Ronnie sat in the back of the tent at Camp Mathilda, everyone was either wrestling each other, chatting about sex and life back in the states, mentioning vulgar topics and making vulgar comments on women's bodies. Ronnie grimaced at hearing such comments from her corner of the tent, the girl was sitting with her legs crossed and a little notebook resting in her lap. The pages were littered with little doodles and sketches all ranging from small flowers, birds, eyes, skulls, candy, music notes, anything small enough to fit on the page. She was thinking of what to draw next when a man walked in looking for a Ray Person.

Ronnie knew Person, not very well but enough to know that he exists, in fact the dumbass was standing a yard away from her and chatting with some other men about one guy's sexual encounters involving a chick and a vibrating egg in his ass...

"Hey, Ray," the man gets Ray's attention, "You hear the word man? J-Lo's dead." Ray and his group went silent for a second.

"Bullshit!" Ray hissed in disbelief. Little did this group of men know that they had an invisible and silent audience of one, Ronnie.

"Yeah, I got the word from a captain of G 2." Ray blinked, dumbfounded and confused at the man's reply, before shifting his attention to a blonde man who sat fiddling with something on the other side of the tent.

"Brad!" Ray shouted to him, "You hear about J-Lo?"

"Get over here, Ray!" the blonde, Brad, shouted back with a parental like tone, "I need my RTO." Brad glanced up from what he was doing only to lock eyes with Ronnie. The two of them stared at each other for a good 2 seconds- to Ronnie it felt like 2 hours- Brad seemed calm and collected, no wonder why his nickname is "Iceman." Ronnie, although calm on the outside, was screaming on the inside. Her heart rate sped up, anxiety and and awkwardness clouded her mind.

"Brad," the sound of Ray's voice snapped the two of them back to reality, Brad broke his focus from the girl and diverted it to Ray who was now standing next to him, "What were you staring at? A ghost or something?" when Ronnie heard this she quickly turned her gaze back to her notebook in embarrassment. Brad took another glance in her direction, catching her sudden movement, before grinning subtly.

"Nothing," Brad responded as he looked back up to Ray, "Nothing at all..."

"Bravo 2!" the whole tent went silent and everyone shifted their attention to LT. Fick who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, "All of you, listen up!" everyone did as told, like obedient school children, listening to their lieutenant explaining how two of Bravo's fellow Companies- H and S Company- had a negligent discharge that day.

"Fuckin' supply company POGS." could faintly be heard.

"...So the CO personally wants to make sure we brass check our weapons." The lieutenant finished spreading the news to his men.

"Anybody hurt?" Pappy asked, concern plastered on his face.

"No," Fick replied casually, "It was a 203. It's a miracle no one was killed." Pappy silently sighed in relief.

"That would suck, Homes," Ray blurted, all eyes turned to him, "Getting killed before you got to go to war and kill people." he smirked with a nod.

"Shut up Person." someone groaned.

Ronnie glared at Ray with disgust and anger, how could he be so rude in a situation like this? Yes, they were marines that were about to be sent to combat, but he didn't have to blurt it out like that. Ronnie's angry glare seemed like it could cause one's skin to feel as if it were being pricked by a needle if they were to ever fall into such a glare, and to her surprise, Ray seemed to have felt something pricking his neck. He scratched at his neck before turning his head in the direction the feeling came from, low and behold, he was met with a cold and unfriendly stare from his fellow marine.

"And uh," Fick continued, "Try wrapping up the chest training before lights out. I got the sergeant major on my ass." the other marines groaned in response. Ray was still focused on Ronnie, who seemed to be too upset to quickly and shyly look away, curious as to why she looked so pissed. Either way, the only thing he could think of doing at the moment was flash a goofy grin before getting up and heading over to the lieutenant.

"Lieutenant," Ray grabbed Fick's attention before he left, "Have you gotten any word on-" before Ray could even finish he sentence, the lieutenant butted in.

"I only get what's passed on to me from Godfather and the only word he gets is from BBC." Everyone was silent yet again, "If we're lucky, Saddam will back down and let the inspectors in and we can go home." Fick's gaze landed on Ronnie, noticing that she was upset and making a mental note to talk to her after.

