Hostile

Chapter 12

That afternoon I was given a rifle, bombs, a uniform and other useful things and began training for the war.

The past 2 weeks were excruciating, my whole body was aching, and no matter how many times I told the sergeant that my leg was broken and that I couldn't train, he just told me to "man up and stop whining." In the last week of training my leg was feeling a lot better now, and I was passing most of the time, but when it came to a 20 mile hike I was dying. Every time when I would stop running or walking, Sergeant Cash would smack me so hard that I would fall to the ground with watering eyes.

Finally, it was the last day of training and I was excited to stop this, but at the same time I didn't want to go out into war. I just wanted to escape and run away from this war and never look back, but I knew that I would have had a reason if I died in this war.

Around nightfall the soldiers and I got in a plane. I was looking down at all the burnt houses when the plane was coming to a landing, "wait, were landing here?" I asked. "There's nothing left here, but burnt houses, what makes you think that enemies are still here?"

A man looked at me, whom I later on found out his name was Ian and he said, "we don't, we're just scouting out the place and looking for any survivors." I looked at him with a confused face, looked down at the ground, then back at him and said, "There is no way anyone's alive down there."

As the plane landed we got out and started looking. The place had bodies everywhere and immediately when the plane propellers stopped, a fetid smell filled the air. It was the smell of rotting flesh and burnt skin. Every second I felt like I was going to puke, but I have a pretty hard stomach.

We have been looking for about 2 or 3 hours now and found nothing. "There's not a breathing soul, sergeant!" I told him. "Keep looking Private!"

    "Ugh, this is a complete waste of time Sarge!" He walked up to me and slapped me as hard as he could and said, "shut your lazy ass up, if you complain one more time then I would put a bullet through your head myself!" I scoffed and walked away in anger. I hated my sergeant, he was mean to everyone, but when he was having a bad day he would always take it out on me.

As we headed back to the plane, we heard gunfire in the distance. We knew that there was a war going on, but that sounded really close. "No one else is supposed to be here," said Sergeant Cash in a worried voice. We heard footsteps running towards our direction as if they were trying to flee for their life. I ran to a spot where I could hide and not get shot. The running stopped as there was once again another gunfire. I peeked my head up and I saw a girl no older than about 13. She falls to the ground face down as blood spills from her chest.

All this rage built up inside me and I wanted to curse and kill those Nazis, but fear kept me from doing so. Instead I curled up in a ball and hoped that they wouldn't find us. Eventually we found out what the girl's name was, how old she was, and where she lived. Her name was Mia, she was exactly 13 years old and she lived in an old shack on Daisy Avenue near Omaha Beach. Her house was partly burnt but was still usable. There was no door, so I knocked on the wall out-side. Her mom came up to us with a shotgun and asked, "what the hell are you doing here?"  I asked her to put the gun down and told her, "your daughter, Mia was shot and killed by  Nazi soldiers." she fell to her knees crying and yelling, "No!" over and over again. 

I felt bad for her and as we left I knelt down in front of her and whispered, "I'm sorry, I wish We could have saved her." 

Once we got back to camp it was around 6:00 Am. and we were all exhausted. The moment my head hit the pillow I was out, but I knew that when I wake up in a couple hours  I would have to fight in this war and I will get my revenge on Walter, the Nazi who killed my family in cold blood.