Edition #7CovEr imagE by: SPLaTTErSCOMPLETELY REDESIGNED!

1 life eventNever been so terrified

How to find cachesLets go hunting!

2 stories!

a comic and more!

EditorialHere we are again, and time seems to be flying by at the moment. I

finally got round to publish the first chapter of my short story series, you’ll find it inside. I say ‘finally’ but to be honest it’s been ready for 2 months now, but other things have meant that it wouldn’t have fit in. We’ve got a fair sized team at the moment, and everything is running reasonably smoothly.

I haven’t really got too much to say this month to be frank! I spent the past month overhauling the computer, so it’s now got a little bit of an overclock on the graphics and processor, and I revamped my desktop to the new Windows 8 interface. I’ve also been playing Arma a lot more now, since the offline play is much more flexible than PR’s. Regardless it’s still annoying that my internet won’t allow me to play PR online, first I missed the 128 player tests, and then I missed the one life event! Grrr!

I still feel like a noob doing all this magazine work, I took a step back yesterday and had a look at all the work that gets done to get Reality Contact out on the 25th each month, and it amazed me. All the writers and artists work to get their work in by the deadline, and then it has to be edited and the magazine assembled. Throughout this process the team are having constant discussions on design changes, article styles and staff intake, and yet the team hasn’t missed a single deadline in months, and I am very proud to be leading such a team.

Speaking of design changes, you’ll notice that Cyberzomby has overhauled our entire layout this issue with a much more professional finish. Feel free to leave your feedback on this or anything else in RC in the forum topic as usual!

As always, we’re always looking for more awesome people to join the team. If you’d like to help out with anything at all then PM one of the RC management team (Hobbnob, Cyberzomby, Agemman) and we’ll be more than happy to have your input. -Hobbnob

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Table of Contents:R-DEV Gaz page 4My day to day role within the team varies quite a bit.

ASSAULT AND SECURE page 5 Everyone who’s played Battlefield 1942, 2 or 2142 knows that the game revolves around Flags.

Working with Wicca page 6Since the 15th of July, when our articles were due, I haven’t worked much with Wicca.

Black Sand Page 7Network heard about the patrol the night before.

The Techno spy network PagE 8I, Technoelite have sent my spies into the dark word of Project Reality’s server underworld, to discover and give an independent feedback on servers.

ONE LIFE EVENT PagE 9He was somewhat of a quiet man.

COMIC! PagE 11Disconnects...

How to find a cache PagE 12If you play insurgency a lot, then you might know the general area of where the OPFOR cache spawns.

Clan dossier PagE 133rd Armored Cavalry can trace it’s roots back to 2009 as a loose group of friends playing vanilla for fun without any seriousness.

My first deployment PagE 14My first deployment?

Life on the PR team:

r-DEv gaz

Used to be involved in modding OFP around 2002-3 and was very interested in the Project UK Forces addons. Was amazed at the detail and time that went into the addons and this. Started looking for other mods with British Forces as the main addition, and came across PR. Signed up at the end of 2004, and never looked back. Started playing in the PR Tournament when I was invited by UK_Force to take up a command appointment within one of the teams. I became one of the original R-PUBs and went on to become a dev as EU Lead Tester, along with Wraith who was in charge of the US side of things. There we created the tester control format that's still in place today. I also was added to the military advisor team at this stage. I took over the Lead Forum Moderator role as a dev, as well as taking on the Tournament Lead role after UK_Force.

Getting back in the game

Took a break from PR to sort out some real life things, before getting involved again and jumping back in as a military advisor. From that, I was taken on as 2Slick4u's deputy, looking after the website. Apart from the website, I also oversee forum moderation although our moderation team deal with a memberbase of over 50,000 users with excellent professionalism already, and feed into senior PR management decisions. I still pride myself as being part of PR's excellent military advisor team as well.

Day to day, the forum activity is great to see. We have our personalities as moderators, and we also have

our posters, and their personalities come out from seeing their posts and reading them. There's a lot of intelligence on the forums, and to be honest it's really good to read as

we're primarily a gaming website. Of course we have a lot of people set in their ways, but that's not to say they

don't have relevent opinions and points; all of which I believe they should be allowed to put across. Some people on the forums tend to think the 1st amendment applies to the forum, which it does not. Your opinion does however, and as long as it's relevent and on topic, we like to hear it; as do a lot of forum-goers. I have always been a firm believer in putting your personality across in your posts; it's something that I have always encouraged, something that dunehunter as lead forum moderator controls, and something that day to day, forum users do very effectively. The only thing I've asked moderators to encourage is that users are always able to show their personalities in their posts. We'll only act if it gets offensive.

