Creepypasta Stories And Rituals

The Deployment

May 4th, 2009

This is my first entry. I'm keeping this journal as part of my recovery. My therapist has recommended I start tracking my thoughts, observations and memories to help with my sessions. She believes the exercise of writing everything down will help me sort my memories into logical order. She says this will help me deal with the traumatic stress that's put me in this hospital. I'm just hoping the migraines will stop.

I'll start from the beginning, at least as far back as I can remember. My name is Thomas Anthony. My family calls me Tommy. I'm in the Air Force, stationed at Ramstein, Germany. I've been in for almost five years now but this was my first actual deployment. That's rare these days- most of my buddies had already deployed at least once- but my unit hadn't been tasked with supporting a combat mission until this past year.

I was understandably nervous when I was informed I'd be assigned to what was considered a "hot region" of Iraq. The area (whose name I won't mention as it's still sensitive information) was one of the more remote parts of the country, and it was known for daily mortar strikes, roadside IEDs, and RPG attacks. I was to be part of a 3 person communications team supporting a group of Special Forces operators.

My team would consist of Master Sergeant Jerry Fountain, our team lead and radio tech, Staff Sergeant Michael Ramos, our network tech, and myself, the designated satellite tech. Fountain was a decent enough supervisor. He could be gruff at times, but as long as the mission was running smoothly and the work got done he didn't care too much about regulations. As for Ramos, he's the guy I considered my best friend. We'd been neighbors in the dorms when I first got to Germany, and as we were both single young airmen in a foreign country, we'd quickly bonded over our mutual love for beer and European women. Nervous though I was, it was a relief to be heading out the door with people who I knew would have my back.

Our pre-deployment training was relatively uneventful- long 12 hour days of prepping our equipment and getting signed off on various training requirements. For the first several weeks I was able to distract myself and push the anxiety out of my head. I tried to stay positive and not dwell on the danger, but I couldn't speak to my parents or any of my civilian friends without them bringing up stories they'd seen on the news about roadside ambushes and attacks. As time went on I found myself wanting to be out the door already. In my mind the sooner we left, the sooner we could start thinking about coming home.

When our move out date finally arrived, we loaded our bags full of gear and body armor and prepared ourselves for a series of long flights. We were in the four seat middle row of a mid-sized military shuttle. Fountain, being our team lead, helped himself to the corner seat, and it was up to Mendez and I to figure out who'd have to sit in the middle for the duration of our trip. "Not bitch", I started- I didn't even manage to get half way through before he cut me off- "You can't call Not Bitch on a plane, dude. Come on."

"Flip you for it then, got a quarter?" I offered.

"Shit, I don't have any change. Didn't think we'd be able to use it in the desert. Rock paper scissors will have to do."

I agreed, and on three we both drew. I threw down paper, he did too.

"Again?"

"On three, one, two, three-"

I threw scissors this time, he threw rock.

"Damn it," I muttered.

"Will you two just sit the fuck down?" asked Fountain. "You can play musical chairs later, we've got plenty of stops along the way."

Ramos looked back at me and shrugged. "You can get out and stretch at Aviano."

Aviano Italy would be our first stop, followed by stops at Qatar and Baghdad before we switched to a smaller aircraft for the last leg. "Sure," I sighed, settling in next to Fountain's large frame for the middle seat for the first part of our journey. I adjusted my seatbelt before reaching down to loosen my boots. As I finished I looked up and noticed a young woman walk up to the fourth seat next to Ramos. She wore her blonde hair in a tightly coiled bun high on the back of her head, and as she stowed one of her duffel bags in the overhead compartment I noticed how her Navy fatigues hugged her slender frame. I quickly darted my eyes away from her as she finished stowing her luggage so as not to be caught leering, and as I did I noticed the golden bars on her collar. "Ma'am," said Ramos, introducing himself to the young officer as she took her seat next to him. She nodded curtly and smiled before strapping herself into her seat. Ramos looked over at me and quickly flashed me a quick thumbs up before mouthing the words "it's on".