Invasion Day: An Oral History of the Veech War by Micah Gurley (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

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.

Yeah, total pandemonium. The Veech would just appear. The wind would blow the smoke aside for a second, and a Veech would be standing there, then the smoke would cover it back up like some kind of stalking ghost. That's when I first saw a Veech pull out a hand laser. They were like freaking lightsabers, man, five feet long, and they glowed in the smoke. They started cutting guys in half. One time, I was moving, looking for someone I knew when a Veech walked right out of the smoke in front of me. He had his lightsaber held low like it was some ancient clash between gentlemen. I emptied my .45 right into his chest. My fingers never worked so hard. Then the smoke covered him, and I took off like a crazed chicken. I should have made it through his shield but there was no way I was sticking around to find out.

There was no getting organizing after that. It turned into a route. Guys ran everywhere, just trying to get away. It was... (He pauses.) It was bad.

I ran, joined by a few others who were going the same way. We met others, and eventually, we had a group of a few hundred. We ran with just a vague sense of direction. We passed houses, stores, and streets, but I couldn't describe any of them. We just ran. Eventually, maybe an hour or two later, fatigue got us, and the noises of battle faded. We finally slowed, discussed our choices, and tried to head south to Fort Bragg, but the Veech had cut us off from going south, so we kept going west.

We kept going into the night, not paying attention to anything. I was tempted to stop and ditch a few times, but I couldn't leave the guys. There were about five or six of them from my unit, and the rest I didn't know. Didn't matter though, we were all in the same boat. I don't know who was in charge at that point or if we even had officers with us. When I think about it now, I remember a video game I used to play called Total War. When a unit was routed too severely in the game, they would just keep running, despite the battle being over. That was us. We were... done.

We arrived at some hills and slowed down. It was there that we ran into a large group of rough-looking dudes, all armed to the teeth with high-powered rifles. I remember being shocked at their size. They greeted us with slow head nods but didn't smile and didn't offer us their hands. We weren't sure what to do. Fight? Run around them?

Luckily, a younger man with a beard that would make a grizzly blush, asked who we were. A few of the guys bristled about answering