Grief control!

Griefers are hilarious on the forums. They are usually reserved for me and I make sure I have my fun with them. People with strong opinions are fine and are not trolls/griefers. Everyone has strong opinions on certain aspects and that's what forms the more intelligent (and some less so!) aspects of the PR community. #

My day to day role within the team varies quite a bit. I look after all the day to day changes and updates on the forums, including team additions/promotions, forum changes, and website updates. I also feed into the PR Military Advisor team, due to being serving UK Military.

I still pride myself as being part of PR's

excellent military advisor team as well.

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Write

r HobbnobHobbnob is head of RC, he usually plays transport roles..

v

Flags, flags and flags!

aSSaULT anD SECUrE

Since PR is based on Battlefield 2 we have our own set of flag rules and setup. As you all remember in Battlefield 2, we can cap all the flags and go pretty much on all of em, except the mains which are uncappable but very rapeable.

In Project reality, instead of the vanilla conquest, we have a gamemode called Assault and Secure, which uses flags to depict where the frontline is on the map. As such each team is given one attack and one defend objective. Which they have to accomplish to win the game.

How it plays out

Most maps in PR start out with all or nearly all flags white, and one has to follow the “AAS order” to successfully win. By capping all the flags, including the last flag in the AAS, you cause the enemy to lose 30 tickets for every flag you take from the enemy, aswell as a bleed that occurs on the red marked flags. Blood = Red.

The latest patch of PR, introduced AASv4. This AAS mode has a random flag layout but instead of being spread on what seems to be just random positions all over the map, with no coherent connection, they are in close proximity from eachother to mimic a frontline moving.

Getting a flag

Playing PR, we all know you need people on the flag to cap them, and if the enemy is on the flag, you need to reduce their numbers to at least half of yours, or completly eliminate them. This can be tricky, and forces

you to seek out danger, when you would otherwise stay in a more confined position. As such some people has made themselves experts at clearing flags, due to most flags being revolved around a POI, or point of interest, where buildings or a detailed terrain feature is present.

Guiding the battle

Within AAS you have the infantry layer with light veichles and the alternative with a slightly larger layout then the intended standard layer.

Flags are usually a easy way to see how your team is doing, and it makes it more noob friendly, since you don’t have to be in a squad to understand that you need to be next to the flag.

The bad thing is that infantry rarely sees anything else other than the actual flags that are presented on the map, or the traveling to or from them. It is not a notable problem, but if you play one map 100 times, you start to get how you work with the flags in each map.

But as we all know, Project Reality isn’t about flags, it’s about teamwork, and this is what the AAS mode is good for, a simple way to make the team cooperate on a common goal.

// Wicca out

Everyone who’s played Battlefield 1942, 2 or 2142 knows that the game revolves around Flags. And to win, you need to cap them. Killing is just a secondary objective so you can cap those damn flags!

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r WiCCaIs head of PRTA. Some people call him crazy

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Working with Wicca

We had to get Wicca to sing it!

Since the 15th of July, when our articles were due, I haven’t worked much with Wicca. The main reason was most likely me going on vacation. We did do some things together that might be noteworthy.

The first project was Wicca Wubediwacky - Friday. Essentially a crappily made PR-version of Rebecca Black’s Friday. The idea basically got into my head as me, [R-CON]Adriaan and Comedian sat on PRTA’s TS an evening.

Well to be fair it was more like a morning aroun d 0300.

A new popstar is born!

We were all anticipating the new release of PR that was due the upcoming Friday. As usual one of us started humming to the tune of Friday. This basically set us off, within a few hours we had a rough script and we always knew we had to get Wicca to sing it, just to mess with all of you that listened to it.

The day after I found Wicca and told him about our idea. He was quickly brought aboard and we were appalled to hear that he had actually never listened to the

original song. Anyway, one evening when he got back from work we set to work with refining the text and making sure Wicca knew the lyrics and rhythm.

