Drafted War Story

I slid quickly into cover, bullets kicking up dirt and ricocheting off the small concrete barrier I was behind. My heart raced and my breathing was fast as adrenaline coursed through my body. I got up on to a knee and aimed downrange, firing a few rounds from my M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle towards the middle of the compound where the fire was coming from. I was our squad's Designated Marksman.

"Heads down grenade out!" Talbot, our Combat Support Specialist, yelled out as he got down into cover beside me, chucking out a frag grenade. The following explosion sent dirt flying into my lap as I sat back down behind cover.

"Scroggs you good?" He yelled to me.

"Yeah!" I hollered back over the noise.

"'Ey someone needs to get over there and--" Talbot croaked mid-sentence as his head violently yanked on its axis as a loud and quick 'pong' sound emitted, a red mist shot from the temple of his skull and through his helmet, splashing on the ground behind him.

"Fuck!" I yelled out as he hit the ground. His exosuit shut down, and his body twitched lightly as he exhaled loudly. He was dead.

"Sniper!!! Talbot's down!!!" I called out. "We got a sniper somewhere!"

I looked to my right and saw guys rushing from the garage towards the center of the compound and planting rounds downrange, an AT4 missile 'whooshed' out and exploded at the wall of a building in the distance, some 70 meters from me, forcing it to the ground.

Peaking up over the concrete barrier, I saw a small building just across the small dirt road in front of me, and dropped down just in time to hear a high-caliber round slap the top of my cover.

"Whoa Goddamn!" I said aloud. "That damn sniper has me locked." I thought. My buddies farther down were calling out enemy movements, among other things. Looking up again, I saw the shot from the sniper as he took aim at the others.

This was my chance. I bounded over my cover and to the next building. My exoskeleton suit helped me jump up to the roof of the small building, and I immediately dropped to the prone position behind a small AC unit.

I shifted to the left just as a round from the sniper penetrated right through the unit and ricocheted off the roof.

"Whoa, shit!" I said. I determined he was using something along the lines of .308 caliber, maybe bigger. My tactical sunglasses were feeding me data on my squad, the mini map in the lower left corner showing me they were still close by.

The other squads moved on to attempt to secure objectives 'Cheddar' and 'Parmesan'. We were supporting them.

"'Ey you guys good down there?" I keyed in over my microphone.

"Yeah! We're good! You see that sniper?" Iverson, our squad's Close Quarters Combatant, responded.

"Yeah, he's posted up on that small hill outside the compound, about 200 meters out! I can't get a bead on 'im, he's got me pinned down up here!" I radioed back.

"Scroggins, we'll suppress him a bit, and you lay one in his fuckin' head!" Sergeant Bendez commanded. "Get him off the rest of our squad!"

"Got it Sergeant!" I said, lowering the bipod on my DMR and getting ready to act quickly.

"Alright guys cover Scroggs!" Bendez said over the net as he and the others started lighting up the hill beyond the perimeter of the compound. A round went through the AC unit again and flew off, but it was further away from me this time. They had him scared, even if only a little.

I took that chance, knowing the sniper would have to chamber the next round into the barrel before shooting again, and kneeled up behind the small AC unit, laying the bipod on it and steadying my aim quickly.

He was right in my crosshairs and I took the shot, just as he squeezed off one more round.

The round went right through my leg, luckily missing the bone. I grunted out in pain.

"ERRRGHHH...!" I fell down to my back and looked down at the wound. It looked like it must have just grazed my left thigh, penetrating right through the ballistic thigh pad made of magnetorheological liquid body armor I wore. The wound was big enough that the round could have easily taken my leg clean off had it went straight through the bone.

The anatomy-figure in the upper-left corner of my heads-up display on my tactical sunglasses changed, the left thigh was highlighted orange, showing critical damage. The overall reading of my status, labeled "CND" for condition, read 34%, based on pain level, adrenaline and heart rate, and blood loss.

"I'm hit!" I yelled out on the radio to my squad's.

"Shit, keep me covered!" Jerome Love, our squad's medic and my close buddy, yelled out. "Hold tight bro, I'm comin'!"

