“Hey guys, look at this!” came the excited cry from Eric. In his right hand was an ancient porno mag, covered in dust and soot, being held up like a hunter’s prized trophy.

“Put that s*** down man,” called Ruiz, “You don’t know what s*** has used that.”

Chris just stared disapprovingly.

“Yo Mark, you should give this to your kid. Teach ‘em young, yaknow?”

“Shut the f*** up Eric,” replied Mark, “kid knows enough already, and he isn’t even born.”

As the squad awaited new order, actions beyond their control were being set into motion.

***

Upon being rotated out and returning to the FOB, the squad quickly broke into their own groups and went about their business. Ruiz and Mark went to mess hall, whilst Eric, George, and Chris went to loiter around the barracks.

Ruiz and Mark began their leisurely stroll towards the hall, mindlessly talking about life and their aspirations. Eventually, their conversation went back to what it always did; what their life was before.

“Man, have I ever shown you my wife?” chirped Mark, already reaching into his pocket for the image of them.

“You show me her every other day man, god damn,” came the apt response from Ruiz.

“Well too bad, I’ll show you again,” he responded, pulling out the photo of them. On the photo was Mark and his wife, Cindy, at a bar in Rifle, Texas. Mark towered over everybody in the picture, but nobody seemed to mind. If anything, they seemed more at ease with him around.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” sighed Ruiz, “You aren’t showing me the ranch picture this time.”

“Yeah, well, I kinda ripped that one,” he sighed theatrically, “I miss that ranch.”

“Yeah, I f***ing noticed when you don’t shut the f*** up about it!”

The two laughed and walked into the hall, moving on to talk about whether or not a hotdog is a sandwich or not.

As this went on, Eric, George, and Chris were in a heated debate over whether or not George can sing and if that makes him gay.

“Listen man, I’m not saying George can sing or anything, but goddamn does he sound gay when he does it,” came the initial attack from Eric.

“Just because I can hit those high notes and you can’t doesn’t mean you have to get all pissy and call me gay you child,” George defended with a smirk.

“Ladies, ladies, I think we’re missing the big picture here,” Chris paused for effect, “What if you are both gay?”

Both Eric and George instantly turned and started throwing insults, but all Chris could do was laugh.

At promptly 0700 the next morning, the squad was back on their way to the town hall. After making their usual rounds, they came to the hall. After doing a quick perimeter check, the band of brothers went in and just sat around. After a few hours, they were ordered to head back once again. Stepping outside, they began their last steps home. Nobody took any notice to the lack of people around.

***

“Brothers, the time has come,” Abd al-Uzza exclaimed to his band of warriors. “The infidels have been seen walking into the hall. The time to strike is now, Allah wills it!” Rallying up in the surrounding apartments, they waiting patiently, like vultures, for their prey.

***

Exiting the hall from the back entrance, the squad walked past several blocks before ending up in narrow corridor by a bazar.

“I don’t like this,” muttered Christ, “It’s a natural f***ing choke point.”

“Yeah, well we just gotta push through. This place is supposed to be safe,” replied Chris.

Without warning or notice, several sharp cracks filled the air and George fell, a bullet having gone through the left side of his head and vaporizing the grey matter inside. To the others, the scene seemed to move in slow motion, his body taking forever to fall. However, through sheer muscle memory the others instantly grabbed his body and moved to cover in a small shop next to them.

“F*** man what the f***!” cried Eric, too in shock to take proper notice that George was dead.

The bullets cracked off the walls around them, the dust and debris kicked into their eyes and stinging their faces. The squad moved through to the back of the store, Chris leading, Ruiz dragging the body, and the rest covering. Once they made it to the storeroom, they crouched down to assess their situation.

“Alrighty,” Mark asserted, trying his best to hide his shaking, “We have to make our way back. Knowing the QRF response time, we’re on our own.”

“What about George!” screamed Eric, “Are we just going to pretend like he didn't just f***ing DIE?”

“I know!” Mark yelled back, visible losing his composure, “But there isn’t jack-s*** we can do about it, ok? We’ve got to keep going.”

Chris looked back in mild disappointment. “Will you both shut the f*** up? We need to keep moving,” and with that, he stepped through the door frame and into the next alleyway. Bewildered, the rest followed, Ruiz moving in stoic silence.

The gunfire behind them all but stopped, and the silence of the next alleway concerned them. As they moved up, gunfire began spitting out from an entrenched mg nest on the third floor of the building in front of them. Ruiz took a round to the shoulder and dragged himself to safety, whilst the rest gave suppressive fire and took cover again. Eric fumbled for a grenade and fed it to his launcher, peeking out from his cover and launching the grenade at the gunner’s position. The grenade found it’s mark one story below the gunner, but caused the floor to collapse and bury him a catacomb of dust and concrete.

“Holy s***…” Eric muttered under his breath.”

“Nice f***ing shot!” cheered Mark.

Chris quickly patched up Ruiz, and the rest of the remaining squad fanned out to different locations to cover him. From the rooftop to the left of the dead gunner’s position came an rpg, hitting the ground right next to Eric’s feet, and knocking him clean backwards, sans legs. Eric was dead from the concussive blast before he even hit the ground.

Mark was knocked unconscious from the blast and was quickly grabbed and dragged to safety by Chris, who’d left Ruiz inside of a small apartment complex. The gunfire began to pick up again, and as Mark began to come around, Christ was firing controlled bursts at a few insurgents.Chris noticed he was up and helped him to his feet, and helped the other two out of the building and kept them moving away from the gunfire and towards the heart of the city, back towards the hall.

***

        Abd al-Uzza casually walked up to Eric’s dead body. This one died messier than the last, he thought to himself, no matter, as long as he’s dead.

“Hussair!” Abd called to his scout.

