Status: Just got off of my work season, have plenty of time to work. I've almost finished Chapter five.
Eighty-Four Days
Day One
34°30’N 71°04’E
DATE:
September 29th, 2012
03:15 GMT
September 29th, 2012
07:45 Local time
1 Days Of Deployment
I woke up under my own power … slowly. I was tired, and to be honest in a very pensive mood. I knew I wouldn’t be going home for quite a long time, and I also knew I wouldn’t be getting a good nights sleep for a very long time. Just the plane ride over to the base had already taken a little less than 18 hours, and it wasn’t finished yet. All of us had been told to occupy ourselves however we wanted, which means the majority of us had gone to sleep. There were 150 of us, and 120 different platoons in the Sixth Infantry Regiment. We were all in the Sixth Infantry Regiment. Statistically, this put the odds at one to three of having somebody on the plane that was going to be in your platoon. I was one of the three; I was the only new guy rotating into my platoon. There were also some platoons that didn’t even have anybody new rotating in, I heard one platoon had four different guys going into it; that’s only supposed to happen one time every hundred … statistically speaking of course. This is war, and I’ve quickly learned that statistics don’t matter. Still, the Sixth Infantry Regiment has a pretty low casualty rate, and that’s a statistic that does encourage me. As I checked my watch I realized that the plane would be landing in about 15 minutes. I’d been asleep twice, the first time for about three hours, the second time for about five. I was actually quite surprised at how quiet the C-5 Galaxy was. For being a huge 385-ton aircraft, it was quite a comfortable ride. I’d read through my briefing a few times … maybe a bit more than a few. After all, I’d had about 10 hours and nothing else to do, reading the same material was the only alternative to staring at a wall. We were being dropped off at the forward operating post of the Sixth Infantry Regiment. Evidently the air … or the terrain … or the infrastructure … or something wasn’t good enough for planes to land inside the military base itself, so they’d established a forward operating post for planes to land at. It was 35 to 40 miles inside the Afghanistan border of the outpost, and would take just under an hour to reach from the main base. They had Humvees galore waiting for all of us, and every platoon that was receiving a man was waiting at the forward operating post to pick us up. We were also all taking different routes back to the main outpost. Apparently this was also serving as today’s patrol. As the plane started to descend I looked at my watch again … right on time. It was eight o’clock on the dot. Well … the US Air Force does like to be punctual I guess. As the plane slowly (ever so slowly, I never realized how long it takes to slow down 385 tons going 450 miles an hour.) crawled to a stop, I did a once over on all of my gear. Just to be sure everything was secured and I wasn’t going to leave anything on the plane. I know if I did I’d never see it again. As the huge doors opened, we all started to file out in two lines. I was sitting in seat 147, so it took quite a long time for everyone in front of me to finally get off the plane. Once they did I started looking around for my platoon, luckily they all had signs next to them so it didn’t take me long to find where I was supposed to go.
“Hey there Corporal Múnez! Welcome to the 40th!” Said a man whom I assumed to be Second Lieutenant Patterson. He had the rank of Second Lieutenant emblazoned on his left soldier, and upon walking up to him I saw his name on the chest of his jacket.
“Sir. Thank you sir. It’s good to be here sir.” I said as I gave the most crisp salute I could manage while carrying both a backpack and a duffel bag.
“Please … call me Kellen. Treat me as you would my friend, the formalities aren’t necessary. In fact I think I mentioned that in my letter to you … did you even read that thing Corporal?” He asked, I couldn’t tell whether the look on his face was accusing, or amused and sarcastic.
“Si- … er … yeah … Yes I did.” I half stuttered as I relaxed my posture and got a better grip on the duffel bag that was about to fall to the sandy ground.
“Relax man, we’re all friends here. If we weren’t we’d end up shooting each other.” He paused for a few seconds, looking me over. His look had changed to one of amusement … or perhaps it was sincere kindness … Then he turned sharply “Ryan! Help him get his stuff in the trunk, if we don’t move soon then Travis will leave without us.” He said the words in a very relaxed tone. Not so relaxed that it wasn’t clearly an order, but he didn’t bark out the words either. It was clear he really did treat the men in his platoon as if they were close friends … and it would make sense that that’s exactly what they were.