"Hartfeld, Erickson, bound up to the road and keep overwatch!" Sergeant Bendez ordered the other two members of our squad. "Stay behind cover you two! Love, get him up quick!"

I reached for the Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK) on the left side of my vest, and pulled out a small canister. I looked at it; it read "ANTI-COAGULANT COMBAT FIRST AID SALVE, TREATER - APPLY DIRECTLY TO WOUNDED AREA"

To infantry, it was affectionately called "ActFast" because of its acronym ACFAST, and for its ability to make a life-threatening wound seem almost like it never happened. It only worked for open wounds though, stopping the bleeding and rebuilding lost muscle tissue, but it did nothing for blood restoration. So you had to act fast for a bullet or shrapnel wound or else you or whoever you were treating wouldn't survive. It was a miracle-working drug, and at the same time wasn't.

Taking the cap off the canister, I quickly applied some of the salve to the wound on my thigh, through the pad, and it stopped the bleeding, numbed the pain, and started rebuilding some of the lost muscle tissue. The left leg of the anatomy-figure on my HUD started to shade slowly back to a yellowish-green color, and the CND reading counted steadily back up to 89%.

I heard rounds pelt the side of the building opposite of me. We were taking fire. Hartfeld and Erickson, our combat engineer and automatic rifleman, started returning fire.

"I'm firing!" Erickson called out, and laid fire at the source of our incoming attacks with his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

Love hopped up on to the roof and came to me.

"You good man?" He asked, giving me a hand up.

"Yeah, I'm alright. ActFast helped out. Fucker got me right in the leg." I said. I aimed at where he was and looked through my ACOG sight. "But I got his ass right in the fuckin' skull."

"Fuck yeah!" Love celebrated, patting my shoulder with glee. I stared down the sight at the splattered gore I had caused.

"Under heavy fire over here!!!" Hartfeld yelled out. Contact was out to the west of us, on our left. They were close.

"There! Got two movin' across to the right!" Sergeant Bendez called out, squeezing off some rounds. "Scroggins get eyes on 'em and take 'em out! They're about 40 meters out! By that building!"

"Love, stay up here and lay down fire on them with me." I said.

"Alright man!" We quickly shifted to the side of the AC unit opposite the enemy for cover, crouching down behind it. I leaned out and readied my M39, looking down the ACOG sight to scan for threats.

"3rd Squad to 1st and 2^nd Squads, send frontline trace!" Sergeant Bendez keyed over the company radio net.

"Roger!"

"Roger that!" Responses came back over the radio, and friendly markers popped up on the mini map. I settled back into cover, clicked the MAP button on the control wristband for my eyewear, and a map of the entire Area of Operations (AO) popped up, showing where the other two squads were at.

1st was 200 meters away from us, at objective 'Cheddar', 2nd was 300 meters away. They were still 50 meters away from objective 'Parmesan', and engaged in heavy combat with the enemy.

"1st has secured objective 'Cheddar', we might get a counter-attack, over."

"2nd engaged in heavy contact, we need support time-now, over!!!" 2nd radioed in.

"Shit!" Sergeant Bendez yelled out. "Scroggins, Love, you're clear! Light those fuckers up with some HE!"

"Got it!" I replied, grabbing the M320 40 millimeter grenade launcher that was slung to me, and loading it with a high-explosive round. Flipping up the leaf sight, I leaned from cover again, and aimed once more at the enemy.

They were scattered about to the right of the dirt road as it curved, but a well-placed grenade or two would do the job.

"HE out!" I called out, pulling the trigger of the launcher. It made a loud thoomp, and the round flew towards the enemy. The round impacted right behind one of the small concrete barriers I saw two enemies duck behind, and the resulting small explosion sent a red mist splashing the ground surrounding it.

"Two down!" I called out. Love sent a round downrange in the same direction from the M320 that was mounted to the barrel of his M416 assault rifle. Bullets would sporadically impact the side of the AC unit we were behind, or zing over our heads.

