My head is hurting me. The last thing I remember is that tank heading our positions, while I was firing my rifle. Then just a confusing mix of sounds, and diffused movement all around me. Then just nothing. I think I’ve fainted at that moment. Now, I don’t know how many time I had been here, but looks like it has been like three hours. Looks like the battle's over. I was lucky not to receive a serious wound.

I stand up in a weak smoke screen and search for anything I could use to know what happened. The tank I saw before was burning 200 meters of our frontline. I find lots of fallen comrades around me, with some enemy bodies that look like they tried to take the second defensive line. There's also an abandoned halftrack behind the second defensive line. I walk to it to search for anything useful there. I find some water cans, two rifles, a pistol and some ammo. I search for any special markings in the halftrack. The vehicle was from the 3º Motorized Infantry Regiment, nicknamed "Donut of Doom". I met the driver a week before the battle, and remembered that he owed my 30 rifle bullets and a grenade. The occupants of the vehicle apparently jumped out before a grenade exploded in the front seat. Looks like an enemy soldier could throw it inside from a trench in front of the APC, but someone killed him immediately after the grenade exploded, as I found the ring of the grenade still in his hand. After the Second line, the only things I can see are bodies from my army, lying dead in the ground. I don’t know if they retreated and the enemy advanced or vise versa. I decide to go to my HQ, as it’s more possible to find allied forces there than to the enemy's side. I reload my semi auto rifle and the pistol I found, drink some water and find a pair of grenades in the floor.

As I advance to the HQ, I hear the sound of a motorcycle from the road. I try to run to a group of trees at the left side of the road, in case the motorcycle is driven by a foe. Finally after a minute, the motorcycle shows in the road. I try to recognize any markings, but the guy is wearing a black uniform, like the enemy's Night Fighters or our Special Ops units. The motorcycle is a civil design, so I don’t know what to think. I stayed in the bushes till the guy finally disappeared.

After walking for half an hour, I hear a branch cracking in the forest, at the right side of the road. I run to the left side, prepare my rifle behind a bush and stare at the other side of the road. A minute later, someone appeared from the forest. I try to see if he's enemy or not. For my luck, he was the lucky driver of the "Donut of Doom", Rob "Razor" Otter. I'll have the bullets and the grenades after all. He was armed with a sub-machinegun. As he looks nervous, I call him by his name, to make sure he won’t shoot at me. When he hears me, he jumps because of the surprise. Then he looks at me, and grins. I told him my story in the woods, and then he tells me his story. He jumped from the halftrack after the grenade entered the vehicle. For his luck, he was in the way out when the grenade was thrown in the vehicle. He could escape from the enemy soldiers in the retreat, but an explosion had the same effect with him as with me. At least he knew where the enemy headed after he fainted. When he woke up, he did as me and walked towards the HQ. He told me he saw a man in a motorcycle. He stopped at a small hut, from where two enemy soldiers came out. After recognize they where enemy soldiers, he opened fire with his machinegun. For his bad luck, the motorcycle received three impacts in the front gear, and two more in the engine, so it couldn’t be used anymore. But the soldiers died and when he went to their hut, he found some rifle clips, with 40 bullets and 3 grenades. That ammo should be mine, but he doesn’t want to give them to me. What can he do with them, throw them to the enemy till they die of lead intoxication? Well, never mind.

After 10 minutes of walking in the road, we finally reach the HQ. We stayed in some bushes before head the HQ, to make sure if it’s occupied by someone, and to know by whom. With Razor's binoculars, we try to see, if there is someone in that farmhouse used as HQ. The red flag with two black stripes crossing in the center forming an "X" tell us it’s still occupied by our men. We come out of the bushes with our hands up, to make sure anyone shoot at us. When we arrive to the door, someone opens it, while three soldiers aim their weapons at us. Luckily, they were our comrades. I ask for a report of the situation. The enemy defeated our regiment at our starting defense positions. The survivors ran to the forests trying to escape from the enemy. From the original force of 800 men, 130 survived. 40 of them stayed in this headquarters while the rest were too wounded or where needed in another place and had to be evacuated in every vehicle avaible. Halftracks, ambulances, jeeps and trucks were used. In the HQ, there were 13 men operating the radio, looking at a map and giving orders, but 8 of them were high rank officers, and had to leave to a safer place. The other five guys stayed in the HQ with the group of 40 soldiers mentioned before. Before our arrival to the HQ, the chief officer of the building was a Sergeant, but my rank was higher- Kommisar- so I took the command.  We joined to the defense of the HQ. We stayed an hour watching for the enemy in this evening forest scene.

