War. It's a simple enough three letter word right? But why are we so quick to throw it into argument as a solution, the answer to that one still to this day remains unclear. But either way, when war breaks out the military is called in. And that's why I'm here, I'm a marine, my wife and I that is. My name is James Johnson, my wife is Caroline Johnson. They call me "The Candy Apple". I'm the negotiator of my squadren of misfits, I was dubbed the nickname when I sweet talked a terrorist group into giving up one of my men for a candy bar. That was a difficult talk, the story is still lauged about in the mess hall with new recruits. I had two daughters and a son back at home staying with their grandmother, she was old but she was a tough old bat. My wife had the picture of our family with her, she kept it for good luck. I can still remember the day we got shipped out for duty.
"Ok, kids, we gotta get going." I called to them as we got into the car.
My eldest, my son Jeffry was crossarmed standing in the driveway not looking at us, I knew he was angry to see me go. My youngest a seven year old bright eyed red- headed girl, Madyline was in my arms begging me not to go. I looked over to my middle, Steffanie came to retrive her sister. She wrapped her armes around her and hugged her little sister. We lived on this cattle ranch, we did work all day and came in for dinner at night.
Steff looked up to me with her green eyes, "Your coming back all right aren't you?" she said. It was our sign off, I went overseas all the time, this wasn't supposed to be any different.
"Don't I always?" I said with my usual gusto. I saw my son still staring out to the sun setting. I got out of my Ford and walked over to him.
"What's eatin' ya kid?" I asked him.
"Nothin'" he replied.
"Sure?" I asked him.
"Eyup." he stood his ground.
I shrugged, "Alright." I began to walk away.
"Dad?" he said, I smiled and then turned around, I saw the brief glint of worry in his eyes quickly change to hard teenage touhness, "Come home in one piece ok?" he said.
I saluted him and walked to te truck.
It was up to them to take care of the ranch while we were gone. We drove off headed for the base.
A tray slammed in front of me, the innitial shock woke me out of my daydream.
"Thinkin about the kids again?" my wife asked me taking a seat in front of me at the tables and shoveling mouthfulls of mashed potatoes. I had gotten used to lack of table manners here, after all we only had four minutes to eat. We were already two minutes in. I did the same scarfing my beefaronie down.
"Yup." I nodded.
She took a sip of water, "I think about 'em all the time." she said not taking her face up from the tray.
"Ready for the IED hunt today?" I asked.
"No." she laughed.
An IED hunt was when we all got out special tanks and headed out looking for "improvised explosive devices". They were bombs that the Iroqis used during the war. Cheap and made out of everything from soda cans and lighters to frag grenades and blow torches, they were everywhere. We had to watch out for them so every now and again, we got a couple of squadies in an armored tank that had a long handle that would scrape the ground looking for wires of any kind. The thing was our tanks weren't equipped enough to take on an IED from below, so if we got hit it was over. It was a risk we all had to take.
The patrol went on without a hitch, a couple others radioed the locations of where they found some but for the most part our path was clear. Caroline was in the front seat barking orders at a rookie, I didn't want him here bad luck to bring a rookie on an IED hunt. It was almost the end of the hunt when...
"Uh... I think we got one!" the green horn said.
The car stopped, we all got out to survey the find. I walked over to it accompanied by my Caroline, the rookie and Sarge. He wasn't really a seargent, he was actually the medic, but he acted like he was. Like I said were a band of misfits, the rest of the squad stayed inside to radio for help in case anything got out of hand.
I walked over to the arm and tugged the wire. I found where it was and followedit to it's place in the ground.
"Alright everyone let's head back and radio the squads about the location. I'll get the bug."
We jogged back to the car Rooks, we called all rookies rooks until we found a proper name for them, radioed base camp. I grabbed the bug, it was a small remote controlled probe that we used for this job. Best to loose one of these than a man on the job. I pushed the throttle to make it go forward. The little car zoomed into the IED zone, I watched the mounted screen as the dirt zoomed past the monitor. It reached the wires running into the dirt in a few seconds.
I used the probes other controls to dig at the ground, it kept going but after a few minutes I had nothing I used the claw to grab at the wire, I pulled it out and the wires came straight up, there was nothing attached
"What the f***" I swore.
I put down the controller and walked over to the wires. I pulled them up and saw that they were never attached to anything, no sign of sauter ar even someone getting to them. What the hell was going on here? That's when the realization hit me, it was a trap.
I shouted to my men to take cover as I ran back, that's when I heard it. Mortar screams coming from the sky.
BOOM! One really close by landed and blew me back. I got up limping as I ran back to the jeep. Everyone had their wepons drawn. We could hear the gunfire from the enemies.
Tank, the power of my squad got out.
"I was hopin' fer some action." his deep voice boomed as he gripped his MP-5. He deserved the nick Tank, he never even got called Rook, at three hundred and fifty pounds and standing at six eight he WAS our tank.
"Ready to get out there soldier?" Caroline said snapping on her helment.
"Goin' in alive." I replied.
"Comin' out in one peice." she said back.
We got up and rushed, firing back at the oposing direction.
I heard the whistle of the mortar again. The rest jumped down the slope, I reacted too slow. The mortar it the jeep, blasting me into a pit. I lay there stunnded, I didn't feel anything and my ears were ringing. My vision was blurred and it was going dark. Sarge was in sight I could here his voice.
"You ok son?" he asked, "Respond soldier."
I heard Rook getting on the radio for backup.
"Uh.. private Demetrie here, uh requesting back up-" I heard Caroline take over.
"Gimme that you idiot, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, requesting immediate back up, Beta, well feed you coordinats. We have a soldier down were pinned. Requesting back up."
Base radioed with their response, "Copy that sending units to you now." That's when I was out. Everything went dark.