Ryan came over to me and grabbed my duffel. He was huge, about one and a half times my size. This was the first thing I noticed; the second was that on his left shoulder, where it typically said soldier, it instead said Engineer and Demolitions. No wonder he is so large, he’s the one tasked with carrying around huge explosives all the time. Just above this badge is the staff sergeant insignia; he’s two ranks above me. We walked to the Humvee together and started putting my things into the trunk. Kellen had already gotten into the passenger side. After this Ryan opened the rear left door of the Humvee for me.
“After you sir.” He said with a sarcastic bow. … Are they really mocking the FNG already?
“Thank you very much sir.” I replied crisply. This got a laugh out of him, and I couldn’t tell what it was. My only guess was that it because I had reverted into military respect again.
After this Ryan closed the door and got into the driver’s seat. He started up the Humvee and a voice came over the radio.
“Finally, are you guys done having your tea party yet? Let’s get moving!” Said the voice.
Kellen replied “Yeah we’re finshed Travis … and it only took about five minutes, that’s pretty fast for a tea party.”
Travis laughed a few times over the radio before replying “True that man, I just hate sitting around doing nothing … I get bored, let’s go shoot crap!”
“Whatever you say Travis.” Kellen replied with a smile and a rolling of his eyes.
With that, we started moving. Some of the other Platoons had already left, others looked like they wouldn’t be leaving for a while. The Humvee I was in was the second in a line of five, and had five people counting myself. Presumably all the other Humvees also had five people in them.
“We don’t exactly have time for introductions right now Corprol Múnez, but once we get to the main base I’ll get you aquainted with everyone.” Kellen said turning awkwardly to me
“Alright. Thank you.” I replied, not really sure of what else to say.
The first forty minutes of the trip went fast. Ryan and Kellen were talking either to each other or over the radio virtually the entire time. The two guys on either side of me, whose names I still didn’t know, kept saying random words to each other. One would say an adjective, and then the other would follow it with a noun. Then they would switch who said what, always following the adjective with a noun. The two words appeared to be uncorrelated and totally random almost every time. I couldn’t tell whether they were playing a game, or were just bored. Suddenly I didn’t care.
A small streak of whitish-orange was all that I saw, that was the only notice I got.
Then the Humvee in front of us exploded out of its right side.
Suddenly Kellen had the radio in his hands and was screaming into it. “Unit two hit, RPG right side, catastrophic!”
Meanwhile Ryan had wasted no time at all in stepping on the accelerator and maneuvering the Humvee around the one in front of us so that our rear end was nearly touching the front left of the now flaming piece of brown metal. He threw the gearbox into park, then opened his door and got out. I followed suit, and so did everyone else in the Humvee, every man getting out the left side of the vehicle. Only after I got out of the Humvee and felt my feet hit the floor did I truly grasp what had happened: The Humvee in front of us had been hit by an RPG coming from our right side; as far as anyone could tell nobody was there and it was a road-side bomb. It hadn’t penetrated that Humvee, it had just rocked it and set its right side on fire. It only took about four seconds for Ryan to maneuver our Humvee in front of it so we could try and get the people inside of it out. There were people, presumably Al-Queda, shooting at us from in front of us. This was most likely the reason why Ryan had parked where he did, to give us cover while we evacuated the shot Humvee. The other three Humvees had also taken up covering positions, effectively surrounding the originally attacked Humvee in a protective circle. All of this realization came to me in an instant, and in the next instant I had the side of the Humvee pressed against my torso while I was looking through the scope of my M4 taking aim on the dots that were flashing in front of me.
“Multiple targets, 200 yards!” Somebody to my left shouted.
There were several people lining the undamaged Humvees shooting back at whomever it was shooting at us. All the rest of the people in my platoon were helping the soldiers out of the original Humvee.
I took aim and began firing. I could just barely see what I was pretty sure where the people firing at us. Most were hiding behind cars or some other type of barrier. A few were standing out in the open; they were the first ones to drop. There were at least twenty targets that I could see. I shot at four or five different ones, and only God knows if it was one of my bullets that made them stop shooting. I had my focus completely trained on what was going on in front of me, and the potentially injured fellow soldiers behind me had been completely pushed out of my mind. What I did was complete instinct. I raised my rifle, found a blinking dot, traced it back to what I assumed was the person causing it, and squeezed the trigger. My M4 was set to three shot burst, and I used very little time in between each burst. The first two took several shots to bring down. I used perhaps fifteen to twenty on each, burning through at least one whole cartridge. After switching to the second cartridge I found a man who was standing in the open, he only needed three shots. I squeezed the trigger and he fell to the ground in a quick counter-clockwise spinning motion. The next two that found my targeting recital, weren’t as well covered as the first two. I was no longer counting the bullets I used, but just firing until I saw them drop. After they did I looked around for another target but could find none. It took less than five seconds for me to hear the man to my left.
