[B]Prologue [/B]
[quote]
“Ten November 1775. I was born in a bomb crater. My mother was an M16 and my father was the Devil. Each moment that I live is an additional threat upon your life. I eat concertina, piss napalm and can shoot a round through a flea’s ass at three-hundred meters. I travel the globe festering on anti-Americans everywhere I go for the love of mom, Chevrolet, baseball, and apple pie. I’m a grunt. I’m the dirty, nasty, stinky, sweaty, filthy, beautiful little son of a bitch that’s kept the wolf away from the door for over two-hundred and twenty five years. I’m a United States Marine. We look like soldiers, talk like sailors, slap the shit out of both. We stole the Eagle from the Air Force, the Rope from the Army and the Anchor from the Navy. On the seventh day, when God rested, we overran his perimeter, and we’ve been running the show ever since. Warrior by day, lover by night, drunkard by choice, Marine by God. Semper Fidelis.
-Anonymous
[/quote][B]
Chapter 1[/B]
[quote]
Day 1: Margaritaville
The steady rumble of the engine is the first thing I hear as I drift back to consciousness, that and my sergeant shouting that we are ten minutes to the LZ. I snap my head up and look around, and face my sergeant. “Check your gear!” he barks as he goes back to readjusting his helmet strap.
I swivel around to look out the small bulkhead window at the expansive desert vista. The others had called it Hell on Earth but it didn’t look so bad. I jolt back to reality as the C130 bounces across the pavement runway. We decelerate quickly and taxi for some distance. The 91 other men in my company cheer sarcastically as we come to a stop. “Alright boys, we have arrived in Bahamas, the current temperature is 40 degrees, please be careful when opening the overhead bins as bags may have shifted in flight, thank you for choosing US Army Air as your airline of choice, hopefully you chose us for your return trip,” laughed the pilot over the intercom.
The lift doors at the back of the plane begin to hum as they lower slowly to the tarmac. Bright desert light fills the fuselage as we squint to see out. Sgt. Wilson forges past as he slips on his black aviators. “Told you boys ya shoulda picked up a pair back at base,” he laughed as he walked down the ramp into the blinding light.
“Dudes a pre Madonna,” someone grumbled as we hauled our rucksacks out from under the seat racks.
We disembarked the plane, still squinting in blinding desert sun. “Members of Bravo Company, head to the mess hall for a briefing. Members of Bravo Company…” the messaged looped on and on.
We filed into the mess hall, and relaxed our clenched eyes. “Alright boys grab your seats, quickly, common, lets go. Ok, good to see you all got here in one piece, more or less,” said the commander as he eyed a vomiting marine in the corner. “It’s a good thing you didn’t join the Air Force.” He paused. “I digress. So you’ve been handpicked, by the powers that be to make a difference. Ok that’s a lie; you’re the washouts that got sent here so I could make you remotely useful. You are the people that broke the rules of society. You are the people who decided that the army was better than jail, or the morgue. Well guess what. You were wrong. You are going to learn that fighting with Ali Baba is worse than sharing a bunk with a man named Suzy. You are going to wish, that grenade you dropped, was soap. You are going to want to spend 23 hours a day inside your cell and not in the desert. You give a new definition to marine. Muscles are required, intelligence non-essential.”
The mess hall quieted, except for the AC, as we mulled over the choices we had made to get here. I personally didn’t care. I could take anyone. I could survive anything. That wasn’t a problem. Having grown up in Detroit I had learnt fast, that no one gave a damn. You had to look out for yourself. Being the oldest of three brothers I had to look out for my little brothers. Jimmy and Timmy. Original I know. Mom had gone off binge drinking as usual the night she thought up the names. My mother had never been particularly classy. She didn’t even close her door when she brought home Johns. Honestly, hotels are cheap in Detroit. That’s the whole reason I took up guitar. Make noise and lots of it, whenever I needed to. “Jeremiah. Yo Jeremiah. Buullllfrog! Crooooooakk” A smack rocked my head forward. Damn my first name. I’d rather have gotten one of my mother’s alcoholic names.