Hartfeld and Erickson were still in the middle of a road, but were behind a totaled military vehicle that was flipped on its side. Sergeant Bendez and Iverson were behind the next building towards the enemy's direction, 20 meters away from me and Love.

"Keep firing, keep their heads down!!" Bendez barked. I loaded another HE round into my M320, when a couple rounds impacted the AC unit directly head on, and a few more smacked into the right side of my upper torso, impacting my ballistic vest.

"Ooouh!" My voice cracked up as I grunted in pain, my body recoiling from the damage it had sustained. I looked to my right and saw two guys that had flanked us. They were in the trailer across the dirt road, aiming out the doorway.

I took a couple pot-shots in their direction to get them to duck back inside, and immediately got up to move.

"Contact right!" I screamed. "My 3, my 3!!!" Stating the direction the new contact was. Erickson turned around behind his cover and aimed at where the two enemies were with his M249, lighting it up the moment he saw them peek around their cover.

I tapped Love's shoulder twice, and we moved quickly to the edge of the building and jumped off, landing safely thanks to the exosuits.

The two of us quickly moved around to rejoin our squad again. Glancing at my CND rating on my HUD, it read 46%. The anatomy figure was colored yellow in the torso area. The rounds I took earlier on the roof had slightly penetrated my armor, but not fully. It wasn't detecting serious blood loss.

Leaning out over Sergeant Bendez, I saw a couple enemies popping shots at us downrange, aimed with my ACOG scope and laid down some fire. After five rounds, I scored two more kills.

The rest of the squad worked on wiping out the remainder of the enemy as I ducked back down behind the small building and checked the AO map for any more details on 2nd's situation.

"2nd report in, SITREP over." I keyed out over the mic. They didn't respond.

"2nd, come in." I tried once more. "Fuck! Sergeant, 2nd's gone dark!"

"Keep up the fire guys!" Sergeant Bendez ordered, and then came back to me. "What?!"

"2nd is down! They ain't responding!" I said.

"Shit!"

"What's the plan?" I asked. He paused for a minute. The fighting around us died down slowly as the remaining enemies disengaged from lack of reinforcement. The only real sounds now were sporadic combat in the distance as 1st Squad held their own.

"We gotta go in and take Parmesan ourselves." He told me. "Overlord, 3rd Actual, over." He said over the radio.

"Overlord, send it." The command section responded.

"Overlord, do you have latest SITREP for 2nd squad? Over."

"Last-known local chatter had intel of enemy 40 mike-mike and .50cal gun emplacements on-site of objective Parmesan, break." The radio cut off for a second. "2nd's last known POZ indicated they were assaulting from the east side of the building when they called the emplacements in. Might try a slow approach from the south, get your designated marksman to get eyes on the situation and plan from there."

"Roger Overlord, out." Sergeant Bendez looked up at me as he let off the radio. "Alright guys, we're moving to Parmesan!" He yelled. "Scroggins, take Love with you. He can be your spotter and backup. Post up somewhere south of the objective and let me know when you're good to go."

"Got it." I answered. "Jerome!" I called out to Love by his first name. He made his way to me as Sergeant Bendez rallied the rest of the squad and pushed on towards the objective.

"We're going a separate way, post up south of the objective and see what we can see."

"'K." He replied, sighing out with fatigue from the adrenaline. He had a couple of marks in his armor.

"Take a couple hits?" I asked as we stood to start moving.

"Yeah, nothing major. I'm still sitting at 79%." He looked down at my thigh and saw where the sniper round penetrated right through the pad. Blood had lightly splattered on it, running down through my pants. "Damn dude. You sure you're good?"

"Yep." I answered, looking down at the pad and brushing some of the dirt off. "All good. C'mon."

After ten minutes hustling, we slowed down our pace from running to sneaking, my minimap on the HUD showing the area where objective Parmesan was. It was a small compound centered in a shallow geographic depression.

Crouching down, we crested over the small berm and got a look with our own physical eyes.

