Of Rice And Men (No longer being updated)

Chapter 1

Northern Burma, 2015

Wednesday, 19th July

15:17 Hours

Mud, swamp and rice, that’s all I knew about this place, Myanmar, Burma as most still called it. I had quickly learnt that my assumptions were absolutely correct. We had only been here for little more than nine hours and I’ve already seen twelve rice paddies, got stuck four times and had our Viking go up over the tracks in stinking, brown water. If it wasn’t for these brilliant pieces of technology like the Viking, I doubt anyone could get from a to b without drowning or getting swarmed by bugs. I could’ve sworn I’d had the same mosquito tucking into my neck since we stepped off the Chinook into this god awful hellhole.

Just like in the sixties and seventies in Vietnam, it started with guerrillas. Burma had gone from being the fourth most corrupt country in the world to a shining example of how democracy works. Take any third world country, kick out the commies and let the US help run it for a few years and you have a perfect country. But now the Communist agenda was creeping back in. Sporadic guerrilla attacks on government buildings, protests and demonstrations, the works.

We Brits had been here for a few years anyhow, helping keep the peace and it just so happened that my regiment, the Royal Marines, were to be stationed here when things came to a head. Most of the regiment had flown in a couple of days earlier to get to normal patrol routines but a dozen or so of us were kept behind. We were told we would be helping escort a US diplomatic convoy through Burma, along with SAS and Delta Force.

Seen as the Marines were going in anyway, they saw fit to let us make up the bulk of the escort force. It would have taken too long to bring in any US troops or the Parachute Regiment and this diplomat needed to be in as soon as possible to bring an end to the conflict. I had never even dreamed of being able to work with them, the best of the best, and thought it an honour to be considered good enough among my regiment to be selected for this mission. Naturally, I accepted and was eager to get out into the action on the fifty calibre on top of my Viking.

Boy, was I wrong to be excited. The place was a festering pool of scum and flies, farmers eking out a living on rice and selling all they had left over. Why this country was even so important to the US was a mystery. Nonetheless, I was in no position to question my orders and got on with my operation like a good Marine should, determined to impress.

I had wanted to become a Marine since finding out about them on a documentary as a kid. Badass guys in boats, charging across beaches and clambering up sheer faced cliffs and mowing down the bad guys like it was nobody’s business. The green beret, modern weapons and the camouflaged uniform had always appealed to my boyish, aggressive nature. They looked like real professionals, the ultimate soldiers.

I had grown up around water in a small seaside town in West Wales, spending most of my spare time on the pebbled beaches with my friends or surfing out on the waves. I was in my element in water, whether it was going fishing in my dad’s boat, sailing with my friends or going for a swim out in the bay. Being on a boat was natural to me, so I thought being a Marine would be a cakewalk. I was very wrong.

The water I was fine with. It was the training that I struggled in. I wasn’t in particularly bad shape and I wasn’t fat, but the course would test any man to his limits, being the longest training course in the world. My lean build and medium stature didn’t put me at a great disadvantage, but it most certainly didn’t give me an advantage either. The amounts of weight we carried were immense, packs full to the brim with rock as we charged up and over hills, weapons in hand. In the end, it was worth it for the honour of being Dylan Llewelyn, Royal Marine Commando.