East’s bodies and made it my quest to visit the families of those men that had given their lives to save mine. I was now retired and tracked down the families of those men, I wanted to pay my respects and thank them for their sacrifice and give my proper condolences to the grieving.
The day I first visited the families of the fallen, it was a sombre experience I was dressed in my uniform and still with my arm in a sling and using a cane….some how my leg got messed up badly they said I was lucky to even keep it. Well I would learn that Welsh and East were good friends growing up and neighbours and had been drafted at the same time, their parents and siblings where not to happy to see a uniformed Marine Officer knocking on the door. But once I explained who I was and how I knew their sons it went from wanting to throttle me to hugs and tears, I gave them both each one of my own personal purple hearts from prior injuries seeing I was unsure if the Corps would even acknowledge the death of an illegal draftee.
57 years later I m still in touch with the families of the two and have become their immortal grand uncle of sorts, I was given that dreaded Immorality Project Injection so many years earlier and that was an explanation that took a while to explain. Though in the end I made life long friends and helped console two grieving families so if anything I can say Gregory Welsh and Leon East didn’t die in vein and I am one of the famed 13 of the Ashen Riders. Rest In Piece Brothers and Semper Fi.
GySgt. Ronald Jamestown (Union): Semper Fi Brothers and thanks again Blake for giving us the chance to tell our story and let it become one with history. We need to make sure we learn from history or we are destined to repeat it multiple times…..well I digress and thats why I have become a educator in my civilian life to make sure the youth are properly taught. I am sickened by the text books and what my children and grandchildren are learning and it has been my life’s work now to correct that fatal flaw.
My family aside they know what Dad and Grandpa went through and I have the scars to verify my accounts and the medals to prove my actual service, as I have recently learned that many frauds are coming to light claiming to be one of the 51st, 401st and 82nd to claim benefits. That is simply wrong and despicable this is why the truth must be learned, under 100 men 74 to be exact came home from war wounded and disabled, tens of thousands would come home in boxes and many more would never come home again and to think vultures out there are trying to profit off the lost makes me ill.
Well onto the accounting of my part in this fiasco, well I like many of the 51st served in the infantry division, we were not a special forces unit….simply well trained men fighting for freedom and serving our country proudly like our fathers before us had and so on. We volunteered knowing one day that we would be sent off to war and simply praying that we would return home on our own power but ready to lay down our life for Lady Liberty and her allies.
I was within the foxholes dug in deep with my dear friend Archie Travis and we were just boys fighting because we were asked to, and nothing more and I will never forget Travis and what he did for me out there. It was late on the 6th we had been fighting hard for over a day and we dreamed of making it out of there and catching up at the local watering hole when we were older and recalling the days of war and the days of peace. Well our hole was filling with much brass and blood as I had been wounded and he had patched me up, now as a Gunnery Sargent I had the job of relaying communications and commanding but yet with the radios down and only snow coming over them that meant I had to leave the hole numerous times to pass orders when my air horn wasn’t good enough.
Already shot and bandaged up this was a chore but something I took very seriously, my men called me Gunny and I dropped that when I joined the rebellion out of respect to Gunny of the Rattlers but in the halls of my school my students call me Gunny but I am Union and well I am off track again. Sorry this is harder than I thought it would be, my own injuries aside are terrible but knowing that Archie sacrificed his life for me brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it….okay I am back.
One of my many trips back to the hole with ammo and having passed intel over to another Sargent I would be hit by an explosion and shrapnel would find it’s home in my lower back and legs. I would go down hard into the muck and with the enemy charging I figured it was over for me, I made my piece and returned fire through the pain and fought like hell to keep from going into shock. Archie tore out of the hole and charged in my direction laying cover fire but it was useless as I couldn’t walk. He got to me and grabbed my straps and hoisted me over his shoulders and ran for the medical line. He would be shot numerous times in the process and with every ounce of his strength he made it to the line with my wounded body.
Once their he would drop to his knees and hand me his lucky silver dollar that had been shot straight through, he put it in my hand and said Gunny let my wife know I loved her and thank you for being my friend….he died shortly there after his wounds to grave to survive and he sacrificed himself to save me. The war might have been over for me and I survived the fires of hell by hiding under the bodies of the fallen and sandbags, but Archie’s sacrifice still brings tears to my eyes.
Once rescued I made sure that his body would be returned home to have a hero’s burial and you bet your ass I was going to be there. Well it turned out he didn’t have a wife, a family or anyone…he was an orphan that joined the service to better his life. Once I learned that he had no one I took it on myself to make sure he was remembered, I paid for his burial beyond his military death benefits. I covered the headstone and still carry his tags and lucky coin till today, my wife and children remember Archie and thank him every Sunday at church.
I know my story is not full of details and gore like the others, but I was a Gunny and fought with the men directly…I knew the men better than most and their death affects me it’s like loosing one of my own and with Taylor he was my best friend…..correction he is my best friend. I continue on and with every passing day I am haunted by what I saw and what happened out there but I know Archie is looking after me and I made it my life’s work to make sure the fallen are not forgotten and have taken on the responsibility of being the historian of the 51st, 82nd and 401st and work closely with all my brothers in arms. I will be joining the US Elite if just to be an educator and pass on the message that I learned from my friend Archie and that is we are all brothers and we are all called to lay our life down for each other and some times in war we can save a life and sometimes we have to take a life, but the real cost is our innocence.
1LT George Brenner (Artillery): Hello everyone….guess Unc has yet to complete his part of the accounting, well Brenner here will do his part and let you all know what it is like to command an Artillery Division during blizzard like conditions…..impossible thats how. My job was to provide support fire for our men in the thick of the fight and lay suppression fire to give our outnumbered boys a fighting chance. Well in the end I did my job and fired the big guns and pounded the hell out of the Tir and the rest of the Axis bastards but it was at a great cost.
When you work in Artillery you are normally far away from the shit show and never really see the hard cost of the big booms, the total carnage that ensues when your shells land, the dismemberment’s, the gore and the total loss of life that is paid in full by our shells. Under normal conditions I stay in the rear and receive fire orders from one of the division commanders, fire squad leaders or General Oxford, I than rely the orders and a few seconds later BOOM!
Well their was nothing normal about this battle and let me tell you I have been lobbing shells for ages and October 3rd 2018 will forever be scared into my memory. Once the fighting started my gunners started pounding the enemy, I was operating our multi rife repeater that lobbed 20 inch shells with deadly precision at an insane rate of speed. I could hit the flea on a dogs ass, but on that day vision was zero, the winds where howling at 30 to 40 miles an hour and our barrels where icing over between shots. I am trained to compensate for high winds and it’s all about math and allot of precise calculations done quick, one digit off and you blast your own men.
Normally we have spotters that will let us know where are shells are going and communications to be able to know if we are pounding friend or foe….see once the guns start belching it’s out of my hands and if I am not receiving proper communications I am firing blind. Normally I would cease the guns when communications go down but again as I said this wasn’t any normal situation and every shell was needed and our boys where gravely outnumbered by the Axis forces.
I do apologise to anyone that lost a loved one to my guns and I am raked with guilt just thinking that men might have fallen to friendly fire. From the gunners line the fighting was abnormal but we didn’t see much action until later in the day, and even than it was apparent that we where a primary target….something every gunnery commander is used to.
Though when all hell broke lose we started to get pounded by the enemies guns with deadly accuracy my gun lines where falling quickly and yet how the hell could they see us. Also the shells where coming in way to fast, something didn’t feel right and my gut is still not happy about it as the rapid fire guns where a USMC creation and only a few years in service. Also when the Russians came in from the east we were doomed and only happenstance is the reason I am still among the living.
On the gunnery line we are armed to the teeth and were heavy vests and helmets but seriously if one of our shells miss fire we are all screwed. Though that heavy vest is something I am seriously glad I was wearing as we got blitzkrieged by the Russians and before I knew what had happened I was hit and down on the ground….getting shot in a vest is like taking a 100 MPH fast ball to the chest it knocks the wind out of you. I could hear the explosions of my guns and not the good kind, I regained my composer grabbed my M-60, took cover and opened fire my rooster tail exploded and sent white death in mass towards the Russian forces.
