Born To Die...

Chapter III

Lieutenant Jacobs

Lieutenant Warren Jacobs checked the timer on his watch. 2-1 needed to hurry up. The rest of the Hunter units had set up a perimeter around the large bank that was being used as a temporary HQ. Sandbags and abandoned cars were surrounding the bank, being used for cover. A large hole on the top floor of the building was the designated crow's nest. A heavy weapons team was posted up there, sporting the infamous FGM - 148's and a few AT-4's.

The FGM Javelins were designed for use against armored vehicles and buildings. The primary firing mode was the next - gen aerial attack design. The rocket went high up and came down on top of its target to hit in the soft spot where the armor was the weakest. It could also be used in the traditional standard mode, shooting in a straight line to its target. The AT-4's were the fire and forget launchers. You shoot it and dispose of it. A light and efficient, Sweden - built weapon being used by the US Army Rangers.

Lt. Jacobs was in the C&C room of the bank, carefully scanning a map of the area. Hunter 2-1 should be close by now. The main roads would lead them straight to the rendezvous. But Jacobs knew Foley, and knew that they would never use those roads. Too open. Too risky. Sgt. Foley didn't like to take the fast and dangerous route. Therefore, Jacobs surmised that 2-1 must've used the slower back roads of the city.

The last report had them located at a dead end street, roughly 2 and a half klicks away. Border Street, to be precise. If Foley used those quieter, unpopular back-ways and neighborhoods, the obvious route to take would be Downer Creek. There were random turns and twists and houses everywhere in that piece of the city. It was slow but less dangerous. Less chance of an American team operating there. Which, ironically, would trigger the Russians to search that place better than the main roads. Which meant that 2-1 could've ran into some resistance. A lot of it. Which, in turn, lead Jacobs to think that Foley would have stayed quiet and anonymous. Avoiding any contact what so ever. They would have tried to sneak like some type of black ops team. That would explain why Jacobs wasn't getting any report from Foley.

Either that, or 2-1 had been wiped out. They could be dodging a patrol right now. So should he hit 'em up on the radio?

He didn't like the look of the situation, at all. Jacobs tapped his earpiece.

"Foley, report. What's your status?" He peered at the cracked wall on the opposite side of the room, waiting for a response. He counted to 5. Then to 10.

"We're in..." Gunshots and explosions overpowered his voice " - By a big group of them!" Foley was breathing heavily. "We're comin' in hot from the east, about a half klick away!"

"I hear you Foley. Keep it up! Don't let them catch you. We're ready and waiting!" Jacobs told him.

"Nice to hear, sir! Ramirez, make a left up here!" Jacobs heard Foley say in the microphone. He could hear the gunshots in the distance as well.

He immediately got the Hunter units ready for the assault.


I slid over the hood of a pick up truck, running frantically. The Russians were in hot pursuit, all of them. I heard a shhhooommm as a bullet whizzled past my head. I was in front of the rest of the squad, straining to hear Foley give me directions on where to run.

"Ramirez, make a left up here!"

Automatically, I turned left down an alley way, running past a dumpster and hopping over a random shopping cart. I was running like hell. Pumping hard and fast. Speed wasn't my strong area, but when you have bullets and Russians chasing you, everything dealing with running is your strong area. I turned into a parkour free runner. It's amazing what you can do when you're motivated the right way.


"Corporal Charge, get your guys to overwatch on the western side of the perimeter. I don't want anything to catch us slipping." Jacobs ordered the young man. Charge was definitely Sergeant material. The kid might have been young, but he had a level head. He was at least a 7/10. Maybe an 8/10.

80% of the RV force was watching the eastern approach, ready to open fire once 2-1 was safe. The other 20% were keeping the other approaches watched and secure.

Jacobs was out on the ground now, behind a sandbag, ready to fight. He preferred to be out on the dirt and grit, rather than calling the shots. But every unit needed a leader. History proved that. The Captain didn't like for Jacobs to do that, but he didn't give a shit.

"Here they come! Get ready!" Somebody yelled. The sounds were just beyond their line of sight. Jacobs watched the treeline carefully, until he saw the flashes of bright yellow where bullets were flying. They slammed into the defensive line, but were wild shots and mostly missed.

He saw a young guy emerge first. The kid couldn't have been older than 20. He recognized him as the new guy, James. Ramirez had been in the shit from day one, constant firefights for that short time in Afghan, and sent straight to fighting Russians here in America. Jacobs didn't think he was as sharp as Allen was, but the kid was damned good. The rest of the squad emerged behind him. Foley, Dunn, Roger, and Sandler. They had completely disregarded their weapons, preferring for an all out sprint. Their rifles were all slung over their shoulders. Risky, but effective.

