August 2nd, 1980
8 Miles Southeast of Yamales, Honduras
The jungle was never quiet. There was always something out there creaking or clicking or otherwise letting the world know that it was there. That was the natural state of things in these highlands in South Central Honduras. When that noise abruptly stopped, Carlos knew that the enemy patrol was getting close to the kill zone of his ambush. He and his squad of Honduran regulars set up camp eight miles south of the main compound at Yamales. From this new camp, they set out to find the most likely transit route for the enemy forces. Once they had a line on where the enemy would be, Carlos watched the Hondos select their ambush site. They chose a section of trail along the mountainous terrain where there was a switchback that nearly perfectly framed the kill zone. With the advantages of elevation and surprise, Carlos thought they’d done well. Now they were just waiting for the killing to begin.
The first enemy soldier ambled past Carlos’s position. Carlos was stationed on the west side of the kill zone to provide security and to prevent the enemy from coming up on his squad’s flank. In this position, he was the first person in his unit to see the enemy. This was his least favorite part of grunt work: waiting. He consciously kept himself breathing. His instinct was to hold his breath for fear that the enemy would hear each breath he drew. He saw another soldier creep into view. This second soldier was moving with much more caution than the first. It was almost as if the second soldier knew something was afoot.
Before Carlos could finish his thought, he heard the snapping of a tree branch off of his right shoulder. That was the last thing he heard before all hell broke loose. The sounds of rifle fire replaced the eerie quiet that had accompanied the enemy patrol as at least five soldiers burst through the jungle right at Carlos, rifles pointed right at him. That was it, Carlos knew that they’d fucked up somehow as an enemy soldier pointed his M-16 at Carlos and pulled the trigger.
“Haha! You’re dead Norte,” said José Obregón, the leader of the Hondos on the “enemy” squad. Carlos could hear the rest of his squad getting overrun as José continued to laugh at his expense. José’s squad had countered the ambush and wiped out Carlos’s. As the “fighting” subsided and the training exercise ended, both squads met up in the clearing that was supposed to serve as the kill zone. Carlos joined the two squad leaders and Staff Sergeant Diego Martinez, US Army Special Forces, for a post training conference. José was explaining to his counterpart, Oscar Zoido, how the events of the morning had unfolded.
Jose’s squad, with the help of Staff Sergeant Martinez, was tasked with rehearsing combat patrol tactics. They had no notice to expect an ambush, but with the training they had been through to this point, they had always expected the worst, and to take nothing for granted. It was the hope of the US government that with enough training, these lessons would take root and help build the Honduran military into a professional force that could act as the vanguard of US interests in the region.
“This point was one of three we thought were the most likely ambush points along our path,” said Jose. “There were too many elements that made this a perfect spot, so we couldn’t ignore it. We sent Manuel and Estefan along the path to get your attention and to let you think what you wanted to think, while the rest of the squad climbed up the side of the mountain to push through your flank defense.” Carlos winced at the casual reference to his simulated death. The four leaders came to a basic agreement that Jose’s squad had butchered Oscar’s squad and taken light casualties in the effort. It had been a valuable lesson for both squads, and each member would remember the cat-and-mouse game of ambush along the trails.
In the event of an open conflict with Nicaragua these types of squad level action would be commonplace. The Highlands of Honduras would prove impassable by armor and vehicular travel. Instead, the war would be carried out by small infantry units with potential artillery and air support. In a lot of ways, the terrain was a callback to the US experience in Vietnam. Carlos could look out over the hills and valleys and imagine squadrons of UH-1 Iroquois helos flaring to land and drop companies of Air Mobile infantry on a hilltop or plateau. On the other hand, he could see Soviet made Mi-24 Hinds circling a hilltop spraying 30 millimeter rounds onto his own position. That’s something we never had to deal with in Vietnam, thought Carlos. If it came down to a standup fight, Honduras could be every bit the hell that Vietnam was.
They had been working in country for just over a week. Prior to that, they had spent time in Panama working with the US Army units stationed there. The hope was that the class had received enough basic combat training. Now that they were back in Honduras they would continue to rehearse with just a single American observer for each squad, and over time, with none at all. From where he was standing, Carlos believed that this process was working. In the morning’s exercise both squads had applied their training well. Carlos had only been there as an observer and a soldier. He had provided no guidance to the Hondos. He assumed that Staff Sergeant Martinez had similarly remained “hands off.”
At this rate, the observers wouldn’t be needed soon. Once the big-shots at HQ decided these little birds were ready to leave the nest, Carlos could move onto the next phase of his operation; The Contras. This was where he would be in an unfamiliar world. Up to this point, he’d been on familiar ground: Basic Combat Training. That was something he could work backwards and forwards in his sleep. Crossing into Nicaragua with a handful of rebels and trying to observe and report on Cuban or Soviet activity was something altogether new. Poole had assured him it was no different than training, only if you messed up you’d likely be tortured and slowly killed. That didn’t help. Yet even with the stakes so high, Carlos was eager to get to this next phase of the assignment. He knew that this mission was the most important thing that he’d taken part in. After all the reading he’d done on the Soviet infiltration of Latin America, he believed that it was even more important than the hostage rescue in Iran.