I knew sticking by the guns and shells was a quick way to end up dead so I high tailed it to safety as Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG for you civilians out there) slammed into my hornets nest. We were highly outnumbered and death or worse was something that had crossed my mind numerous times as officers are normally hanged or simply shot in the head once captured especially gunnery commanders.
Dug in deep I returned fire with everything I had and prayed for a miracle to save me and the men I had left, well I wouldn’t call Agent Orange and Chlorine Gas a miracle on 34th street but even the devils work was better than nothing. Those bombs would cut the Russian forces down fast as they didn’t have the gear to survive the attack and we did….take that Russians USMC Trumps you again. Well it wasn’t our bombs and I would learn it was the Tir’s and that sickens me, but for once something horrible would allow me to get back to work killing the Axis, though the green smoke, falling snow and high winds made that again a task I was unable to do.
As I contemplated the risk for a few seconds, the Tir bombers returned and dumped hell onto us, destroying the gun line and making me glad I hesitated to way the risks. Other units wold not be so lucky and pay dearly for their actions, Left with only one choice and that was to head to the front to aid the infantry and armour divisions, and thats what I did…I am a Marine and trained for combat regardless of where it is and where I am located.
On the line is where I would stand for the rest of the fight, well stand is an objective term here as I would be wounded many times and attacked by Dr.Apples and that burning stick….Just leave the shrapnel in doc please. Well regardless of my injuries I staid the course and fought on till rescue came in. I must have mentally checked out cause I didn’t even know that my lower leg was peppered with shrapnel and I had a piece of metal punched through my shoulder. I survived the firebombs simply by digging into the muck and mud and using a straw to breath, many of my men wouldn’t be so lucky when those violations would be dumped on us in mass.
Our rescue came at the exact right time and they knew exactly where to find us as we were all scattered over multiple miles of ashen landscape….like anyone would survive that hellscape well 13 of us did and we are now the Ashen Riders. We have all taken to the rebellion and we all bleed Red, White and Blue….Once a Marine always a Marine, Semper Fi Brothers and to the fallen I light a candle every Sunday for you at church, never the same church Brenner is not stupid to have a pattern.
SSgt. Bernard Beachworth (Ducky): Semper Fi Brothers of the Thirteen another year and another dollar earned and we are still alive, I have to thank Blake for asking me to work on this project with him. You all know me a Ducky the bulldog detective that has brought down some serious criminals and runners alike. Though I wasn’t always a cop and regardless of what my brother would say “Rest In Piece Hal” I did once serve in the USMC and fought with many good men throughout the years. Though the bonds formed in the 51st would last a lifetime and I have to say my kinship with Arthur and Elliot has grown stronger over the years….Thanks Brothers wouldn’t be here without you.
I will keep this short as I am not very long winded like others of the Ashen Riders, my time in hell was simply that HELL!! I blame this battle for my temper issues and well my height, see before this engagement I was over five feet in height and quite reserved. I am a southerner from Tennessee and we are not known for our tempers or being ungentlemanly just ask my dear friend Kissinger. Though I was in the armour division acting as a sentry for the tanks, a very dangerous and deadly job not one you want to stick in for long….as the turn over rate was high as the tanks are the primary targets for bombs and artillery.
My fight in this shit show would end quickly and if it wasn’t for the hard work of Dr. Apples I wouldn’t be here today, hence why I stuck by his side during the bloody days once we returned home….THANK YOU VERY MUCH YOU NATIVE FUCKS!! At approximately 1200 hours on the third, we would be in forward movement and holding the enemy at bay, my squad was flanked out and we would be stationed behind the M1 Abrams and sending hot death at the enemy. I had multiple confirmed kills and yes I had a bullet lodged in thigh but a quick strip of cloth and some pressure all’s good in a Marines life.
Well the weather sucked, we couldn’t see shit and didn’t notice the fucks had broke out their anti armour guns and well it it wasn’t snowing like hell we all would have been toast to those magical fucks! I gave the order for forward movement and the tanks kept rolling than everything went to shit quick, the ground erupted as mortars and shells began to throw snow, ice, rock and metal everywhere. My men scattered for cover and I dropped low to return fire, than it happened every soldiers worst nightmare come true; one hell of a shell landed near me and I could feel burning and extreme pain in my legs as shrapnel, rock and some of my buddies bones had become lodged in my legs and vest. My ears ringed and my vision became zero from the shock, I thought it was over for Beachworth and my beloved Bernadette would never see her husband again.
As I could feel the cold overwhelming me, I heard a familiar voice my Commanding Officer Elliot Ness grabbing my straps and dragging me out of the kill zone. Badly wounded himself though I will let him tell you his tale he dragged me for 2 clicks till Arthur joined up and they carried me to the medics. Gas masks deployed by this time…..fucking AGENT ORANGE, NOT AGAIN!! I would meet up with Apples who looked worse for ware but that stubborn old bastard would give the reaper the finger and start working on me, he had tubes stuck in his chest and arm and one under his gas mask. Chlorine gas suffocating many as the green gas turned the snow a sickly green, he worked on my legs and shoulder; he heated up a knife and cut into my shoulder and pulled the bullet out and than that son of bitch drove a heated stick into my shoulder wound as he was saving the stitches for other more important wounds like my legs.
That crazy doc worked on my legs for what seemed like hours and probably was, he pulled bone mine and other peoples, metal, and rock out of me poured whiskey, vodka and god knows what else on them to clean the wounds and well when he was done I would hurt like hell and walking would be a chore as he was able to save my legs but lets just say I would need new pants as my inseam would never be the same again. I would be pulled behind the front lines and yet I was wounded badly and the main fight might have been over for me, but that didn’t stop good old Bernard from kicking ass…when we would be overrun I would have to fight from a prone position and let me tell you that sucks!
I would open fire and kill those Tir bastards till well I was stabbed through the bad shoulder and pinned to the ground by a bayonet. Holmes would kill the fucker and simply remove the bayonet from the riffle and pull me to safety, I could hear Apples say “Leave it in him”….WHAT I WANT A SECOND OPINION, Just kidding Apples. Holmes shoved a tube in my mouth and pushed me into the mud and muck telling me to breath through my mouth than he did the same….why you ask, FUCKING FIRE BOMBS!!!!!!!!!!! Ya they weren’t done cheating and now the fucks where trying to barbecue our assess and I am from Tennessee and barbecue is our bread an butter but not this way.
When the smoke cleared rescue was in sight and we of the Ashen Riders rose from the mud, muck and gore to a totally scorched and obliterated landscape, the smell of burning flesh overpowered our senses and the ground was covered in a layer of ash, tree’s toppled and death everywhere….it was like something out of one of those end of days movies and will forever be the subject of my nightmares…ALSO FUCK AGENT ORANGE!!! Okay I guess I am long winded, my military days were over and back at the MASH they repaired my legs but lets just say I have no shines anymore….as I said I was once over five feet tall, well Ducky Out…..Ness how do I upload this and why is it still recording my voice, Ness……Ness,…..NESS!!! Okay there it goes. Beachworth Out.
COL. Elliot Ness (Gunslinger): Okay seems like the long winded angry Crane is done and it’s now time for another pissed off Texan to rant and rave; Shout out to Unc for putting this on the matrix and giving us a chance to tell our accounts, ya he is pissed though he hasn’t finished his main accounting and we have been clogging up the page….Ha Ha Ha even Beachworth got on here by himself, though I needed to keep him from tossing his laptop out the window..General Rivers would have been displeased.
I will try to keep it short and sweet seeing that my other brothers have been recalling the events of the day, I will give you my gory details and leave it at that. I was the Commanding Officer of the Armour Division and as you already now our job was to blow the crap out of the enemy and have men to protect the big machines. This was a job I loved and hated at the same time, I had to say good bye to so many friends over the years that it became hard to get close to anyone after a while.
Well I pulled Beachworth out of the shit and yes he used to be a taller man till that day and he is still very pissed off about everything. What he didn’t tell you was I was shot to shit already, I had to evacuate my M1 before an enemy rocket turned her to slag. Being a tank commander in a white out is hell on earth and with zero visibility it made giving proper coordinates nigh impossible though I did my best and hoped our shells landed where I wanted them too.