"That's it." I said. I keyed the radio. "Sergeant Bendez, we're in position about 100 meters south of objective Parmesan. Standby, I'll send you intel and targets." I called out over the radio quietly.

"Roger, we're posted up on the west side of the objective. Mark 'em as you see 'em, keep us posted." Bendez replied. Love and I dropped to the prone position. I lowered the bipod of my DMR and posted up, aiming downrange towards the objective.

"Hey, reach into my assault pack, should be a pair of binos. You can use 'em." I told Love.

"Alright." He said, reaching into the bag slung on to my back and pulling out the tactical binoculars. I pulled the magazine out of my rifle, checked to see how many rounds were left, and decided to change it out for a fresh one.

"'Ey, Sergeant, seeing a lot of troop movement, top of the two-story warehouse. They got high-caliber MG's; five guys total on the roof, two with DMR's. Check HUD for details." I called in. I pressed a button on the side of my eyewear, and the hostiles became marked, a tiny red triangle pointing down at them highlighting them on my HUD.

"Good copy Scroggs, eyes on anything else?" He inquired. I aimed back down my ACOG and scanned the rest of the compound around the building, but didn't see anything else dangerous to my squad.

"Negative, eyes on nothing else, but be cautious of anymore marksmen. There's bound to be more snipers out there with you in their crosshairs."

"Roger, get eyes on us before we move in, and keep us covered." He ordered. I aimed left to get sight of my squad, and they showed up highlighted by green triangles over their heads on my sunglasses, indicating they were not only friendly, but my squad. Blue was reserved for other friendlies outside of our squad.

"Eyes on, you're good to go Sergeant. We got you covered." I said. They started to move right towards the building.

A distant pop was audible to me, they lobbed a 40mm round into the small depot. A smokescreen started to disperse and they made their move in, guns blazing. I took aim at the guys with the DMRs up top of the warehouse as they panicked.

As I squeezed off the first shot, one man dropped to his knees and then lay on his belly, dead. The second man I shot at flinched, the shot had missed. He made a dead sprint to find some cover on the open roof, before dropping to the prone.

Just as he lifted his head to peek up and over the corner of the building to find me, I pulled the trigger, and the round hit him in the mouth. He rolled on to his side after his body jerked violently, and ceased moving altogether.

"Good shooting man!" Love said, backhanding my shoulder lightly in celebration. I smirked evilly.

"Hell yeah." I said deeply. Love raised the binos back up to continue scanning.

"Oh shit..." He said.

"What?" I said as I looked at him worriedly. I looked back to the small compound just in time to see an armored personnel carrier that had pulled around from the blind side of the warehouse start shooting 25mm rounds at the rest of our squad. "Fuck!!"

Just then, small arms rounds starting smacking the earth around the two of us. They had seen us.

"Fuck! Get back! Get back!" I yelled as we started crawling backward, away from the danger. We made it back down the other side of the small hill and away from the fire. It hit the top of the berm just in front of us, dirt and dust kicking up repeatedly.

Poww poww poww poww poww! Five HE rounds hit the other side of the hill.

"That goddamn APC's got us boxed in here! We gotta move!" Love hollered out over the noise.

"I know, I know!" I shouted back.

I looked left and right, it was too open on both sides, but there was a small wooded area over on our right we could duck into. It'd provide no protection, but I knew they'd lose us if we stayed concealed.

"There!" I pointed towards the trees. "Stay low and follow me!"

We got up and stayed bent at the waist to remain low behind the berm as we hustled towards the small forest to find concealment. We made it in thirty quick seconds that felt like thirty long hours, and dove into prone positions just as five more 25mm rounds pelted the perimeter of the forest.

The concussions from the HE blasts were so intense that my head was rocked, bells were ringing in my ears. It felt like getting slammed by a wrecking ball over and over.

As my senses came to, the ringing in my ears lingering, I lifted my head to look up, realizing I had dove into a feeble position, arms and legs curled into my chest like a ball. I heard Love screaming for help.

"Dude! Help! Fuck!" I looked back and saw he was stuck under a small tree, the trunk of which was about eight inches in diameter. He couldn't get his hands under it to lift with his exosuit. "My fuckin' ribs are broken!!!"

