Dedication
Special Thanks goes out to my family for believing in me…love you guys!
Author’s Note:
I’d like to thank my readers for taking the time to read Chad and Stacy’s story. Their story was a pleasure to write because it tapped into some of the real life stories of so many out there.**
Please enjoy them as much as I didJ
P.S.- Feel free to write me at TamiCat76@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!!
**Disclaimer:
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
Copyright 2011
Contents:
The Lost
The Found
The Redeemed
The Lost
Major Chad Jensen sat in complete silence as he struggled to block out the chaos around him as he and his team made their way back to camp. He briefly wondered if he’d ever feel clean again as he grimaced at the smell of blood and sweat that filled the small confines of the humvee he rode in.
The last jaunt into enemy territory had been especially bloody and even though he and his team had gotten out without any life threatening injuries, an innocent had had to pay the price for it to happen. Chad would never forget the face of the boy who stood in the way of the convoy with a bomb strapped to his small body accompanied by a look of pure terror as he realized he was to be sacrificed in the name of a cause his young mind didn’t fully understand. Chad had felt both grieve and rage when the convoy had quickly changed course and he’d watched helplessly as the bomb had detonated in the distance they’d hastily managed to put between them. His mind couldn’t help but fill in the gruesome details as they continued on back. When he saw the camp come up on the horizon, he held on long enough to make it to his private quarters before sitting there on his neatly made up bunk to drop his head in his hands as the horror of the day threatened to smother him. Every man here had been pushed to the absolute limit with the insurgents they’d faced the last few months, but this last one had been the worst. He couldn’t help but thank God he was finally going home tomorrow.
Chad felt a world away from the hell he’d just left as he sat looking out the window of the Boeing 747 waiting for takeoff. The episode yesterday had taken him right back to the worst day of his life; the event of losing his best friend Terry a year ago. The details of that day still made his gut churn with sickness at the very thought. He had never in a million years thought when he signed up to serve his country that he would witness such brutality. He shook his head and felt sorry for the naivety of his own youth.
He had joined the Marines at twenty-two right after receiving his bachelor’s degree in business to serve his country like all Jensen men had before him. The fact that it had been war time had made his mother extremely nervous and concerned, but his father had been there to smooth over any objections that had been raised. He remembered seeing the pride on his father Jim’s face as they’d embraced and feeling his own heart swell with emotion. The tears his mother Sarah had tried to blink back had tempered his excitement as she made him promise to come back home safely. His younger brothers Dale and Adam promised to take care of their parents and the ranch they’d all called home since they’d been born until he came home. He’d left that day planning on making a difference by fighting in the Marines for his country against the war of terror and coming back a better man for it.