I was in direct communication with General Oxford and I can tell you those Nordic Generals and Colonels didn’t understand how to fight a war from the war….seems like those stuffed shirts should have stayed home and allowed the junior officers to run things. Though that is for another ranting on another day, I do appreciate their help and their sacrifice seeing only the Hilmarsson brothers made it out that day and would forever be one of the Ashen Riders.
So I guess this old man can be long winded as well, I was shot to hell as I ran from my tank. my gunner and driver perished as they got to the hatch. bullets tore into my vest, arms and legs….I am not sure how I was even still walking and well once I got back to medical I wouldn’t be. I guess I simply checked out and went on training and auto pilot, the human body can do amazing things under stress. I didn’t just pull Beachworth out of the frying pan, he was the last man I was able to reach before I had to get to safety. I went back and forth and pulled twelve men to safety and yet only Bernard would survive, I was rewarded with a direct hit or grazing shot for each one, but we never leave our brothers behind.
Crane saved my bacon as much as he saved Beachworth’s that day, as walking was becoming real issue with most of knee left on the battlefield and shrapnel through my ankle…again I was unsure how I was still upright. Back at the line we would get patched up by Apples and 1LT Cynthia Blake (Rest In Piece), I would be benched from the fighting till they broke the line and it went to hand to hand, my sidearm would be my saving grace though eventually I would have to fend off the invaders with a riffle and bayonet. Before the firebombs I would get a knife through my hand and I suffered chlorine poisoning from that shit.
We buried ourselves in the muck and gore to not end up like an overcooked steak and needless to say having a metal knife driven through your hand and having it heated up sucked something ugly….though I am still alive and they aren’t. When rescue came it was the US Army and what’s funny is our radio’s were fucked hard core and we had lost communications on day one….how did they now we needed rescue or even still alive.
SSgt Harrison Rodgers (Marshal): Well you got to learn about my brother and the antics of the 82nd I love you guys…..but trenches you lucky bastards sort off. Unc thanks or giving us a chance to chime in and again sorry for locking you out again…hell move quicker even Ducky beat you in here. I saw things from a different end as I was not one of the unlucky armour guys, I am a leatherneck and was dug into a foxhole and commanded a squad of men within a platoon. We where the brick and mortar of the USMC and the main fighting force, when the shit hit the fan it was like nothing I have ever scene before and yes I have scene allot in my days.
My holes would be separated over multiple miles of territory and you could march the entire Russian army through the gaps in our line and no one would be the wiser. Mines were out the frozen ground would set them off, so we deployed claymores and prayed. Visibility would become an issue and when communications collapsed it would be up to the Sargents to run from hole to hole to deploy vital intelligence; this would be a situation that wold end up killing thousands and their was nothing I could do about it, in war you need to adapt or die and the playbook prepared at HQ will always change once in the field.
The weird aspect for me was they deployed the entire 51st company to one direct location including pulling in our reserve members…not to mention giving us all the fresh meat that couldn’t have been more than 18, I don’t even think they had been to boot camp yet as they didn’t know shit about shit. Anyways my ass would have to run through hell and fire dodging claymores and incoming artillery strikes to deliver messages to the men, I carried multiple air horns and megaphone, though these would only alert the enemy of our movements once they figured out the signal codes, there is reason warfare changed and modern war is not fought like this, but preparing for a magical assault it was needed…again thank god for the snow.
My fight would come to an end when I would be in transit between holes and get shot through both knees and hit the deck hard. I am not sure how Old Man Ness was able to move with his injuries, but mine dropped me hard and fast. I would have to slowly crawl through the snow, muck and chlorine to get to aid, though that would come to an abrupt end as a tree would come crashing down and land lucky for me on my lower leg, ankle and foot yes it might have been the top of the tree….It’s still a fucking TREE!! also branches punctured my flesh and my crawling ended right than and there.
One of my men PVT Christopher Douglas would risk life and limb running from his hole to come to my aid. He would remove the tree from my leg and with the branches still driven into bone he would carry me to medical aid that was basically non existent at this time. Douglas would stay with me keeping my focused and working on my wounds till a medic could get to me, we talked and I learned he was EMT back stateside and he had been drafted……wait what DRAFTED!!! I never knew that and why wasn’t he in medical? Well we chatted while he kept me from going into shock and working on my wounds and yes whiskey got used for something other than drinking that day.
Once I was stable he helped me to Doctor Apples and we exchanged our goodbyes and he went back to pull more men out of the fray and get them to safety. In all Douglas pulled ten men to safety and would end up being killed when he went back for the eleventh, in my eyes PVT Christopher Douglas is a true hero and honorary member of the Thirteen. I will never forget our conversation and once stateside I looked up his family to thank them on behalf of their son, I would learn they had been killed by the UCAS for being supporters of the USA and refused to take down they yellow ribbon on the tree outside their home and Old Glory from their front door. They had been hanged for treason and that broke my heart, I paid for Douglas to have a proper burial and funeral and the 401st, 82nd, and 67th and 51st came out to mourn a fallen hero. I still have his dog tags and will keep them with me till the day I die, I am here because of the sacrifice of Douglas and I will keep his memory alive. All Gave Some and Some Gave All….Semper Fi Brothers.
<<SSgt Harrison Rodgers was killed during the first volleys of the third Civil War while defending liberty in Kentucky…RIP My Brother>>
GEN Saul Oxford (Atari): Hello readers of this fine site, I am General Saul Oxford and I am the Commanding Officer of the 51st USMC Division I had over 30,000 men under my command from gunners, cooks, clerks and infantry as well as many other fine soldiers. I hail from Windsor England and hold noble status as the Baron of Windsor, I as well live in Boston Massachusetts I have duel citizenship that I earned from my forty plus year career in the United States Marine Corps. My heart may reside in England but I am an American through and through and we Brits bleed Red, White and Blue just like you Americans. I came to America as a child with my dear friend Archibald and we both loved the freedom and what America stands for, I have had the honour of forging the Sons of Liberty with him and watching as the Harbour Masters would rise to the status of legends and protectors of the people and defenders of Liberty.
Just because I am a noble doesn’t mean I am a Monarchist quite the contrary I stand for freedom and democracy for all, I have always believed in the American Dream…though your butchering of the language is something I still have trouble with. Anyhow I chose to serve in the Marine Corps over the Royal Marines simply because the US would let me actually serve and defend the people over being a figurehead with a false commission simply because I am a noble and paying lip service to the media.
I worked my tail off to rise to the rank of four star General and hold multiple college degrees including a Military Science and History degree from the Citadel and the US Army College of War. I taught at the US Naval Academy while I was earning my doctoral degree in Military Science and Studies as well War Studies Research. I have a Masters in Defence Studies and Human and Social Services Military Studies….even today I am working on my third Doctoral degree in Defence Studies from my office as I aid the Sons of Liberty.
I hold many accolades and awards including the Victoria Cross, Gold Star, Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal Of Honour and Valour as well as many more….though I didn’t do this for the awards or the fame that would come from it. I served out of pride and patriotism, I served do to a sense of calling and belonging and I decided to make a career out of after I fell in love with the USMC. Though I would gladly give all my medal and awards to all the boys that lost their lives within Scotland on October 3rd 2018, and my heart goes out to all the families that still mourn today, I still keep a yellow ribbon on my tree out front and it will remain till the last soldier is home and peace can be reached.
Now some say I can be long winded and yes I can here the snickers all the way over here in Boston…many of the 51st, 401st and 82nd have sat through my commencement oratories and yes they are long, I have already begun preparing my commencement oratory for the US Elites first class. Though what i have to say can’t be summarised or skimmed down for the ease of reading, I will be telling some graphic and gory stories as well recalling some tactical and bureaucratic details that only myself and my senior staff would know and it seems my two surviving Colonels…sorry Apples your only a half bird, though you count my good man. So correction three Colonels have neglected in sharing the boring details and left that job to me as I am the Commanding Officer and the boring stuff falls on my desk and I am glad to bore you for a little while.
As we all know the Great Ghost Dance and the Nights of Blood to follow would ravage America in August of 2018 and eventually be deemed the Great Tragedy of 2018. Well during this time within the United Kingdom there was great unrest and the political environment was in turmoil. The elven people of Ireland and the Royals of Ireland where convinced that they where the true King and Queen of all Avalon, the Highlands, the Shires and Inishmore and all of non elven birth where nothing more than serfs and slaves and the true Great Britain Superior Race. Sorry if I have offended anyone’s sensitivities here but I am recalling verifiable facts and not my opinion, the Elven people of Inishmore where fascists and many still are today.