“Clear!” He shouted.
He was quickly answered by the man behind him. “What the fuck was that? What the hell happened?”
There was plenty of talk on the radio I had attached to my shoulder as well, and it wasn’t even tuned to our platoon’s frequency yet. “Repeat. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion has been ambushed, potential casualties. Nearby units en route, ETA two minutes. CASEVAC en route, ETA ten minutes. This is 6th Regiment Actual. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion if you can hear us, please respond and update. Repeat in two. Over” It was the main base, The message had started with the word repeat which meant that wasn’t the first time it’d been played over the radio. The entire firefight had taken less than five minutes, yet main base had already been notified.
“You hear that? They said CASEVAC in ten minutes, who do we have injured?” Said somebody to my left.
At this point I had turned around and was kneeling behind the Humvee checking my gear. I hadn’t yet thought to look up and see how bad the damage had been. There were still some people pointing their weapons in the area of the earlier shooting and looking down their sights.
“We’ve only got one injured, he can wait ten minutes … he’ll survive. Anybody else will just have a headache.” That was Kellen’s voice. I looked up.
There were two people laying on the ground who looked unconscious, and a third who was sitting up against the Humvee (which was still on fire.) He had a medic with a red cross on his chest and left arm that had removed his helmet and was holding a white cloth to his head. As he adjusted his arm a bit I saw that a large portion of the cloth had been stained a deep red. There were three other medics as well. They were all talking urgently with each other, about what I had no guess. Suddenly another group of five Humvees rolled up, each one with a people standing in the turret. The first Humvee in this line stopped suddenly, and the passenger got out.
After running the short ten meters to Kellen, he stopped. “What’s the situation? Where’s the fight?” He asked urgently
The message had started playing on the radio again. “Repeat. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion has been ambushed, potential casualties. Nearby units en route, ETA 30 seconds. CASEVAC en route, ETA eight minutes. This is 6th Regiment Actual. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion if you can hear us, please respond and update. Repeat in two. Over”
Kellen looked at the newly arrived soldier. His rank was even higher than Kellen’s, he was a first lieutenant. He raised his arm towards the road in front of us. “That was the fight. We were ambushed by about twenty guerilla soldiers, probably Al-Queda; we haven’t investigated yet. The fighting stopped shortly ago, we only have one casualty, and it’s non-lethal. We can wait for CASEVAC and unless more terrorists show up then we only need to wait here for CASEVAC assistance.”
The first lieutenant had 3rd Battalion, 23rd Platoon emblazoned on his left side arm. “Alright, glad to hear it wasn’t worse. We’ll go investigate, you just sit here and wait for that CASEVAC. If you need us we’re only a shout away.” He started to turn away, but then stopped. He looked back at Kellen. “Hey, do you need another radio? We’ve got one if you need one. Actual is still wondering what the hell happened to you guys out here.”
“No, we’ve got a radio, we’ve just been too focused on the wounded to realize the radio was talking to us. I’ll let ‘em know. Thanks.” Kellen said. He saluted the soldier, and reached towards his own hand-held radio attached to his belt.
“Anytime, good luck.” The first lieutenant returned the salute then ran back to his Humvee shouting orders on the way there.
He got in and they started moving.
Kellen was already on the radio. “6th Regiment Actual, this is 3rd Battalion, 40th Platoon. Over.”
“3rd Battalion, 40th Platoon, we read you loud and clear. What is your situation? Over.”
“We were ambushed by a group of Al-Queda. There were roughly twenty. 23rd Platoon is investigating right now. Situation is under control as of this moment, no further backup is needed. We do have one casualty. What’s the status of that CASEVAC? Over.”
“It’s about 7 minutes out, we have less equipped but faster units if you need. Over.”
“No that’s fine, it’s non-lethal, we can wait the seven minutes. Over.”
“Copy that. Anything else? Over.”
“Nope, that’s our situation here. Over.”
“Solid copy, 6th Regiment Actual Out.”
Kellen walked back to where the medics were talking. He didn’t need to say anything to them, they’d heard everything. … We all had. Ryan on my right side grabbed my shoulder.
