The Soldier Next Door

I am sitting here slightly terrified if it is my life, Matthew or both that shall be taken today, that I really do not know. They say that you will see your life flash before your eyes when you are near about going to die. Well, I say it is bullshit. All I can see is an asshole shoving his gun before my eyes. I know that it is only but a matter of time before he is going to pull that trigger.

And then it happens; it is as if you watch the entire world come to a dead stop, his finger makes the agonizing flick near enough to a crawling pace. The click as the bullet enters the chamber gives you enough time to take your one last breath, and when you take that breath, you only have but one option and the is to close your eyes. You feel the incredible urge to try with the last fight in you to try to outsmart the skill he has behind that gun.

Yet you can only but hope, then…

“Get down!” As I open my eyes, I see Lopez come behind the man with the gun. With all the skill he possesses, he takes the man down even before the bullet comes near the direction of our heads.

Relief does not come near enough to describe them saving our assess out of this situation. Luck, that damn well is. I hate even to think that if he was one minute too late, even perhaps only that few seconds, then the outcome would have been different. But yet there is something I do want to know.

“Who was it?” I ask Lopez.

“Who was what?”

“The gun, whose head?”

“I am not telling you.”

And with that, he leaves the room; he does not even need to tell me; it was written within his eyes. I don’t know how Matthews would have taken such a thing, but I can say that I was at least there to see him through it until my end.

So with that, we continue our way down the street. Do they honestly think that we will run away now and go hide in a corner until we think it is safe to come out? This only means that we have another squad, which will make us move even faster.

As we come to the next set of buildings, we do not even need to enter to see that it is not empty. We are about to take fire head-on. Now the true missions start, you always, not that I am saying it is good to think this way, but you always want to get some action while you are out here. You get restless fingers, and the need to scratch an itch is truly there. And some scratching is about to take place.

My guess is that the gunfire has been heard until here, and this has led them to filter into the streets. Yes, we drove head-on into them, but seriously now, do you think for one second we are going to turn the Humvee around? Well, that shall only lead them to us, and a Marine fights until the end.

Then I instantly see them disappear into the buildings. We don’t exactly know where they are and how heavily armed they are; we need to move through this and take them out as we go. Matthews is by far the best shot from all the rookies, but he is still shaken up. Which means it only leaves Gibbs and me with the most experience. So at a toss of a coin, yes, by far crazy, but we toss to see who will be manning the machine gun. And of course, I have the greatest luck in the world, for unfortunately for Gibbs, mine falls on heads.

So I get my footing right, and slowly, for I do not wish to have my head blown off before I even stick it out, I lift my body through the top and position the machine gun in hand. Now we wait for them to give up their location. It is not like I can just randomly shoot the buildings to pieces, though every desire in my body feels that I want to.

With a crawling pace that even is slower than a second, we make our way down the street. We know it is only but a matter of time; they will want to get rid of us as fast and in as little time as possible. But we have a fairly good idea of which building they have gone into.

And then it happens, there is a sudden round of shots directly aimed at me. I can hear them zing past my ear, but I cannot see where they are coming front. I scan the building in front of me and those on the side. I do not have any sight of the enemy. Lopez that is next to us has come under fire himself. We are like a turkey sliding through Sunday roast, everyone wants the pickings, but they are too afraid to come forward.

And somewhat awkwardly, they are trying to take out the tires, which only says to me that they are a bunch of idiots that was shoved with a gun in their hands and told to just to shoot. That is your most reckless enemy. Not only are they erratic, but most of all, they are the kind that does not have much to lose. As with a Marine, they will die until the end.

Then another burst of rounds zings past my ears, beating hard into the armored steel. It sounds like loud snapping sounds; it is rather deafening and sends a chill up your spine. At any minute, if you just so must as move your head into the wrong angle, one of those snapping bullets will snap off the only brains that you have left. Why? Who sits in an armored vehicle and let people shoot at you so you can shoot them back. A Marine, of course.

And just as I thought I am getting no action, god, that sounds awful, but just at I think we are going to sit here and stare into a building, there is a new round of shots coming from the building next to ours. I have a clear vision of them. I grab firmly onto the machine gun; with a rapid pumping action, I snap right back at them, but with a far brutal force that their guns can return. And it is that force that makes me take all four of them out.

As I scan the rest of the building, I find another two peaking their way out from the bottom of the window, but before I even lay waste to them, I spot the sniper at the roof. Well, absolutely fantastic, the only thing that sets me at unease is a sniper. Their precision is sometimes very much unanticipated, the skill most of the time under judged. They are the worst kind of enemy that one can have and obviously the worst kind to take out. Which means I need to get out of here and let one of the snipers in my team take over. I will honestly say this is one thing that I am not good at.

So drop down into the Humvee and let Johnson take control. As I look at the men around me, I can see they are eager to get out there, but I do not yet feel safe to let them out on foot. They shall just have to hang in for a few more minutes. With this in mind, I radio to Lopez which has been able to control things on their side. The fire stopped, and he is pretty confident that he can also let the guys go out on foot.

Now it is with absolute anticipation that we wait for Johnson to take his target out, but he has just let us know that the guy is no longer there. He must have moved will we have changed places. This is a big fuck up. Now we are really that sitting duck. If we continue to move further down the road, we get out the fire, but we do not clear the building or the enemy that finds themselves in there. And it might just be this enemy that will take the lives of a bunch of civilians. Or do I even need to mention the Marines and other soldiers that are held at the base?

With that comes the newfound urgency to get this job done and to get out of here. We have been out here for far too long. We need to move, but next, we come under fire, and you can hear the bullets hit like hail against the sides of the Humvee. With a jerk of the machine gun, Johnson laughs and starts his own round of rapid-fire, which instantly stops every other bullet hitting the skin of the Humvee.

But next, with a rather nervous and hollering voice, he shouts the one word that you do not ever want to hear.

“Incoming.”Text content © NôvelDrama.Org.