While the American military was being torn asunder and used to suppress the people and force those deemed unworthy to meet the hangman’s noose in the Civilian Relocation Camps, in Great Britain their was great unrest and everyone was on edge from the common folk to the royal families. Riots erupted in the streets, protests where a common sight and the Royals on Inishmore where pressuring the House of Commons and Lords to bow down and simply hand over Avalon, the Shires and Highlands over to the Elves and pay them restitution for the years of illegal occupation on their land. They also where demanding that the Earls, Dukes, and Barons be handed over the the Inishmore authority to be properly hanged for inciting the people against them and as well for falsely claiming noble status as no human could ever truly be of noble birth….to that I say hogwash.
Well you can understand why everyone was uneasy, the House of Commons and Lords are filled with nobles and the people of Great Britain are not one to simply roll over and accept being placed into servitude….you Americans get that from us. As Parliament bickered amongst itself and days turned into weeks, it was clear that war was the only inevitable outcome as the Royals of Inishmore had already threatened to take the land by force and ethnically cleanse Britain of the human stain if we didn’t simply submit to their will.
This was something of contention and I remember many conference calls with the Queen Mother and Prime Minister asking for our aid, well I am only one General and not one of the Joint Chiefs but I was able to secure the proper channels and off to work I went with many other commanders. Once it left my office and was dancing around the political system there was nothing more I could do and I only wish I could have done more. America was still in conflict and it seemed like any assistance from America was going to fall on deaf ears, though on September 11th 2018 I received an early morning phone call from the new President Franklin G Howard. He had just been appointed after the assassinations of the sitting President, Vice President, Speaker of the House and Majority and Minority leaders; the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of State, Army and Navy had also been slain and I can’t say I shed a tear when I learned of what they had en-store for the people of this country.
Well that phone call would alert me that we would be being deployed to Scotland on September 25th 2018 and that we would be getting more than enough fresh bodies to truly give it to the Inishmore. Well that should have been a red flag right there as Washington was never known for getting anything done on a schedule nor actually helping the military in any real fashion. Though wars are fought in DC by the politicians and we in uniform are nothing more than toys that played a very deadly part in the political play. My heart sank as I knew this was going to be on hell of a fight and we were only just starting to build up our magical division as many troops where still within the academies learning the arcane language and unprepared for the harsh reality of war.
I gathered with the other generals that would be deployed over seas, well just General T.J Harris of the 82nd, General Erwin Forscythe of the 401st and we gathered in a smoke filled room with our Executive Officers and pored over the maps and battle plans for days. We had our senior officers preparing the men and gathering the equipment, this was beyond classified and our presence in the UK was supposed to be hush hush and well we all know how well that worked. I conference called with the Generals from Scotland and the Nordic Lands that would as well be standing tall with us and after many sleepless nights we came up with a proper battle plan and began to put it to work in the war room and with our unit commanders.
Now where another red flag would come in and this one I actually questioned was I was told that the entire 51st every tom, dick and harry would be sent over to Scotland that meant my base was going to be empty and vacant. Tactically this is suicide and as well a security nightmare but I was told it was a direct order from the President of the United States and that my base would be maned by the 101st and under the watchful eye of General Atticus Broward…..I didn’t trust the brown nosing Broward and he must have been promoted since he originally served with the 82nd, also I don’t ever remember their being a 101st in the Army.
We decreed that do to the hostile terrain in the Scottish Lochs that foxholes would be better than trench warfare and we needed to hold that line with everything. I would learn that we would be given orders from Broward to dig trenches and he even sent us large machinery and earth movers….well these machines were useless in the area we were occupying. Also once we deployed over seas I would learn that many of the extra men they sent me were draftees and untrained. This fired me up and on the horn with Broward and DC and yet no response…I was being ignored and that simply frustrated me more, also I worried about the boys and their families as the draft was not legal and never actually reinstated; trust me on this one, as a General of the USMC I would now if the draft was officially back.
Myself and McCain as well as Ness and others started seeking out the men and asking if they where volunteers or draftees, those that were drafted we shipped back to the medical lines and the gunnery line as discharging them was not on the books sadly. I could have as I had the authority but it would have had to be a dishonourable discharge and still the papers wold not have cleared before the fighting was scheduled to start. If I had known this was only going to be a week long war and there was only five fronts; 401st on the Irish Sea, 82nd Hell Cats at Bath, 82nd Thunder Dogs at London, 51st Razor Backs at the Shires and the 51st Iron Wolves in Scotland I would have simply shipped them off to an area where there was no fighting and maybe saved a few lives in the process.
Though the Aid Stations in my mind was the safest place to be and well the gunnery line should have been safe but our gunners where far closer to the front than anyone was comfortable with. Many men lied as they felt they should do their service and others spoke up thinking it was a free ticket home, well this was also becoming a nightmare as men that had joined on their ow accord where now scared and lying to us in an attempt to go home….so no good deed goes unpunished. We arrived in Scotland on September 25th in the late morning and we began to dig in and prepare for the Inishmore forces, the Scots meet us when we arrived and the Nordic arrived on September 30th only days before the invasion started.
It was clear to me from the start that the Nordic Generals were useless and should have stayed home and sent me their men, junior officers and Colonels as they were more of a hindrance than an aid. They didn’t see this as anything more than a dispute between nations and it should be quickly solved and no shots would be fired…their men and junior officers understood this was not going to end without a fight and the Halls of Valhalla where going to be filling up.
We deployed our men in a full flank covering all corners of the Lochs and dug in for the fight, Captain Hilmarsson took one thousand of his men to the rear line with mine to aid and guard the medical Aid Station and our rear flank. He wanted more but the Nordics wouldn’t budge and he had to fight for the thousand he got; thank the Gods he got the men he did. Now as the fatal day was drawing nearer, my men where growing uneasy and we prepared the best we could, I had 40,000 men that included my own, the Nordic and Scottish Forces. Though we held the higher investment, another 10,000 of my men where in the Shire with the Welsh forces under the command of Colonel Arthur Grimes
Well in the early morning hours on the 3rd the Inishmore forces would be scene on the horizon and they would be joined by many other European and Asian troops turning this into a real world war, the numbers game was going to be a real issue and than you add the weather that turned from bad to worse as we where about to be pounded with the regions first winter storm early and let me tell you being an Englishman and spending Christmas in Scotland the winters are cold, beautiful but bloody cold. It was unseasonably cold and the snow would only add to the difficulty of holding the ground, visibility was going to a serious issue….not to mention the winds.
Well let me back track a minute here, I forgot to mention one big problem…and a serious one at that, sorry incoming phone call distracted me. Our supply line had been seriously under supplied for the amount of men I had, we had only a quarter of the supplies needed to properly equip a force of the size of mine. We called back to the states and to HQ for additional supplies and nothing, they ignored our requests or simply said an air drop is coming, nope never arrived. Also remember how I said there was only five fronts, yup five but yet there was an HQ in Manchester that was supported by the US Army. The only army division sent to the fronts was the 82nd and they were Airborne, something smelled fishy in Denmark.
Okay I am back on track now, were was I oh okay; the fighting started in the early morning hours with our gunners pounding their advancing forces and our machine gunners unleashing the rooster tails. The weather had become a mixed blessing as it gave us cover from their mages and allowed us to annihilate them before they became a serious problem. Though from what my Recon division had told me the Inishmore knew America was here log before we opened fire and they had prepared for us….well they seem to have already known as they had multiple other nations bumping their numbers up and well guess classified does’t mean the same thing in DC.
Now I know I have been rambling on and if you are still with me and haven’t scrolled down to read Holmes by know it will start to get good. I will spare you all the statistics and boring number crunching from this point on, from here I will jump around a bit and explain what I experienced. Seeing by 1200 hours on the 3rd our communications had been cut and it basically became a cluster of epic proportions, we had to resort to old school communication methods and runners to keep intelligence flowing, the fighting had degraded from modern warfare to World War Two style of fighting, two armies staged head to head and going at till the last man stands or the white flag is flown.