It took us something like 2 hours to do just that. I think we listened to the original one up to fifty times. But in the end it was done. So we jumped onto PRTAs server, which was empty, got together with a guy called Jarhead and recorded it. After some failed attempts and random derps we had a recording and called it a day. I uploaded it and put it on the PR forums for the community to see. The days following the recording I had Wicca’s version stuck in my head on repeat...

Trolling

Another fun anecdote is when we discovered an interesting thing about PRTAs header. It all started with Wicca asking me if I had put the PRTA logo onto the TS. I had not but I checked where it was hosted. Apparently the hoster was my Dropbox! I figured that I could mess with the teamspeak by exchanging the PRTA logo with Goatse(a man spreading his arsehole with both hands). I just needed the same filename and the same path in my folders and it should work very well. I did just that but nothing happened. I figure the TS needs a restart to load the new image.

Anyway, since it didn’t work I went to PRTAs website to check the forums. I nearly splurted

water all over my desk when saw Goatse as the header! Apparently the genious web-admins have used my Dropbox to host the thing! I showed it to Wicca and Adriaan and spent almost five minutes just laughing, until Wicca got several complaints in Xfire about it. I did remove it after that but I did experiment with some trollfaces, PenisRTA and a huge transparent trollface covering the whole website so that when you clicked anything you got bumped to the homepage. I had my fun, and now it is back to normal.

Work Work

The serious things we’ve done together during this time is a bit limited. I’ve done my duty and called to a few meetings. We’re starting a PR Clan League that will be running almost year-around. At the moment that League is limited to PRTA for testing purposes. It will most likely run one season there (3 months) and then we’ll open it up more and more. More information about it is available at the PRTA website.

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r agemmanAgemman is a writer in RC, he is usually Wicca’s bitch...

black Sand

Network strode out of his 6 man tent to meet the lads. He’d known them all for years now, and had been through a lot together. Network himself had done over 10 years service and was still going strong. Network, nicknamed because everyone knew him, got no shortage of greetings from the personnel at Bastion, and was the butt of every stalker joke his team could throw.

After the RV on base the team mounted up on the Grizzlys and started on their journey. The Grizzly was a truly ugly beast, but with it’s Fiber-Tek Armour and 300 bhp engine it got the job done. The vehicles had been modified with the team initials ‘BSS’ emblazoned on the sides and the latest M2HB 0.5 inch machineguns fitted on top. The weapons had a range of over 2 kilometers and it’s heavy rounds could easily penetrate the modified pick up trucks that the insurgency used, known as technicals.

The two vehicles drove slowly out of the base and drove down the main road. On top cover for the first vehicle was Pimp. He always got his hands dirty and never stopped tweaking this or modifying that. He’d always have some new electronic gadget and it would always break within the first hour. Today he had a brand new thermal imaging device, and looked like a tourist when he pointed it at someone and squealed in delight as the figure lit up in white on his screen. Riding shotgun was Patience. He was quiet, self assured and the best marksman in the group. He never bothered with any of Pimp’s variety of scopes and other rail attachments, choosing to carry a simple AKM with a hunting scope.

As the convoy rolled steadily along the barren road the lead vehicle slammed on it’s brakes as Network saw something. This of course caused Pimp to smash his new thermal imaging toy against the turret mount, breaking it instantly.

“Dammit you prick learn to drive!” shouted Pimp“Shut yer gob I see something” replied Network,

fixated on a single point on a point in the road.“What’s up Net?” The radio crackled to life as Red

asked why they’d suddenly stopped. Red was top cover in the second Grizzly, and was renowned for his temper. He’d snap as if he was on a hair trigger, and would snap back to normal just as quickly. He was loud by nature and always voiced his opinion, especially when it came to his hatred of dogs.

Blue, the driver of Grizzly 2, was the complete opposite, and named as such. He was always calm, and never stood up for himself. To add to this he loved dogs, so much so he had one in his Grizzly with Red. Storm was an 8 year old German Shepherd, and was trained to sniff out improvised explosive devices (IED’s).

“Possible IED on the road” Came the reply from Network over the radio.