“Yea hold on a second,” I said as I turn around on my bench looking to the guy across the aisle from me. It was the Sgt. Wilson from the plane. Aviators.
“Gather the other boys in our team and meet over at the firing range. The range is over on the west side of the base.”
“Roger, I’ll grab them as they leave,” I replied before spinning around.
“Alright, that’s all, get the hell out of my mess hall, it’s starting to smell,” shouted the commander as he stepped down from off his table.
The echo of aluminum benches sliding back across the plywood floors as people stood up. A dull rumbling of people talking as they grabbed their rucksacks and gear and began to file out the door back into the light. I hoped up on one of the benches and looked out over the sea of beige and brown camouflage. Spotting my fireteam I waved them over. “Wilson wants us to rendezvous over at the firing range.” I say as I hop down from the bench with a thud.
We walk over the cracked earth and sand, as we make our way to the firing range. Signs directing us about the base are clearly visible. With a base the size of a small city you need your road maps. Complete with a combat field hospital, two gyms, a pool, a track, two bars, and a small conveniences store for the creature comforts. This place was nicer than home. The far off crackle of rifle fire and the more distinct thud of LMG’s can be heard as we approach the range. Sgt. Wilson waves us over to the range. “Grab a knee, boys, we are having an impromptu training session.”
Our company Captain stood at the front of our group emphatically waving an ammo clip and shouting over the gunfire. “When you are in the field do not being overly concerned with saving ammo! In basic training they tell you that ammo is life. If you are pinned down you need ammo. If you are cut off you need ammo. This is true. However out here the average length of engagement is 1:24. You cannot possibly shoot off all your bullets in that time. You will not get separated from your column because there are 60 of us and less than 10 of them. We out gun them immensely. In this David vs. Goliath scenario, Goliath kicks ass. Everyone grab three clips out of the crate and head over to the firing line.”
After grabbing ammo, my fireteam walks to the nearest available spot on the line. “When the targets pop up, engage them. When you run out of ammo, reload and continue until all the targets are down.”
Pointing down range I look out over bullet-ridden cars and barrels. Pulling back the charging handle I look into the chamber for old forgotten ammo. I let the bolt ride forward. Clicking it into safe, and sliding the clip into the magazine I hear a satisfying click. Bringing the rifle butt up to my shoulder I looked down the steadied riflescope. Just like training I thought as I got ready to fire. A short whistling got louder and ended abruptly with a sharp explosion out on the firing range. We instinctively ducked. A second explosion went off, closer this time, followed by more ducking, and some swearing. Sand flew up in the air clouding the sky briefly. The Captain turned to look out over the range. He shouted for a nearby sergeant to bring him a radio. The sergeant hurried forward with a radio. “Get me the FDC on the horn.” Ordered the Captain as he scanned the range with his field binoculars.
“FDC for you sir,” said the sergeant as he handed over the radio.
“Please advise whether or not you are conducting live fire drills on map coordinates Bravo 23.” He paused. “No we just had two shells of 105 mike mike detonate about 100 meters out. Danger close. That wasn’t you?” the Captain paused again before throwing the radio headset back to the sergeant.
Just then a moaning wail set out over the camp. You didn’t need training to know what was happening now. “All non-essential combat personnel get to your designated raid shelters. All combat personnel head to your Humvees. Go get some marines.”
Then things got crazy. Those that had been around knew what the drill was. Having been on base for less than an hour now, we just followed the herd. “Hunter squad this way,” shouted one sergeant as another shouted for his squad.
“Vampire squad,” shouted another sergeant again and again.
I struggled through the crowd listening to Wolverine. “Wolverine this way, Wolverine!” I craned my neck over the sea of brown and beige for my sergeant. Spotting him standing atop an ammo crate of to my right, I began to fight through the crowd.
“All hands, mount up! We are headed out. Ali Baba’s been takin’ pot shots at us from up in the mountains with some small arty, 105’s. We are gonna encounter heavy resistance. Our A/O is very restrictive. We will be heading up Dirt Road 13 into the mountain range. Gonna get nasty marines,” shouted Wilson as he ducked down into his passenger seat.
