Author's Note
This is a new story Idea. Not sure where it's going to go. One day I was taking a number two and the idea hit me. It's funny how things just come to you at random moments.
I'd like to thank my girlfriend for all the motivation. If it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't be doing this. It'll never happen wouldn't have made it past chapter three without her. I can't help but put a little bit of her into these stories I write.
Like I always say at the beginning of everything I write, If you don't like the characters or what they do, then you won't like me. I base these thing's off my life in one way or another.
I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
Bullets were flying everywhere. Men screaming. The ground was covered with blood, both ours and theirs. They'd made it through the wire and were right on top of us. It was hand to hand in most places.
I felt a searing pain on my left side. No time to check what it was. Turning to my right I fired off two quick rounds at an enemy who took down my battle buddy. Another searing pain on my left. If something didn't change soon we'd be overrun.
I climbed out of my fighting position and hustled to the fall back point. We were long past any form of organized fight. It was pure instinct now. When I reached the inner perimeter it was me and six other soldiers. A fresh lieutenant, two other sergeants, a specialist, and three privates. Where the hell was everyone else?
There were still gunshots coming from the outer perimeter. Still screams of pain and battle cries of the dying. We still had guys out there. Fuck. 'I will never leave a fallen comrade.' That's part of the warrior ethos. Nobody wanted to go back out there, but hell it looked like we didn't have a choice.
We were getting damn near black on ammo. The ammo bunker was halfway across the FOB, right where the majority of the fighting was taking place. The Isis fighters came from the east. It was strange, seeing a coordinated attack of this size from them. They were usually a 'hit it and quit it' sort of people as we called them.
"Alright guys. Mount up!" The LT called out. He knew what had to be done.
The lieutenant was a good one, as rare as that was. Most fresh officers were chicken shit soldiers who didn't know their head from their ass. LT was different. He made it up to Sergeant before he went green to gold and got his commission, so he knew the ropes pretty good.
Without saying anything more, he hopped out of the bunker and made his way across the small opening and dove into the next fighting hole. One by one the rest of us followed, the others giving suppressive fire.
Once they saw us moving, we were the new target. Rounds popping over our heads so close they sounded like bees flying by. You almost wanted to reach out and swat at it if you didn't know any better. Moving down the line we fired off rounds only when we had a certain target. We were red on ammo. I had a mag and a half, the rest of the guys weren't much better off.
I saw a group of soldiers out on the outer perimeter, clearly wounded, some mortally, but they were still putting up one hell of a fight. I looked to my left and saw Doc, our medic, making his rounds with no concern for his own safety. He just wanted to make the dying more comfortable with morphine, and save the ones he could, granted we get out of this alive. Where were the damn reinforcements? A QRF should be here by now. It's been nearly fifteen minutes.
Just as I popped up to make my way to the group of soldiers out front, an explosion rocked the earth to my right, picking me up and throwing me against a barrier. As soon as I hit the ground I felt what seemed to be a sledgehammer blow to my chest, and the world went black.
**
I woke up screaming. Sweat covered my whole body. I looked around frantically and realized I was in my room. On my childhood bed. My dad burst through the door just as I had started to calm down. My chest was heaving. I was out of breath. The look on his face was one of understanding. He fought in the gulf war. I never heard much about it, but I did hear him wake up with a start every now and again during my childhood, and loud sudden noises still set him off.
It was then that I thought I might wind up like him. No. That won't be me. The only reason I was still having these nightmares is that it happened only two months ago.
**
My name is Sergeant Matt Richardson. Most everyone in the army that knew me called me Danger Snake, or some variation of it. The story behind that is that one time, on my first tour in Afghanistan I crawled into a little enemy camp and eliminated three of their guards just because someone bet me I couldn't. I was a little careless on my first tour. It's a wonder I made it out alive.
The nickname eventually spread into my civilian life after a few of my childhood friends met some of my Army buddies. I joined the army straight out of high school, and found myself 'across the pond' as they say a few short months later. At two years I made specialist, getting sent to BLC and promoted to Sergeant with a waiver four months after that.
I went back to Afghanistan at about three years into my contract, and made it about four months into that tour before being wounded and sent home. A month later I was cleared for duty, and much to the disapproval of my superiors, I was back on a plane across the pond to rejoin my unit. My unit was infantry, and we specialized in small team and squad operations, occasionally moving as a platoon, and even less frequently as a company. We weren't special forces, but we were as close as you could get without actually being the real thing.
Three months after I got back to Afghanistan for the third time, my company was moved to FOB X-ray to reinforce a special forces unit. They were expected to get some action in the near future and needed all the help they could get.
The SF unit was out on a mission the day of the attack. They left at o-three-hundred hours, and by sun up, we were under attack. That's when I got hit. After the explosion, I got shot again, and blacked out. The QRF team got there a few minutes later and scattered the remaining Isis, re-securing the FOB and extracting the wounded. I was shot four times and had at least half a dozen shrapnel wounds in my arms and legs. I'd definitely wind up with some nasty scars.
I was twenty two years old, had six bullet holes in me and some left over shrapnel in my body that would set off metal detectors for the rest of my life. I was in the hospital in a coma for two weeks after the attack, and had been released to go home after I woke back up. At this point I was on medical leave until I was back to full strength, which the doctors predicted could take months. I could still move just fine, but I wasn't a hundred percent. I doubted it would take months.
**
"Another PBR?" Asked Frank, the bartender at the Crossroads, the only bar in my hometown. He knew me growing up, just as it seemed everyone in this town did.
