War's A Bitch, Wear A Helmet: Chapter 1

I thought of how he would die. Would it be quick and simple? Or painful and arduous. A semi-painful tapping filled my dream. 'FITTS!' The loud, hoarse voice filled his mind, pushing away the memory of the dark dream I just had. 'GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP FITTS! WE'RE UNDER FIRE!' I realized I would not get another moment of rest, so to appease the voice, I opened my eyes.
'Yeah. Whassat sarge? Whadda sayin?' I tiredly said, yawning while I spoke.
'ARE YOU DEAF?!? WE'RE TAKING FIRE! GET YOUR ASS ONTO THE ROOF NOW!'
Fearing his sergeant's famous 'The Wrath Of Collins' he hastily grabbed his M4 and headed up to the roof.

The horizon was alive with streaks of yellow and orange, some almost unseen with the setting sun. 'No time to admire the view' I though.I was about to go over to the southern wall, where most of the incoming fire seemed to be coming from, when one of my teammates yelled 'RPG!'.
'Shit!' I thought. I saw the streak of the RPG, coming towards us. It hit the western facing wall, spraying shrapnel everwhere. Luckily, the wall that surrounded the rood was 4 feet tall, and about a foot thick, perfect for us.I arrived at the wall, where my best friend Matt was already banging away at unseen targets with his M240. Those badassed motherfuckers are the heart of our mechanized platoon, minus the mechanized part. They spit out lead at a speed of 950 7.62mm round per minute. Trust me, It would not be a good idea to be on the recieving end of those rounds. I hastily brought my M4 up to aim, combing the horizon for one of the Afghans who were firing on my buddies. There. In that upper story window, about 400 meters away. I steadied my breathing. I didn't go to sniper school just to bang away at the hip! Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.I centered the Afghan's head in my scope, everything else around my unimportant, all i had eyes for was the afghan. I slowly pulled the trigger, almost gracefully. BAM! The afghan went down instantly, the bullet disappearing between his eyes. Hooah. Throughout the next 15 minutes or so, I kept banging away at targets. I was humming 'Another One Bites The Dust' by Queen. Haha. Ironic how war sometimes causes people to break into song and dance. Eventually, the firefight died down, and abruptly ended. Trying to walk back to the stairs was like wading through a sea of brass casings, most hot to the touch because of the 45 degree Celsius heat that made us sweat until we were dehydrated. We drank over a gallon of water every several hours each, as per division orders. I was looking forward for the hot meal that arrived every 4th day. All else we had to eat were MREs. They aren't that bad, but after a while, you get sick of microwave dry chicken and mushy peas. The only good MREs were the ones with pasta in. Mmmmmmm. Just thinking about it made my tummy rumble. We left the building, and went out into the street, while Collins radioed HQ for our objective.I walked over to Matt, and just when i was about to open my mouth to utter a greeting, a shout echoes around the street. 'MORTARS!' I dash for the nearest cover, a building about 40 meters away...30, 20,15. Suddenly, i hear a slight whistling... Oh shit. RUN!!! Was my only thought, when suddenly, BOOM! My sight went black...