Irregulaire

Casualties

I was humping that M60 around when another explosion went off near the fence, followed by a bunch of gunfire. It was a little past 3AM. A little more probing, I think. Lucky, I had that gun locked and loaded. Let’s just hope they don’t find the Colonel, now. But he did have his pistol ready. Red and I jumped out and stormed towards my position.

“GET THAT DAMN MACHINE GUN FIRING, GUNNY!” she commanded.

I rushed towards the fence, then aimed the gun off hand while kneeling. You know, when you fire that thing, you’ll feel an overwhelming force pulls you into shape, protecting you. A steady stream of thumps hurt you a little at first, but it made you feel stronger over time. And with cartridge that powerful, the weight seemed not to be a problem for a while.

I kept pulling the trigger until I run dry. That gun fires rather slowly, but 200 rounds don’t seem to be that much. I wondered why. Red was still behind me, covering me while I reload. “Damn, where’s my can?!” I was sure I put it where I knelt. Not taking too long, I discarded the machine gun and went to my M16. It felt like a feather after firing that behemoth off hand. But of course, I was losing firepower.

The wave was not as sporadic as last time. It was still manageable. Had I fired more controllably, I might’ve stopped that wave single-handedly with that machine gun. Little did I know, that smaller group dealt more damage than it seemed.

In less than 5 minutes, the wave stopped. I just remembered I had cut my ammo belt short, only 100 rounds and I discarded the rest somewhere God knows. And I was kneeling in the wrong position, missing my ammo can hidden behind a bush just 5 feet to my left. As I turned around to check on Red, she was breathing rather heavily.

“Are you okay?” I worried.

“I am. I was just upset, I don’t know why,” she knelt.

I saw Ryan ran off towards us, leaving some people behind him. Those people seemed to be rushing to help someone. I stood up, asking him what had happened.

“Hans is hit. Bad,” he said after abruptly stopping before us. We looked at each other, then stormed off towards his position.

“How the fuck did he get hit?!” Red shouted, with such pressure that even I was afraid.

“I... I... don’t know, he was running back and forth to cover more areas and then some,”

Several of the Marines called out to their medics, who was handling their comrades. The medic then tried to stop the bleeding, but I already noticed that the bleeding won’t stop. That round went through just under his left armpit. That, my friend, is a clear path towards the heart.

Just as the medic came, Hans stopped moving. A pool of blood formed around him. I just stood there, unable to swallow what I had witnessed. As bad as Red might feel right then, I felt even worse. I dragged them into all this, mind you. She did seem verily upset, by the way. We knelt beside Hans for a while, paying respect of what he had done with us here. He had been following Red by heart, I felt it. We all did. Red then laid her head on my shoulder, crying. Her hand was clutching on my rolled sleeve. I then gently rubbed that hand, trying to calm her down. I leaned my head towards hers, feeling what she felt.

“He was a good man. Poor Hans,” she said, sobbing. Her tears wet my dirty shoulder.

I couldn’t say anything. Red was hit hard by the fact that she lost one of her best friends. I was thinking she regretted not hanging out with him as often as we got here. She was too busy organizing the rest of us. Come to think of it, she was his best friend. And she never thought she’d lose any of us, really.

The rest of the squad gathered near Hans as they began to move him. Ryan felt guilty the most and turned quiet. He was trying to hold back tears as much as he can. But we need to keep our heads up. Everyone else seemed to be unable to hold their emotions. But being guys, they tried not to cry, at least out loud. That is, until we heard about Franz.

“Staff Sergeant,” said Ian towards Red, “I am so sorry,”

“What?” she said, unsuspecting.

“Your friend, he... he was hit when he tried to get up to help you guys. Last thing he said was—" he didn’t have the heart to continue.

Red started to lose composure. Her knees were shaking, and she started to cover her face.

“We rushed him back in first thing, but... there was nothing we could have done,”

Karl almost collapsed after hearing the news. We were all taken aback by that. In one day, we lost not one, but two friends. That’s a lot, considering there were only eleven of us. We needed to try even harder to save ourselves, now. There’s no other way out of this. How the heck are we going to explain to their families about what happened here? Red then fell on her knees. The rest of the guys rushed in to calm her down.

After regaining composure, she stood up. She was then determined to keep us safe, even more so than doing our objective. From then on, she really took care of us. She started checking on us, making sure the rest of the squad is okay. No one else was wounded besides me and Buck, or hopefully so.

I needed some time alone and decided that I’d check on Grace. I thought I’d vent it all out to her. There she was, with her parents inside her room. Well, I kept my intention to myself. I felt a tap on my shoulder then, and it was Stubs.

“Hey, Mick... I uh, I’m sorry about your friends,”

“Stubs,” I greeted, “Thank you. How do you feel?”

