Hardcore Hunter Four -novel- [section 2] (please provide feedback)

At the tar-deck I could see that everyone from Hunter four was accounted for, and sat there watching as 500 other marines staged their gear in an organized manner ready for departure. I wanted to tell the guys about the baby during this moment of downtime, but I quickly decided that was a bad idea. I knew I would just open myself up for a barrage of jokes about how they cant wait to see their new baby and ask me if Melissa asks about them while in Iraq. In the distance beyond all of the camouflage I saw a mob forming near the front gates of the base, of what looked to me like civilians. I pointed them out to Sack

“Yeah that’s all friends and family of people waiting to see us off” sack said. That struck home to me, recalling those feelings of pride, and unwavering nobility of the warriors we were.

“It’s just like in the movies” I told Sack.

“The moment when the soldiers march off to battle, and their loved ones were there to throw flowers and shed tears” I told Sack.

“I don’t think anyone’s planning on throwing flowers here Pittinger. Flowers don’t come to this god-forsaken desert. This is 29-Stumps.” Sack replied slyly.

            Our buses arrived shortly after and we boarded with excitement, and intent. The next 24 hours were going to be the slowest I had ever experienced in my life with all of the anxiety of arriving, and so much travel time to get there. Once we arrived at our base “Al Asad” located in central Iraq we had to get debriefed on the proper way to conduct ourselves in the confines of the base. We also learned of the areas we would be patrolling and, a little intelligence on the current threats that seem to be the most prominent. After we got settled in our gigantic tent lined with cots, we all tried to calm ourselves down with a little music and small talk. I asked Belly

“How did things go man? When you said goodbye to your wife.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, and than said

“it was hard, but I mean, we all know the risks involved with this line of work and I know we’ll make it through this hell hole.”

In that moment I knew how worried Belly was about all this. I saw his pack of cards on top of his sea bag. I grabbed it and started to shuffle them.

“Lets play some spades,” I said with a smile on my face—knowing this would lift his spirits, and help a few other guys too.

“Count me out, I just wanna get some sleep,” Lehmar said from the adjacent cot, knowing we have to be prepared for what tomorrow brings. We all hit the rack and woke for our first day and went on a PT run. Through all this chaos we haven’t been able to do our regular PT, and it showed. We all struggled to keep up with Sack who was built like a gazelle. He could run like the wind, and always led the runs. Once finished we got ready for our patrol that morning, and geared the hummers with supplies.

            Upon leaving the gates of our base we locked and loaded our weapons and prepared ourselves for anything. We were expecting small arms fire, and cowardly attacks with rocket propelled grenades (RPG) from afar. Which didn’t have me shaking in my boots, because I knew how inaccurate an AK-47 and an RPG was.  As we approached the city of Hit while traveling a two-way paved road 15 miles south of our base I was in the lead vehicle about to go under an overpass bridge that potentially made us vulnerable. The fear is what could be on the bridge ready to shoot down at us at any moment so my eyes were on the bridge.

“Keep your eyes peeled hunter four,” I said over the radio to Lehmar, Sack, and Belly.

As we passed under the bridge I was searching diligently up high for any threats, when suddenly my gunner on the machine gun in our turret yells

“IED, IED, IED!!!!” (Improvised explosive device).

I relayed this message over the radio

“IED, IED, IED.”

My vehicle was already through to the other side of the bridge and alone at this point and the other vehicles pulled off in tactical positions before the bridge to set up a defensive perimeter.

“I saw red wires coming out of the ground inside an existing crater” said my gunner with a tremble in his voice.

I relayed the message to the other vehicles.

“Il go check it out and get a closer look” Belly said with confidence over the radio.

We were trained to identify things like this, and it all felt pretty routine other than the unnerving divide between my brothers and I. I watched as Belly approached the crater and when he was about 20 feet from it an engulfing dust cloud erupted from the crater and consumed the overpass rendering it invisible, and half a second later (as it took a moment for the sound to reach me) BOOM!

