Shot Throught the Heart

twenty-six

After that tense meeting, there wasn't another briefing including team leaders until five days later. Major Collins has been keeping me abreast of the situation going on in command as much as she can, but even she has limits. She has been pushing for the reforms to the plans to include all the points I have raised and its helping that Major Roman has been standing firm with her.

Bravo team has also arrived on base. I got to meet up with their team leader Master Sergeant Raymond Cortez. Together him, myself and Ryan have been getting together for lunch. We have been exchanging intel and different tips and tricks we've all picked up over the course of our careers that have helped us lived to see another day. Master Sergeant Cortez also let us both know that the Major in command of his spec-ops team blew a gasket when he heard the current plans that came down from General Foudy. So needless to say, things are tense on base right now.

Even though I haven't seen any more footage of the airstrikes, I have been reading the briefings that Morgan has been delivering to the team to keep us on top of all the current events happening. All the news coming out of Ukraine is bad, civilians dead, Russian troops moving in, destroying everything in their wake, and there doesn't seem to be an easy solution to stop the fighting. The President of Ukraine has enacted Martial Law and has called to arms any male citizen from the age of eighteen to sixty to fight for their country.

So far the people of Ukraine are fighting back with any thing and everything they have available to them. Their president refused our offer to be evacuated from the country, wanting to fight alongside his people on the front lines. But it is quickly being clear to us that the Ukrainian military is no match to Russia's. They can secure parts of the country but it will be hard for them to keep up on all fronts.

Over the past five days, I have basically been living either in the gym or on the range, still too keyed up from the briefing to be able to sit still for more then a few minutes. I have also been able to talk to my family at least once as well. Needless to say it was hard to keep my frustration from getting in the way of those conversations. On the fifth day from that briefing I video called Mallory and got to talk to Logan. He was the only one who was able to bring me out of my funk. Getting to spend fifteen uninterrupted minutes talking to an innocent child who doesn't know much about what's going on, finally helped settle some of my anger.

It was also nice to talk to Mallory for a bit. After I spoke with Logan we spoke for ten minutes. She was not happy with the voicemail I left her last week and it took a few minutes of groveling to move past it. Once we did, I managed to get to hear all about how it's going with school starting again. The first week of school is in the books and she told me all about the kids in her class. By the time I had to go, my mood leveled out.

But the following day it tanked again when we got word there is going to be a new briefing with an updated mission plan. This time, only myself will be going to the meeting with Major Collins. When we got into the meeting room, Alpha and Bravo One were just settling into their assigned seats with their Major's not far away. Once General Foudy saw we were all accounted for, he passed out a new folder to the three of us before launching into an overhauled plan.

This plan is one I could get behind. We have clear margins for operating along with how we can aid civilians caught in the crossfire. Our main objectives haven't changed to much. Alpha and Bravo team were now going to capture, secure and hold Chernobyl for the time being. From there, they are going to set up a perimeter around the plant and expand it outward with those from the Ukrainian military to help keep it secure.

Now for Gold Team, we are going to still be pushing across the country towards Mariupol but now, we are going to try and capture, secure and hold the Mariupol Steel Plant. We are heading directly into Russian occupied territory. This steel plant is said to have bunkers were civilians have been hiding out from Russian airstrikes. As we push through to the steel plant, we are going to have a platoon of US troops along with some allied forces following behind us to secure the land we manage to take back. Gold Team is the first team of soldiers through the area and we have a big job to do.