When the night arrived, just Razor, two soldiers and I were awake for the first vigilance round, of one and a half hour. After 15 minutes of being sited in a chair in the second floor, a flare climbed fast the sky. The enemy offensive started, and nothing could stop their powerful advance, or at least that’s what they think. We are at the mid of two army's frontlines, one defending their new positions, the other, charging against their enemy. We prepare our weapons to defend the HQ, in a war in which I don’t fight for my country anymore. Now, I fight to survive.

Razor and I run downstairs to wake up our comrades. I order them to put the heavy machineguns in the second floor, except two of them, which will be put in the 1º plant. I ask for a semi-automatic sniper rifle, but the only sniper rifle in the house is a hunting rifle with a scope fitted on it. All the soldiers are in position, waiting for the enemy. A second flare lights the field, and the rifles start firing. There's an entire platoon coming from the forest to the farmhouse. They’re the famous Night Fighters, trained for this kind of operations. Anyway, we defeated them in the first assault, but this is far from the end. The night is still young, and the enemy has more special units in this sector, ready to fight for their country. The rifle I got here is very useful. I killed three heavy machine gunners before they could deploy their weapons. Four enemy soldiers entered the cellar of this damn house, but we killed them with a grenade. We captured their weapons after the combat. And for my luck, one of them had a night semi-automatic sniper rifle. The other weapons were submachine guns with night vision devices fitted to their sight.

The calm came back, and the next patrol takes our place in the vigilance duty while I go downstairs to take a brief rest. But this peace lasted just a little time. Another flare showed us an advancing tank in the road, followed by some infantry. I ask for any AT weapon, but all what we have is an enemy Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher and two grenades to reload it after the first shot. I ask the soldiers if anyone there was good with AT weapons. Two of them conform an AT team, but they were trained to use our grenade launchers, and this thing is very different from the one used by us. So they had to examinate the weapon to guess how it works. As the infantry is reaching the farmhouse, they have to hurry up if we want to take the tank out of combat. Luckily they found how to use it. One of them prepared the weapon, aimed the tank and fired. It worked. Direct impact, but the tank was still working, but moving too slow. The AT team is trying to reload it, but it seems that this thing is a desechable weapon. The enemy infantry open fire while the tank tries to aim the house. Fortunately the crew abandons the tank just to be shot by my new rifle in their head. The infantry, now overwhelmed by our firepower, retreats to the forest while loose more and more men. Our total casualties are 13 men, but only 5 of them are dead. Looks like they sent rookie troops to attack this farmhouse. Maybe they thought this house was abandoned. I count approximately 30 dead enemies in the front garden. The rest of the night passed without action. When finally the sun shows up, a tank column appears at the back garden. They are our tanks. The commander of the column gives me the news I wanted to hear. The enemy was defeated in their offensive and our soldiers could recuperate the lost terrain.

After the battle, I was called with the rest of the group to a Condecoration Ceremony. We are being awarded for our outstanding courage in combat. The wounded receive a Wounded Medal each one apart from the Outstanding Courage Medal, and the families of the fallen ones receive an Outstanding Service in War Medal.

After all this adventure, I’ll have something to tell to my sons and their sons. Anyway, I wish all this thing never happened. All the combat, the death and things like that left scars in my life, scars that will never heal.


                Kommisar Tadeus "Sharpshooter" Seltzer
             3rd Special Operation Group, 71st Guerrilla Corps