[
#151 108 -
#151 109 folyt.]
After learning the basics of shooting and first aid, the recruits took on the more complicated task of clearing a building.
Steven Tomberlin, a retired police officer from Colorado, left, discusses an exercise with a Ukrainian platoon leader named Ihor.
For the final exercise on day 10, the two platoons gathered in a forest of pines and wild acacia trees, and set up two field headquarters at opposite ends of the area. One platoon wore green armbands, another blue, and the instructors yellow. The mission of Lt. Maksym’s platoon was to prepare an ambush along the dirt road fringed by the forest on one side and a field of chest-high sunflowers on the other. Since not every trooper had been issued a helmet, the two teams agreed not to wear them, to maintain fair play.
“The nature of the war here is that the enemy will have superior firepower and as many or more men than you, but you will nevertheless be tasked to attack them,” Mr. Tomberlin prepped the men.
Unwilling to wait for his lieutenant’s instructions, Mitya rapidly climbed a tree and announced he would be on the lookout for the enemy. “Macaw, there are no bananas up that tree,” another Marine jeered. “Come down, monkey.” Once Lt. Maksym finally set up an ambush, the first two members of the enemy patrol—including Lt. Ihor—were quickly eliminated. It was a major success.
Still, Lt. Maksym didn’t move or give orders. “Lieutenant, you’ve killed two of their men, what next?” an impatient Mr. Crawford urged him. An interpreter mistranslated it as the other platoon killing two of Lt. Maksym’s scouts.
“Well, I guess that’s it, we’ve lost,” he sighed resigned. As Lt. Maksym vacillated, the remainder of the other platoon rallied its forces and counterattacked. “This lieutenant’s indecision has just cost the lives of an entire squad,” Mr. Crawford muttered.
When the roles changed, Lt. Ihor asked Mr. Tomberlin how creative his men could be. One of his Marines, a bare-chested native of Kherson who had smuggled himself from Russian-occupied territories so that he could join the Ukrainian military, proposed using dummies with uniforms, helmets and a couple of guns to distract the enemy’s attention—while hiding the actual ambush inside the sunflower field. “That’s a great idea,” Mr. Tomberlin nodded. As they walked through bushes to pick the perfect ambush site, a couple of other Marines, both named Vova, seemed more interested in examining the maturing sunflower pods, picking out and tasting the seeds.
Mr. Tomberlin calls for his platoon during the final exercise.
A Ukrainian serviceman lies on the ground after being eliminated during the ambush exercise.
“It’s going to be a great harvest this year,” one of them said. Both men had come from the countryside of Ukraine’s central Khmelnytskyi region. “Only the farm boys get drafted. Have you seen anyone from the big cities here,” the younger Vova complained. So far, the highlights of his military career consisted of surviving a Russian missile attack on his barracks near Lviv in western Ukraine, and another on his barracks in Mykolaiv. “We’re farmers, we’re not really warriors,” he said.
Noticing the disturbed sunflower pods, Mr. Tomberlin didn’t hide his anger. “What is this, who has done this? Something like this will give away your position.”
All throughout the day, distant thuds of Russian shelling could be heard from Mykolaiv. Then, at dusk, one of the instructors yelled into the radio that he could see two rockets heading in his direction. “Switch off your phones, turn off your lights,” Mr. Tomberlin shouted. A concentration of cellphones could be spotted by Russian electronic warfare systems and used for targeting. A Ukrainian air defense battery several miles away fired off three missiles that blasted into the starry sky.
Lt. Ihor had planned a complex maneuver with three sections that were meant to communicate by phone messages. Without the phones, he had to revise the plan. The entire platoon set off on a long hike through the fields, aiming to seize Lt. Maksym’s headquarters from an unexpected direction.
As the final exercise took place, Russian shelling could be heard in the distance.