“Well kid … welcome to day one.”
DATE:
September 29th, 2012
03:15 GMT
September 29th, 2012
07:45 Local time
1 Days Of Deployment
I woke up under my own power … slowly. I was tired, and to be honest in a very pensive mood. I knew I wouldn’t be going home for quite a long time, and I also knew I wouldn’t be getting a good nights sleep for a very long time. Just the plane ride over to the base had already taken a little less than 18 hours, and it wasn’t finished yet. All of us had been told to occupy ourselves however we wanted, which means the majority of us had gone to sleep. There were 150 of us, and 120 different platoons in the Sixth Infantry Regiment. We were all in the Sixth Infantry Regiment. Statistically, this put the odds at one to three of having somebody on the plane that was going to be in your platoon. I was one of the three; I was the only new guy rotating into my platoon. There were also some platoons that didn’t even have anybody new rotating in, I heard one platoon had four different guys going into it; that’s only supposed to happen one time every hundred … statistically speaking of course. This is war, and I’ve quickly learned that statistics don’t matter. Still, the Sixth Infantry Regiment has a pretty low casualty rate, and that’s a statistic that does encourage me. As I checked my watch I realized that the plane would be landing in about 15 minutes. I’d been asleep twice, the first time for about three hours, the second time for about five. I was actually quite surprised at how quiet the C-5 Galaxy was. For being a huge 385-ton aircraft, it was quite a comfortable ride. I’d read through my briefing a few times … maybe a bit more than a few. After all, I’d had about 10 hours and nothing else to do, reading the same material was the only alternative to staring at a wall. We were being dropped off at the forward operating post of the Sixth Infantry Regiment. Evidently the air … or the terrain … or the infrastructure … or something wasn’t good enough for planes to land inside the military base itself, so they’d established a forward operating post for planes to land at. It was 35 to 40 miles inside the Afghanistan border of the outpost, and would take just under an hour to reach from the main base. They had Humvees galore waiting for all of us, and every platoon that was receiving a man was waiting at the forward operating post to pick us up. We were also all taking different routes back to the main outpost. Apparently this was also serving as today’s patrol. As the plane started to descend I looked at my watch again … right on time. It was eight o’clock on the dot. Well … the US Air Force does like to be punctual I guess. As the plane slowly (ever so slowly, I never realized how long it takes to slow down 385 tons going 450 miles an hour.) crawled to a stop, I did a once over on all of my gear. Just to be sure everything was secured and I wasn’t going to leave anything on the plane. I know if I did I’d never see it again. As the huge doors opened, we all started to file out in two lines. I was sitting in seat 147, so it took quite a long time for everyone in front of me to finally get off the plane. Once they did I started looking around for my platoon, luckily they all had signs next to them so it didn’t take me long to find where I was supposed to go.
“Hey there Corporal Múnez! Welcome to the 40th!” Said a man whom I assumed to be Second Lieutenant Patterson. He had the rank of Second Lieutenant emblazoned on his left soldier, and upon walking up to him I saw his name on the chest of his jacket.
“Sir. Thank you sir. It’s good to be here sir.” I said as I gave the most crisp salute I could manage while carrying both a backpack and a duffel bag.
“Please … call me Kellen. Treat me as you would my friend, the formalities aren’t necessary. In fact I think I mentioned that in my letter to you … did you even read that thing Corporal?” He asked, I couldn’t tell whether the look on his face was accusing, or amused and sarcastic.
“Si- … er … yeah … Yes I did.” I half stuttered as I relaxed my posture and got a better grip on the duffel bag that was about to fall to the sandy ground.
“Relax man, we’re all friends here. If we weren’t we’d end up shooting each other.” He paused for a few seconds, looking me over. His look had changed to one of amusement … or perhaps it was sincere kindness … Then he turned sharply “Ryan! Help him get his stuff in the trunk, if we don’t move soon then Travis will leave without us.” He said the words in a very relaxed tone. Not so relaxed that it wasn’t clearly an order, but he didn’t bark out the words either. It was clear he really did treat the men in his platoon as if they were close friends … and it would make sense that that’s exactly what they were.
Ryan came over to me and grabbed my duffel. He was huge, about one and a half times my size. This was the first thing I noticed; the second was that on his left shoulder, where it typically said soldier, it instead said Engineer and Demolitions. No wonder he is so large, he’s the one tasked with carrying around huge explosives all the time. Just above this badge is the staff sergeant insignia; he’s two ranks above me. We walked to the Humvee together and started putting my things into the trunk. Kellen had already gotten into the passenger side. After this Ryan opened the rear left door of the Humvee for me.