"Hang on man!" I bellowed out as I struggled to get up. Another four HE rounds impacted just behind me, sending me stumbling towards the ground. More small arms rounds pinged off the ground around me as I quickly struggled my way back to my feet.

"They've got a whole other squad of guys there to deal with... " I mumbled out loudly with anger, reaching my hands under the trunk of the tree to lift it up. "--and they're shooting--AAAAAAAAT UHHHHHHHHHSSSSSS!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, feeling my vocal chords vibrating pugnaciously as I slowly lifted the tree up with all my might, my exosuit assisting me.

Love scrambled in pain, scooting himself out from under the trunk and resting a foot away from it as I dropped it to the ground. He wrapped his torso in agony with his arms as I gripped the shoulder of his exosuit and dragged him deeper into the woods.

Gunfire still erupted in the distance, but it wasn't directed at us any longer. I let go of Love and fell backwards to the dirt, grunting and huffing for air as I scuttled to his side.

"You alright??" I asked, using the wristband to navigate my HUD to the BLUFOR Medical Evaluation and Diagnostic (B.M.E.D.) scanner on my tactical sunglasses. The HUD began flickering with different data.

"My ribs! They're fuckin' broken!" He cried out. The scan ran back a report to my HUD in all of about six seconds, showing a detailed diagram and X-ray of Love's ribcage.

The lower ribcage was a jigsaw puzzle at best, the bones knocked slightly out of place, and the diagram showed internal bleeding. Blood loss was rated at four mL per second, not terribly life-threatening, but still quick. His overall CND was 15%.

"Hang on man!" I said, reaching for the IFAK on his vest. Opening it, I found a syringe, the label reading "BONE FRACTURE STABILIZATION AND CONGEALMENT - INJECT AT POINT OF INJURY - PROVISIONAL TREATMENT ONLY, ONE TIME USE", just what I was looking for.

I pulled the cap off the needle and carefully jammed it into Love's torso. The liquid, known as BFSC, would temporarily set the bones back in place to a degree thanks the help of nanobots, but he'd still require surgery to properly reset them and for them to heal and reshape correctly. Temporary fix, but it'd do for the time being.

He still moaned in pain. I pulled out some pills with properties similar to ActFast and gave them to him. It would stop the internal bleeding so I could give him painkillers.

"We gotta wait 'til the internal bleeding stops, then I'll give you some painkillers." I told him as I closed his IFAK. "Can you move?"

"Yeah, it still hurts but I can move." He responded. I gave him a hand up and we started to move slowly but steadily towards the north, attempting to reposition ourselves and make a flanking offensive.

"Scroggins!" Sergeant Bendez called out on the radio. "We need covering fire now! We're in the shit up to our necks! That APC is lighting us up and we're out of RPGs!!!"

I couldn't think of how to respond.

"We could just flank 'em." Love chimed in as he wheezed for air, lightly backhanding my arm. "They wouldn't know what hit 'em, and they'd have to fight from two different angles."

"Hmm..." I looked around the area, thinking of an idea.

Just then, the APC pulled around the corner of the warehouse and towards the gate we had direct vision of, still laying fire down on the rest of our squad.

"That!" I pointed at the APC. "We jack that motherfucker and use it against 'em!"

It was a dumb idea, but it was all we had.

"That's 'cray'." Love said with a slight sense of humor, sighing lightly with a chuckle. "Let's do it."

The APC's turret faced away from us and continued firing as we sprinted at Love's pace to it.

"Hold here, I'll get in and take 'em out." I ordered him. He took a knee at the left-rear corner of the APC, aiming his rifle up at the turret in case the gunner and commander decided to eject and make a run for it.

Meanwhile, I jumped using my exosuit onto the surface of the vehicle and landed on the driver's hatch. I gripped the latch, drawing out my favorite pistol, the FN 5-7, and lifted the hatch up its hinge.

