Adante Henderson
Short Story
Period 4
Desert Saber
He remembered that phone call, that one phone call that changed his entire life. One phone call changing your entire life seems kind of major right? Wrong. Paul Hannon was reeling. He had just received a phone call telling him that the flight carrying the love of his life, his Julie, had not made it out of the Kuwait airport due to an invasion by Iraq. That's right an invasion. Most people's flights get delayed for a couple of days at the most, due to weather. Not Julie, no, her flight was delayed for an indefinite amount of time, due to an invasion from a foreign country. Julie Rodriguez always did like to take things to the max. All he could do was sit there dazed as his brain tried to contemplate the fact that the woman he wanted to be the mother of his children, the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was stuck in a foreign country, in the middle of an invasion by another foreign country.
15 weeks later, Paul Hannon was on a plane to Kuwait as a Private First Class in the U.S. army.
Riding in the back of a Dodge M37 Paul Hannon, surveyed his fellow squad mates: Salim Mansoor, the squad sniper; Zafir Qausim, the squad support gunner; and Habib Rahman, the squad medic. He couldn't exactly call them friends, except for maybe Salim. The two of them both had someone they loved waiting for them in Kuwait City. Although truthfully, Julie didn't know that he was on his way to find her, somewhere in the newly-freed city. He was on his way to find her and it made him happier than any other thing in the world. Just seeing her again would be worth the terrors of boot camp and the short time he had spent in the war. Officially, he, the other three men riding with him, and the six men in the truck ahead of them were apart of the liberation crew taking back Kuwait, but truthfully, all the men in the back of the truck knew it was a front. Any Iraqi forces would be long gone by the time they arrived; they were simply there to dissuade any trouble-makers while the army still had reason to have them there.
When the truck pulled into Kuwait City it was to a sight of celebration. Many Kuwait natives, oppressed during the Iraqi occupation were celebrating like there was no tomorrow. Paul couldn't help but feel enthused with all of the festivities going on. The city itself really wasn't all that different from America. Although there where certain places where a crumbled rooftop served as a reminder of the fighting that had been going on, it seemed like the city as a whole was mostly untouched. Dead bodies were not littering the ground and the buildings weren't piles of rubble and ash.
In fact, maybe he could ask the sergeant for a week or two of leave to explore the city. He closed his eyes and imagined it. An entire week exploring the newly freed city with his beloved Julie, feeling the joy and happiness of a city freed from oppression. Then, during their final day in Kuwait, he would take her to a nice place; with a view of the entire city and right then, right there he would ask her to be his, forever more. Fingering the ring in his right breast pocket he sat there in a state of melancholy only reached when after a long and terrible struggle, one sees the thing they have longed for so long, coming into sight.
He was still basking in the celebratory aura and making plans for his possible engagement in Kuwait when it happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that his mind couldn't comprehend; an RPG. The people in the truck ahead never even saw it coming. One second they were driving and the next they were dead; killed in an impressive display of yellow and orange. It had happened so quickly, in all of 5 seconds 6 good men were dead. He was still in shock when he heard a shot fired and there was suddenly a hole roughly 3 centimeters in diameter, in the middle of Habib's head. He and the other two men immediately dropped to the floor of the truck, panic taking a firm grip on his mind. A few seconds later they heard another shot and the truck suddenly lost control. It made no sense. There weren't supposed to be any enemy forces in the city but, not only was there and enemy grenadier, there was an enemy sniper as well; one good enough to kill two men in the span of ten seconds.
As the truck slammed into a wall and came to a stop the men on the floor regained there bearings. Paul realizing that panic had taken a hold of his body and that his hand wouldn't stop shaking quickly reached into his right pants pocket and grabbed a small white bottle given to him by an older soldier during his first battle. Quickly, he popped of the cap of the bottle and downed one of the pills inside. He didn't know what it was but he knew that it would help take away the horrible fear. After all, a soldier with trembling hands can't shoot, and a soldier that can't shoot is as good as dead.
