TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF JFV

First you hear the sound of bells ringing, followed by a painful throbbing in your head, then you open your eyes only to see a giant blur. "Hey...Jackson? Jackson?" you hear a voice call out in panic. Soon, several figures wearing ACU camoflague come into view, all standing around holding weapons as one approaches you.

"What happened?" you ask as you push yourself off the floor, noticing you're wearing the same uniform, still wondering whether or not this is some kind of nightmare. As you look around the dark, damp room, your memory begins to creep back: you're Lawrence Timothy Jackson, US Army Sergeant with the 212th Military Police Battalion. You live in Union City and have a daughter named Sherry; you also have a wife but you haven't seen her in years...must be why you can't remember her either. You were working in the Police Department before you were deployed to Iraq 10 months ago to train Iraqi police officers here...things have been relatively quiet until now.

"You fell on your head after the explosion," the soldier answers, pointing up to the top bunk. He tells you to follow the small flashlight he shines in your eyes; as the ringing in your ears subsides, you can hear gunfire upstairs. "You're still concussed."

"What the hell are we waiting for?" one of the privates asks. "We gotta get the hell out of here!"

"Listen!" says another soldier. "We go upstairs they're gonna mow us down!"

"So we're just supposed to stay down here and wait to be-"

Everyone flinches as they hear something fall on the floor in the next room. Three soldiers click the safety off their weapons and sneak out the door. You notice a photo lying on the floor: it's you, smiling next to your wife and holding Sherry at her baptism. She looks just like her...so much that they'd pass for clones better than they would for mother and daughter. You close your eyes and try your hardest to remember that day, but...nothing.

As you sit on the bunk and lie down, still suffering from a massive headache, you notice stitches where you put your hands under your head. Perhaps your wife hit you on the back of the head with a frying pan when you left...THAT's why you can't remember anything. You were never much of a soldier, so how could you think you were any more of a husband?

The three soldiers slip back into the room, followed closely by two more. Unlike the rest of you, their rifles are heavily customized with scopes, laser sights, and handgrips.

"I'm Colonel Owen, this is Corporal Foster, we're with the 5th Special Forces Group," answers the older man. The other soldier catches your eyes; he's much younger than many of the other soldiers you're surrounded by and looks even more out of place in that uniform than you are.

"No offense," says one of the soldiers, "but please tell me you're not the reinforcements."

"An unknown insurgency group has launched attacks against all military and law enforcement personnel, American and Iraqi, all over the region. They've moved in heavy anti-aircraft weapons, so Command can't send any choppers until the rest of my men have secured a perimeter around the station."

"Why don't they get some armor in here?" asks one of the soldier.

"There's no armor left in the country to send. I requested heavy gunship support but Washington, in all its wisdom, decided against it. Too high-profile," answers Owen objectively while the other special forces soldier rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, it's much easier to cover up a dozen dead soldiers than an Iraqi civilian," snarks one of the soldiers.

"I'll scout upstairs," says Owen. "The rest of you stay put until I get back."

"You look familiar..." You see Owen's partner staring at you inquisitively while all the other soldiers clean their weapons and look at their pictures, possibly for the last time. Something else you just remembered about yourself...you don't like answering personal questions.

"I used to train guys down in Fort Knox," you answer. Name's Foster according to his nametag. Technically that's sort of true...whenever you screwed up in AIT, the Drill Sergeants would make an example out of you. "How long have you been in the country, Foster?"

"Not long, Sergeant," he answers briskly.

"Got a family back home?" You notice you touched a nerve when he looks away from you, but he answers before you can take it back.

"Army's my family, Sarge," he answers. "Dad's been away on business the last 10 years, Mom told me to never come back, stopped talking to my best friend, and I can't talk to either of my sisters without making them cry halfway through."

You pull out the photo of your family. "This is my daughter Sherry and this is my wife...haven't seen her in a long time either."