The driver's surprised expression followed him into death as I put two rounds in his chest as soon as the hatch was up. I gripped his body by the neck with one hand, and pulled him out of the seat. He flew several feet before hitting the ground in front of the vehicle.

Love continued to pull security, hearing me crawl to the rear of the vehicle from the inside, four more loud blasts erupting along with screams from within. The clambering noise began once more before the back ramp dropped down slowly on its hydraulics.

"You take the gun bro, I'll drive." I said over the radio.

"Just like the old days on the Brad with Sergeant Elder!" He retorted, climbing into the turret of the vehicle and closing the shield-door. "Let's go."

We rolled back into the center of the compound. Love switched on the coaxial machine on the turret and began lighting up targets left and right. The place was better occupied than we had originally thought.

Love scored kills with the gun, while I maintained the level of destruction by running into anything I thought the APC could take on, live targets included. Moments passed before the mayhem was over. We had taken objective Parmesan.

I brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop just meters away from where our squad was buttoned up in cover. I opened the driver's hatch and stood up in the seat.

"Whoooo fuck yeah!" I hollered out, gesturing the devil's horns with my hand and throwing it up. Love stood up out of a hatch on the turret.

"Fuckin' sweet!" He cheered with excitement. "Oww!" He moved too roughly for his ribs, but continued to cheer.

The rest of the squad slowly came out of cover. Sergeant Bendez came marching up to us.

"You too fucking psychos, the fuck were you thinking???" He scolded us, giving us a real infuriated look. He then swung his arms to his sides, "That was fucking AWESOME!"

The rest of the squad joined in celebration. The two of us clambered out of the armored vehicle and began high-fiving the rest of the squad.

"Overlord, 3rd Actual, objective Parmesan secure, over!" Sergeant Bendez called in over the radio and continued celebrating with us.

"Overlord copies. All squads be advised, operation parameters met, mission complete, RTB. Out." The response over the radio really sent us into celebration. The alarms began to sound.

"Exercise conditions met, BLUFOR victorious. Simulation terminating. Please report for debrief and AAR (After-Action Review)." A woman's voice sounded over the intercom. The blue partly-cloudy sky transformed into a white ceiling above us, and the wounds and marks on our bodies disappeared.

"Well, I'll give y'all this, that wasn't a bad performance at all for your first time being in a platoon-sized drill. However, an entire squad was wiped out during the process of taking an objective." Master Sergeant Jacobsen told us. "Had this been the real thing, you'd be writing your buddies' families telling them why he won't be coming home. Remember, these XO5 exoskeletons don't make you invincible. Your gear is only as good as you are."

We sat in the debriefing room, a screen in front of us displaying a map with frame-by-frame data of the exercise.

The screen flickered and started displaying helmet cameras of each squad member in respect to their squad. 1st's played first. Sergeant Jacobsen explained in detail each thing they did right, and wrong, and would show highlights of each individual's film.

When he got to our squad, it got good.

"3rd, you've gotta do a better job supporting the op. Granted, Talbot here, got wiped within the first few minutes of contact, and he's your qualified CSS-guy and your mortar man, but you guys gotta be able to pick up the slack for any of your buddies should they go down for good." Sergeant Jacobsen explained. "Other than that though, Scroggins and Love, great job thinking outside the box and taking that APC. Prior experience as tankers or something?"

"We worked with Bradleys in the guard." Love said. "Scroggdog was my driver."

"Fuckin'-a, good work out there. You guys really pulled through and helped your squad take the objective. I expect to see more great shit from you guys." Sergeant Jacobsen said.

Sergeant Bendez looked at us both and held out a fist. We both bumped our fists with his.

After all was said and done, we had the weekend safety brief, before we were released to Sergeant Bendez.

"Alright guys, you remember the drill, don't drink and drive, don't beat your wife, your dog, your boyfriend if that's how you play..." He said. The lot of us chuckled. "Anything for me?" He looked at us, waiting for us to ask questions.

"Nothing?" He asked. It was silent as we shook our heads. "Alright guys, good fucking work today. See you guys next week for more of it."

Love nudged my arm with his elbow, and we started our way to our barracks.