After downing the pill, Paul quickly replaced the bottle and assessed his situation. There were three men from the caravan still alive, including himself. The enemy forces consisted of a sniper, and a grenadier, and they were a non-moving target. Realizing that if they didn't move soon they would end up like either Habib, or the men in the truck ahead of them, the three soldiers quickly surveyed their surroundings in search of cover. Seeing that the shop across the street from them had a broken window; Paul quickly signaled to the other two men huddled down beside him to make a break for the shop and the cover it would provide. Seeing the other two men nod their heads in assent to his plan Paul quickly began a countdown. On the count of one the men jumped from the back of the truck and ran to the broken shop window. Seeing that they were about 15 paces away from the shop Paul did a second countdown. 15 paces, 14 paces, 10 paces, 5 paces. Then, just two paces from their target a shot rang out. Paul didn't stop for even a second to see if it had hit either of the other two men. He kept running until he made it to the window, which he leapt through. A second shot rang out and this time Paul saw Zafir go down. Salim, at least, was able to make it though the window.
For a few seconds, both Salim and Paul just sat there frightened out of there mind. Then, army training kicked in; Paul quickly looked around and tried to spot any possible infantry men. He left the sniper and the grenadier, most likely hiding in the same place, to Salim. Not even 10 seconds after they had started searching for their enemy, he saw Salim ready his M40A1 sniper rifle and let off a shot. 5 seconds after that he let off another. Completed with both of his kills Salim said quickly, his voice lowered to a whisper for some reason neither quite understood, "Sniper, grenadier, down." Paul let out a sigh of relief he realized he'd been holding in. Salim too, let himself relax for a second. That was where he'd made his mistake. In the split second he let his guard down he unconsciously let his head above the windowsill. That split second was enough to cost Salim his life.
A shot of gunfire rang out and Paul saw Salim go wide-eyed before he suddenly collapsed on the floor. He cursed and ducked down behind the store window. Looking across the street he saw the soldier that had killed Salim, taking cover behind an overturned kiosk. He readied his M-16 rifle and switched it to semi-automatic to improve his aim. Taking aim at the enemy soldier he let off a shot. It missed, and ricocheted off of the kiosk into the hotel behind it. The soldier, startled, dropped behind the kiosk and out of Paul's sight. Cursing his aim Paul waited for the enemy soldier to provide him with another target. After waiting for what seemed like forever he saw his target. The soldier had unconsciously let his left soldier out from behind the cover of the kiosk. Taking aim, Paul sent up a prayer and let off another shot. This one hit the target perfectly. The enemy soldier let out a scream of pain and grabbing his arm, fell out of the cover of the kiosk; momentarily forgetting the need to take cover in his immense pain. Taking aim, Paul quickly let off another shot, this one sinking into the middle of the enemy soldiers back.
After waiting for an entire minute to ensure that there were no more enemies hidden somewhere out of view Paul walked across the street to the dead body of his adversary. He took aim and shot the still body once through the head. Turning around, satisfied that his enemy was dead he felt a strange wetness by his stomach. Reaching down Paul felt a sticky substance, and bringing it back to eye level confirmed that it was blood. Suddenly feeling strangely weak he collapsed to the ground. Using the last bit of strength he reached into his breast pocket and brought the ring he had meant to propose to his Julie with to his chest. Looking down at the ring held next to his heart, his last thoughts were, "At least Julie's getting out of the city today."
Mere minutes after he fell to the ground Paul Hannon was dead. He had been shot through the stomach by the enemy sniper during his sprint from the truck to the shop. Only a high-dose of morphine in his system that he had unknowingly taken to stop the trembling of his hands had kept him from realizing he was wounded. From almost the very beginning of the fight, he had slowly been dieing.
In the hotel behind the kiosk, Julie Rodriguez was dead, her luggage scattered around her and the bullet from an M-16 rifle lodged in her heart.