Justin Watson grew up an Army brat, living in Germany, Alabama, Texas, Korea, Colorado and Alaska, and fed on a steady diet of X-Men, Star Trek, Robert Heinlein, DragonLance, and Babylon 5. While attending West Point, he met his future wife, Michele, on an airplane, and soon began writing in earnest with her encouragement. In 2005 he graduated from West Point and served as a field artillery officer, completing combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and earning the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Combat Action Badge. Medically retired from the Army in 2015, Justin settled in Houston with Michele, their four children, and an excessively friendly Old English Sheepdog.
Heroes & Survivors
Twin columns of brown-uniformed soldiers trudged across the snow-covered plain into a conifer forest. Deprived of the day’s sunlight by the long shadows of the pines, the temperature in the forest dropped precipitously, affecting even Russian troops known for their indifference to the chill. The winds whistled through the pines and cut through their coats. The slush of snow and mud pulled at their boots with every step. Marching between the two columns, Sergei Chekov, his plain features and black eyes hard and glaring, removed his brimmed cap and ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair as he passed into the forest. He let loose a sharp exhalation that turned instantly to smoking vapor, then inhaled deeply, letting the cold sting his nostrils, throat and lungs.
Chekov replaced his cap, stopped under the cover of the trees and counted off the remains of his platoon as they passed into the concealment of the white-clad pines. He did so every few kilometers to ensure none had gotten lost or mixed up with another unit in the retreat.
…sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—all accounted for. We marched into Galicia almost two years ago with thirty-six men. Now this is all that’s left, and most of these new men; soft city boys conscripted, or else taken in by the Marxists’ propaganda.
That Chekov himself was from the relatively cosmopolitan city of Yaroslavl failed to soften his disdain for his fellow urbanites filling up the ranks of the new Red Army. Many of them were motivated, but their training was utter shit, and their frequently genuine devotion to ideology annoyed him to no end. Maybe they were right, maybe the communists would usher in a new era of peace and plenty for Russia. But out here, all that mattered was survival, not the fantasies of intellectuals.
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