The Humvee engine started up with a rumble as the rest of the squad piled in. Our SAW operator, Jeff jumped into the rear seat beside me. A mountain of a man, who looked like he ate the barbells after he lifted them, banged his helmeted head on the door frame on the way in and didn’t even flinch. Meanwhile our DD jumped into the driver seat. Our tiny driver, Private Eva was one hell of a BAM. Stood for Beautiful American Marine as we called them behind their backs, albeit quietly. The radio crackled to life, “Wolverine Actual, you’re on deck, lead the way. Oorah.”
“Wolverine Actual copies, moving out.” Responded Wilson.
“Oh and Wilson, get some BC’s on,” laughed the commander.
Wilson reluctantly pulled out a pair of BC goggles.
“Why are they called BC goggles Sarge?” I asked curiously.
“Stands for birth control,” came the reply. “Because you are never gonna get laid while wearing these,” he said as he turned and tossed them in my lap. “Na, I ain’t wearing those. No thank you.”
We rumbled down the concrete strip towards the camps gate. Inside the solid concrete guard booth to the right of the road sat one of the base MP’s. He was lounging leant, back in his swivel chair. With his feet up on the corrugated wooden desk, upon which sat his old bunny ear television. A garbled poor quality version of the Jeopardy theme was just beginning to play for the fifth time when his radio crackled to life. “Knock knock, we are rolling out so open up.”
“Roger that, happy hunting,” replied the guard. He hit the switch up on the wall behind his head without looking away from Trebek. “Oslo, Norway!” shouted the guard at the TV. Outside his enforced bunker the reinforced steel columns in the road way began to lower down into the tarmac. Wolverine actual, followed closely by Wolverine one and two, rumbled over the sunken defenses and took a hard right onto Dirt Road 13 as we called it. Vampire squad and Hunter squad pulled out behind us. “Jeff, man the .50, and watch the vehicle traffic coming down the left. Don’t engage unless they enter our lane, or show hostile intent.”
“Roger,” muttered Jeff as he cracked the roof hatch and stood up in the turret. The blistering sun beating down on him as they flew down the road. He took a deep breath of stale hot air and wished he could crawl back in the Humvee. “You gotta body like the Devil and you smell like sex!” he sung. “I can tell you’re trouble but I’m still obsessed.”
A little pitchy and somewhat lackluster in performance, Kid Rock would not have approved. He struggled through the chorus, mumbling most of the lines and picked up in the next verse. “Like the kiss of death, like the hand of faith.”
“Don’t quit your day job Jeff,” Eva shouted over her shoulder.
“Don’t like my singing voice Eva? How about my bedroom voice?” joked Jeff.
“Keep that up and you’re gonna be sucking your meals through a straw.”
“Shut up you two,” interrupted Wilson, “Go around this guy.” He gestured to a slow moving blue truck, with the sheep in the back, in front of us.
Eva touched the horn, which made a short, loud, honk. The driver didn’t heed the warning. “Common dumbass lets go, the gas is the one on the right,” muttered Eva as she punched the horn for a more aggressive honk. The driver quickly pulled off to the side of the road.
The radio crackled. “Wolverine Actual this is Vampire Actual, how copy?”
“This is Wolverine Actual, we copy.”
“We just received visual confirmation from Hitman Actual that their radios seem to be down.”
“Roger, do we know how long they are gonna be down for?”
“Negative. This is NFG.” Sighed Vampire, making use of the Marine saying, “No F’ing Good.”
“Roger. Lack of comms. is noted, advise as things progress.”
“Roger, will advise, Vampire out.”
Up ahead a large 18-wheeler could be seen covering both lanes. It appear to have been headed the same direction as us and had swung left across the oncoming lanes.