"Hold your fire!" Jacobs reminded the defense group. They wanted to get the Russians as close as possible. That was how he liked things to be. Surprise and shock. The enemy troops had no idea that a HQ was set up here. They would run right into it, like some fools. They'd lose just a whole lot of men, just because they were greedy and wanted to catch a few Americans.

2-1 was at the bank now, just as the Russians came out the treeline. Ramirez was first, hopping clean over the sandbag that Jacobs was using for cover. The rest did the same.

There had to be at least 50 of them. Reddish armor. AK47's and other foreign weapons. Yelling in an incoherent language. Then they realized what they were running into, realization spreading across their faces. Who's running now?

"Slaughter them!" Jacobs yelled loudly. His ears ringed and throbbed as soon as the hellfire of bullets erupted. They hardly even needed to aim. There wasn't any cover. That was why he chose the bank as the HQ. Open ground from here to the treeline. The Russians were falling and suffering hits. But they returned fire.

Jacobs aimed and fired, tagging them with 5.56mm. Legs were snapped. Arms were broken. Chests were hammered. They went prone, because of the lack of cover. That reduced their chances of getting hit by at least 70%. Prone was an effective maneuver, far more than what you see in movies. You can only see small little humps and muzzle flashes. The muzzle flashes alone were enough to throw people into cover, because you know that they're shooting at you and can kill you. Not only that, but the fact that they are prone eases their minds. It allows them to think better, because they know how hard it is for the enemy to shoot them. And they have a clear line of sight themselves.

War isn't like a video game. Your side isn't the only one that can call in reinforcements and back up and whatnot. Your team isn't the only one who has access to support. It goes 360. All the way around. War isn't fair, but everyone has access to the vital things. And Jacobs knew that. The enemy could be calling in air support right now.

"We need to take them out quick!" Jacobs tapped his earpiece, "Charge, get your team to spread out on the left flank, fast!" Jacobs took a quick look around, keeping his head low to avoid the dangerous rounds being shot at them. "Sgt. Foley, get your squad to keep them suppressed. I want those Russians to keep their heads down." He pointed at the enemy troops to stress his point. The less the enemy could do, the better. The Russians were maneuvering while prone, and Jacobs wanted to stop that.

"You got it!" Foley replied.

Jacobs watched for a few seconds as Sgt. Foley began throwing out orders, then he tapped his earpiece once more, this time with feeling.

"Sgt. Barnes." Barnes was the heavy weapons team leader. The squad that was posted up on the top floor of the building, sporting the new shit and the AT4's. "Engage the enemy troops with the AT4's! I wanna see a fire works display down there."

"Loud and clear, lieutenant." Barnes said calmly.

Lieutenant Jacobs went back to shooting. The rifle recoiled every time he squeezed the trigger, forcing him to fire in single shots. He rested the barrel on the sandbags to improve his accuracy. That was always a good move. It reduced the loose movement of the weapon to nearly 0% while you aimed. He aimed and fired professionally, small puffs of smoke escaping from the tip of the barrel. Shell casings hit the ground, bumping into each other and releasing a small tink tink noise.

Some extra firepower was hitting the Russians. In his peripheral vision, he began to see Charge's team approaching from the left side easily enough. They were in a wide combat formation, prone on the concrete ground and exchanging rounds with the Russians. Charge was lead of a rifle team. That was exactly what Jacobs needed. They would be able to pick off the stragglers fairly easy, with the suppression coming from Foley's team. The ones that were closer together should get hit with the rockets.

Jacobs reloaded his weapons, swiftly and quickly through countless times of practice. He slapped the fresh clip in, and went back to work.

A long stream of white smoke trailed through the air, hit the ground where the Russians were, and exploded in a fiery haze. It was a black and orange ball of fire and heat. Anybody in the radius of the blast was dead, period. They'd be incinerated. Several more streaks of grey flew through the air. Total fire superiority.

Jacobs got the fire works display that he was looking for. Excellent work. The rockets slowed down and finally stopped, and Jacobs figured that Barnes' team was out of AT4's.

"Cease fire!" Jacobs peeked over the sandbags and watched carefully. It went quiet really quick somehow. Nothing. No voices, no shooting, no explosions. He swallowed hard. That had been an intense fight, but it wasn't over. Choppers were probably on the way. "Let's get the hell out of here."


