Harry Turtledove (Editor): Alternate Generals III

We'd been dropped low, only eight hundred feet, to give the enemy gunners as little time to shoot as possible.

Below me, the ground loomed up, brick walks, and, thank God, a bit of grass.

I slapped the release on my GP bag, full of ammo for one of my machine gunners, and it dropped to the end of the line.

I came in hard, rolled as I'd been taught, and came to my feet, dumping my chute, harness and reserve.

I had my newly issued M16 cradled in my arms, and carried a Light Antitank Weapon, the so-called "cardboard bazooka."

Plus a Randall knife strapped to my leg and a somewhat unauthorized Bill Jordan Special, a cut-down, modified Ruger.44 Magnum pistol.

And I still felt naked, hearing the snap-crack of rifle fire, and the chatter of machine guns.

There were other troops landing, some slamming in hard on the bricks, and someone shouted pain.

A machine gun chattered, and green tracer spat across the open area, too close to me.

They'd told us to save the LAWs for "hard targets," which I'd decided would be anyone shooting at me.

I cracked it open, aimed at the barracks the MG fire was coming from, and squeezed down on the firing mechanism.

Nothing happened.

I cursed the damnably unreliable LAW, just as someone rolled up to the window and flipped a grenade in.

There was a blast, and the window blew out, and the machine gun stopped firing.

I was shouting orders, and my noncoms were screaming, and we were on some kind of line, charging the barracks, smashing into them, killing anything that moved.

I don't remember anyone trying to surrender.

If they did, they weren't likely to be lucky.

Not that day.

Troopships with armor and legs-non-airborne troops-were supposed to be coming up the thirty-five miles from Haiphong to reinforce and quickly relieve us. Both Rangers and paratroops are intended as shock troops-go in, hit hard, take casualties, and then get out.

It didn't work that way.

We fought from that military area for two days as troops in mass, then scattered determined elements kept coming in at us.

It turned out we'd been facing Ho Chi Minh's personal security element, about a battalion-five hundred men-strong. All that saved our young asses is these Regulars were a bit out of practice, and that we'd surprised them.

The Rangers at the Palace fared even worse, getting almost obliterated. Ho Chi Minh and the other members of the hierarchy were long gone when the palace finally fell, nothing more than a mass of rubble.

The problem was, nobody had figured the Viets would fight so hard. It took two days to take Haiphong and clear the Red River. The resistance was the same sort Americans would have made if someone invaded the Chesapeake River and made for Washington.

By the time elements of the First Infantry Division arrived, our company of 250 men was down to 75 effectives, and I was company commander.

We weren't relieved, but ordered to swing toward the river, and help the 82nd take the Old Town, which was very strongly defended.

The People's Army was waiting for us.

The fighting was now the ugliest of all: urban warfare, with civilians trapped in the middle.

The bloodlust was gone from us all, and we tried to make sure we were only killing soldiers.

But that wasn't always possible. The Viets fought hard, holding positions to the last man, almost never surrendering. Hanoi was starting to look like pictures I'd seen of Berlin at the end of WWII.

It may have been a week, it may have been two, but finally we were slowly pushing the Viets back into the Red River.

Then the remnants of a regular battalion struck, trying to head west, for Hanoi's outskirts. I'd gotten some replacements, but had taken more casualties. I had about eighty soldiers when they hit us.

They pushed a wedge between two of my platoons. I called for air support, but, in the smoke and drizzle, none of the fast movers could get in.

A colonel was on my PRC25, saying we had to hold.

But we couldn't, and I felt we were about to break.

Even Rangers can't hold forever.

But I remember we now had artillery support, air-lifted 105s.

The Viets were on top of us, and my only option was to call in fire on our own positions.

We had a few seconds to find cover; the Viets had none as the rounds screeched into the dusty, rubbled street we fought from.

The third volley got me, lifting me and punching me through a shop wall.

I landed on something soft, realized I was hit but still alive, and stumbled out.

Here and there, tattered, dust-covered, bearded, staring, my men came out of the shatter.

They looked god-awful… but they still had their weapons, and still were fighting.

It was the Viets' turn to hesitate, then break, going back, in stumbling runs, the way they'd come.

I made sure they were retreating before I allowed myself to look at my shattered leg, my torn chest and arm, saw a tank with a white star on its turret rumble toward me, decided I'd done enough for one day, and went down.

I don't know who put the Viets' banner across my chest as they carried my stretcher to a waiting medevac chopper. I think I'd like to kick his ass, for that was one of the biggest causes of my future troubles. All I had was the banner, and, all bullets expended, my.44 Magnum.

I went out to a hospital ship, where amazingly nobody stole either my flag or pistol, and then to Camp Zama in Japan, then back to Walter Reed, where they started putting me back together.

The war wasn't going well, and "Sam Richardson's Last Stand" was just what the media, and the American public wanted.

There were already thirty thousand dead, twice that wounded, and Kennedy was forced to call up the reserves.

They wanted me to take the Congressional. I refused. I'd met men who'd won that medal and knew damned well I'd done nothing but what I was supposed to be doing, and that's not what they give that little necklace for.

They were getting me ready for my third operation at Walter Reed, and I was already anesthetic-silly when the President of the United States came calling.

In swept Kennedy, flanked by more generals than I'd seen pictures of in the Pentagon, plus, of course, a scattering of press types.

I guess I did something dumb, like try to sit up at attention. I was in the presence of one of my heroes, and a real legend.

"Relax, Major," Kennedy said, with that famous grin that'd brought him who knows how many votes.

"Uh, sir, It's 'lieutenant. »

"Not anymore. You were made captain while you were still on the ground in Hanoi, and I just took the liberty of jumping you up a grade."

I may have moaned, thinking how that would play with my fellow officers. Kennedy must've thought I was in pain.

"Maybe this'll make you feel better," he said, holding out a hand without looking back. A general put a box in it, then another. He gave me the Distinguished Service Cross, which is just below the Medal of Honor, and a Purple Heart.

I stammered thanks.

Kennedy moved beside me, let the photogs have their shots.

"Plus," he said, "when you get better, I want you as one of my aides."

I managed a "yessir," then events got to me, and my mind went away.

The papers, of course, loved it:

Prexy Names Richardson

To Personal Staff

Last Stand Hero to

Advise Kennedy

And so forth.

I was recuping well, and my father came to see me.

"Congratulations, I suppose."

"I didn't know what else to do, sir."

"No," he agreed. "Not much you can do when the gods reach out. But you might be in for some problems."

"I've already gotten some grief," I told him, "from some of my friends."

"That, too," my father said. "But I was thinking more of something I learned a long time ago. If you like the circus, don't sit so close you can smell the elephant shit."