I was at the helm for the entire fight though for most of it I was on the ground with my stomach being stitched up and shot to hell. The Nordic generals would suffer a quick death as they couldn’t shoot straight and relied on their guards to keep them safe. This old Marine was more than ready to get in the thick of it, as I hadn’t gotten soft. Now the one thing I am glad I always insisted one was all my men be properly trained in counter chemical warfare and be properly equipped with the needed gear as it would save many lives or at least prolong life and keep us fighting till the end.
By the 6th I would be still at the helm and returning fire with my trusty rifle, this was not something I was used to as a General I stand with the men but modern warfare the enemy doesn’t get that close. I would have made General Patton proud as I fought hard and true with my men. Barking orders when I could and sending the runners when needed and simply hoping they would make it the officers and NCO’s alive, this had escalated quickly and being completely cut off and low on supplies we would have to simply outsmart and outlast the Inishmore.
As I was preparing to send a runner to speak with Colonel McCain, I would end up getting shot through the back of my vest and the bullet would tear into my shoulder and flatten against the inside of the vest on the front. I would hit the deck hard, bleeding and going into shock I would be glad that Dr. Apples was on scene yet he looked worse for were and was ignoring my orders to rest. Though when he came at me with that burning stick and a bottle of vodka, my screams could be heard over the artillery. He seared the flesh on both sides and poured the Vodka on the wounds before and after…Oh I forgot to mention the salt, yes salt being poured into an open gunshot wound. My arm still hurts today, but I am alive and that wounding was only my first of the encounter and not the worst. I am seriously dumbfounded that I am still alive, grateful but dumbfounded.
Even thriving in pain I refused to lay down and die or allow my men to go without their commander. I would die with my boots on in battle and not laying on the floor of the command bunker, also how the hell did I get shot inside the bunker? Though what got me out of the command bunker and into a foxhole would be when an enemy grenade would roll in. I grabbed my clerk CPL Ronnie Malcolm and dove out of the bunker as the damn this exploded, I through myself on him and well I don’t walk all that well as shrapnel tore through my boot and buried itself into flesh and bone.
Ronnie helped me up and my sentries ended up killing the Inishmore trooper that had broken the line, we took to a foxhole armed and in pain I drove my burning, bleeding and broken foot into the snow and muck to slow the bleeding and opened fire as we were being overrun. The air green, the snow falling fast as the Inishmore raged on the battlefield, not caring for their own lives they gave everything they had, it eventually turned into hand to hand combat. This is how I would receive my stomach wound and it would be Ronnie that would bandage the wound and apply pressure till Apples Arrived, I ended up getting cut deep by an Inishmores blade and as well shot…Ya double trouble, I would later learn that if either wound track was an inch in either direction I would have died, the Gods where watching over me that day, though chlorine poisoning sucks.
As Apples was putting Oxford back together, Ronnie played sentry and he fought bravely till the end and as he would fall beside me…he looked at me and simply said “Thank You Sir.” before his eyes fluttered and he thrived in the death rattle. Apples with one good arm had his hand inside me sewing me up with a heated needle and uniform thread, turned drew his sidearm, I could see the shrapnel digging into his wrist further and the look of someone who has checked out, open fire killing the two Axis troops that had killed Ronnie. Without missing a beat he holstered his sidearm and went back to working on me, he gave me an injection of something he had left and forced my to pound down multiple swigs of vodka and lets just say….I checked out and don’t remember much. I know I was covered in blood and gore when I was recovered and found over a hundred yards from where I started, I guess I went into the soldiers haze and fought on sheer will alone and survival instinct.
Well once we were rescued and sent home, I made sure that Ronnie Malcolm’s body was recovered and sent home for a soldiers funeral. I would learn that was a father of three and taking care of his ageing parents, I would pay out of pocket for his funeral and burial as the US military was refusing to pay more than 500 US Dollars towards the death benefits….a bloody shame and insult seeing he died in war and the Marine Corps is supposed to cover all the expenses and clerk should not have been out there in the first place. The excuse I heard from Washington was that they were now the United Canadian American States and they didn’t authorise the deployment….Political BS I tell to, nothing more than politician double talk to avoid paying whats owed.
Even with my bus schedule and many duties today I stay in touch with the families of the many men that served under my command including the Malcolm’s. When I can be their in person for the annual memorials I do, and when security is a serious concern I arrive via satellite TV. As a commander of the Sons of Liberty and Harbour Masters I have a huge target on my back and with my work with the Forsaken I have made many more enemies than friends so needless to say I don’t wish to risk the lives of any civilians if I can help it.
So I guess Old General Oxford has come to an end of his oratory and I do hope this clears up some needed information, I know that Unc needs to finish his piece and give us his personal account, my heart goes out to him seeing his beloved would fall on that Ashen Field and yet he had the foresight to gather us all and make this part of known history. I do need to correct Gunny Jamestown though 78 men would come home from the engagement; he forgot to mention Haywood Boston of the 82nd Hell Cats, Colonel Arthur Grimes of the 51st Razor Backs and Staff Sargent Richard Prescott of the 51st Razor Backs. I don’t blame him for the poor math as this is a very emotional memory for us all, the Ghost Division, Zombie Brigade, Ashen Riders and the Chlorine Ghouls stand together and we gather in remembrance as we all survived hell on earth and for once US Army, US Marine and NATO solider stand forever united as one, unbreakable, brothers we Outlasted and Outsmarted them….Semper Fi!
CPT Wesley Reid (Holmes): Wow ducky figured out how to turn on his computer…..Ness admit it you helped him didn’t you. Well my brothers here have already told you the basics of what went down and I won’t bore you with the same regurgitated stories. I saved Beachworth after he was pinned to the ground and pulled him to safety and yes I left the knife in his arm….safer than pulling it out and letting him bleed to death.
Now I am not going to say that I was in the right mind as I had a fallen comrades femur bone punched into my thigh and sadly that wasn’t the first time that happened to me….on the beaches of Normandy I suffered a similar fate. Though it is very trying to know one of your brothers bones is now inside of you, though if that was the only problem I was suffering than I would have been lucky. During the hand to hand fighting I would have my voice box crushed, I would end up getting stabbed numerous times and break multiple bones and have to stitch up my sack with a hot needle and uniform tread….yes Holmes was shot through the one place every man protects dearly.
I will keep this short and sweet unlike my brothers above, I have a great deal of respect for everyone I served with and I started a foundation to help the families of the fallen and keep their memory alive as many souls where lost and their bodies never recovered. Private Douglas would be one of the lucky hero’s that would be able to return home and have a hero’s burial, not many would be so lucky and to that I am sorry and wish I could do more. So many young lives taken in a blink and many more destroyed and for what seems like nothing as the fighting is still going on 57 years later.
In conclusion we fought hard and gave everything and some gave even more, I visit or call the families of the fallen of my unit when I get a chance simply to keep the memory alive and let their loved ones know that their death was not in vein. Private Douglas my heart goes out to you, you risked everything to save your fellow man and to that I thank you not just because I was one of the men you pulled out of danger……Semper Fi Brother and I know your looking down on all from Heaven, also to back Crane up I will take Bug City any day over the ashen fields of despair.
CPT Arthur Crane (Stamps): Well this is a first someone actually asking for me to write something about me on this shit show of a website. Blake you are a good egg and someone I am proud to have served alongside, and letting us recall our own stories here is great therapy and well will allow the truth to be heard. I am Arthur Crane and I have scene my fair share of shit shows and aftermaths of shit shows in my many years on this planet…..hell Bug City is a true eye opener to what weapons of mass destruction can do and hang out with the 401st, 82nd and 67th Stormriders and you will see hell on earth or at least the aftermath of it’s affects. My closest friends have all crawled out of hell and lived to tell the tale.
I served in the US Marines and even though I am now within the Texas Elite and the US Elite serving in the 87th Criminal Investigation Division; I am and will always be a US Marine and I am damn proud of my service Semper Fi! Though looking back at my days in the Corps and my time in Scotland I can tell you this it was a shit show from day one. We were sent over seas with little preparation and planning, our supplies where behind schedule and we were given orders to dig in deep. They sent us heavy machinery to dig trenches, well that is easier said than done in basically swamp land…our machines would sink in the mud and than when the mercury dropped the would freeze in place. Those buckets of bolts would become great cover but worthless for anything else, our supplies would be scattered throughout the UK and getting HQ to answer our radio calls for a resupply was worthless….the 401st and 82nd would feel the same sting…..I know company clerks that can get shit done and they couldn’t even get a paperclip sent to us.
