Business District

My unit rotated in to clearing the business district of downtown Chicago last week.  Combat units work on 1 of 4 different rotations- Security, Civilian Escort, Suburban Ops, Urban Ops, for a month or so before being reassigned.  it's supposed to prevent burnout and keep us on our toes.  It remains to be seen how effective it is.  So far, I've only been on Sweep and Clear Operations.  

Remember how much i bitched about standard urban ops dealing with Romeo?  I should've kept my fucking mouth shut until i'd done some of the larger scale districts like we've been doing.  That shit is just... intense.  But by now, we've worked out some techniques to make them smoother.

Buildings with more than 10 floors are cordoned off, the exterior secured first and maintained.  Then Infantry and Engineer teams secure any below ground egress points, sealing off access or escape.  From there, a heavy perimeter is established TOWARDS the building.  Once that's taken care of, between 2 and 4 4 man teams are dropped by helicoptor onto the roof and we clear the building room by room, floor by floor working to the ground.  It's a well established fact that fighting downhill is easier and more advantageous than uphill.

I'm the number 2 man on my team, meaning i'm the second man inside anywhere.  sometimes the first if the TL expects heavy resistance.  This is based on some new tricks we got.  And oh, man, we got some new fucking toys to work with too, believe you me, haha.

you wouldn't believe the mind blowing technology that's being used.  most of it is experimental or classified and in the hands of units completely removed from our own.  most of the larger missions look and feel like the twisted bybrid of Blade Runner and Resident Evil.  

Each Teams is made up with number 1 man armed with a semi/full automatic shotgun, number 2 a light machine gun, 3 and 4 with submachine guns.  I was issued both a Mk48 new 7.62mm Minimi, and they're fucking awesome!  They're both light as hell and still chew the shit out of everything, lol.  fucking awesome for what we're doing.  My TL got his hands on one of those AA12 shotguns and the other 2 guys carry those HK UMP45 subs.

I've seen all kinds of firepower on other teams, but it all boils down to the same arrangement.  We've been given pretty lax orders about the weapons we use, which has been awesome, haha.

A lot of buildings have interiors with no natural light, which is fucking freaky.  We got MI running all sorts of thermal imaging, but we've already figured out that some revenants display body heat while others don't.  We prefer UV tactical lights instead of NVGs because they're a pain in the ass in confined spaces.  So we advance through the darkness by our lights and blow the hell outta anything that moves.  it's fucking intense, i tell ya.  sometime, i'll tell about some of the more fucked up missions i've seen so far.

It's not uncommon for us to find survivors from time to time, too, which is always a morale booster.  more often than not though, we hit a building that's occupied by some street gang trying to hold their fortress.  sometimes, they stand down and are evac-ed out with other survivors.  sometimes.... sometimes, they put up a fight.  and that's when shit gets interesting.

these bangers, man, i'll give them credit- they clever and resourceful.  but they can't fight for shit.  almost none of them can shoot for shit.  it's almost a shame to have to put down people with the determination to fight and survive just because they're too fucking stupid to see anything beyond their narrow minded and selfish goals.  but the way i see it, it's just cleaning up the gene pool.  that and we confiscate whatever weapons and supplies we find.

what's keeping us on edge is that the brass can't hide the growing number of casualties from us on the ground.  most of them can be accounted to confirmed revenant or trigger happy thug contacts, but not all of them.  something's not right.  we've seen solid teams enter buildings and never come out.  i've participated on some of the missions going in to investigate and every fucking time, we don't find a single fucking thing.  not a drop of blood, not a single spent brass, no Romeo, absolutely fucking nothing.  perimeters aren't broken, it's just like soldiers went in and vanished into goddamn air.  we lose about 1 or 2 teams a week like that, from what i've seen.  Rumor is that shit like this is happening more often.  We've only cleared a quarter of the city structures.  at that rate, we won't have the strength to make it three quarters complete.  and we have no fucking clue what's happening.

Intel from other operations and other cities is restricted, so we have no fucking idea what's going on anywhere but the operations we've involved with.

Some of the guys are now on the same page with me about the revenants changing, both physically and psychologically.  nothing official has been handed down yet, though.

The brass is even acting cryptic.  They don't give us the fist pumping, heart racing speeches and encouragement anymore.  Hell, we rarely see them anymore and when we do, they look sick, scared or plain pissed off.

Everyone can feel it.  Something really fucking bad is about to happen.  Something that'll murder-fuck everything we've done so far.

Sleep with one eye open, i'll report anything new i find out.

-Spc Case

4th Infantry