"Quick the LT could come back to his room in a second!" A voice whispered from around the corner of the small building we used as a barrack at our base near Bagdad.

"I know, I know, I just need to tie the knot." another voice said.

I peeked around the corner to see a wolf standing under a filled balloon, a deer holding the balloon with a rope, and a horse watching with a mildly amused expression. They were all dressed in desert Marpat battledress uniforms. The wolf had corporal stripes; his name tag read Darby. I smirked Slightly, he was always trying to prank me with his friends. The deer had a naval corpsman emblem on his vest and his name tag read Ethan. He had a rope in his hoofs attached? to a balloon filled with some liquid, most likely Pouncer.

"Ok I almost got it," the corpsman said.

"Good. When the lieutenant goes through the door way, drop the balloon." Darby whispered. "We can't fail again!"

"You know that he won't fall for it," said the horse. He was wearing a Private first class stripe his name tag read Julius Alec. I smile He was the only person who I could say was my friend from childhood.

"I mean you two have tried to get him with a prank ever since we were deployed out here to fight terrorists" Alec continued as he leaned against the dull metal wall. "If you keep trying he's going to eventually get pissed." Alec then turned his head and met my gaze, I smiled slightly and gave a small nod. His lips formed a small smirk and he nodded back.

I then rounded the corner as Alec snapped to attention and called "Officer on deck!"

Ethan with all his training snapped to attention completely forgetting he still held the rope with the balloon in his hoofs. In the split second that he had, Darby's face sank he hadn't forgotten that the that he was still under the balloon. The balloon broke over his head spilling out the green energy drink on him. The small room turned quiet as we all stared at the soaking wet wolf, then we all broke into laughter expect Darby. He just stood there poker faced by the turn of events.

"I heard that wolfs like to swim but I didn't think it was in a puddle of Pouncer." laughed Ethan.

"Was that what you tried to dump on me," I said trying to regain my composure. "I thought you would try something other than energy drink this time Darby."

Coming out of his stupor Darby fumed "I had thought I would try tea but I remembered that you don't have an appreciation for finer things."

"Just another reason I joined the marine corps and not the air force" I responded.

Our conversation was cut short when we heard the sound. The sound I still dread to this day. The sound of a RPG streaking by the building. I looked out the window to see the small green projectile slam into in to a small metal building. The building erupted into flames, voices started yelling, bullets cracked as they flew over the roof of our barracks.

We ran out to see the burning corpses of marines lying in the sand. A few where still alive, screaming and rolling on the ground in a futile attempt to try to smother the flames. I looked to the make shift wall of the base, marines where firing their weapons at the attacking force.

"Go! Get to the armory!" I yelled to my small group of marines. "Doc!" I yelled turning to Ethan. "Go help the wounded at the wall, we need to hold this base!"

I turned and started to run to the armored bunker that held the weapons and ammunition with my two marines leading me. As I ran through the carnage that had taken over the base, I heard the small sonic claps of bullets snapped over my head at supersonic speeds. Then just a few yards away from the bunker Darby tripped and fell to the ground. Bullets ricocheted off the ground around him as he started to pick himself up. I turned around and ran back to him, picking him up

"Move your ass Corporal!" I shouted

Just as we entered the bunker an explosion ripped the entrance apart leaving a small hole only large enough for a sole marine to crawl through at a time "Grab a rifle and ammo from the rack and get to the wall" I shouted to the marines who had been garrisoning the building at the time of the attack. I then grab a cold M-4 carbine and ten magazines filed with five five six ammo. I locked a magazine into the rifle and pulled back the charging handle bolting one of the rounds in the chamber.

I went out of the bunker first and held security. After I found the immediate area to be safe I turned to help Alec through the small hole. We then proceeded to help the other marines out, telling them to get to the wall until only me Alec and Darby were left.

As Darby crawled through the hole he said "my mom always said I end up living in a hole but I don't think she thought it would be from a missile."

Just as he pulled himself up off of the ground a bullet snapped past my head striking him in the in his left eye, dark red blood and grey brain matter burst out of the back of his head as he collapsed to the to the hot desert floor. Blood flowed out of the gaping hole the bullet had left where his eye should have been. I stood there, gapping at my friend's corpse, his crimson red blood pooled in the sandy dirt he laid on. Alec yelled something I couldn't hear him. Suddenly a tiger fully clad in black sprinted at me. He grabbed me and tackled me to the ground. I felt a sharp cracking pain in my hip, forcing me into action. I threw a desperate hook, only for my opponent to deflect my measly attack and smash the wooden butt of his AK Seventy-Four into my snout. I tasted iron as I cried out in pain. Looking back up at him I saw his rifle pointed directly at me. Just before he squeezed the trigger he crumpled down on top of me. His blood flowed out of two holes where his heart was, I looked up at Alec to find his rifle was trained on the tiger's body. I flipped the tiger's body off of me as Alec walked over to offer me his paw. As he pulled me up I smiled,

"I owe you another one." I quipped

"I'll just put it one your tab." he replied

I was about to retort when for a split second I saw a small missile streaking in from behind him. "LOOK OUT!" I shouted just before I felt a pressure wave fling me into a nearby light tower.

I woke up to fine a Corpsmen treating me, I felt a dull pounding in my head and my hip felt like it got hit by a sledge hammer.

"Say awake sir I don't want to mistakenly mark you as dead," the corpsman joked. He was trying to alleviate some of the dread that hung in the air Dread so thick that you could almost see it.

I rolled my head back and forth to look around and saw I was surrounded by other animals some groaned in pain while other just laid perfectly still. Still others were covered with tarps, only their feet sticking out. The black card used to mark the dead from the living tied to their large toe. Some of the wounded had entire parts of the body burned off, some had bandages wrapped around blood matted fur, while others had bone sticking out of their body's in way that I can't describe.

I then looked over to my left and saw a black hoof. Desperately I craned my neck to see the owner of the limb, only to find Ethan's face staring blankly back at me. "Ethan?" I whispered "Ethan say something" he only sat there his face frozen in its neutral expression. Some of his fur moved in the slight breeze that picked up.

"Lieutenant I need you to hold still I need to stem the bleeding that started back up." The corpsman ordered.

I rolled my head to look at him,

"Alec? Is Alec ok?" I probed. Tears started to brim in my eyes, the corpsman ignored me and kept working.

"Is Alec ok, the missile landed behind him... he must… have …shielded me… from the blast" I quieted to a whisper. "Is there a body?! Tell me he still has his body!"

The corpsman stopped for a second contemplating something before he went back to treating my wounds. I laid there, crying among the dead and dying animals of my base. Most of them cried out too, but in pain, while I cried for the loss of my friends, my only friends.

After hours of laying on sun baked blood soaked dirt, I was loaded onto a medical helicopter. It flew me to the regional airfield where they put me on this plane heading for the states. I'm supposed to be sent to a VA hospital... The plane jostles, sending waves of pain crashing through my body, breaking my chain of thought.

I have to do something for the rest of the flight and I a doubt sleep is an option…. I just watched them die. I could have saved them both if only I had been paying more attention. I should have saw that tiger before got to me. If I had, then me and Alec could have made it to the wall and we could have saved Ethan. I should have came out of that bunker last. If I did, I would be the one in a coffin. At least I don't have a family too who would miss me, at least I don't have a wife waiting for me to get back, only to get a flag and tombstone. Or a mother nervously waiting for news of her son only to see the marines in their dress blues walking up her driveway. If it had been me, then a father proud of his son wouldn't have to tell his family at a funeral, instead he could have told them at family gathering. If it had been me then it would have had been so much better…