Flash Back

"Hit the ground and crawl or your asses are mine!" The drill sergeant yelled as his spit rained down on our faces.

We are crawling under barbwire on our backs. I never expected to be here, but I am. Just like everyone else we got drafted the moment the civil war ended in Africa and their dictator took over. It wasn't due to a threat, but just to keep them in line. Every country wanted to build their armies so that if a war broke out we would be ready.

"Keep moving!" This time he was looking right at me this time. "Keep fucking moving private or we will run it again!"

"Yes sir!" I moved as fast as I could to finish the obstacle.

The barbwire was freezing even through my thick gloves. The day they decided to do this was the wettest and coldest day in December. The rain created small spikes of ice at the ends of each barb. I was shaking as each breath formed fog in the air.

It was clear that we shouldn't be out in the weather as it was. Some of the men in my unit seemed as if they might collapse from the cold itself. On the positive this is the end of the long grueling bootcamp that started six months ago.

We stood in the cold for what felt like forever, but was probably only half an hour. We all knew the drafting was going to be coming either way due to how many fights had been carried out through the years with the terror attacks in California. It's a group that has been trying to bring a communist party in power in California. That is before separating it from the rest of the country.

A few months after the bootcamp had finished my unit was deployed to California. We dropped in L.A. only to see the warzone it had become. Many of the buildings had been blown to bits, and turned to ashes. We dropped on the highest building we could find. It wasn't our first choice, but gunfire forced us to land early.

We made our way down as fast as we could. We made it down four flights before we had been stopped by an explosion shaking the building around us. I took a deep breath ready for us to fight our way to the bottom floor. Another explosion shook the building again, but this time building swayed after the shaking stopped.

The radio came to life as a voice yelled in our ears. "Get out of there now!"

We all started to sprint down the steps with me bringing up the rear of the group. From the way the situation seemed then the building may have been chipped at by those explosions. If we stayed in here then we might get crushed.

I asked a question that I'm surprised no one had asked yet over the radio. "What is the situation outside of the building?"

The radio came back to life with my answer. "You are looking at enemy troops holding sites on the building from roof tops all around your exit. From what I can see you have no other way out due to fires and debris."

I took a sigh before responding. "Thank you."

That information seemed to slow us down some, but we kept moving. We needed to get out even if it still meant death for some of us, but at least some of us will still live on. If we stayed in here then we will all die anyway. It is a risk, but it is not a waste.

We finally made it to the ground floor as the sounds of cracking started to sound all around us. Bullets flew through the front door area catching one of our men in the shoulder. I through a smoke grenade through the front door before commanding someone to check him since he was across from us.

We started to fire out back at the enemy hoping to hit someone, but having to keep ourselves hidden so much that we are unsure. We needed to get out of this building as more cracks started to appear in the walls.

I took a deep breath before screaming as loud as I could over the gunfire. "Charge out the door now!"

With that everyone ran through the smoke and dived behind the nearest wall. It wasn't much of one but some cover is better than no cover. I peaked over and fired a burst of shots before one buzzed into the wall throwing dust into my eyes.

I couldn't tell out how long the fight went on, but it ended when the building behind us finally collapsed. A wave of smoke and dust covered all of us with such force some of us had been thrown over the wall. I on the other hand was thrown into the wall and knocked out.

When I woke up I was coughing up dust and some of my men rose from the rubble like zombies fresh from the grave. The buildings across from the now collapsed building had been destroyed by aircraft bombings. The rest of L.A. was covered in bullet holes, and had been half destroyed by further fighting while I was out.

"Hey! Is everyone okay?" My voice was hoarse from all of the damage done by the dust.

After everyone was up and counted we had lost half of our men. We didn't know what to do until a helicopter dropped in and informed us they we needed to leave the area. It was something about a war in the Middle East starting and Africa creating super weapons.