Page 85 - 100 Hours to Destiny

the cold confines of the driver’s compartment. I was driving for our very
lives.
“You’re doing good Witch. Stay focused. We’re about halfway
through.”

The appearance of the first surrendering troops was somewhat bewildering. Delta was ready
for a fight and was shocked to see hundreds surrendering.

I took a deep breath and breathed out, and unfortunately breathed
right onto the middle periscope. My breath fogged the cold periscope glass
over and completely shut down my line of sight. Of all the luck! Now I was
driving on instinct, my first reaction was to pop my driver’s protective hatch
open and hit the pneumatic switch pushing me up for a clear view. I knew
that Gunny had told me to stay buttoned up, but I had to act regardless to
make sure we did not leave the flagged lanes set up by the engineers. Just as
I was reaching for the lock lever of my hatch, miraculously the periscope
cleared perfectly, and I was able to see once again.
“Another 100 yards. We’re almost through it.”
15 seconds later one of the tanks of the engineers on the other lane
to our left struck one of the mines, and created a catastrophic noise, it
startled me.
“Gunny, what the hell had just happened?”
“One of the mine-clearing tanks had just hit a mine, but it’s OK, it hit
that big serrated bulldozer blade attached to the front of it, and it’s still
going.”