"The important thing is," he continued, "We're doing our jobs by being here. All of you should be proud." He spoke the last bit in Ronnie's direction, hoping it would maybe remind her why they were there in the first place and to remind her that they had a job to do.

"Sir," Ray sheepishly looked towards the ground, "That's not the word I was asking about. I was- w-we wanted to know if you knew anything about J-Lo being killed." Fick furrowed his brows upon hearing this, in the back he could faintly pick up other marines whispering amongst themselves.

"Shit." came from one end of the tent.

"Who killed her?" came from another.

"You know she's my cousin, right?"

"She's Puerto Rican, you're Mexican."

Fick pursed his lips before glancing at Ray. "Ray, the battalion commander offered no sit rep as to J-Lo's status." Ray pursed his lips in response, hoping that the lieutenant knew anything about J-Lo's status but he only received an awkward frown before Fick left the tent, leaving Ray disheartened and in need of answers. That is, until Garza made his way over to the sad and confused man.

"What?" He began to pry, "J-Lo's dead?" Ray shrugged in response, he didn't seem to know either.

"Apparently," Ray couldn't tell if Fick was keeping the truth from them or he just genuinely didn't know, "That's the word."

Ronnie felt bad inside after hearing about J-Lo, she felt bad whenever she heard something about a fellow marine getting seriously injured or killed- but this feeling hit harder, not because Ronnie didn't know if J-Lo was dead or alive but because she was a woman. None of the other men seemed to be too concerned with the J-Lo situation, possibly because they all believed that she either ran off and quit or she was indeed killed because she was weak. For all they know, she could've been captured, raped and tortured. Ronnie gulped silently as she felt her heart sink, her notebook slid off her lap as she clutched at her chest. It could've been me.

A shrill whistle startled the poor girl, causing her to jump in her seat, "chết mẹ!" she cursed under her breath.

"Want some tea, Ronnie?" Rudy politely asked as he took his espresso maker off the stove and poured a cup of tea. Ronnie glanced over in his direction only to gasp and look away quickly, her cheeks flushed red, "I'm gonna take that as a no?"

"Rudy," Ronnie groaned as she rubbed her temple, "Where the fuck are your clothes...?"

"What?" Rudy chuckled after taking a sip of his tea, "You jealous?" the man laughed, unaware of the judgemental eyes that had been peering at him for a while. The owner of the eyes looked away in disgust.

"Since when did the marine corps start letting in f...?" Ronnie's head quickly turned in the direction the question came from. Trombley... Of course... He was her glare's next unknowing victim... The marine sitting next to Trombley stayed quiet, shook his head in response, it was clear that he didn't want to have this conversation. Soon Trombley felt a mysterious prick on the back of his neck but ignored it, even after a minute he still ignored it.

"What do you think?" Espera lectured Lilley on the other side of the tent, "CNN's gonna want your version of the war?"

"Maybe." Lilley shrugged in response. Espera suggested that it would probably be better if Lilley filmed Rudy, fixing his gaze on the naked man across the tent as Lilley steered his camera to focus on Rudy's ass. It's surprising how much people would pay just for a sex tape, even more surprising the amount of people that would buy a gay porno. Lilley started to see where Espera was going with this...

"All you gotta do is get Rudy on board," Espera, although he sounded serious, teased, "And you'll be the next Spielberg of twink movies." Lilley chuckled in response, his camera never leaving Rudy who was now somewhat decent.

Ronnie watched attentively as her friend picked up a few small stones from the pile of stones he collected- apparently chunks of broken cement walls counted as stones- and placed them in his vest. This was something Rudy would always do, place stones in his vest and strap on his gas mask along with checking his weapon before he got ready to run a few laps around camp. He noticed his small and quiet friend observing him and smiled, "Wanna run with me, Sketch?" he asked.

"I'd love to," Ronnie beamed, "But, you know how I am. Plus, after today, I'm exhausted!" she stretched her arms above her head and leaned back to fall on her bag, her elbows let out a satisfying pop as she hummed in content.

"Alright then." Rudy shrugged before running off.