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Kraut 88s and 105s were clipping the trees above his head like hedge trimmers. Shrapnel, branches, limbs, and entire trees were raining down, killing and injuring his men.

Oh God, I'm back, Joe thought—for the thousandth or was it the ten-thousandth time—back in the Ardennes forest. Twenty-one year old Sergeant Joe Miller was doing his damnedest to dig himself deeper into the shallow, frozen trench with his battered helmet. The German assault was a complete surprise.

"Fubar, total fubar!" screamed Private Koslowski of the 106th laying beside him, clawing at the earth like a skinny manic hedgehog.

"Shut your yap, Koslowski!" Sergeant Miller said. "Krauts are all over the place."

This was supposed to be the 'Quiet Front'. Ike sent Joe's battle-hardened 2nd Infantry Division, the rookie 99th, and 106th here for a little R&R just before Christmas. And here they were, right back in the thick of it—again—some R&R.

Where did this German army come from? It wasn't supposed to exist. The Ike and Monte assumed it was beaten and on the run.

Joe heard the clanking, squealing, and roar of panzers and mechanized guns advancing in the distance. The heavy freezing fog made it impossible to draw a bead on 'em. How these monsters were managing to maneuver through the ice, snow, and the immense cathedral pines was beyond him. But there they were—closing in from the sound of it.

Joe was the senior non-com on the line without an officer in sight. It was all up to him.

"Pass the word," Joe told the squads in his sector. "Fall back two miles and dig in. We've got to give our boys time to regroup." He motioned for his own squad to stay put. "We'll cover ya."

"Damn them," Joe swore, listening to the German advance. "Damn them all." He pounded his fist into the frozen ground. This was not a good day to die. It was never a good day to die.

"Joe, are you all right?" a female voice asked.

He forced open his eyes and looked up at the stained acoustical tile ceiling. He felt the weight of his eighty-one year old body in the hospital bed.

How the hell did I end up this way, a helpless old fart? Why did I survive? So many better men than I died in those lousy woods. He sighed.

"You were yelling in your sleep," said Adeline, Joe's VA nurse. "Are you okay?" She was in her fifties, a little on the heavy side, but a real sweetheart.

The hospital was older than she was, finished in 1940, the year Joe joined up, and it looked it. Oh, it was clean and all, but the old faded floor tiles, ancient lockers, and endless layers of paint told the true story.

"Yeah." He grimaced. "I'm alive if that's what you mean. It's that damn dream again."

His roommate, Charlie, was watching a DVD on his over-bed TV, Saving Private Ryan. Joe's division, the 2nd Infantry, had also been in Normandy. The movie was too damn real.

"Shut that thing off, will ya?" Joe said. "It gives me the willies." Charlie, an ex-Marine still sporting a thin, grey crew cut, gave Joe a dirty look, pulled the curtain closed, and turned up the volume.

"Jar-head," Joe muttered.

Adeline patted his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I'll ask him to turn it down," she said. "Let me put up the head of your bed. Dr. Jayraj is here to see you. Maybe he can give you something to help with those dreams."

"Yeah, right." Joe had re-fought the Battle of the Bulge every night since 1944. Why should anything change now? "What does he want?"

"Why don't you ask him?" she replied, as Dr. Jayraj entered the room.

Dr. Jayraj was in his thirties, thin, with olive colored skin, and rich black hair closely cropped. Joe smiled. Dr. Jay was a good egg, not like all the other know-it-all youngsters he was forced to deal with these days. How the world had changed.

"Hello, Joe. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. What's up, Doc?" Joe grinned, a little inside joke. They both enjoyed comic books. What did they call them these days? Oh yeah, 'graphic novels', they reminded Joe of magazines he had read in his youth: Unknown, Wonder Stories, and Weird Tales.

"I've got some bad news for you, Joe," Dr. Jay said. He was a straight shooter. "Your liver cancer has spread. It's bad. It's in your lungs, brain, and spine."

"Damn," Joe said. He had guessed as much. No matter what they did, he was becoming weaker and losing weight. The pain meds weren't working as well as they used to either, but Joe didn't want to become a druggie. He hated druggies, so he did his best to hide any discomfort. "I guess the drinkin' finally caught up with me, huh?"

"Your life style didn't necessarily cause the cancer," Dr. Jay said in his lilting accent.

Yeah, right. It cost me my job, my wife, my kids, my house, and now … probably my life. "So, how bad is it, Doc?"

"I won't lie to you, Joe." Dr. Jay said. "We can't do anything more to stop it, but we can keep you comfortable—right up until the end. Does the pain medication still help?"

Joe grimaced and shifted. "Yeah, I guess."