“After you sir.” He said with a sarcastic bow. … Are they really mocking the FNG already?
“Thank you very much sir.” I replied crisply. This got a laugh out of him, and I couldn’t tell what it was. My only guess was that it because I had reverted into military respect again.
After this Ryan closed the door and got into the driver’s seat. He started up the Humvee and a voice came over the radio.
“Finally, are you guys done having your tea party yet? Let’s get moving!” Said the voice.
Kellen replied “Yeah we’re finshed Travis … and it only took about five minutes, that’s pretty fast for a tea party.”
Travis laughed a few times over the radio before replying “True that man, I just hate sitting around doing nothing … I get bored, let’s go shoot crap!”
“Whatever you say Travis.” Kellen replied with a smile and a rolling of his eyes.
With that, we started moving. Some of the other Platoons had already left, others looked like they wouldn’t be leaving for a while. The Humvee I was in was the second in a line of five, and had five people counting myself. Presumably all the other Humvees also had five people in them.
“We don’t exactly have time for introductions right now Corprol Múnez, but once we get to the main base I’ll get you aquainted with everyone.” Kellen said turning awkwardly to me
“Alright. Thank you.” I replied, not really sure of what else to say.
The first forty minutes of the trip went fast. Ryan and Kellen were talking either to each other or over the radio virtually the entire time. The two guys on either side of me, whose names I still didn’t know, kept saying random words to each other. One would say an adjective, and then the other would follow it with a noun. Then they would switch who said what, always following the adjective with a noun. The two words appeared to be uncorrelated and totally random almost every time. I couldn’t tell whether they were playing a game, or were just bored. Suddenly I didn’t care.
A small streak of whitish-orange was all that I saw, that was the only notice I got.
Then the Humvee in front of us exploded out of its right side.
Suddenly Kellen had the radio in his hands and was screaming into it. “Unit two hit, RPG right side, catastrophic!”
Meanwhile Ryan had wasted no time at all in stepping on the accelerator and maneuvering the Humvee around the one in front of us so that our rear end was nearly touching the front left of the now flaming piece of brown metal. He threw the gearbox into park, then opened his door and got out. I followed suit, and so did everyone else in the Humvee, every man getting out the left side of the vehicle. Only after I got out of the Humvee and felt my feet hit the floor did I truly grasp what had happened: The Humvee in front of us had been hit by an RPG coming from our right side; as far as anyone could tell nobody was there and it was a road-side bomb. It hadn’t penetrated that Humvee, it had just rocked it and set its right side on fire. It only took about four seconds for Ryan to maneuver our Humvee in front of it so we could try and get the people inside of it out. There were people, presumably Al-Queda, shooting at us from in front of us. This was most likely the reason why Ryan had parked where he did, to give us cover while we evacuated the shot Humvee. The other three Humvees had also taken up covering positions, effectively surrounding the originally attacked Humvee in a protective circle. All of this realization came to me in an instant, and in the next instant I had the side of the Humvee pressed against my torso while I was looking through the scope of my M4 taking aim on the dots that were flashing in front of me.
“Multiple targets, 200 yards!” Somebody to my left shouted.
There were several people lining the undamaged Humvees shooting back at whomever it was shooting at us. All the rest of the people in my platoon were helping the soldiers out of the original Humvee.
I took aim and began firing. I could just barely see what I was pretty sure where the people firing at us. Most were hiding behind cars or some other type of barrier. A few were standing out in the open; they were the first ones to drop. There were at least twenty targets that I could see. I shot at four or five different ones, and only God knows if it was one of my bullets that made them stop shooting. I had my focus completely trained on what was going on in front of me, and the potentially injured fellow soldiers behind me had been completely pushed out of my mind. What I did was complete instinct. I raised my rifle, found a blinking dot, traced it back to what I assumed was the person causing it, and squeezed the trigger. My M4 was set to three shot burst, and I used very little time in between each burst. The first two took several shots to bring down. I used perhaps fifteen to twenty on each, burning through at least one whole cartridge. After switching to the second cartridge I found a man who was standing in the open, he only needed three shots. I squeezed the trigger and he fell to the ground in a quick counter-clockwise spinning motion. The next two that found my targeting recital, weren’t as well covered as the first two. I was no longer counting the bullets I used, but just firing until I saw them drop. After they did I looked around for another target but could find none. It took less than five seconds for me to hear the man to my left.
