The year is 2016. Joseph, a survivor of 9/11 follows his father's footsteps and enlisted in the military. Not long after, he along with two of his friends were deployed to Iraq among the ranks of some of the best American fighting men: the US Army...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
15.28 hours
April 24th, 2016
US firebase, Northern Iraq
Sgt. Joseph Mueller – US Army Rangers
"Ugh that's a lot of spread..."
"Come on... looks like all that Call of Duty got you the eye strain, huh?"
"Oh shut up Carl... take off the scope and see how you go..." I replied.
We were just firing off some rounds down the range for target practice. But not with our usual tacticool loadouts with fancy holographic sights and foregrips we carry with on our missions, just standard M4 rifles with iron sights. The other guy, a native American man named Carl, was our platoon leader. Lt. Carl Shilah, that is. Wait, why wasn't I addressing him with his rank and last name? Long story short, he's actually been a friend of mine since a while. Knew the guy from high school as the Native American dude who talks about hunting a lot more than the other guys do, and before long we ended up going together on a bunch of hunting trips.
That's right. My commanding officer is my hunting buddy. Eighty to ninety percent of the time we skip the formalities. It's a small world indeed...
Quick introduction to the guys I work with here. My squad, two fireteams, and CO.
- Sgt. Joseph Miller, that's me, the squad leader.
- Cpl. Carrie "CT" Thompson, fireteam leader for Mitchell, Ramirez and Chang. Gun-slinging tomboy who attached a shotgun to her M4 for "up close and personal" business. Childhood best friend of mine, I swore to protect her.
- Lt. Carl Shilah, platoon leader and skilled sniper. Constantly lands double-lung shots up to 250 yards when we go hunting. He can watch our backs while we carry out his directives.
- Pvt. Park, Korean American designated marksman. His dad rolled with the "Roof Koreans" in the 1992 LA riots.
- Pvt. Mitchell, designated marksman. Sunday school teacher back home. Prays every morning.
- Pvt. Ramirez, automatic rifleman – aka machine gunner. Gets often compared to a video game character, just laughs it off.
- Pvt. Chang, our squad's Taiwanese-American medic. Whole family moved stateside anticipating Red Chinese invasion.
- Pvt. Davis, anti-tank SMAW operator. Tough fellow looks like a Viking. Run into a hostile technical or BMP, he's our guy.
- Pvt. Underwood, automatic rifleman. Came from a police family, and an aspiring basketball proathlete.
- Cpl. Avner Bronstein, fireteam leader for Park, Davis and Underwood. He's rather shady at times but otherwise really good with silent ops. Has an interest in combat drone technology.
