Phil Penne Creations

#9 - The Soldier

 

        You come in with Echo Company to secure the town. The Third Airborne bombed the ever-loving shit out of the surrounding region to soften it up before you arrived – all that’s left for Echo is cleanup.

        All about you is chaos and destruction. Homes on the outskirts of town that once held old men who argued over backgammon, and parents who worried about the day their child would first drive, and children who squealed and ran at the mere mention of a bath, are now little more than foundations with still-standing piles of blocks in the corners. Markets where vendors sold hand-dyed cloth, tobacco, delicate glass bottles, and brightly colored fruits and vegetables, are now random piles of rubble, through which the few remaining inhabitants of the town claw in desperation for anything that may improve their coarse existence. Buildings that were once apartments and places of commerce have now been reduced to windowless shells. The small school and playground have been replaced by a single four-foot deep crater. Everywhere you look you see the all too familiar rust-colored stains of blood on the ground.

        No one in your unit seems especially concerned. Gianetti is sitting atop an APC...

 

 

 

War does not discriminate. It takes the old, the young, and maybe even you. Your only hope is to take refuge in a fox hole.

...or, better yet, a rabbit hole.