A.K.A Frater

My nickname, aka Redneck, was given to me because I was from way down in Tennessee. At fourteen, I was already killing deer at 800 yards away with nothing but a clean headshot. I had always had a knack for reading the wind and knowing how to shoot. Growing up, I was a pretty tough kid that would not dare to start anything. But, at the same time, I made sure that I was never messed with. However, I went a little too far my senior year when the football team tried to rape my girlfriend. Needless to say, I lost my cool and ended up going to a juvenile facility the next day. Luckily, they did not try me as an adult, but the only other option I was given was to go to the army.

I took my first ride out to camp in 2002 and worked my way up to a specialist. That is when I met Jeremy, aka Shelby. Shelby was a first class sergeant in the army. We called him Shelby because his wife had been kidnapped back in 2003. She had never been seen again. In memory, we gave him his nickname.

Shelby came from a low class family where he was always fighting the next kid that looked at him wrong. He was placed in a juvenile correction facility at the age of seventeen and picked up by the army when he was eighteen. It took three of the best instructors to finally break him, but one eventually kicked his ass and proved to him that there is always one guy big enough to bend you over his knee. Shelby then worked his way up through the ranks where he met me, Sergeant Matt.

Our first meeting was one for the record books. I was walking up to get some potatoes from the lunch tent when this big cocky fellow came out and tried to walk right through me. That is when I hit him square in the temple, and the big guy went down. But, to my surprise, he came up with a left hook and caught me right under the chin. I hit my back and jumped up and said my first words to the guy that I would end up trusting my life with.

You know what I think? I might like ya big guy!

Jeremy just laughed.

You hit purdy hard, but I think that was a cheap shot.

Really, I said as I laughed. Try me why dont yak?

He hit me hard between the eyes, and the last think I saw was the little deer flying around over me. When I came to a couple of minutes later, the big guy was right beside me.

Hey man, Im sorry. I just lost my cool, and ...

I stopped him in mid sentence and gave him my name. He started to laugh.

You dont lose your cool was too fast do ya?

All I could do at that moment was laugh and tell him how I though he just might be a good man to have on our side. After this, our friendship progressed faster than we could rank up.

Then, 2003 came. Shelby was kidnapped, and Jeremy was always the last one up every night trying to figure out why. As the months went by, he finally gave up hope, and that was the only time I ever saw this mammoth of a man cry. I will tell you one thing, it brought tears to my eyes.

When we got sent off to fight in Yemen, we were both corporals. Yemen was a very scary place. After all, how many times have you ever had a random guy walk up and speak some crazy language which sounded like, YE YE YE YE, DIE NOW, then drop his clothes and take off running naked through the streets? The clothing was rigged with several pounds of C4 by the way.

You are the worst suicide bomber I ever saw, I yelled out.

I just knelt down and simply cut the wire. Suddenly I was knocked off my feet by some brute force. We fell into a building just as an explosion rang through the streets. Bricks came tumbling down on top of us, but this guy stayed right over me as they fell down on his back. I could hear the agony in his groans as brick after brick hit him. Finally they stopped.