"You don't look very comfortable, Joe," Dr. Jay said. "Look—these pain medications are just that—medications. I'm going to increase the dose a bit. Joe, you have to help us out here “Let me know when it starts to hurt, OK? There is no value in suffering."

"I appreciate that, Doc. How much longer do I have?"

"I don't know, a few weeks maybe, a month, but not much more I'm afraid."

"Well, thanks for being straight with me, Doc, but I've never quit yet. I may surprise you."

"I hope so, Joe," Dr. Jayraj said, and smiled. "I hope so."

The pounding of the Kraut artillery ceased, and the panzer tanks were moving in. How can it be so foggy and so bitter cold? We get cold in the Midwest, and God knows we get snow, but freezing fog? His fingers and toes were numb.

The Allied Air Corp ruled the skies but was helpless in this fog. Patton's tanks were eighty miles south. The grunts were on their own without any armor and little artillery.

Between the thick forest, smoke, and heavy fog, no one could see ten yards in any direction. The Germans might have already bypassed his squad as far as he knew, cutting them off from the rest of the 106th.

"What do we do now, Sarge?" Private Goldstein asked.

"We hold out here for as long as we can," Joe said. "Then we withdraw, dig in, and do it all over again."

"To hell with that," Koslowski said. "It's every dog-face for himself. Let's get out a' here … Now!"

"If you run," Joe said, as he reloaded his rifle. "I will personally shoot your ass." His hands were so numb; he had trouble loading the clip. Their duty was to stay, although his legs were insisting he run—that he run like hell.

Dr. Jayraj was back. "Joe, with your permission, I'd like to enroll you in an experimental treatment for your cancer."

"What kind of treatment?"

"It's a new drug. We'll give you it in your I.V. once every other day for ten days. Then we'll see. It's shown some positive results with your type of cancer."

"A cure?"

"No … not a cure, not yet, but it does seem to slow it down. I can't make any promises but maybe—"

"Maybe it'll help the next guy," Joe said, "if it doesn't help me."

"Yes."

"Okay, let's do it," Joe said. "This old body has got to be good for somethin'."

Dr. Jay met Adeline in the corridor. She was giving out meds. "Does Mr. Miller have any family?" he asked.

"None to speak of," she said. "He does list a son in Maine as next of kin, but the son rarely visits. I've never met him. I don't think Joe has had a visitor in years."

Dr. Jay slowly shook his head. "That is true of so many of our vets. We are the only family they have left. But, call the son anyway and let him know where Mr. Miller stands. Maybe he'll drop by."

"Maybe," Adeline said.

"We got nothin' to stop these guys," Goldstein said, "rifles and a couple of satchel charges. How's this gonna work?"

"Hey, what's that?" Koslowski pointed at two thin vertical bands of bright blue lights about fifty yards apart in front of them. Each band of light was twenty-five to thirty yards tall.

"Get down," Joe said. "It's gotta be the Krauts."

As the men watched, the lights brightened and spread until they came together, a giant blue movie screen set up in the middle of the forest. A deep throbbing hum emanated from somewhere.

Something clicked. Hell, this is new. The dream has never gone this far before. I'm in two places at once. I'm here in the woods and back at the hospital too. Joe could feel his old body in the bed, but he was also freezing in the forest. It made no sense at all, but there was no time to think about it—too much was going on.

The screen slowly opened like a doorway, showing a beautiful, spring day on the other side … and troops, lots of troops and odd-looking tanks.

The tanks were bigger and more powerful than any young Joe had ever seen. Flying machines resembling giant, mechanical dragonflies hovered like avenging angels above the tanks, providing air cover. The flying machines were armed with wicked-looking weapons: rockets and multiple-barrel machine guns.

"Hey," Koslowski said. "Those are our guys!"

"How's he doing?" Dr. Jayraj asked.

"Not good," Adeline said. "He's been spiking fevers all night and received two PRNs of morphine."

Joe opened his eyes. "Hi, Doc," he whispered.

"Looks like you're having a tough time on this new medicine, Joe. Do you want to stop?"

"Hell, no," he said. "I've got to stop the bastards." He grimaced and slid back into semi-consciousness.

"He's back in his dream," Adeline said. "I hope he's winning."

"Hold on," Joe said, as he grabbed Koslowski's arm, pulling him back into the trench. "The last Louie I saw said Krauts in American uniforms, speaking perfect English, were dropped behind our lines. We've got to find out for sure who these guys are."

"Hey, guys!" An American captain stepped through the screen. "Is anyone out there?" He was waving a white cloth in one hand. There was something odd about his uniform. For starters, it was clean and pressed; his combat boots were polished. Joe hadn't seen polished boots in months.