“Not so good, man. I’ve been leading for only less than what, 16 hours? And I already lost so many of us. That includes your friends,”

I haven’t seen him open up towards anyone like this before. I guess war does change people. “Dude, it was me who brought them here,” I tried to calm him down, “It wasn’t your fault, they die. It’s the enemy’s,”

“Nice save, Mick,” he chuckled, “Thank you,” he tapped my arm twice, and walked off. Checking out on the guys, I presume.

The Colonel then went out of the room, trying to look for the Sergeant Major. The old man was nowhere to be found. Not even in the command center. Colonel then proceeded and let me into Grace’s room. Her mom then went out too, letting me have a few words with her. I feel different, now, though. I don’t feel like I love her that much anymore. The feeling was still there, it was just fading away a little—probably because of the combat.

“How do you do?” I asked her.

“A little better, I think,” she replied, “How are you?”

“Not good. Got two dead friends outside,” I answered. “I dragged them here, and they died,”

“Oh...” she sat up, “I’m sorry,”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, getting a bit closer. I could see her sympathizing, worrying about me, “It’s not your concern,”

“Of course, it is. My dad told you to come here, right? To take care of me. Right?”

“He did,” I confirmed, “However, I should’ve looked after them better,”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now, Mike,” she said, “Just stay alive,”

“Hmm,” I had nothing else to say.

I then stood up and walked outside. It was dark, a little past sun-down and the lights are mostly off. There, I saw Red all alone. She needed some time alone, too, I figured. I proceeded to walk towards her, wanting to calm her down. All of a sudden, she turned towards me. We sort of looked at each other, before finally agreeing on what to do. She approached me with open arms, and I gave her the tightest hug I could. She started breaking down again.

“There, there,” I gently tapped on her back, “You did your best, Red,”

“I know, I’m just.... overwhelmed,” she said, sobbing. “Hans, Franz, they didn’t deserve it,”

“We’ll make them pay, Red, you and I,”

“We sure will,” she said, releasing the hug. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she then checked on her gun. “You don’t have to take that machine gun with you, if you don’t want to,” she said.

“Okay,” I conformed. “Oh, and Red?”

“Yes, Gunny?”

“Stay alive, would you please. And drink some water,”

“You, too,” she smiled while nodding softly. I checked on my watch, and it was about half to eighteen hundred hours. Suddenly, a bright yellow flash appeared from beyond the wall. Red fell on her back.

“RED!!” I shouted as I ran towards her. As I crouched down to pick her up, bullets flew towards us, hitting the walls and the floor of the house. Gunfire started to fill the air again.

“I’m okay! Get killing!” she said, after I got her behind cover. I started firing my weapon towards the enemy. This time, the wave got bigger. I got into thinking I should take the machine gun. But not now. It seemed to me now that the enemy knows a high value target is inside this house. Ah, fuck it.

“I’m getting the machine gun! You stay here!” I finally told Red. I stormed off before she got into saying anything. I heard a faint "NO! Shit!" though. I somehow managed to dodge all those bullets and rockets that were flying all over the place. I was thrown by an RPG explosion as it hit the walls of the house, but it was nothing. I managed to get back up and running again.

I got to Franz’s gun, finding it was still loaded. All I had to do was to flip the safety off, and let it rip. I fired more carefully this time, though, finding targets first rather than just sweeping the barrel left and right. I saw some RPG being aimed at me. I managed to take down one of them, but there were two more.

As I took out the second, I flinched, hoping that they didn’t get me. But just as I flinched, I hear some automatic fire from behind me—and an explosion on their part. Red, Kris, and Karl came towards my position, supporting me. Karl used that grenade launcher on his rifle.

“Kris! You cover him while he reloads!” Red commanded.

“Karl! Get over here and feed me!” Damn, Franz’s gun is fast. That burp overwhelmed me at first, but then I got used to it.

This time, they brought like, I don’t know, 2, maybe 3 platoons worth of soldiers. No technical, though, so it’s sort of easier to take them out. Sort of. I had a bad feeling about this one, though. It looked like there were too many of them for us to overcome. But seeing they had very little support, that thought got brushed off.

While I was reloading, I saw Stubs running back and forth organizing the Marines. He was talking to a sergeant from the 1st Squad when the sergeant took a hit and dropped dead in front of him. He then returned fire with his rifle. He himself then got hit, but only a flesh wound, to the shoulder. I was amazed by how he managed to get back up again that quickly. For a moment, I lost focus.

“Mick! Mick! Snap out of it!” Karl said, shaking me around to get me back on track. He finished reloading our gun, but then I heard a hiss and a splat.

“KARL!!” I screamed as he tumbled towards the ground.

I was confused there for a while. Should I take care of Karl or continue firing? I decided that Kris would cover me and Red while I take care of Karl, and I told him so.

“Roger!”

There Karl was, with a bloody hole gaping through his neck. He gagged as we tried to put pressure on the wound. That is, until we realized it was too late. He lied there, pale-faced, eyes wide open. His mouth was still moving a little, trying to hold on to his last breath.