“Stop here Eva,” ordered Wilson, suddenly tense. Something was wrong here. “Could be an ambush. Hold here while I coordinate with Vampire and Hitman.” He grabbed the radio mic. “Wolverine Actual to Vampire Actual and Hitman One. We are stopped because the road ahead is blocked. We will hold here while we figure out what is wrong. Hitman One send a runner up to Hitman Actual and advise. Have the .50s cover the desert to either side. How copy.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
“Jeff, cover that truck,” order Wilson as he stepped from the jeep.
He walked to the front of the jeep and shouldered his rifle. Looking down the scope with the daytime scope cover on it he could see the truck but nothing was moving. The cab of the truck appeared empty. Wilson climbed back into the jeep. “Hey Sarge can I open a MRE? I’m hungry.”
“Roger, Jeremiah. Open at your own risk.”
I fumbled pulling the square brown box out of my under seat compartment. It looked more like a poorly wrapped Christmas present then military rations. It has “Meals, Ready-to-Eat” in giant black print. “Meals Ready-to-Eat,” I laughed. “Meals Rarely Eaten is more like,” as I leered suspiciously at the contents.
“Meals Rejected by Ethiopians,” chimed in Jeff from the turret.
“Drum roll,” laughed Eva as she tapped the steering wheel enthusiastically. “The final consensus is?”
“Vomit and severed fingers,” muttered Jeff, who was looking down from the turret into my food pouch.
Vomit and severed fingers was really some old beans with too much sauce as well as some small, preserved, hot dogs.
“Could be worse. You could have got phlegm and intestines MRE,” sighed Wilson without looking from his oversized map.
“What the hell is that?” asked Jeff.
“Not so sure,” responded Wilson. “They left the back of that MRE box blank.”
“Five foot mobiles at our three o’clock,” cackled the radio.
Wilson swiveled in his seat and looked out the right window through his scope. Seeing five Hijab clad figures and what appeared to be a goat he lowered his rifle.
“Roger, looks like five women walking, Sparky the family goat, over.”
“Jeff, keep an eye on ‘em off at our three.” Silence. “Jeff.” More silence. Then what sounded like a stream of water. “What the hell is he doing?” questioned Wilson as he spun around to see Jeff going to the washroom on the side of the road.
“Jeff, get in the damn jeep you fool.”
“Sorry chief just had to drain the main vein. Nearest head is back at base.”
“Hurry up you fool. You’re gonna get caught with your di-“
That is when Jeff’s blood splattered all over the side window.
“Wolverine Actual taking fire, dismount and engage,” shouted Wilson into the radio mic as he threw open his door.
Humvees began to empty out as the Marines took cover on the side not facing the enemy fire.
“Eva, get on the .50, Bullfrog, you’re going to grab Jeff. All units covering fire, Go, go, go!”
Eva clambered up into the turret, and spun it around to face the five, desert figures, which had now bunkered down and brandished rifles.
“Light ‘em up marine.”
The fifty caliber machine guns spat lead out into the desert, which shot up columns of hot sand. We called out to Jeff and told him to hang in there. He responded with a moan and blood spurting from his mouth. The sergeants ordered their marines to rear their ugly heads and opened fire, in most cases, blindly.
“Jeremiah, go! Now!”
Profanities erupted from my mouth as I took off running towards Jeff. I sprinted defiantly into the line of fire, dashing several feet before I threw myself down to the dusty, cracked earth. Overwhelming firepower shot into the desert to suppress the enemy. Several of the blurs shot back as distant, sporadic cracking sounds filled the air. Lying on the ground beside my dying friend. He asked me how bad a shape he was in. I lied. I heaved his heavy frame onto my shoulder and began the nerve racking, and mercifully short trip back to cover. Rounding the back corner of our Humvee I unceremoniously dump the now unconscious Jeff on the ground. Brass from the .50 cal clinks off the roof and down onto the hood of the jeep. I haul Jeff up into the rear seat of the Humvee. I brush casings off the seat and am about to jump in beside him when Wilson starts to yell at me. “Get in the passenger seat; we are getting the hell out of Dodge. Get on the horn and call in artillery on their position. Call for us to fall back starting with Wolverine elements and then Vampire and Hitman.”