The issues for us started from the moment we landed in the UK and partnered up with the Nordic troops, now I am not saying they didn’t help and they did. the Hilmarsson brothers are now my best friends….the issue was chain of command problems, as a captain I would see this first hand and when the shit hit the fan it would become apparent that the Americans needed to take charge…than you again General Oxford you saved our skin out there. Europe at the time was not used to fighting in war as they had had enough during the First and Second World Wars, yet England was just like us ready for the fight. The Nordic commanders where the problem, they helped with men but where useless when it really mattered.
Colonel Ness had to take command over the Nords and direct them to the proper channels and flanks or we would have all been toast. Captain Hilmarsson is a genius and his tactile mind would save all our asses by properly covering the rear flank with our men sent by Oxford. We had no idea about the Armies of the world nor the Fucking Russians though Dr. Apples can thank our Nordic brother Hilmarsson for moving forces there or his ass and most of us would have perished and the front would have been lost.
Well your not here to read about tactics and boring shit…no you want the grisly details to fulfil your morbid desires and fantasies you sick bastards. Okay straight from the horses mouth here it goes, let me give you my account and how fucked up Stamps got during this cluster fuck. The weather was not with us and anyone who ever fought in war can tell you SNOW SUCKS!! This is the deadly truth, more men froze to death than where shot, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, I was with the armour division and working under Col. Ness our job was to protect the tanks at all costs and clear any mines and troops that would be in the way. Killing was our job and we were damn good at it, Beachworth probably already told you about the explosion and Ness saving his ass, and I pulled both of them out of the kettle.
I was protecting our big guns and commanding a unit of men about 100 midway between the front and the enemy so seriously in the thick of the shit. This war was not fought in the modern style, we were in foxholes, scattered and marching forward, it was a good old historical cluster fuck and thats just how those clowns in DC wanted it. The Trenches might have worked for the 401st and barely kept the 82nd alive but for us they where death traps and became a watery grave for many men…..again getting wet in a frozen wasteland is, well DEATH!
After I pulled Ness and Beachworth out of the fire, I returned to my men and kept fighting through the snow and ice, I fought for what seemed like days but in reality it was many, many hours. We held our ground and they held theirs, once the chemical bombs came down it was a game changer and our numbers would be cut down fast. My men were barely trained to handle chemical warfare as most where snot nosed kids fresh out of basic and this would be their final stand. I ended up getting shot through my hand while I was putting my gas mask on….ya bones, blood and tissue went everywhere and it hurt like hell and still fucking does. I wrapped my hand picked up my weapon and kept going, my men needed me and the Tir were not going to get away with this shit. The air was green and the snowy landscape looked like a Christmas fruitcake had vomited all over the place, yet I had a job to do and that was to kill the enemy and get my men out alive….well one out of two ain’t bad I guess.
I fought hard and long getting blasted in my vest and pack, even got my clock ringed with a round glancing off my helmet and having the visor of my mask cracked when a mortar strike through rock and shit everywhere. Well eventually after nearly a day of crawling through blood, guts and gore we would have to pull back as the enemy would charge us and begin to overrun our assess, well last thing I wanted was to have a magical ass fuck near me. So ya I pulled back, been through the Great Ghost Dance in Texas, nope not playing with that shit, once back with the men on the line the real cluster began.
It was here that we would have to engage them in hand to hand combat…yes that means we twisted there heads, broke their necks, stabbed them and cut them open like a rainbow trout and yes Daisy Eaters still bleed red and smell real bad. This though is when I would have a knife driven through my elbow and have my knee hyper extended with a piece of shrapnel sticking through it. I broke many bones during that engagement including many ribs. Vests help with the bullets but the real damage is the bruising…I will take being shot any day over a contusion.
The battle brawl would end as quickly as it started though as the enemy forces where obviously already killed from the gas attack and this was their last stand. Though as I watched as they dropped one by one, the next wave of fuckage was about to slam us, I was in a foxhole at this point when the firebombs came in. The Air Force and Navy pilots had simply given up the ghost and left us to die out there, the enemy bombers started cooking the landscape, I got lucky being in a foxhole I sunk into the now mixture of sludge and mud and pulled the sand bags over me and prayed to the lord above to get me out of here and I would listen to Sydney and leave the Corps and joint the Police it’s safer.
Well being firebombed sucks, it is hot as hell and I ended up with many burns and gear melted to my body but I am here today. I heard men cooking, and boiling inside…nothing prepares you for the sound of a human body popping like an over boiled hot dog. When I crawled out of the hole and looked around it was like something out of a horror movie. burned corpses everywhere, the sky grey and the ground coated in ash, trees burned to a crisp and machines melted to a husk. We would be rescued by the same fucks that wouldn’t send us shit, I nearly choked the shit out of the fucking commander of the 23rd US Army Division when he said well looks like the Army always has to save a Marines ass.
I would have too if I could have moved my arms and well walk…..my legs where fucked, my arms fucked, breathing sucked and well everything hurt. I was put on a stretcher and trucked with the rest of the Ashen Riders to the nearest MASH unit…guess what their was one close enough that we could have spit on it. How did they escape the Russians, seriously HOW!!
Well patched up and sent home, I staid in touch with my brothers in the 51st and when time came to take to the streets, well I looked up the members of the 401st, and 82nd as well and formed the Wolf Pack. I honoured the Iron Wolves, Fighting Tigers and Thunder Dogs with calling us the Wolf Pack….Other friends as well where part of the pack and yes we all have scars and stories to tell, though not like anyone really cares beyond the gory details. Semper Fi Iron Wolves and we made it another year…..Oh Bug City was a tropical paradise over those three days in Scotland.
51st Razorbacks
Ghouls of the Shire
Blood Brothers
COL Arthur Grimes (Speedy): Semper Fi Brothers another year has passed and we are still alive, may 2075 be a better sight than the last and when she is over may we again understand peace. I have been alerted that the Razor Backs have been given chance to chime in on this wonderful and over do project, I want to give huge Oorah to Unc for putting this together and to all my blood brothers in the 401st and 82nd for sticking with us through the good and bad times.
Well seeing that only two of us walked away from the theatre our accounts are not as detailed as the accounting of the Ghost Division, Iron Wolves and Thunder Dogs. My accounting will be very similar to Prescott’s seeing that we where within the same unit and fought on the same cliff face, though what I would see and do during that engagement will remain with me till today and it has become my responsibility to teach the next generation about our war and what accord so hopefully the horrors will never happen again.
The war might be over and my time in the war ended, but the war still rages on inside me and it will never leave as I left a piece of myself on the shores of Whales and replaced it with the shrapnel, chlorine, rock fragments and bullets. My blood was spilled on the rocks and beach as I spilled the blood of the enemy on that same day. Being one of only two men to escape death and yet be fully ready to embrace and welcome death is an odd feeling to know that you survived and so many young lives were snuffed out in a blink….I believe they call it survivors guilt and I can honestly say I have it and it will remain with me till the day I die.
Between all my brothers accounts and the writings of McCain and Oxford you have learned about the political circus that circled this conflict and why we were deployed to the United Kingdom. I was the commanding officer of the Razor Backs and it was my job to make sure we were victorious and that as many of my men returned home safely. Though in both aspects I can say I failed as we technically lost that front though with everyone but two including the enemy perishing…one can say that we one seeing we were the last men standing.
So when I look back on that engagement I am choked up when I think about all the other conflicts I was involved in and all the the times when victory or defeat was a concise and clear outcome. This one on the other hand haunts me as both a Marine and and Officer though even more so as a Christian and an American; I stood in the face of evil on the beaches of Normandy against the Nazis and I fought hard against Communism in both Korea and Vietnam and again the enemy was a clear and present threat and danger; the evil that they posed to the world was beyond real and tactics that where deployed by our enemy would forge and set the foundation for the Articles of Warfare and the Rules of Engagement…though in 2018 it seemed that the Inishmore and Axis Forces would toss that book aside and forge ahead into warfare with unwritten rules and yet stepping back in time as they repeated the horrors of the past.