"Any plans for the night?" He asked.

"Nah, probably sit inside, get drunk, play some Battlefield 4, you know."

"Didn't get enough insanity after today?" He asked, smiling.

"You know me, I live for this shit." I said with a light sigh.

We walked up the stairs to the third floor, and he unlocked the door to our barracks room. We walked in, and I unlocked my room door and he unlocked his. Going in, I walked right into my semi-clean barracks room, and set my gear down on the bed, sitting next to it. I left the door open, and he walked over and leaned on the threshold, tossing me a beer.

"You alright dude?" He asked, popping his bottle open and taking a drink.

"Yeah I'm fuckin' tired as fuck." I retorted, following suite with my beer. "That was a helluva mission. I know it wasn't real, but the panic I felt sure was."

"Yeah." Love looked down at the floor.

"But you know what?" I looked down at where the floor met the wall, then up at him. "I really missed that feeling. Been so long since I felt a rush like that. Bull riding doesn't even come close to being as crazy as that. I fucking missed it so much."

Love didn't know what to say. He just kind of looked down at the floor again.

"I'm broken, huh?" I said.

"Yeah. A little bit. But I'm just glad I know you'll have my back when we get into the shit. Anyone else would've just left me under that tree to die. Yeah it was just a simulation, but it still hurt. Someone else would've just been like 'oh well, you're fucked, see ya', but you," He paused and made a goofy face.

"Public hero number one." I said, chuckling. I took another drink, a big gulp.

"Alright dude, have fun on Battlefield, gonna see if Brynn's on skype." Love said.

"Alright 'Rome, later." I responded, and he walked off into his room, closing his door behind him. I sighed out, partly in exhaustion, partly in depression.

I looked up at the Ikea clock my mom had given me before I left home. It read: 19:30 FRI 3/14/2020. I was 28 years old, and would be 29 when November rolled around.

7:30 PM, and I was wiped out from the action. I got up and walked over to the cabinet-desk in the corner of the room, sitting down in the office chair I had bought. I pulled the flip-desk down, and turned on the TV, and grabbed the computer mouse to wake the computer up.

Navigating to my picture gallery, I pulled up pictures from the past. Memories of a Ryan Scroggins that died years ago, I stared deep into a picture of me with my ex-girlfriend, the one girl I ever really loved, and just stared at it.

"Where was I when you really needed me the most..." I said quietly to the screen, her beautiful smiling face just destroying the inside of my chest. She was off to bigger and better things though, having graduated from KU years ago, probably with some guy who does a better job at making her happy than I ever could. Today was what would've been our ten year anniversary.

I polished off the beer, and set the bottle on the desk.

What does a man do when he experiences a loss that he will never recover from? What is he able to find that keeps him alive and going, despite the eternal pain in his heart? To this day, after years of her being gone, I still couldn't draw up a completely convincing conclusion.

I got out of the military in late-2013; married to some broad I didn't even truly care for, and suffered slowly in my own filthy misery. Hell the marriage only lasted six months before she ran away. It was then that I knew what I had to do.

The realization that I belonged in the military to save the world was only reinforced each time I pulled these photos up, that love isn't something I'm supposed to have. It felt good understanding my purpose, and at the same time, just opened up old wounds that I knew would never heal.

I closed down the pictures, grabbed the bottle of Captain Morgan sitting in the cabinet with a glass, and poured it up to about halfway up the glass before mixing it with some Dr. Pepper. I stirred it with a finger, started up Battlefield 4, and played and drank until her face was deep in the back of my mind and out of sight again. This was my routine.

We had gotten word that a deployment would be coming up real soon, the way things were looking with Korea. The north might be looking to invade the south, but we had heard this story before many times. The minute they did though, I'd be the first to volunteer to be on a plane on that way.

Until then, I would be spending my nights numbing the ache in my mind and heart by keeping the adrenaline flowing and the liquor coming. Setting the glass down, I pressed the button on my controller, and jumped back into the game.

One day this pain would be over. One day.

I just didn't know if it would be sooner, or later.