Micah Gurley: Invasion Day: An Oral History of the Veech War

The whole time we’d been gathering, the Veech were conducting sorties on us. We had laser-guided surface-to-air missiles positioned around the base, so when the Veech got close, we’d launch the missiles. They didn’t take many of the Veech down, but they got a lot of hits. It was more of a deterrent, I think. We still took losses when an interceptor got through, but not too many.

A day later, our units began to move out. My lieutenant gave us our orders and showed us our position. It was about a half-mile from an overpass on I-95, next to a restaurant. We were told to go there and wait. The orders seemed kind of vague to us, but the brass seemed annoyed when our lieutenant kept asking, so dropped it.

The battle was as bad as you’ve heard, at least from my perspective. For some reason, the brass rushed everyone to get in position, which resulted in most units never getting into position. Our unit was a mile away from our place in the line when the order was given for the flanks to attack. Our lieutenant reported that we weren’t in position, but he got no response. It was a mess.

The left flank moved forward, while the right stalled to allow more units to catch up. How that happened? Who knows? The lines broke when the Veech came out to meet us. We were too disorganized. Confusion everywhere. But that wasn’t our only problem. We still had units spread out for dozens of miles, trying to reach the fight. I heard about a tank division that showed up with empty gas tanks because they forgot to bring their diesel trucks. Those dudes were pulling up to truck stops and filling up like they were civilians. (Laughs and shakes his head.)A disaster!

Their interceptors got more aggressive and cut us up like it was a turkey shoot. Most of our mobile SAMs didn’t get set up in time, so our air cover was cut in half. The air force helped but couldn’t do much against them. I don’t blame our pilots, though; they got cut up bad within the first few hours of the Veech arriving. They tried to get in there and provide a distraction, but it just wasn’t enough. We had to sit there and take it.

I mean, all of these things seemed to happen at the same time. Murphy’s law, I guess, but couldn’t command have waited another day? It wasn’t like they didn’t have reinforcements coming down. I know they wanted to hit the Veech before they were ready, but our attack was a joke. It would have been much safer and effective to wait a few days. Yeah, an extra day or two might have made all the difference in the world, but we’ll never know now.

He makes a moving on gesture

The smaller Veech were our size, or at least close to it, and looked like us, at least with their body shape. You know, two legs, two arms, a head.

They were covered in a fitted body shield that seemed like someone had wrapped saran wrap around them. It was quite sparkly sometimes. Underneath, you could see their body armor, matte black from the top of the helmet to their feet, except for a red line that went straight down the left side of their body. I’m not going to lie, it was intimidating, but that was nothing compared to the mechs they had with them.

The only good thing about those mechs is that there only seemed to be a few of them, about one for every fifty troops they had. They were tall, at least four meters. They weren’t as fluid as the troops, which makes sense, I guess, given their size. They were also black, but their shield was oval and very strong.

When the battle started, my unit was on a bypass road, next to the 95. We had chosen the route because it wasn’t as jammed with cars. We weren’t alone either; we had a dozen units behind us still moving into position. When we heard the battle start, we started running, but running with a full rack isn’t easy. By the time we made it to the battle line, there wasn’t any line. Guys were crouching behind cars, trucks, in ditches…anywhere they could hide from those lasers. The Veech had already advanced so far they were almost through the first line. The battle lost all cohesion. You had some guys targeting Veech further away, while others were virtually hand to hand. Our guys were backing up, and we all kind of met at a spot on the interstate.

Our captain took over and immediately formed a new battle line. We all took positions behind vehicles. I got behind a car and started firing. The Veech weren’t using cover at all. It was weird, they would walk, almost casually, until they were within striking distance, then they would leap forward to engage. It reminded me of a video game where the character can’t attack until a certain distance away, then you hit the button, and they spring forward.

Anyway, I focused in on a Veech trooper, one walking beside the road, about forty yards in front of me. I nailed that guy five times, and he just walked into it. Crazy. I remember thinking that it would be a quick fight if we couldn’t kill those mother…sorry. He finally raised his rifle and sighted in on me. Too late. My next shot went right through his shield and took his head off. Man, what a relief. I think I giggled. I mean, it took a lot to bring him down, but that I could bring him down gave me a… It felt good.

I called out to the guys that I got one, but I doubt anyone heard me. The noise of battle was like a cocoon of violence. I had earplugs in, but thousands of rifles, explosions, and screams filled the air. I heard it but, well, didn’t think about it at the time. I know that’s weird, but it’s hard to explain.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I found another Veech trooper to focus on. He was closer, so I took him down easier. But they were getting close to us, too close. They never took cover, just kept advancing like damn robots. It’s still hard for me to imagine any thinking creature that could walk right into that death trap and not stop.

Then the mechs hit us, and I knew we were in trouble. Those things pushed the cars aside like they were Matchbox cars. They fired a laser that cuts through cars like butter. This was when I started to get scared. We hit the mechs, but we couldn’t get their shields to fail no matter how much we nailed them. Rifles, rockets, grenades, all useless. We weren’t packing anything heavy enough to do the job.

That’s when Grin got hit. He was kneeling behind me, using the same car as I was when a laser-cut him in half along with the back end of the car. I… (Stops talking and looks down.)I forced my eyes away from his body, my thoughts away from his wife, and kept firing at the mech.

It was useless. They began to eat through all of us, and that’s when our fight ended. It was pointless to stand there and die. It wasn’t about bravery or courage anymore, it became about preservation. It stopped being a battle and became a bloodbath. We backed up and withdrew.

We didn’t rout, but man, was it close. We stayed in our units for the most part, but we gave up our position and did it quickly. The whole line did. Thousands of soldiers backed down the highway, trying to get away from those things. At the time, I was ashamed. I was ashamed and angry and scared. Panic seized me, and I had to remind myself to stay with my brothers. We were all scared and confused. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, guys screaming that we needed to get out of there, and our NCO’s telling us to hold our ground, but who were they kidding?

We had moved back twenty yards when we backed into another unit doing the same thing. It just turned into a crapshoot after that because we didn’t know where to go. Making everything worse were the dense plumes of twirling smoke that covered the highway, making the whole thing a cluster. Dozens of cars were on fire. We couldn’t breathe. It was a bitter smoke that got into your eyes, mouth, and ears. It filled your lungs like you were George Burns. Soldiers were coughing up their lungs, running in all directions. I coughed so hard that day that my stomach muscles were sore for a week.