A mortar shell hit the road 10 feet ahead with a dull thud and rained dirt on the hood. Several more fell, bracketing our vehicle. Nothing too serious.
“Fire Direction Control, we are in need of artillery support, over,” I shout into the mic.
“FDC copies, coordinates and type of fire.”
I grab Wilson’s giant map off the dash and unfold it. Thing is nearly origami. Damn it’s upside down. There we go.
“Ok, grid square 45 Echo, I repeat 45 Echo. Target is NLOS, 155 mike-mike, suggest MRSI firing pattern. Bursting ammunition, HE. Six rounds should do it.”
“Roger, that. Grid square 45 Echo. Target is non-line of sight. Multiple rounds simultaneous impact, 155 millimeter. Six rounds, high explosive.”
“Roger,” I clarify.
“Sit your ass in the dirt and keep it there. Impact in t-minus 30, enjoy the show.”
“Roger. Will do.”
I switch over to the column’s HF frequency. Wilson jumps into the driver seat and reaches around to pull Eva down by her khakis. “Shut that hatch private.” She screws the hatch down. Wilson grabs the mic from my hand. “Hard rain is gonna fall. Take cover. Take cover!”
The sudden whistling turned to a thunder, which turned to a roar. The six, 43 kg rounds fell from the heavens and slammed into Hell. A cacophony of explosions blew smoke and sand up into the sky. Blotting out the sun.
“Scratch five camel jockeys, let’s get Jeff to the base hospital,” shouted Wilson as he threw the wheel around in a sharp U-turn.
The trip back to base was more of a race than anything. The nine Humvees raced down the forsaken dirt strip, known as a road. All the 6.5L V8 turbos churning out huge amounts of diesel fumes as they bounded over the bumps and berms of the road.
We spotted a blue truck with sheep in the back up ahead. If he didn’t understand the message with the horn the first time he sure wasn’t gonna forget this time. Bam. We slammed into the back of the truck. Bam. Again. His back tires left the ground and he spun out of control and bounced off the road into the desert. “Nothing like trading a little paint eh Sarge?” I grimace nervously. I grab the radio. “Open up, we are coming home with causalities. Prep the ER for one wounded. Severe gunshot wound to the chest. Passed through the Kevlar and into the right side of the chest. It went in about five inches below the collarbone. I don’t know if it has punctured the lung, hold on.” I spin around in the seat. “Eva has it punctured the lung?”
Eva who is in the back on top of Jeff trying to stem the bleeding by applying direct pressure removes her hands for a second from his wound. He breaths out and a mist of bloody spray hisses from the hole and covers her face. It gurgles as he struggles to breathe in. “Shit we got ourselves a sucking chest wound.”
“Yes it has punctured his lungs. We have probably pneumothorax. He has air in his pleural cavity,” I try to explain. “Open the damn gate!” I shout as we approach at high speed.
“Double Jeopardy! That’s bull!” shouted the MP as he flicked the switch.
Wolverine Actual blew through the checkpoint and around a sharp left turn nearly taking out a roach coach and several MTOs. Wilson raced into the base hospital parking lot and parked across three makeshift spots skidding to a stop in front of the doors. Half a dozen corpsman and medical techs were waiting as we pulled up. They pulled open the rear door and hauled Jeff out, leaving a pool of blood where he was laying and a smear leading to the door. Eva was covered in blood from trying to stem his torrent. He was manhandled onto a gurney and rushed inside. The Dr. was just finishing scrubbing his hands and gloving up when the ER doors burst open.
“Nurse, mark for incisions please,” ordered the doctor as he approached the operating table. The bright halogen lights above were a cleansing white compared to the yellowing linoleum floor. They illuminated the blood pooled on Jeff’s chest around the wound.
“Catherine get some blood in here,” ordered one nurse as she flipped over Jeff’s dog tag. “AB negative,” she called after Catherine.
Catherine walked into the supply storeroom, and opened up the medical fridge. She scanned for AB negative. Ah. One bag left. Stuff was hard to come by so we better make it count she thought. She quickly returned to the room to start the infusion.
