Hey, there, fellas. How about buying a vet a drink?

Tell ya what. I'll trade you a story for that drink.

Well, how about one about the Battle of the Grape Arbor?

Laugh all ya want, boys. Some of us did make it out. That's why I'm in this chair, ya know.

Thank ya kindly. Let me wet my whistle and I'll start.

Most of us was young like you fellas. Full of piss and vinegar, and sure of ourselves. It was our third, no, fourth landing and we were beating the Bluecoats pretty good. Course the arty and air support made the difference. Pound for pound a Bluecoat is as good as most soldiers and plenty o' Marines.

Yeah, laugh Youngsters!

The whole 34th was movin to the front, troopers in trucks and armor on lowboys. We'd beat the Bluecoats out of the area weeks before and figured it was pacified. We didn't know. Intel sucked, again

We was all on this main road, Route Angel it was called. Goin through a long valley with a gentle rise on either side. The hillsides was covered in plants with the fruit that the locals used to make their hooch. Some newsie from Earth thought it looked like a grape arbor and that's how the place got its name.

What we didn't know was that the Bluecoats had left behind some fellas, in bunkers buried in the hillsides. They waited until we was in the valley good, then sprang their ambush. Blew up the front and rear of the column, and there we was, looking at fire coming from both sides.

I read that the experts now figure the Bluecoats had a nuke plant buried back there someplace to power all those energy weps. All I know is that there was lasers hitting us from both sides.

How about another one? Talking is thirsty work.

Thanks.

My truck didn't get hit at first but the one in back of us did. We bailed, hearin the screams of the guys in that truck as they burned. Never forget it. Never

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Wasn't much of a ditch along the road but we got as low as we could. If we kept face down, the lasers just missed our heads. Course, every now and then some damn fool would just have to take a look

The sarge and some of the lances were trying to get the fellas up and moving. Ya gotta maneuver in this sort of ambush, and get into the bunkers. Right then, them Bluecoats was killin way more of us than we was of them.

If ya kept low, and was lucky, you could crawl up the hill. There's always some fool out in front. Drew a lot of fire but kept goin. Got grenades into a bunker slit and that opened some ground. Kept crawlin, kept bein

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