“I’ll take a look” Blue quietly dismounted his Grizzly with Storm in tow, and began the long walk into the Afghan haze. #

Network heard about the patrol the night before. They would be moving out of camp Bastion towards Gereshk via the AO1, Afghanistan’s main route. They would then be dismounting at the Vehicle Checkpoint (VCP) and patrolling through Lashkar Gah on foot. The long range patrol was set to take up to 3 days so the 35 year old took as much food and water his sun-burnt back could carry. With full patrol kit he weighed in at over 200kg, so bogging down in the sand was al-ways a problem for him and the rest of his team.

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r HobbnobHobbnob is head of RC, he usually plays transport roles..

PRta iNVaded!

The Techno spy network

I will be devising server reviews from information from the deep cover agents. This information will come to my secret hideout deep within Afghanistan. See the above picture for a clue.

The Criteria is as follows:

Teamwork: 0/10 Simple. How squads and players move and react to each otherAdmin Help: 0/10 How admins react to rule breaking and also kicking people for teamkills and general server workKindness: 0/10 How players react to new people and people who have questions on how to play PRCommunication: 0/10 Use of mumble and voice com-munication, and how it is used.

This issue I bring you the first review.

Played Between 8th August and 12th AugustPRTA ServerOh yes one of the most popular servers in Project Reality, this is the lowdown:

Teamwork: 9/10Admin Help: 8/10Kindness: 6/10Communication: 7/10

The above may shock some people and this may provide some shocking feedback. On the Issue of Teamwork it is good one of the best servers if you want a good challenging, game with a decent amount of Squad work. Admin Help is good; they listen to

any issues which come up, and the maps and game types vary quite a bit. One problem is certain Admins sometimes bend the rules to let people onto certain teams. This is okay if a auto switch moves people by accident but I see people moving without being on said side. Oh the admin which plays music over mumble on a game provides a laugh at first but gets really frustrating after a few minutes.

Kindness well this would cover people in general on the server, now this is a bug my spies have discovered with most PR servers they have been on. Any new person that has come into the server usually gets kicked for not being on mumble, now I know mumble servers are clearly marked but when people don’t know how to set mumble up, and when they actually get to being set up they get kicked from the server with no question which deprives the squad of a decent player, a medic on this occasion. This brings me to Communication, sometimes the server disables VOIP which is a problem if you just want to speak to your squad over long distances. We all know the positives and negatives of mumble, and I won’t go into that. The actually communication side of mumble is excellent, you get a wide range of Squad Leaders who know what they are talking about and you will have fun.

Overall Result: 8/10

I, Technoelite have sent my spies into the dark word of Project Reality’s server underworld, to discover and give an independent feedback on servers. A word of warning to all Project reality servers: you are not safe. If you see my name in any of your server lists, I am not reviewing you. The beauty of it is, you don’t know who is part of my network.

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r TECHnoELiTETechnoelite wasnt able to transmit his message. He was to busy pwning n00bs!

onE LiFE EvEnT

No this is not another one of our fictional stories, honest! This is a report on the one life event. An event where, as the title suggest, you have one life. The one life event was a brainchild of Lugi. After talking about it on the forums, PRTA stepped up and offered time and a place to try this event out.

The rules were simple. On the dead-dead screen you would get banned from the server for the duration of the round. Ahead of the event the opinions on how it would play out were mixed. People were looking forward to it, but they were also doubting the way it would play out.

Would it work?

Everyone knew they would be tense and afraid with every corner they turned. But everyone also thought about the little annoyances in PR. Getting crushed to death by a supply crate from a huey for instance. Or getting splattered by placing a FOB. That would suck to be your only death. If it happened, would you wait the two and half to three hours a round can take in PR?

I also asked one of the signed up Commanders ahead of the game how he thought this game would be different than normal. “It will probably be harder than normal” said Gorkounov, “I really have to think about where to send squads and what to do with them.”

Because this time the fallen would not just simply respawn. This time, he had to actually make do with what he had as casualties started to mount up.

And so it began!

The players loaded in on Muttrah City and started organising themselves. I wanted to try SL’ing this event. I figured that now, things like setting up 2 guys on overwatch and using a pointman were more justified than normal. I really wanted to make sure my guys were safe and in good positions. My first plan of action was to get to the northern area of Docks, set up a FOB and than move in on the flag. When we got dropped off from a short helo ride and I deployed the FOB one of my squadmembers pointed out a flaw in my plan. “No one can respawn here....”. Reminding us once again that death would be final.

