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Chapter 8: A very Georgian way to go

It was now mid-June 2022 and Peyton was now alongside the Georgian troops. The Georgian commander informed Peyton the Montenegrin military withdrew from the Coalition at June 8th 2022 and currently had 200 soldiers under UN command. Peyton took her list and scratched Montenegro out of the nations she would accompany.

Peyton was embedded in the Georgian 32nd Infantry Battalion, which would go one of their routine 24-hour patrol within the Green Zone. Once the briefing was over, Peyton and the Georgians took one their water, equipment and weapons. Peyton armed herself with a Colt M4A1 and a Jericho 941 for self-defense in addition to her 38 kilograms of equipment.

Once armed and equiped, Peyton and the Georgians boarded American CH-47F Chinook heavy helicopters, which flew them to the area of operations with AH-64E Apache helicopters as escort. At the area of operations, the Georgians dismounted the CH-47Fs, which flew back to base along with the AH-64Es while Peyton and the 32nd Infantry Battalion began their foot patrol.

Twenty minutes into their patrol, Peyton and the Georgian battalion arrived at a ditch where they took cover to avoid any sniper fire. As if on cue, a bullet hit the tree stump behind the soldiers and Peyton. The soldiers fired their M4A1s and Negev machine guns at the emplacement from which the shots originated from. The soldiers then saw a man peaking out of cover with his rifle over his head, signalling he wasn't intending to shoot them. Four Georgian soldiers moved towards the man, motioned him something and walked back to the battalion, to whom they explained the situation.

"The man was hunting squirrels. He was firing at the squirrel behind us, not at us." the team leader told.

"Okay then." the battalion commander said.

With that said, the Georgian battalion kept on with their search patrol, but found nothing more than humanitarian aid workers building towns under the protection of local law enforcement and UN peacekeepers. While on patrol, the Georgian soldiers spotted some USAF A-10C Warthog planes flying over their heads before flying back to base.

"Was that a show of force?" Peyton asked for confirmation.

"Yes. Red Crown thinks there are some armed tangos in the area." the Georgian commander said.

"Contact!" a Georgian M240 gunner yelled, prompting everyone to take a knee and chamber their weapons.

Indeed, the Georgian M240 team spotted some armed men in a shed aiming at them. The Georgians set their machine gun, armed it and performed a suppressive fire. This gave Peyton some time to go to the shed with seven Georgian soldiers who flanked the gunmen and injured them by shooting the gunmen's kneecaps. One of the Georgians told the machine gunners to cease firing in Georgian before he and his fellow soldiers saw the gunmen had a suicide belt each, forcing the soldiers to shoot them dead.

Peyton and the Georgians collected all of the pieces of evidence needed to prove they had a legitimate reason to shoot the gunmen before handing them over to the local law enforcement. Peyton and the Georgian soldiers kept on with their patrol until they reached a barn where they stopped, ate some rations and had a rest.

During their pause, Peyton interviewed the battalion, earning many accounts of the soldiers disagreeing with the drawdown of Coalition forces. All of the soldiers unanimously stated outright the UN peacekeepers did nothing to defend themselves, which forced Coalition troops to fire upon any agressor. They also heavily criticized the handling of a hostage crisis by the local law enforcement and UN peacekeepers, who preferred to give in instead of being stern in their negociations. Moreover, they felt the UN peacekeepers weren't flexible enough in their command and control methods while the Coalition troops had a very flexible and de-centralized command. Peyton noted down the soldier's opinion for the article she would write.