“Sir!”

“Do you know where the infidels are moving to?”

“They appear to be going back to the town hall, sir, and two of them seem to be hurt. We could launch an attack now an-”

He was silenced by a quick hand gesture from Abd al-Uzza. “Do not speak in such rushed tactics. You saw how much damage one can do,” he said, kicking Eric’s corpse, ” Play it safe. Set up a perimeter. Ensure no one leaves or enters.”

Chris dragged the limping Ruiz back into the hall and set him up against a wall. Mark was trying to control his shaking via deep breathing. Chris reached out and handed him a water bottle from his pack, which Mark readily accepted.

        “F***,” was all Mark could mutter, “How the f*** did they know where we were going?”

        “Who knows man, maybe they’ve been watching us for a while now,” was all Chris could say.

A deep inhale from Ruiz drew their attention, “We should set up defensive positions, seeing as we’re positively screwed and are more than likely to be stuck here for a while,” he gulped and continued, “‘Cuz I know I sure as hell ain’t going down without a fight.”

The other two nodded in agreement. After changing mags and checking equipment, they drew up a game-plan.

“Alrighty, so Ruiz, you’ll be on the first floor, but the huge hole in the wall. You can hold our 9 through 12 o’ clock angles. Christ, you’ll be watching the back door and making sure nobody sneaks up on us. Got it?” The others nodded in approval. “Alright, let’s get to it and give ‘em hell.”

***

“Man, it’s been 3 hours. Would’ve thought they would’ve come by now.”

“Yeah, but you gotta stay on your guard man. Never know when they could come runnin’ to kill us,” responded Mark. “How’s your shoulder doin’”?

“F***in’ dandy,” grunted Ruiz, “Gonna get them back.”

Chris chuckled under his breath at his post, downed his water bottle, and stood to crack his back. “Where the f*** is our support?”

As the last syllable left his mouth, gunfire picked up from all sides and berated the building, the distinctive roar of the ak rising to deafening levels.

“Well f***, here we go!” Ruiz practically shouted, nailing one target after another with his SAW.  Screaming like a madman, Ruiz just kept going cyclic, taking down as many as he could before having to reload.

Meanwhile, Chris was crouched down near the back of the building, taking small, accurate bursts at insurgents. To him, it seemed for every one he took down, five more took their place. He smiled wearily. It didn’t bother him a bit, and his only concern was the amount of rounds he had left, not the bullets which were gradually edging closer.

To Mark, on the other hand, the insurgents were a pretty big issue. A bullet ricocheted off the wall next to him and grazed his face, obscuring half his vision and covering his face in blood. In truth, the wound was much less threatening than it appeared to be, but Mark took no notice, only firing in disciplined bursts at the targets that presented themselves. F*** man, I better make it home, was all he could think about.

***

Abd al-Uzza sat with his forward scout in a hotel across the street, surveying the chaos and feeling invincible. “Hussair!”

“Sir?”

“When do you think we will have the pigs crushed?”

“I give them an hour, sir.”

“Excellent. See to it brother, see to it.”

The targets from Chris’ view started becoming more scarce, so he had time to survey his surroundings. He gazed up one of the buildings parallel to him and noticed a rather important looking figure and his gooney staring in Mark’s direction and sizing him up with binoculars. Frowning to himself, he lined him up and put two through his head, the back of his skull detaching and painting the back wall. The partner fell backwards in horror as Chris put a quick end to him to, another trio of bullets ending his thoughts.

As Chris popped back into cover, mortar rounds started falling upon their location. One landed a few feet from Mark’s location, forcing him to go back downstairs in search of better cover. The shells were leaving truck size craters in the roads around the hall and caused half of the building to fall down. Ruiz had moved up from his previous position to group up with the others.

“Hey man where the f*** is Chris?” questioned Ruiz.

“Isn’t he righ- wait the f***? He was right here a second ago!”

The last two squadmates looked around in dismay for their medic, but despite their attempts, couldn’t locate him.

“Man, that’s just fan-f***ing-tastic, isn’t it? Right when it comes down to the wire, he goes and disappears.”

“Yeah, I know. Guess it’s just us two now,” sighed Mark as the gunfire picked up again.

Suddenly the roof caved in and Mark’s world went dark. Within seconds, however, he was back on his unsteady feet and seeing stars. Glancing over to his right, he noticed Ruiz’s body, head split open from a piece of rebar the fell from the ceiling. Try his hardest not to throw up, he grabbed his rifle and stumbled out the back door, promptly falling into a crater. Noticing a few curious hajis were coming his direction, he shouldered his rifle and groggily fired off a few rounds. Noticing his gun ran out of rounds, he instinctively slammed home a new mag and kept firing. With every shot the splitting pain in his head worsened, and the bullets whipping the dirt inches from his face didn’t help matters at all. I’m sorry I can’t come home and see you again son, Mark thought. He barely noticed the grenade fall into his foxhole over his own firing. Maybe I’ll see you again someday.

[0330, the following day]

        As Corporal Stanley Martinez rolled into the town hall with his Stryker team, it was all he could do to wonder exactly what the hell took place here the previous day. The town hall was absolutely leveled, along with everything in a 2 block radius. Craters pockmarked every street leading up to the building, and bodies littered the floor like mulch. Making his way around back, he noticed a crater with a US soldier in it.

        “Friendly body over here!” came his trained response. As he drew closer, he noticed the body was propped up into a sitting position, eyes closed and picture of the soldier’s family on his chest. Bending over to read his tags, Stanley was struck by the weight of the moment. Taking a second to breath, Stanley exhaled and whispered, “Good job Mark, good job.” With that, he made his way over to the hall to help clear out rubble. Today was going to be a long day, and he’d have to explain why a QRF team was 6 hours late to the party.