He was somewhat of a quiet man. It seemed he only spoke when there was something to report. He was our squad Grenadier. I still remember the moment when we lost him.

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We hitched a ride with the AAVP and capped Docks while the enemy team capped North City. Checking in with the CO on our next plan of action we got ordered to move in on North City. Leapfrogging our way over there, stopping for UAV intel and recon reports before moving in, we capped North City. We were still reorganising ourselves and planning our next move when something I feared from the start came along.

MORTARS! The fear that came from the explosions and whistles from these things was a lot bigger than normal! Plus the fact that you can easily be dead’ed by a mortar barrage. the MEC team were on the ball here and had us pinned. Meanwhile our team got our first casualty. The AAVP driver (and fellow Reality Contact writer) Jeffcole. We’d just lost our armour support.

Bunch of wusses!

From here on the rest of the game progressed in a sort of cat and mouse game. I was in the event for an hour and a half, and during that time I’d seen about 4 enemy soldiers (it was roughly 23 vs 25). There were certain moments when you heard fights pop up but compaired to a regular game there wasnt that much going on. People were really trying to stay alive.

This resulted in a lot of wussing about. Where in a normal game you’d stay in your firebase assets trying to shoot

an incoming CAS bird, this time you just screamed like little girls whilst running for cover, and on the US side, losing the cobra felt like a real blow to my confidence. Gone was the air-support that could really help out with clearing the T-Shaped buildings. Guess we were going somewhere else then.

It almost felt like a different game. I heard several sighs of relief when we crossed a simple street, watching the distance get longer as you feared that sharp crack of a round. Then when you finally spot an enemy soldier the both of you run for cover rather than try and shoot at each other. People jumping out of firebase assets the moment the first bullet got near them, rather than looking at where it came from they relied on someone else in a better position to take the attacker out. As a SL you really felt every death in your squad. All you could do now is hope a new recruit came in that could take the spot.

This calls for more!

For me personally the event was a good first run! Because of a bug in the server we had to go to a regular server which meant regular tickets. This made the round drag on a bit to long costing players and becoming a bit dull in the end. Once you’re used to the feeling, the thrill goes away for a little bit and you’re just left with a slowed down PR. You can still sign me up for the next event though, because as soon as you get shot at the scare high comes back and you’re fighting for your digital life!

Gone was the air-support that could really help out with clearing the T-Shaped buildings.

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muttRah NeVeR Looked so daNGeRous

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r CybErZombyPublishes Reality Contact. When he has time to play he usually plays on SISU, PRTA or NWA

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ComiC!Disconnects...

made

by:

made

by: WH33Lman

Wh33lman, the Neil Boortz of PR.

How to find a cache

Now, sometimes caches are very close to each other, but the script which spawns the caches will NOT, allow 2 caches to spawn in the same grid square. (Ex. The D2, not the K3 because that means keypad, there are 9 keypads in 1 grid square.) But, what can happen is D2K3 could be known but the unknown cache could be E3K6, which is less than one grid square to the south. Most of the time though, they are spread out. Most caches are usually at least 3 grid squares away in any direction.

Different methods

There are many ways to go about finding a cache. One example would be to go onto a hill where you can see a large amount of the map on one side or another. For example, on Laskar Valley, the hill in D7/8, can overlook most of the north and a lot of the lower east before the mountains. I suggest that spot because it has some cover if you get spotted and you also have a very large area to observe where a possible cache might be. If you have seen a significant amount of enemies coming from a certain area such as a cave or a compound, then there is most likely a hideout or a cache. Most hideouts are within 1 or 2 grid squares of a cache, so remember to check the surrounding area for any more signs of a cache.

Another example could be a mobile squad where you go from compound to compound trying to find hideouts and caches in every single building. This may get boring after a while but this is probably the most common way other than waiting for intel points to find a cache. It also could make your team lose a lot of assets and tickets if you get ambushed or taken out. If this happens, remember to tell your team what grid square

you were in as well as the keypad. Even better, you can place a contact report on the spot where you were taken out so then people can easily be aware that an enemy might be lurking in the bushes.

