us?”
Sessions then announced, “Jack, this is Captain Riley the tank commander. Captain, this is Jack Gunn Director of Security for Camp Tocabaga, and his son, Tommy Gunn.”
I said, “Captain, it is a pleasure to meet you. I like the name of your tank.”
She responded, “ The pleasure is mine Sir. We are here to help protect Camp Tocabaga and Fort Desoto and we will not let you down.”
Tommy replied, “You’ve got a big gun for a woman, but I like it. Welcome to Camp Tocabaga.”
Captain Riley gave no reply to Tommy’s comment.
Captain Sessions took us over to each Bradley and introduced the commanders. The Bradleys are commanded by a Staff Sergeant or higher and operate as a unit along with the Abrams Tank. They are under the overall command of the Tank Captain. Each Bradley can hold six fully armed Rangers.
One Bradley was named “Predator,” and the other “Gun Smoke.”
The Bradley M3 Fighting Vehicle, named after General Omar Bradley from WWII, has a three-member crew, weighs 27 tons and is fully armored. It fires a 25mm chain gun that can destroy most tanks and has a 7.62 M240 machine gun to mow down ground troops if needed. Some also have tow missiles that can blow up anything, even a building.
The M1 Abrams Tank named after General Abrams, fires a whopping 120mm laser-aimed cannon and never misses its target. The cannon can blow up buildings. It has one M2 50 Caliber Heavy Machine Gun, and two 7.62 M240 machine guns. Bullets and other large projectiles just bounce off the sides of this big boy. Now we were talking real security!
Colonel Turner and Captain Sessions asked Tommy and me, along with the armored-vehicle commanders, to meet to discuss clearing the building where the gang was located. We sat under the bridge in the shade and I drew them a picture in the dirt of the building layout, parking area and the main entrance to the building. I briefed them on the weapons the gang may have and the fact that they may have some explosives.
I told everyone that I thought they were on the top floor of the ten-story building. Each floor has four condo units. I advised them we were looking for a woman named Shanda. We didn’t have her description but there couldn’t be too many women there. I added that she may be dangerous but we didn’t know for sure.
The beautiful Captain Riley asked, “Tommy, would you come along and help search for this Shanda while the Rangers are doing security and room clearing as necessary?”
“I wo uld be pleased to go with you, Captain Riley,” Tommy replied.
“ Great, we will have 11 Rangers, the two Bradleys and the tank will go for extra support. Let’s be ready to roll out at 15:00 hours,” Sessions ordered. “If nothing else, you are all dismissed.”
Tommy hung around after the meeting talking to Captain Riley , much to my dismay. Tommy doesn’t need to mess around as he has a great wife and little girl. I thought, I will chew his ass out later.
It was another hot day; as I drove to the bridge, it was almost 15:00 hours or 3 pm standard eastern time. I watched as the Rangers and Tommy mounted up in the Bradleys. They went down the road one at a time with the tank last. Spaced about 100 feet apart, moving about 10 mph, it would take them about ten minutes to reach the building.
Soon you could hear rifle fire and the Bradley 25 mm rapid fire chain gun. From our position on the bridge we could only see smoke but we did listen to the radio. Gun Smoke, Predator, and Iron Maiden surrounded the building, the Rangers dismounted, and in rapid order they entered it. We heard small arms fire; they had to run up ten floors, clearing four condos on each floor to ensure it was safe to move up.
We heard on the radio a request for the Abrams tank to fire into the top floor west side of the building. We heard a large… KABOOM, which meant the big 120mm cannon had been fired. After about two hours we heard on the radio the building was clear for Tommy Gunn
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