“Scalpel,” commanded the surgeon with a sense of calm authority as he began his cut. He followed the incision line through the superficial tissue and then began to graft a shaft through Jeff’s muscled chest into his chest cavity. After several minutes of artfully cleaving through muscle and fat they reached his ribs. They could see the mark on his ribs where the bullet had squeezed in between the ribs.
“Assistant, hold the spreaders while I search for the bullet.”
A pair of rib spreaders appeared and the assisting physician struggled to spread the ribs. The doctor began to carefully probe behind the wall of bone for the 7.62 round. Several seconds later, he removed with a practiced hand the well-formed bullet. Metal jacket. Nasty stuff. “Damn near bounced up into his Subclavian after it hit his ribs and lung. He got lucky; it didn’t penetrate the lung entirely, just grazed by after a deflection off his rib. Alright, let’s get some suction in here and clear out the plural cavity. We gotta clear up this blood so I can search for ruptured arteries and veins and fix up his lung.”
A tube was placed in his chest and hooked up to a pump to the right of his operating table. The pump was flipped on and an annoying moan filled the room. The lights dimmed as they fought the pump for limited energy. An ominous gurgling overwhelmed the moan of the pump. The staff in the room nervously looked at the quickly filling jar atop the pump. Everyone did the quick math. You had 12 pints in you. You could lose 4 before dying. Each infusion bag contains 2 pints. Once the jar showed six pints Jeff was on borrowed time. The doctors where struggling to pinch a bleeding blood vessel. “Ok I got it with the prongs. Pinch it. Nice.”
The two doctors worked with a practiced efficiency and continued to stop the bleeding and staple the small hole in his lung. The moan turned to a hiss. The pup was no longer sucking blood, but air out of his chest cavity. Good. The bleeding had stopped just in time. The bloody line was at five pints. One more was all it would have taken.
“Ok let’s seal him up and then get the air pump here to deal with this pneumothorax. Good work team,” smiled the doctor as he peeled off his surgical gloves. “Gonna be watching the game later today in the bar. If you wanna head over, drinks on me,” he called over the shoulder as he walked out of the operating theatre.
[/quote]Sorry if you spot any kind of punctuation/grammar mistakes. I did the best editing I could while making sure it still kept its original roots.
My friend has discontinued writing on it thus far (he writes it in sporadic spirits), but with enough positive feedback, he might continue. There are 7 chapters in total so far, but he's requested that I only post this for now.
So, what do you guys think?
Any feedback at all? I can post extra chapters if you wish.
He's been watching a fair old bit of Generation Kill or something, right? Maybe a tad more fact-checking needed (For example: Marines != Army). It seems to be pretty solidly written, apart from the odd hiccup and typo here and there. The main problem I have with it is that there's no real human investment in the story. It seems there's a lot of young male writers on the internet who just want to write lengthy, fairly pointless gun-porn. The story goes on for more than long enough to develop a character or two we care about, but it does nothing of the sort, instead just Michael Baying its way through the protagonist's day. There's nothing wrong with writing in a military setting, but tell him to write characters first, then stories.
That said, the writing shows a bit of technical flair, and that alone places it high above most similar stuff on the internet. He just needs to approach it from a more personal angle.
[QUOTE=Nigey Nige;29920691]He's been watching a fair old bit of Generation Kill or something, right? Maybe a tad more fact-checking needed (For example: Marines != Army). It seems to be pretty solidly written, apart from the odd hiccup and typo here and there. The main problem I have with it is that there's no real human investment in the story. It seems there's a lot of young male writers on the internet who just want to write lengthy, fairly pointless gun-porn. The story goes on for more than long enough to develop a character or two we care about, but it does nothing of the sort, instead just Michael Baying its way through the protagonist's day. There's nothing wrong with writing in a military setting, but tell him to write characters first, then stories.
That said, the writing shows a bit of technical flair, and that alone places it high above most similar stuff on the internet. He just needs to approach it from a more personal angle.[/QUOTE]
This is some great feedback, thanks! I'll forward it along.
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