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...
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15.28 hours
May 20th, 2016
Qayyarah outskirts, Iraq
Sgt. Joseph Mueller – US Army Rangers
It was one fine day in Iraq as usual, and our orders were simple. An Iraqi helicopter just got shot down a few clicks out of Qayyarah. That's 35 miles south of Mosul... aka the belly of the beast. The Iraqis asked our help to investigate the crash site. See if there were any survivors, and if possible, find out where the Stinger that shot it down came from and neutralize it if it's still there.
The company sent out two Humvees – that's us – to get it done. We drove in a convoy, with five soldiers in the front, and five in the rear. Ten guys in total. CT, Carl and I went on the front with two Iraqi soldiers. One was our driver Pvt. Omar, and the other was our interpreter Pvt. Talib who sat shotgun. The rear Humvee was all Iraqi, with their squad leader Sgt. Bashir. The M2 on my Humvee was manned by... yours truly. As for the rest of my squad, I had them stay at base with Avner. We'll be home by dinner, I thought.
The day started like any other day here. I woke up, took a shower and had breakfast with my friends and the rest of my squad. Then we geared up. I slapped on an ACOG 4.0x scope onto my trusty SCAR-H assault rifle, and then mounted an M203 40 mm grenade launcher under the barrel. I holstered my M1911, and grabbed six 40 mm frag rounds. Just another day in the office, I suppose.
Afterwards we loaded up the .50 caliber ammunition for our Humvee-mounted M2 heavy machine guns. I have good experience in firing those. And the stopping power is just... kick ass. One round can dismember a tango's limb or just send them upstairs instantly. An accurate salvo to the hood stops most light vehicles.
And now, here we are. Driving along the Iraqi countryside. The area is still a hot zone as of now, as ISIS terrorists are trying to regain control from the Iraqi forces.
We have been driving for about two hours now. The crash site should be within our reach in no time... yet... things seem way too quiet.
Nothing was heard other than the whirring of our engines, as well as the radio static that's coming in. The landscape around us was nothing but boring rocky desert with bushes and the occasional abandoned outbuilding popping in and out of view.
No signs of hostiles anywhere, but apparently our drivers kept away from the roadsides and stayed to the middle of the road. They had a reason: stay clear of IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices. Hundreds of American and NATO fighting men has lost their lives to one of these roadside death traps, which basically are anything that can blow up, including mortar shells, RPGs, landmines or pipebombs, rigged to a detonator. Running over one of these would definitely ruin our day.
Even if we survive the explosion, the hostiles would close in and riddle us with bullets. Nasty little things, indeed...
"Thompson here. Y'all see the smoke on our one, over?" CT radioed the rear Humvee.