"Bad news," Owen walks through the door. "Insurgents brought in a civilian camera crew. They're giving an interview in the lobby. We'll just have to wait them out."

"Sir," says Foster, "we could be down here for hours."

"We can't risk endangering the civilians," he answers.

"We can just slip past-"

"No, Foster!" Owen answers sternly.

"I'm sick of this bullshit!" One of the soldiers clicks the safety off his gun and heads towards the door, yelling and screaming as the others try to hold him back. The shouting is quickly replaced by deathly quiet with two gunshots upstairs. Everyone backs away from the door, pointing their guns towards it as you hear loud chattering in Arabic and footsteps down the stairs.

"Come out, Johnny American," an insurgent taunts. You hear a woman whimpering in the background. "Come save this poor little girl from the big bad Arab who makes you pay so much for gas!"

"Don't even think about it," Owen whispers to Foster as he creeps towards the door.

"What happened to change?" he continues to taunt. "Where is this new direction your new leaders promised? Even if it does come, none of you will be around to see it!"

Following a gunshot, Foster kicks open the door and fires an entire clip out the door, with no regard for the AK-47 rounds whizzing past him. When the rest of you follow out the door, you see several bodies in the hallway...including a woman.

"We could have saved her," Foster pouts before suddenly grabbing Owen. "IF YOU HAD JUST HAD THE BALLS TO DO SOMETHING-"

"If you had just kept your mouth shut, they wouldn't have taken her hostage in the first place!" says Owen as the others pull Foster off him.

"You desk jockeys are all alike," Foster says angrily. "Don't give a rat's ass about anything but your own careers."

"Colonel, AA sites have been neutralized," crackles Owen's radio.

"Roger, head to EZ 3. We're heading for the roof. Might as well, go," says Owen. "And don't forget the chain of command, son. You need to learn how to keep your finger off the trigger."

"Hey," you whisper to Foster. "You did the right thing."

He looks down at the bodies on the floor without another word and you follow him up the stairs. You hear a handful of gunshots just when you reach the roof.

"Charlie Seven, rooftop is secure. Requesting extraction," says Owen.

"Roger, Charlie Seven approaching EZ 1, ETA 90 seconds. Watch for RPGs on the rooftops, over."

"Alpha, come in, over!" another, panic-stricken voice cries out.

"What's wrong, Bravo?" asks Owen.

"They were waiting for us...we took cover inside, but they have us pinned down, Colonel!"

"Can you make it outside?" he asks.

"Negative...no matter where we try to get out, they open up on us! Get out, now!"

"Hold on, we're coming! Let's go Foster!" he says just when the chopper lands.

"See you soon, Jackson!" says Foster as he runs after Owen before you can ask to go with them.

"Shouldn't we help them out?" you ask your men.

"They're spec ops! They've got this," one answers. You grudgingly climb on board the Blackhawk, but as the chopper takes off you watch two soldiers dash through the street into a building that explodes shortly after...

"What the hell was that?" you scream out. Owen...Foster...all those men...

"You didn't see the missile?" asks the pilot.

"Missile?" You notice a smoke trail just over the building that just got hit.

"No way anyone survived that," says the pilot. "I'm dropping you boys off at the RERS base south of Baghdad."

"What's RERS?" asks one of the soldiers. You continue staring in the direction of the explosion, even though it has long passed from sight.

"Roberts Engineering and Robotics Services," the pilot answers. "Should be about 10...hang on, Sergeant Jackson? Owen wants to speak with you."

You hear Owen coughing before he calls out, "Jackson...they came...took Foster...see Michael Durnham..."

"Medevac's going to pick up Owen," says the pilot. "We'll be landing at the RERS base shortly. They've taken over surveillance for this region. Jackson, soon as you get down, find out if they've got a drone on Foster."

"Yeah," you answer, worried for Foster's safety. At least there's some glimmer of hope...not that hope ever got you very far.