Go and find those caches!

These tips will definitely give you and your team the advantage when playing as BLUFOR, (American, German, British, etc). If you’re playing as OPFOR (Taliban, insurgents, etc.) than most of these tips will not help you as much but you can still try them out in different situations. Ex. Taliban sniper looking for BLUFOR FOBs.

If you play insurgency a lot, then you might know the general area of where the OPFOR cache spawns. But for those people who don’t play it much, each time a new insurgency map comes on, it is always different. If one cache were to spawn, say D2k3 one round on that map, than the next round on that map, it would not be in D2k3.

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r WaTHE12Wathe’s transmission got lost in the static. We hope to recover it some day

clan: 3rd armored cavalryclansize: 30 membersstyle: a mixture of fun and seriousnessclanleader: curry-chicken

3rd Armored Cavalry can trace it’s roots back to 2009 as a loose group of friends playing vanilla for fun without any seriousness. The group consisted of Curry-Chicken, Monstergnom and Cepo. During the fall of 2010 they pondered if they were going to try to expand into a bigger clan within vanilla. Luckily they did not. Instead Curry-Chicken urged them to take on PR again, this time more serious. Thus 3rd Armored Cavalry was formed in February of 2011. Since then the clan has advanced quite a bit. They have gone from three members to thirty.

Changes on the horizon

Right now the clan is in a sort of downtime due to the fact that a lot of it’s members are on vacation. There is also an upcoming structure change quite soon which is contributing to the downtime. The change will take place when the clan’s leaders are back from vacation, or when they land on planet earth from smoking too much weed. Even though it is a downtime there are approximately ten people online every evening, causing all sorts of mayhem on mainly the NwA servers. They’re a cheerful bunch that likes to joke and maintain a friendly atmosphere while gaming.

How do they act ingame?

If you get together with them on Teamspeak and play a round or two you will realize that the game is often fluctuating between seriousness and joking about. When moving between objectives most of them are chatting about mainly anything. Throwing jokes about how Curry is always high, Agemman cannot drive and a lot of other things as well. This is the downtime of

the game where they chill with their friends just talking about anything.

When the shit does hit the fan though, they become more serious (with the occasional joke though) and focused on winning the fight. The comms goes from being jammed by talks about how much of a dick Wicca is, to where the enemy is, who went down, squad leaders barking orders and saying how the wounded suck. It is a bit chaotic at times, but it works more often than not and it is fun.

The future?

For the future the clan has some ideas in mind. First off they will complete their structure change and make that work. But that is more or less moving things about in the forums, maybe some re-assignments in units and so forth, but nothing major. They are also determined to try to populate their own server, starting after the structure change. The change will bring more admins as well as autumn will bring more players.

They will also sign up for the PRT with a bunch of people, hoping to fill a squad or two and have some epic fighting done. This is but one step to the more competitive scene of PR. They will also sign up for the PR League that is going to start testing within PRTA, as well as organizing more scrims overall. The aim is to become better while maintaining the fun and the friendly atmosphere within the clan.

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clan dossier:

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r agEmmanAgemman is a writer in RC, he is usually Wicca’s bitch...

my first deployment

My first deployment? Well it’s been some time since then. So don’t nail me on every single detail.

On the carrier I had undergone a short but effective bootcamp: Weapon handling - mainly assembling, disassembling and cleaning, an obstacle course, a few fire exercises. If anyone had asked, I would have told him that I was fit for combat. But honestly I had never reckoned to be chosen for the mission.

The captain assigned me to a squad. When I reported to the Squadleader and nervously told him I was new he shrugged it off, “We all were, weren’t we? As long as you know how to fire a rifle all’s well.”

Before we moved out our Squadleader explained the gist of our mission: Land onshore, take some damn dam, hold it and wait for further instructions from HQ.

We boarded a Huey. As the engine started, I felt myself tensing with my hands clutched to the rifle. The chopper took off and a wave of nausea flooded me. The guy next to me clapped his hand on my knee. “Calm down”, he said, “You won’t screw up!” That’s when I realized that this was not airsickness but fear! Fear to do something terribly stupid, fear to let my mates down. But this guy was right: I would do okay. In fact I didn’t intend to screw up!