"Hold it right there, Cap," Joe said, aiming his rifle at the captain's chest. "Who is Mickey Mouse's girlfriend?"

"Minnie Mouse," he replied. "Okay?"

"Over here, Cap!" yelled Koslowski, and waved his arm.

"Don't shoot, men. I'm unarmed." Hands above his head, the captain approached their position. The hair on the back of Joe's neck stood up as the captain approached. Something was very wrong here. Joe just couldn't put his finger on it.

"It's okay, boys," the captain said. "You did well. At ease." Joe heard panzers advancing in the background. "Is this all of you?" He looked around in amazement.

"Maybe," Goldstein said, not moving out of his trench.

Good for you, thought Joe. Goldstein knew that something was up too. Joe stared at the supposed captain. What was it?

The captain lowered his hands. "You know," he said. "In every other Time Line, we've never been able to break through with reinforcements due to fierce Allied resistance. We finally got our break." The captain moved his left hand around behind his back.

Joe shot him in the chest, but it only staggered him. Flak jacket? So Joe shot him in the face—no jacket there.

Koslowski jumped up. "Why the hell did you do that?" A shot rang out from behind the strange tanks and Koslowski fell—dead before he hit the ground.

Goldstein and Joe returned fire. Joe heard the Abrams tanks revving up their engines. They made an eerie whining sound and began moving toward the opening with their air cover.

"Look," Joe said, pointing at the captain's corpse. The small American Flag on the captain's shoulder patch had a white swastika on a field of blue instead of the forty-eight stars. A potato masher, a German grenade, was lying beside him. He had been pulling it out of his belt from the small of his back.

"It's a Kraut," Goldstein said, "an American Kraut!"

Joe felt more and more alive in this world and weaker in his old one. But now he knew what he had to do.

"We must 'a lost over there," Joe said to Goldstein. "Just like in Weird Tales. But, we're not gonna lose here. We're gonna stop those machines from coming through."

Adeline was worried. "He's crashing, Doc," she said. "His O2 Sat is only 88% on four liters of oxygen. He's spiking temps."

Dr. Jayraj looked at Joe's chart, and listened to his lungs. "I agree. I'm pulling him off this trial. It's only making him worse. Let's get a stat chest X-ray and start an antibiotic."

"I've called the chaplain," Adeline said, with tears in her eyes. Joe was gasping for breath.

Joe heard someone praying, but there was no time to listen.

"Goldstein," he said. "If they get that advanced equipment through … our guys are finished. We got nothin' that can take on an Abrams, or a Black Hawk."

"How do you know?" Goldstein asked.

"Never mind," Joe replied. "I just do. We got two satchels. You go left. I’ll go right. Aim for the edge of the opening. I'll bet whatever is generating that blue field is over there, where the lights are. One, two, three … go!"

They arose through a hail of gunfire as an American-Kraut squad stepped through the breach. The heavy cover of fog and trees worked as well against the Krauts as it did against Joe's men. Several American-Krauts fell.

Something slammed into Joe's hip, spinning him to the ground. Something else sledge hammered his knee, but it didn't matter now. He was within throwing distance. He set the charge and threw the satche l into the edge of the opening. The explosion knocked him cold.

The American colonel approached his Korp Commander, Obergruppen-fuhrer Wilhelm Reinhardt. "They blew the field generator, sir," he said, "No matter what we do; we can't seem to break into this Time Line."

It cost a fortune to bring a whole division this far back in time only to fail, Wilhelm mused. Stupid Americans, no wonder they lost the war. Now, if the Fuhrer had given me real German Troops … He sighed. Operation Wacht am Rhein, Watch on the Rhine, would fail again over there—again. There was nothing more to be done. The field generators were ruined.

Had the plan succeeded, the Germans would have cut the Allied armies in two, and forced General Eisenhower to sue for peace or face total destruction, as they did here.

Obergruppenfuhrer Wilhelm Reinhardt turned his back on the colonel. "Return to base," Wilhelm said. At least he could blame the Americans for the failure. They were expendable; Wilhelm was not.

Dr. Jayraj closed Joe's eyes. "He's expired," he said, and looked up at the clock. "9:05 AM, December 16, 2004. He fought until the bitter end. What a tough old bastard."

Adeline folded Joe's arms and tucked him in with tears running down her cheeks. "That's how they made 'em," she said, and pulled the sheet over Joe's head. "He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for destroying a couple of German panzers with nothing more than a rifle and a couple of satchel charges. He was the last surviving member of his squad. He was a true American hero."

"They all were," Dr. Jay said. "Without guys like Joe, our world would probably be a very different place."