I would love to unload onto you all the horrors of the political side or the boring historical and tactical end of this war, but sadly I am unable to do so. As I was not involved in the antics from Washington and when it comes to the battlefield my view and knowledge would suffer greatly once I was within the rock with Prescott for well over a day trying to keep both our cans alive…no small feat I may add.
Though a little about me before I continue, I am a career US Marine and I would become an officer after I graduated from college in 1979. I took time away from the Corps after Vietnam do to my injuries and a desire to not be used and abused by the suits in Washington and the brass of the Corps. I would graduate with honours from Brown University and enter Officer Cadet School in 1980, I would as well receive my Medical Corps certification in 1985 and be recognised as a combat surgeon by the Corps in 1987. I would marry for the second time in 1988 after I would be deployed to Parris Island in South Carolina where I would remain till 2018 with the 51st.
I am the proud father of four and grandfather of eight, though two of my sons would end being killed on the beaches of Wales and one of my Grandsons killed with the 401st. I am proud of all my offspring and I salute my children that sacrificed themselves to stand against evil and follow in Grandpas footsteps and join the military. I would end up being retired without a promotion in 2018 after I returned home from Wales and I would spend my retirement working in the school system where I would teach US History from 2020 till 2074 when I would retire once again. I would move to Seattle to be closer to my family and after my third wife passed away in 2074…I seem to be cursed as I have outlived three wives and many children, grand children and great grandchildren, but that’s my cross to bear seeing I was granted immortality by the US Government in 1914 during the Federal Immortality Projects humble beginnings.
I have recently joined the US Elite and I am proud to put the uniform on again and serve this great nation and I am beyond grateful to be given a second chance to serve America. I understand that my service comes with an astérisques seeing I am not allowed on the battlefield do to old war injuries do to the most current Uniform Code of Military Regulations. This little hiccup doesn’t bother me and I am simply proud to lend my years of experience to this new branch of service and help the cadets become All They Can Be.
Well I guess Old Colonel Grimes can be very long winded, if you haven’t already checked out and scrolled down to Prescott by now I am surprised and thankful. Okay now onto the morbid details and gore that you have been chomping at the bit for…well here it goes.
On October 3rd 2018 I would be in the command tent with my fellow officers and communications team as we coordinated the grand defence of the Welsh Coast from the Inishmore and surprisingly a force of greater number than anyone could have ever imagined. Seeing that had troops at four other locations and from the chatter coming in the numbers where high at each location, the Inishmore would be allied by the Spaniards and the African forces. We would be outnumbered four to one and we had over twenty thousand men from the 51st, the Welsh and the Welsh Rebels so it was not a small amount of troops that would be trying to land on the beach and over run us.
We held the high ground and layered the beach in mines, barbed wire and construction barricades to slow down their progress and deployed a hidden mirror wall to fend off the magical assault as they can’t fireball what they can’t see and best case scenario they ended up cooking some of there own. Though this tactic would only work once and only as long as the mirrors remand, to my amazement and surprise this tactic not only worked it worked in spades and we would cut down their magical division and many incoming cruisers with ease and with our Force Recon snipers and marksmen the remainder of the magical division would never escape the amphibious cruisers.
The weather had turned against us, the seas where rough, the winds ravaged the cliffs and beaches, the rain as sharp as ice cut through the tents and into our flesh, the lightning pelted the beaches, and hail the size of softballs would injury many men as they held their ground. Once the first cruisers hit the beach the big guns from both sides began belching death, throwing rock, sand and shrapnel everywhere. I would give the command to open fire and our lines would unleash the rooster and throw white death at the shoreline, men would emerge from the cruisers and fall dead into the water having to be trampled over by those behind them many cruisers would never empty as the tide quickly turned red from the blood and sharks could be scene schooling in the shallows to consume the wounded and fallen alike.
The fighters and bombers took to the sky s their ships guns would pound our location for hours, our gunners would send hot death towards the ships and cruisers as we made quick work of the Inishmore and their allies, all seemed to be going to plan and yet I had a sinking feeling that this was only the start seeing war is simply organised chaos and it was going to easy for us. I could hear the chatter coming in from the other fronts and knew that this was only the start of hell. Suddenly around 1100 hours only five hours after the first shells where fired our communications would be cut off and by 1200 hours we would loose our two MASH units and all of our Battalion Aid Stations. Our supply line would be the next to go and we would officially be thrown to the lions as we were completely cut off and our supplies gone and medical supplies where what we had on hand only. Our doctors and nurses dead, our medics under supplied and under heavy fire, men began falling quick and the cries of the fallen still haunt me today.
Our Command Tent was the next to go as a shell would land near our location, I would be the only one to survive and even then surviving is a amazement as I ended up with part of our communications gear blasted into my leg, knee and ankle. I would crawl away alive but not in the best shape, though old Speedy needed to keep it together and stand tall for my men. Morale was in question and seeing that I was their CO me being alive was more a necessity than a desire as my leg hurt like hell. My men needed me and I needed them, we were going to hold that line and come hell or high water the enemy was not going to pass…ironic that many years later Longshanks of the 401st would say those famous words “None Shall Pass” on this very spot when the Deaths Hand tried to invade.
Out of the command tent and now on the line fully with the men I grabbed my weapon and started barking orders to the non coms and anyone that would listen….now this was the chaos in war that I am used to sadly. We would hold the ridge for hours and in reality that ridge would never truly fall as the enemy would never pass and they would end up being cooked just like my men. Though as day turned to night and the chlorine bombs began falling, the hot gas blending with the falling torrents of rain would render the beachhead to smell like an over heated indoor pool…something that today I still can’t use. Chlorine would poor down my mask in gallons and sting my wounds, the area was clean but poisoning was a real issue, with our medics down and doctors gone it fell onto me to play the role of General and Doctor and I wasn’t a General…..Hmm Washington you forgot something.
I would begin ravaging the med kits from the fallen medics and what the men where caring as I ran from fallen to fallen, firing back whenever I could. My men would see my commitment and morale couldn’t have been higher in the face of certain defeat and I couldn’t have been prouder of my Marines. Gods hand would intervene when I would be working on Prescott and decide to simply shove a burning piece of wood and a handful of gritty sand and salt into his wounded shoulder and move on to another marine that had been wounded and was calling for a medic.
I say that simply because as soon as I cleared the ridge a enemy naval shell would impact were I was and butcher everyone thee and the explosion would break the ridge and send Prescott for the ride of his life. Now I am saddened that many men where killed and that Prescott would be gravely injured but if I was there we wouldn’t have even one survivor. As it was my quick thinking that would end up sparing both my life and Prescotts.
SSgt Richard Prescott (Rubix): Oorah!! Well it seems it’s my turn to dispel some of the many myths that are flowing around about the Inishmore Invasion. Our story has yet to be told and seriously it’s up to me or Speedy to do it seeing we are the lone survivors of that shit show. Looks like Rubix will have to be the one to lock this page up for a while as I tell you my story and then I will give you the best recount of events though it might have to be a two part recount seeing Colonel Grimes would be privy to more sensitive data than this Staff Sargent…..Just Busting your chops Grimes.
Our unit was deployed to Whales in September of 2018 and we would end up fighting within the Shires for three days and three nights, our battle would be fought on the shores of Whales and within the rocky ridges that line that coastline. We wouldn’t have the luxury of the trenches or foxholes, for us higher ground would be our advantage and our curse, the 51st Razor Backs would be Twenty Thousand Strong and backed up by the Welsh Army….if you could call it an army, where they lacked in numbers they made up for in heart and dedication and we would as well have the Welsh Rebels on our line. Rebels and Soldiers fighting side by side for the fate of the nation and all the shires, it truly was a sight to behold and well something that I hold dear.
My memories of this engagement haunt me till today and yet seeing vested troops alongside rebels in kilts and war paint is something I will never forget. For just three days brutal enemies where the strongest of allies, and I understand the entire Welsh military was not at this location and neither was the entire rebellion. Though just the presence of the rebels and troops was something that inspired this American to fight harder than I ever fought before.