I sat in the back seat of the humvee, on full alert until we cleared the red zone and went into the green one. It'd been a long, long day. I was back in the safe area now, at a forward operating base called Noah, just outside of Virginia. But the fight wasn't over, not by a long shot. The talk around FOB Noah was that we were going back in there. We had some lights to turn off before we left building. Not necessarily for an all out counter attack. I'd heard something about a VIP that was going to be needing escort out of there. I figured it was bullshit.

I was still inside our humvee, still inside the back seat, still looking out the window. Dunn sat in the driver seat. These things weren't really meant to be comfortable. They're wide and big on the inside, and you can't exactly let the seats down for a nap. But I didn't give a shit. I could go to sleep anywhere. I rested my head against the window, then I dozed off, and finally went to sleep.

It was a dream. I've always been able to tell when I'm dreaming, for some strange reason. But this was more like a memory. I'd seen all of this before, a while ago. It was inside of a classroom, back in high school. A history class, I think. I couldn't make out any faces, but I knew it was a memory of something. I sat in the middle of the class, because I didn't like being in front, and you couldn't hear anything in the back. The class had been easy for me, like all the others. We were all quiet, listening to some sort of speech by the teacher.

"It takes only a single key event, for something drastic and life changing to happen. That single event can be small or big. It can change the entire course of history..." The teacher droned on. "Someday, you'll all have to make important decisions, like what you want to be when you grow up." It was a female voice, and I recalled, Ms. Hunter. You usually don't see female history teachers.

"What do you want to be?" She asked the class. She pointed to a random student in the front. He answered the usual, 'i don't know', and she shook her head. "You're Juniors, you should have your mind made up by now. What about you, James?"

Uh oh. The spotlight shifted to me. All eyes on me. The mic passed to me. I glanced around quickly, everyone was eagerly waiting and watching to see what I would say. I'd been slouching down in the chair, so I sat up straight and cleared my throat. "Uhh," I scratched my head, my wild black hair waving around, "I was thinking about being a computer programmer, or engineer, or somethin' like that."

It was a lame answer, to the other students in the class, but for the most part, it was the truth. My mind is perfect for doing something technical. Logical, and methodical. The 95 in Advanced Math class proved that. But I wasn't a nerd though. Far from that.

Ms. Hunter liked my answer. A slight smile spread across her face. "That's not bad, James. Programmers make a lot of money and have cool lives. You might even program the next big thing and become a millionaire."

I woke up after that. It felt like I'd been asleep for only a few minutes, but it was actually a few hours.

I sat there and reminisced like an old person for a while. I remember that day. Only about 2 years ago, when I was 17 and still in high school, I was looking forward to going to college and majoring in something. I wasn't as smart as my sister, but we both were planning on going to the same college. That was the plan, at least. Then the next thing I knew, warfare over in the middle east was climbing incredibly. Casualties were getting higher and higher, and our numbers were getting lower and lower. Private Military Companies had been injected into the long Afghan war, feeding the fire. Our allies were doing all they could. Eventually, Jared and I got drafted to the military. He went to the marines, I went to the army.

Some months after that, I signed up for Ranger school. Didn't know what the hell I was getting myself into. I almost got dropped. Almost. Then I realized that I had asked for the Rangers, not the other way around. I was determined to prove myself, and ended up passing. It was classified as Special Forces, but that wasn't the deal. A week after graduation, I got shipped out to Afghanistan, where they put me in as a replacement for some guy named Joseph Allen.

First day over there, we got hit hard. Violent, close range, street to street battles. Terrorists and mercenary's, all of them, fighting us. The city that we were in was attacked heavily by an assault force. The news was talking all about us, how the Rangers were fighting a brutal battle. I earned my place among the Hunter unit as a veteran. They say that if you last more than 24 hours, you're a vet. You meet some cool guys when you're listed in special forces. I met a few foreign guys that were in some task force. There was a guy that everybody called Roach for some reason. I thought it was a stupid nickname. But in the end, I didn't even have time to write Ayla, my sister. I should have. She probably thought I'd been killed in action.

Then, a week after that, Russians attack us out of the blue. Right after they claimed that an American had went berserk and killed some people in an airport. Bullshit, I called it.

America is in the shit, really bad right now. 2 heavy duty wars. Afghan isn't like it used to be. We're not fighting little push overs anymore over there. Plus, the homefront is being hit hard. They immediately sent Hunter to Virginia.

I had no idea where my brother was. Last I heard, they were sent to the western front, out in California. The talk was that western U.S. was hit the hardest. Paratroopers, Special Forces, Navy bombardments, Aerial attacks, the whole nine yards. And Jared was out there in the middle of it.