The flight was uneventful so I had the chance to familiarize myself with the squad. Tall guys, all of them senior to me in rank as well as in experience. A couple of firm hands to shake. Hands used to fire at live targets. A lot of names to memorize and nowadays I only recall Lee Boyce, machine gunner.

We landed at the foot of a small hill. A small road of packed earth led the way up towards the dam. “Alright, let’s go! Keep your eyes open and move fast”, the

Squadleader told us when the Huey was gone. To me he added “Stay close to Lee. He will keep you safe.” I was not happy with that. I didn’t agree I had to be kept ‘safe’, but there was neither the time nor was it possible to argue about this decision.

The sun burnt our backs relentlessly as we moved north up the hill. To our left the hill fell into a valley. On the other side it climbed very steep. There was no chance to seek shelter from the afternoon sun along the road and as it narrowed I slowly realized there was no chance to find cover from bullets either.

It struck me as quite another surprise that the Squadleader had already taken that into account: We were moving in two columns along each side of the road, advancing slower than before.

Closer and closer towards the dam we went. The terrain here was flatter. Finally the Squadleader made us stop and we gathered in a nearby ditch. “We’ve made it so far without contact, which is good. Our objective is right over there” – he pointed in the general direction – “after about 100 meters of open field. Those guys are probably holed up somewhere in the interiors. You know the drill: Move quick, find cover, call out contacts before engaging. Let’s do this!”

The road led to the top of the dam which was flat and connected our side with the far side of the valley. We reached the top of the

dam in pairs of two, alternatively covering or advancing further into the enemy territory. So far it had all went off smooth.

I saw them just as we were about to enter the interiors. They were on the opposite side of the dam. Nobody else seemed to have noticed them so I cried “Contact, 300 meters west, infantry squad” whilst rising my M16 and aiming for the targets. The Squadleader cast a quick glance and started laughing. “Cease fire soldier” he told me amused although I hadn’t fired a single shot yet, “Looks like this is our reinforcement.”

Working together with the other squad we checked every corner. In fact the dam was deserted. Without a fight we had assumed control. We had a moment to catch our breath while the Squadleader reported the situation and asked for further instructions. A displeased look was on his face when he had finished his communication with the headquarters: “The other squad is gonna defend here. We’re moving out to make sure some bridge in the east is usable.”

The bridge was not really what you would call a bridge. Long wooden planks connected only by nails and tar spanned over a deep gab. That construction looked far too weak to carry anything heavier than a truck but I wouldn’t entrust my sports car to this odd structure. But no matter how shabby the bridge looked: we had to secure it. Two guys were sent ahead to scout the far side of the bridge. When nothing suspicious was observed the Squadleader took all the others with him onto the other side, while I had to stay back as a rearguard. Finally they were over the bridge and had

deployed themselves. I got a sign to cross the bridge and began to jog across.

“Contact! Take cover!” I was only halfway across the bridge and to be honest the call took me by surprise. As I accelerated into a sprint I already heard the first shots being

exchanged. A bullet struck the wooden plank below me and a handful of splinters dug into my left leg. Still running I reached the other side where I dove for cover behind a rock – not a second too soon. The moment I hit the ground an enemy MG shot a burst of bullets. The barrage whizzed with a shrill sound over my head and in part hit the stone, ricocheting wildly. “Return fire!” the Squadleader yelled. A quick glance showed me that the attackers were positioned up in the hill at the ridgeline. I raised myself and squeezed a few wild shots into the general direction of the enemy. Lee shouted “Bad position. Can’t fire!” whereupon we got the order for “suppressive fire”. The sudden eruption of multiple rifles emptying their magazine in a matter of a few seconds stunned me and I crouched back behind my rock although this was not aimed at me. But I wasn’t the only one shocked by this thunderstorm it seemed: The enemy fire weakened for a moment, buying Lee precious time to reposition with his MG.

We all cheered when Lee finally shot his first few bursts with the M249. Now that made me feel confident enough to fire again. I took more time to aim with the result that my fourth shot hit one of them in the shoulder. He retreated Vfrom the ridge a few more followed and finally the ridge was empty again. It seemed like we had withstood the attack.

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r JEFFCoLEWhen JeffCole doesn’t lead a Infantry Unit he usually trans-ports and supports others from within his APC.