Battle of Enoch City

I got a letter today from Lieutenant Wallace’s widow. He was a Corporal when I first met him. I remember him so well. He was a quiet, withdrawn little guy, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. He was a scrapper though. You look at him funny and he’d damn near stick you. Wallace used to keep a stiletto in his boot. Said he kept it for the uppity Browncoats. I remember the first time I ever saw him use it. He punched a hole in a Rat-bag. He’d always use it to stick whatever food we were eating, bread, fruit, whatever. We had just moved into the edge of Enoch City on Three Hills. Gorram Mordeau had been fumbling the conflict since he arrived. When we landed we had nearly half a million men, and clear air superiority. We harassed those Browncoats all over the planet’s surface, till they wizened up and moved into the cities. By then the cities had been emptied of all the civilians, but some remained. Enoch City was the industrial center, and the biggest city on Three Hills. General Mordeau wanted to keep the city as intact as possible. Of course General Vaughn had no such ideas. She ordered her men to dig in and wait.
I remember arriving at the depot, still gleaming from OCS. I didn’t know that was going on. I sat in the officers briefing and took notes like I was a little school boy, hanging on each word like it would be my last. I should’ve taken better gorram notes. I met Wallace on my way out of the briefing room. He and I were reporting to Charlie Company, 5th Battalion. He was to be a squad leader, and I was the company CO. We went our separate ways, and I briefed my NCO’s on the days mission. Alfa through Delta companies were to assault the governor’s complex in the center of the city. Echo and Foxtrot companies had already cleared the way, and were pulling back because the complex was well defended. After gearing up, we humped the two mile walk to the combat zone. My cadre had the medic, my CCO, the company sergeant, and a couple of grunts. Somehow I had drawn the right to be point company, so our orders were to move up to a street about two blocks away from the complex and secure one side. It was called line black. We’d set up subsequent streets, as lines, to measure progress, and we’d fight our way to the complex by securing each line and fighting forward.
As the company approached we heard sporadic gun fire. The complex has us at a might bit of a disadvantage, since it was about six stories up. We moved up as quickly and quietly as we could, and I don’t think we took casualties to speak of. Alfa, Bravo, and Delta companies were in the rear, waiting for us to secure our point so they could move up. When we arrived at line black, I don’t know what I was thinking. My company just moved out into the street along with me in my command squad. After orienting myself, I just stared blankly at the buildings on the other side of the street. I couldn’t remember if we were supposed to move past line black or hold short of it. I remember looking at the CCO. His name was Mitchell I think. He registered my confusion a second before a Browncoat sniper shot him in the head. The gorram bastards were right there on the other side of the street. Weapons fire erupted around us. They were everywhere. On top of buildings, in attics, basements, behind walls. Everywhere. I ducked down to check Mitchell, but he was dead. The two corporals with me started wildly firing, unmoving in that open street. I stood up to see five more of my men go down before I ordered everyone back to the buildings behind us.

Colonel Douglas Amadi Recalling the Battle for Enoch City 12th May, 2508