This work of art was written by a currently serving US soldier.
Enjoy.
Once upon a time, in a land known as VIETNAM
Insert suspicious tone here...
"Two! Move seventy-five meters, front! Three, target that machine gunner, bearing two-zero-niner! Seven, get support!"
The firefight was big. Everyone was dying. By everyone, I mean a bunch of Vietnamese people in a bush. This was Vietnam. Jungles. Nasty jungles.
Machine gun noises.
Lights, flashing killing and screaming. Lots of shooting. Ouch.
"One. Is down! I say again- One. Is down!"
A panicked man, the greatest man, kneeled by a tree as his emotionless face spat out words he didn't want to say.
"Two, taking command! I say again, I'm the new actual!"
Suddenly, the sound of helicopters rattled the treetops. In an instant, a wave of helicopters blazed over the leaves, but then suddenly and magically disappeared with a funky zappy noise. Weird.
The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the sounds of everlasting torment hung in the air.
The first of a dozen UH-1 Hueys buzzed over the main highway in Planeptune, with dozens of onlookers and fleeing citizens viewing the indiscriminate attackers with awe. The sound of "Fortunate Son" was in the air, and door gunners suddenly realized that this wasn't Vietnam, and they should probably stop shooting civilians. But they didn't care- at least for now.
DAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKA!
M60 machine guns, steaming from a long afternoon of constant firing, let loose on the hundreds of cars lining the road. Pings and pongs popped from bullets bouncing on car frames, and plips and thumps sank into the din of machine gun fire as bullets slapped human bodies. With car accidents abound, there wasn't a doubt in any of the gunner's minds that this was a blast, both literally and metaphorically.
They flew over the highway without a destination in mind, each of the helicopters aching to keep a V formation. Some flew too close to the ground, the skids of the craft skimming the roofs of cars. The gunners didn't care, though.
Although it took a moment for all the gunners to go quiet, the casualties numbered in the hundreds. Blood flowed freely down the streets of Planeptune, with limbs and bits of brain matter staining those niche video game stores you'd find in animes.
"GIT SUM!" Shouted the lead helicopter's door gunner, half his body leaning out of the Huey. With one hand on the M60, and the other waving at the screaming, helpless people below, he swore those commies had it coming.
His ripped uniform fluttered in the wind, hulking muscles hardened from years of shooting villagers. No one else in his helicopter knew his real name, and no one wanted to. The last person to learn his name drowned in a toilet, a testament to the man's ferocity. That could be a reason as to why no one but the pilot rode with them.
True to his manly demeanor, the others simply called him 'The Man.'
So when the helicopter pilot started yapping at The Man to stop shooting, he wasn't pleased at the lack of masculinity in his order.
"Stop shooting?!" The Man exclaimed, stepping towards the pilot. The helicopter shook with every step he took. "What do you mean, stop shooting? There are commies out there lookin' to kill our babies!"
Wiping the blood of babies from his hands, The Man pressed his thumbs over the M60's trigger.
DAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKA!
The Man kept on firing, and the people below devolved further into chaos. Swerving cars, with their drivers dead, injured or panicked, slammed into one another with metal bits flinging into the incoming hail of bullets. As more and more cars piled up, and the death toll grew and grew, The Man smiled more and more.
But the pilot was having none of it. With a free hand, he pushed his visor back into his helmet, and with the other he pulled the stick towards him. The Man suddenly lost his balance, tumbling back inside the chopper, barking his disapproval with obscenities.
As the helicopter pulled into the sky, and The Man prepared to give the pilot a piece of his mind, one of the helicopters in the formation suddenly exploded.
Just like that, pow, bang, kaboom, the rotor flung into the air like a frisbee while the tail cracked off like a tree's branch. The main component, somehow still in one coherent piece, kept gliding forwards, but just for a second. Sinking towards the highway as the husk kept formation, the chunk smashed into a car and ignited with a magnificent fireball. The metal chunk bounced forwards, crushing another car as others swerved to keep clear of the rolling thunder.
They were getting shot down!
The Man, thoroughly startled, yelped in surprise. With more expletives on his lips, they watched as helicopter after helicopter went down in similar ways. Hunks of helicopter crumbled across the highway at breathtaking speeds, one even smashing through a building on its tragic descent.
With the screams of innocents filling The Man's ears, he struggled towards the pilot's seat. He latched his hands to the rear of it, hanging on and bracing for a similar fate.
The pilot, having survived several crash landings in the jungles of Vietnam, felt obligated to survive today.
With that determination in mind, the tail rotor was abruptly shot off. A jerk flooded the helicopter as the vehicle started spinning rapidly. Out of control, and spinning over and over and over and over like day on night on day on night, with their lunches flooding their throats and their brains squishing like goop draining into their butterfly-infused stomachs, they were helpless as the main component started crumbling. The rotor flinged into the sky, another jerk and the slow but steady glide forwards greeting them as the pilot started screaming.
The Man, unable to hold on any longer, felt himself flung out into Planeptune. The pilot, watching helplessly as the G forces shoved him unconscious, could barely comprehend that he was thrown out of the cockpit.
As the helicopter smashed into a gas station, the two unlucky souls found themselves in the air. And in the next moment, as the gas station erupted in a majestic fire, their vision faded to black.