The Soldier Next Door

Incoming.

A word that no man, whether you are in the Army, the Navy, or the Marines, you do not want to hear it.

We are coming under the fire of a grenade launcher. The impact is going to be hard and most certainly cause damage.

So each man needs to brace themselves while Johnson tries to take the asshole with the grenade launcher out. But to no avail, we are taking on fire, and it is rapid. The impact is far greater than anticipated.

I can hear Johnson frantically pump the machine gun. He curses as he fails to take the man out. Out of instinct, I pull him down and take his place. It is a full out warzone as I peek my head through the roof.

The only thing that I can see is the dust from the building as it comes apart from where Lopez is shooting. The man with the launcher is under cover of the thick smoke and dust. There is no way to even guess where the fire is coming from.

I go in blindly; I grip to hold, and in a line of bullets flying, I lay waste to each floor as I go. Covering windows. Covering the roof. Scanning the ground. Looking down the street. Nothing. But nothing will remain alive. Yet the fire keeps on coming.

But then it is when it hits me, we are firing into the wrong building. I change my focus to the building to the far side right, and there he is, very confident that he has not been seen yet. So as I aim for him, there is fire coming from behind us. Lopez has to change his focus, leaving us under far more fire than we can take.

We need a miracle. I cannot be in two spots at the same time. Should I take my focus off the left for but a second, then the right will take me apart. It is a mess, and it is a messy decision that I need to make.

So I focus on the right, with any utmost determination, I set to rip him, and his little toy apart, of which I say he does lack the skill to use for he should have by now completely overcome us. With great intent and urgency to keep us intact, I once again realize another fatal mistake, and that is what is about to be the true thing that is incoming.

It comes even faster, and it comes even with great force. I see the front of a missile gun; I see the fire igniting as it leaves the barrel. With what is almost the slowest, but actually the fastest speed, I watch as the missile travel with perfect precision through the air, and BANG.

We are hit straight on.

The Humvee lifts in the air and drops down with a shattering thud. My body is flung from one side to the other. We have taken on too much fire, and we need to abort; we need to get out. But we are in the middle of a raging fire. We still need to get out. We need to fall back. Lopez needs to get us out, or none of us are making it out here alive. But dammit, how the fuck do we fit with another group of men in there? It is not going to happen.

This will need to happen on foot. We need to wait for back up to come. We are sitting ducks, and the ones that are not in the pond lurked with danger. So it is the hardest decision that we need to do.

“Abort.”

And it cannot come soon enough.

“Abort! Abort!”

The second that I set my feet on the ground, the next missile flips the Humvee in the air, and it comes down with a big flame crashing to the floor. We take cover behind Lopez, where he has managed to clear all the buildings.

The fear and yet the anticipation of action sets in over the group of me. They have come here to do this. This is the moment that they are trained for. We need to keep each other standing and save until back up arrives.

And this is when all hell breaks completely loose. It seems that this is the moment that they have been waiting for. This is what they have planned. Us in the open, us an easy target.

With the cover of the Humvee, we split off to take both sides and the top. Gibbs is taking fire from the top. While I am on the right side with Johnson and Lewis with Williams on the left.

It is absolute chaos. Just as we think that we are clear, then the next round comes buzzing over my head. I can see that Johnson is loving every single moment of it, but as I look to Lewis, he seems to be somewhat shaken up still.

“Lewis, hold it together.”

He only but screams back to me, “Yes, Lieutenant, Sir.”

I, for some odd reason, laugh, which is the most inappropriate thing at this very time. With this, I look up at Gibbs, “How are you holding up over there.”

“Fucking peachy.”

Ya…the boys are pumped. We all need a damn beer once this is done.

But then, just as I think that we are all keeping our sides, Gibbs comes under fire with what seems to be another group of men.

In absolute slow motion, beyond anything that I could have ever imagine, I see Gibbs jerk back and crash to the floor. He has been shot.

I immediately abort my side and hunch my way over to him where he has fallen into the line of sight. I pull him back to the Humvee, try to assess the extent of his wounds. But there is so much damn blood that it is truly impossible to see without taking his gear off.

But the most frightening thing is that his eyes are closed, and he does not seem to move. I shake him frantically to get any reaction out of him but to no avail. He is lying completely unresponsive. As I stick my hand underneath his shirt to feel where the impact of the bullet has taken him, I get to a large mass of blood by his stomach.

“Fuck!”

I start furiously shaking him, “Gibbs, wake the fuck up! Gibbs!”

Yet, there is still no response. I cannot feel his goddamn pulse as my hands are still trembling from the fire. And as for listening to his breathing, well, that is pretty useless under this chaos.

“Fuck Gibbs. Wake up!”

Still not a single movement.

“You are not fucking going anywhere. Get that ass up!”

Nothing at all.

I shout to Lopez to take him over inside and radio to hear when help will be arriving.

“ETA is five minutes,” he confirms with me.

“We don’t have five minutes; we need to get Gibbs out of here now.”

He yet again goes on the radio, and with must damn relief, I see them coming up from the end of the road. But much to my further annoyance, they take an incredibly slow pace. Well, not today.

“Lopez, tell them to pick up the damn pace.”

As I look down the road, they are upon us within less than a minute. Still under the cover of Lopez, we all filter inside the armored vehicle. This fight is not over, for today it is; we will come back and finish what we have started when they least expect it.

But now, we need to get Gibbs back to camp.

It takes us little under half an hour, which Gibbs does not have, yet though I have no idea of the extent of his injuries. But we find ourselves gliding to a halt as we get him out of Lopez’s Humvee. The sight of his body motionless shocks an incredible pain to my core. I have to keep my composure not to burst out in tears.

The man is not looking well. I fear, but do not even want to say that it, that he might not have made it. So as we take him into the nurse’s tent, we all huddle around his bed while the doctor assesses his wounds. But much to our frustration, she tells us to leave as we are making her feel uncomfortable and intimidated.

Well, guess what? I do not give a fuck.

I stay, and I wait. I watch as she takes his shirt off to reveal just as I suspected. He has been hit in the stomach.

And my god, it looks bad.

I swallow really hard and try to get my words out as calmly as possible, but I do believe that I fail. She places her hand on my shoulder and looks at me with genuine compassion in her eyes.

“I promise you that I will do everything I can.”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

It does not reassure me; I take her hand from my shoulders and stare back into her eyes, “Then fucking start.”