“BELLY! BELLY!!!” I screamed over the radio.

“Are you ok?!”

Then a loud Crack-Crack-Crack came from in front of me up the hill to the left.

“CONTACT FRONT!” my gunner yelled as he spun the turret toward the correct direction and began to lay down covering fire.

My inner warrior came out right then as I put what could be the death of my brother’s blame on the head of those Taliban on that hill. I unloaded a passionate 30 rounds out of my M-16 and upon a magazine change, I got on the radio.

“CONTACT FRONT!” I yelled to the rest of hunter four.

Within 20 seconds of my radio transmission the rest of hunter four got their vehicle in position around mine, as the IED threat was no more they could pass to the other side of the bridge. Lehmar got his vehicle into position and screamed

“Light that mother up!”

As his gunner launched about 20 grenade rounds from his MK-19 automatic grenade launcher mounted on his hummer, and everything grew silent. In that moment I looked over to find Belly’s vehicle to see the result of that explosion on my brother. Belly leaned forward to peak around the hummer at me and smiled with cuts and scratches all over his face, and a big glob of dirt in his teeth. He looked as happy and excited as a little boy who just had the best roller coaster ride of his life. Our first day on patrol, and we realized real quick the danger we were there to face.

            Later that night back at base after we briefed command on what had happened, we all needed a little private time to pull ourselves together. Most of the team was reading quietly in their cots, and I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to ask Belly.

Belly, how the hell did you walk away from that? I saw you; you were like 20 feet away from the damn thing when it blew.

The stupid Taliban buried the IED in the bottom of a hole, and I guess it was too deep in the ground to be effective, Belly replied in a baffled tone. It felt like a huge concussion wave, and a barrage of rocks getting thrown at me at 90mph, HAHA good thing I was wearing the groin protector on my flak jacket. I would hate to disappoint your sister when we get back, Belly smiled as he waited for me to retaliate.

I didn’t retaliate, I just smiled and nodded knowing that he was kidding, but really it was just me still shook up over the situation that unraveled on our first day.

[TO BE CONTINUED HERE] (CONCLUDED BELOW)

            Seven long months went by with a lot of firefights, IED attacks, and mortar attacks. Lehmar, Belly, and Sack all lived to tell their story, but we can’t say the same about 3 other Marines in a different platoon that we also frequently trained with and knew well, and Staff Sergeant Best our scout sniper leader. He was one of the toughest Marines that I ever knew. Upon departure of this horrible place my brothers and I looked at each other with pride, not for ourselves but for each other. I smelled the beautiful smell of feces and looked up ahead and saw those same gates that I left from seven months ago but now from the other side of the fence and relief come rushing over me. I was so excited to see Melissa, and knew that she had to be super pregnant at this point. The amount of people waiting for us at that base was astounding.

“Hey guys, there must be over a thousand people here. This cant be all for us, I bet president Bush is here or something” I stated to the whole bus.

It turns out that it was all for us, and when I stepped off that bus I searched relentlessly for about 5 minutes to find my wife—yelling her name up over the crowd, and once I heard her voice faintly respond from a distance I lost it. I barreled through the crowd in the direction I heard her voice as my eyes welled up with tears. When I saw her I froze. Time stopped in that moment while I Hugged her and that giant stomach. It was the best moment of my entire life, and put the rest of my life into perspective. As Melissa and I made our way through the crowd towards Lehmar, Sack, and Belly to head towards our car I looked over at my brothers. Strangely each of them looked over at me one by one and Lehmar gave me the crazy eyes, that said he was anxious to get some drinks in him, Sack couldn’t control his goofy crooked smile and gave me a cheesy thumbs up, Belly grinned and asked “Where’s your sister Pittinger?”

I smiled back and shook my head and yelled over to all 3 of them

“Spades at 1700 on Wednesday!”

We were heroes to everyone we knew, but to each other—we were just brothers.