“Clear!” He shouted.
He was quickly answered by the man behind him. “What the fuck was that? What the hell happened?”
There was plenty of talk on the radio I had attached to my shoulder as well, and it wasn’t even tuned to our platoon’s frequency yet. “Repeat. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion has been ambushed, potential casualties. Nearby units en route, ETA two minutes. CASEVAC en route, ETA ten minutes. This is 6th Regiment Actual. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion if you can hear us, please respond and update. Repeat in two. Over” It was the main base, The message had started with the word repeat which meant that wasn’t the first time it’d been played over the radio. The entire firefight had taken less than five minutes, yet main base had already been notified.
“You hear that? They said CASEVAC in ten minutes, who do we have injured?” Said somebody to my left.
At this point I had turned around and was kneeling behind the Humvee checking my gear. I hadn’t yet thought to look up and see how bad the damage had been. There were still some people pointing their weapons in the area of the earlier shooting and looking down their sights.
“We’ve only got one injured, he can wait ten minutes … he’ll survive. Anybody else will just have a headache.” That was Kellen’s voice. I looked up.
There were two people laying on the ground who looked unconscious, and a third who was sitting up against the Humvee (which was still on fire.) He had a medic with a red cross on his chest and left arm that had removed his helmet and was holding a white cloth to his head. As he adjusted his arm a bit I saw that a large portion of the cloth had been stained a deep red. There were three other medics as well. They were all talking urgently with each other, about what I had no guess. Suddenly another group of five Humvees rolled up, each one with a people standing in the turret. The first Humvee in this line stopped suddenly, and the passenger got out.
After running the short ten meters to Kellen, he stopped. “What’s the situation? Where’s the fight?” He asked urgently
The message had started playing on the radio again. “Repeat. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion has been ambushed, potential casualties. Nearby units en route, ETA 30 seconds. CASEVAC en route, ETA eight minutes. This is 6th Regiment Actual. 40th Platoon, 3rd Battalion if you can hear us, please respond and update. Repeat in two. Over”
Kellen looked at the newly arrived soldier. His rank was even higher than Kellen’s, he was a first lieutenant. He raised his arm towards the road in front of us. “That was the fight. We were ambushed by about twenty guerilla soldiers, probably Al-Queda; we haven’t investigated yet. The fighting stopped shortly ago, we only have one casualty, and it’s non-lethal. We can wait for CASEVAC and unless more terrorists show up then we only need to wait here for CASEVAC assistance.”
The first lieutenant had 3rd Battalion, 23rd Platoon emblazoned on his left side arm. “Alright, glad to hear it wasn’t worse. We’ll go investigate, you just sit here and wait for that CASEVAC. If you need us we’re only a shout away.” He started to turn away, but then stopped. He looked back at Kellen. “Hey, do you need another radio? We’ve got one if you need one. Actual is still wondering what the hell happened to you guys out here.”
“No, we’ve got a radio, we’ve just been too focused on the wounded to realize the radio was talking to us. I’ll let ‘em know. Thanks.” Kellen said. He saluted the soldier, and reached towards his own hand-held radio attached to his belt.
“Anytime, good luck.” The first lieutenant returned the salute then ran back to his Humvee shouting orders on the way there.
He got in and they started moving.
Kellen was already on the radio. “6th Regiment Actual, this is 3rd Battalion, 40th Platoon. Over.”
“3rd Battalion, 40th Platoon, we read you loud and clear. What is your situation? Over.”
“We were ambushed by a group of Al-Queda. There were roughly twenty. 23rd Platoon is investigating right now. Situation is under control as of this moment, no further backup is needed. We do have one casualty. What’s the status of that CASEVAC? Over.”
“It’s about 7 minutes out, we have less equipped but faster units if you need. Over.”
“No that’s fine, it’s non-lethal, we can wait the seven minutes. Over.”
“Copy that. Anything else? Over.”
“Nope, that’s our situation here. Over.”
“Solid copy, 6th Regiment Actual Out.”
Kellen walked back to where the medics were talking. He didn’t need to say anything to them, they’d heard everything. … We all had. Ryan on my right side grabbed my shoulder.
“Well kid … welcome to day one.”