We had a gunnery line, we had the beach combed with barbed wire and mines, the waves crashed onto the shore as the storms where already beginning to lay waste to the coast. Mists rolled across the beach and the winds howled through the cliffs with rage. The Inishmore ships could be seen on the horizon as the fighters took to the sky only to meet our fighters and the heavens would rage on as machines of war collided. The sun was barely in the sky on the 3rd when the fighting would begin, their ships guns would bellow hot death unto us and the ravages of magic would tear across the landscape, we deployed our secret tech and thousands of mirrors would reflect the Inishmore back on them. This initially would catch them off guard and many of the ships and amphibious cruisers would catch their own magical assault and even the odds a bit. Though mirrors in war are not meant to last and would as well become shrapnel…..yes that hurts, and no I don’t have seven years bad luck.
Though while it lasted the mirror defence would cut down many of there magical line and with our sharpshooters and the rebel mages they would remove the last of their unfair advantage. Though this would be the easy part and fighting on the cliff side would be a tactical advantage but a nightmare just the same, as we would be pounded relentlessly by their ships guns and the bombers throughout day and night. The cliffs would be our advantage through the fight, yet they would as well become our downfall as war had changed and yes higher ground is a tactile advantage but the advent of smart weapons and high explosives had mad our terrain treacherous.
Many don’t even know that war was fought on the shores of Whales in 2018 our story is basically untold and unheard as only two brave men survived those hellish days by the skin of our teeth and tens of thousands would perish and become forgotten by history. We are the Ghouls of the Shire as we were found stumbling through the piles of dead and wondering aimlessly seemingly lost to our wounds and unaware of our surroundings.
My story within this conflict is one that will truly draw those with a morbid curiosity and one that will forever change me till today. I would survive hell on the earth and only be the grace of God will I be here to tell you my story. The fighting was intense and we would start the battle off with a huge advantage seeing that our line littered the cliff slide and our aim was true, the Inishmore and Axis forces charging the beachhead would fall victim to our machine guns and mines. The weather would be pounding on us with a early winter storm, the winds howled across the beach and through the cliffs many men would be ripped of the cliffs by the wind that reached nearly 70 KPH, lighting crashed all around and the waves raged and pounded the shore. The sun hid behind the black storm clouds and would not emerge till the last gun ceased firing.
As I said above there magical assault would be butchered right away as our mirror strategy would reek havoc on them and our many sharpshooters would send them to an early grave. I personally would have five confirmed magi kills in the first wave, the Inishmore figured the magical division would butcher us all quickly and in a tactical blunder they wound send the mages out first, their blunder would be our blessing and would secure our continued defence instead of immediate defeat. I am a US Marine and former Force Recon solider, I would be stationed with the general infantry and placed on the cliffs with my rifle and a prayer.
It is always said that only God can tell a Marine when they can die and on that day, God was calling many of us to heaven. I would escape death but not significant injury and end up breaking many bones including my back….I am lucky that I can walk today but many others would be sent to heaven. Well for me it would be a fight for my life and I would give them hell, I look back on it today and I would do it again if called to service for defending freedom is something that all Americans believe with every ounce of our being.
Okay I will stop beating around the bush and get straight to the gory details I know you are clambering for. On the second day of fighting I would be still buried deep on the cliffs, ships guns would be pounding all around, men screaming and crying as the shrapnel and explosions would deliver there payload and grant death as an escape. Blood and gore painted the cliffs, the sandstone and gravel would be painted and clumped with the viscera and bones of the men, the rain freezing and sharp pounded us and froze the blood as it poured over the edge, while chlorine bombs pelted the beach and cliffs casting a sickly green haze over the battlefield.
I would end up getting hit by a rogue bullet in the top of my shoulder and shattering my collarbone, another would crack my mask and nearly take my head off….lucky for me that it only created a gap that the liquefied chlorine could pore straight into my left eye and fester for days, I would be in extreme pain but I had to keep fighting as our medical line was already gone and only the semi skilled hands of field medics that where over worked. My commander Grimes would use fire and a heated knife to seal the wound on my shoulder, before heading off to care for another fallen comrade.
I can guesstimate that around 1800 hours on the 4th is when the fight would be over for me, when a shell from an Inishmore shell would slam into the ground near me. The men in my squad would be killed in a blink as the shrapnel would find it’s home within their bodies, for me it would tear into my flesh and cause more pain than anyone should ever endure. Though what happened next is where my fight ended. The cliff face that once held me would give way and I would fall over 50 feet to the rocks below, I would land on a handful rocks and boulders and here bones break in my arms, legs and ribs. Breathing would become a chore and yet their was no pain below the waist and that was worse than the fall itself, I wished for death at this point knowing that my back had been broken and I was either going to end up in a chair or die a slow death.
Parts of the cliff face had fallen on my legs and arm crushing it beneath the extreme weight, this is when I learned that adrenaline and the human body can do amazing things under stress. Grimes also known as Speedy would tear down the cliffs under heavy fire and with blood and chlorine pouring off his body he would make it to me and even being shot he didn’t stop as he moved rock after rock off of me and some how he mustered all his strength and pushed the biggest of boulders off my leg and pulled me to safety…yet in the process he tore muscle and ligament in his upper body and back. He broke his wrists and tore flesh from bone on his hands, fingers and knees from the extreme effort, he risked everything to save me and yet we were far from help and not out of danger.
From this point I would fade in and out from the extreme pain and shock, I know whenever I awoke Speedy was there to care for my wounds. I know we somehow managed to fend off the charging forces and hold or position within the rocky out cove. Rocks still piercing my body and extreme pain we held true and helped our brothers above till the fire bombs would start falling. My fall would become a fateful accident that would end up saving both our lives as neither of us would be able to rejoin the line and we simply prayed for rescue that seemed like it would never come.
The fires of hell would wash upon the cliffs and torch every single soul up there friend and foe alike, the next wave of chlorine and agent orange would pound the beach from the enemies ships and than silence….the dangerous kind of silence, the dead silence. One by one man and beast would fall suffocating to the gas or cooking alive, the Inishmore ships would slowly vanish into the horizon only to be sunk by the Northern Irish and Icelandic Navies. Bodies littered the beachhead and blood seeped into the tides as the chlorine saturated the beach and air casting a sickly green haze over the battlefield.
Once the final shot would be fired and a dead calm would come over the area, the storm would break and the sun would show its face letting us know that it was over. Our fear of no rescue was being realised as Grimes helped me up and carried us to the beach to die in the warming glow of the sun. We had simply checked out and where prepared to welcome death, though the Grim Reaper would not be able to collect our souls on that day. As we crawled through the bodies, blood, gore and tides the US Army Corps of Engineers would arrive spotting us moving about the carnage, somehow they would find us in that chaos and for that I am grateful…I might have been prepared to die, though I did really want to live.
We would be airlifted from the battlefield and rushed off to medical and taken care of. I would learn that my back was broken and yet it wasn’t a break that couldn’t be fixed and after many months of recovery and medication I would walk again and not only walk I would become Rubix and the warrior you know today.
Seeing our battle was won but yet lost at the same time, the enemy doesn’t speak of it and with only myself and Grimes having survived that engagement our story is ignored by many accept our brothers in the Iron Wolves, Ghost Division, Hell Cats and Zombie Brigade. I am saddened to think that all the poor souls that fell and wold never be truly honoured as their deaths would be forgotten and their sacrifices ignored. We the Ghouls of the Shire have started a foundation to honour the fallen and lend helping hand to those still mourning the lost all these years later. We have fought hard to have a monument erected in DC and one day we hope that it will actually be constructed, with the names of the 51st Razor Backs and Welsh Rebel and Soldier’s names inscribed on it for all to memorialise the fallen.
I am thankful for my friendships with Grimes, The Yates Brothers, The Palpatines, The Grimms, the Meisners, and the many others that I can proudly call the 77 Strong….we crawled through hell and stand true as one, once divided by unit and now forever forged as one through blood, chlorine and fire; We are truly blood brothers and this is our stand against defiance and treachery. I am now one with the Tennessee Elite and Vietnam Veteran Thomas Kissinger, I like many of the 77 have dedicated my life to fighting against the evil in the world and now we stand united with General Ralph Rivers in the US Elite. My military days might be behind me, but I am proud to put my uniform on again and aid the next generation into battle and prepare them for their fight against treachery. I might not be fully cleared for active duty, but that doesn’t mean I am not able to lend my countless years of experience to the training pool and help the young feel the pride of being an American Solider and to all the cadets of the Elite I give a a bold and mighty OORAH!!!!!
Semper Fi
Staff Sargent Richard Prescott
