It was hot as hell when I walked in to the very cool feeling Marine recruitment office. As I did the man behind the desk stood and said "Afternoon, sir how can I help you."
I looked at him and smiled and said "I want to join the Marines"
he looked me over and asked "first off how tall are you and how old are you?"
I look at him and said "I'm 6'2" and I'm 18 sir just got out of high school last month."
He smiles and said "Well then why would you want to join, when you look like you should be playing foot ball or something like that?
"well sir, you know of the attack on Mars III bout a week back?" He shifted and then nodded, everyone knew bout that hard hitting attack. "My mom and dad were there, I came to Earth to play football, they were killed in the first wave." as I told my story I lowered my head, missing them both.
He just nodded again and got out a clipboard and said "Here fill this out, and we will see what we can do for you."
As I sat there filling out my name and the address of my former home, a tear came to my eye and I said to my self Mom, Dad if you are leasing I know you wanted me to play football, but with out you there to cheer me on, it has no meaning, and I want to be part of something bigger than myself I want to be a Marine. And I will kill who ever killed you and will not stop till I do.
After that I hand it back to him and he say have a seat and I will be right back, 20 mins later he come back and say with a big grin on his face "Welcome to the USNC, Marine. You ship out for boot in 5 days if there anything you need to take care of do it before then."
5 days later.....
Fort Johns, Graybean, Jupiter
With sleep still in my eye from the 13 hour ride up here I wake with a start as I hear someone scream "OFF THE BUS!! GO!! MOVE IT BOOT!!" I look up and see a tall white man screaming "YOU GOT A PROBLEM BOOT?" he asked looking right at me.
"No." I say getting up and moving to the front of the bus. Within that hour we were all shave bold and given cloth and to to strip and shower and meet with our DI's in the barracks, and told which bed would be our and told the rules:
the first words and the last out of our months are to be SIR!
Never question, you won't win that battle
stay focused
keep you're weapon clean at all time, if you have time to lean you have time to clean
always help the guy next to you, you're a team and should act as so
After we were told the rules it was time for lights out, sleep after a long day and by the looks of it tomorrow wasn't going to be a cake walk.
With loud bang and shouting we woke with a start, I looked at the watch they gave us, 0430 in the morning, I got up and stood at the end of my bunk as the lead DI came down and looked us over and said with what I guessed was glee, "MEN get dressed and out side ASAP! Time to have some fun." with that we all moved as fast as we could, to get dressed and outside.
"Good morning, Recruits!" he called out as we line up arms waith apart and straight backs.
"good morning sir." some but not all of us called out while others started to fall asleep again.
"Good god are ya'll not awake yet, one more time and with feeling this time. GOOD MORNING. Recruits!" he called out again.
"GOOD MORNING, SIR" we all called out at once.
With a smile he said "Now that's better. Welcome to boot, first off I'm SGT Logan, but you can call me SIR, DO YOU GET ME?!?"
"SIR, yes SIR," some said with a weak voice.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" he called, we said it again, this time with more feeling to which he said "Now that's done we can start with the PT, recruits drop in to the push up pistion and get ready!" as he said this the rest of the DI's went round and made sure every one was right and ready and when he got a nod from all the DI it start 50 push ups fallowed by 200 sit up and leg lifts. As we lay there and wounded what would be next, they told us to get up and get some water and then it was time to run four miles up and then back and rest for the night. It was 2300 hours when we, at long last put out heads to the pillow, but then it was over all too soon and the day started again.
4 week later weapons training
"Men welcome to weapons training. Here you will learn how to shoot and hit targets up to a 100 meters away with the try and true battle and assault rifles and for those who are a really good shot you get to play with SR7 .50 sniper rifle which if aimed right can take a head off at well over 2000 meters. So let get going, see the armory for you're weapons, and the report to the firing rage on the double." he said with big smile, the last four week have been filled with nothing but running workout and heavy meals to keep us going. We got up as one and headed to the armory and got the first of two rifles the older, and heavier MA5C assault rifle, as I looked in over, I notice there were threads for a sound suppressor, I hold up my hand and ask "Sir, I see there are threads for a sound suppressor, will we get those too?"
He just smiled and said "good eye and yes you will get those later, but not right now. Men fallow the guide to take it apart and then put it back together as fast as you can and you will be timed. Start on my mark in 3... 2... 1 go!" he called out and we start to take them apart. Four hours later, all of us could take it apart and put it back, ready to go.
It was a hot and kinda wet feeling day in late June, my team and I, were on the ground and training for war. The sarge told us out of all the ones he has trained in the past we are the best of them all, he called us Hells best, we just called our selves Helljumpers.
The next year, we had our first real taste of combat on the small moon of Jupiter, not sure which one that day kinda blinded in to one big hell, we lost so many but my group made it out alive.
We landed at 2300 local time, night time the best time, my group of me Flex "The Phantom" Gibbs and Jason "Scorch" Beardmore, our explosives guy, and the long shot artiest James "JR" Roover and the guy that can put us back together should we get shot or hurt bad, Roy "Fixer" Day. Though Fixer has more time putting Scorch back together than anyone of us.
As we hit the LZ or landing zone, we were to move North by East and take a small town about 4 klicks from where we landed. As we got out of out the HEV's I made the hand motion to regroup so we could make a better plan as how to take the town, which if the Intel was right, wasn't going to be easy. I laid a map of the area and held up a 3d image of it in front of every one and then look to JR and asked, "if you get up here" I said pointing to a hill bout ΒΌ klicks away from the town "Do you think you can cover us as we go in and grab the target?"
"i don't know maybe but I need a spotter for that kinda range." he said looking at the tree and the grass to see what the wind and weather were going to do, "I'd say yeah I can do that."
I smiled at him and then got on the horn to one of the other groups around us and asked if they had an extra sniper we could bum for the mission, and luck was with us there was, his name was Buster, we never got his last name.
Once he joined up with us him and JR where off to the hill for over watch, I then look at Scorch and said "Do you think you could bring down this wall" I said zooming in to the targets buildings south most wall. He nodded with a big grin on his face and I knew what that meant, he was happy and ready to go. I looked at the doc and said "Fixer your coming too, case we need ya" and I nodded to Scorch.
"He said just the wall not the building it self." Fixer said slapping him head on the back of the head. Though he did keep smiling, it turned in to a kinda wolfish grin.
With that I told them to move and sent a hand sign to JR and Buster who I could feel watching our every move, good, we are going to need if it we want to pull this off. We move slow but study, me up the middle and Scorch going up the left and Fixer to the right, bout 5 meter to either side. At 20 meters from the fence we stopped and took a good look around, there were too many guards to go in the front way, so we look to see if we could find a back way in, sadly it didn't look like there was one that we could see I looked at Fixer and told him to head to the South and see what he could see from there but to stay in the tree line and out of sight, I told Scorch to do the same only to the North. From the look of it the Intel was wrong, it said the main gate was on the North side but it was on the West side, leave it to the Intel guy to get it wrong. Fifteen minutes later both Scorch and Fixer came back, Fixer got nothing on the South side, Scorch said there was a small gap in there pattern just big enough for a three man team to slip in, it came round ever five minutes or so and we had to move now if we wanted to make it. We move to the North side and as we watch for the hole I told my team "Hold on this seems way to easy," they both look at me and I pointed it out " look at the hole its almost like then waiting for us to come though, we need to find another way in." they sat there and watch and then at the same time they both saw it the hole was meant to be there and they would be waiting on us to spring there trap. I smiled at both of them and said "Lets head to the East side and see if we can get in there." as we got up and moved I my another group of hand sign to JR and Buster, telling them we were moving to the East side of the town and to watch our backs.