To be or not to be?

At times it’s hard to make decisions like what shirt you want to wear out or what you fancy for dinner.

Decisions are something everyone makes daily, sometimes without a second thought.

What if it was a life or death situation?

Imagine you’re the President of America, your country is in immediate danger of terrorist attacks and furthermore a possible war.
You send a handful of SAS, military men you have at your disposal, to the country of threat with the intent of pilfering information and objects that may in your possession protect your country.
Mid-mission one of your soldiers report’s having found useful information and quickly downloads them to his hard drive to allow its safe return.
Unfortunately on his travels he is spotted and becomes under fire, dodging bullets he is severely injured and the information lost.

You are now faced with a vital job;

Use your resources, play god and save the impeccable til now agent, preserving the information he may possess all at the cost of his possible disablement / superhuman abilities.

OR

Let him go out with dignity, a hero in his own right, which could possibly cause your country great peril.

Question is, how far is too far?
Can one mere human decide another’s fate?
Who decides?

Be Brief
“Ok, everyone nice and comfy? Bit of a tight squeeze huh?” The deep voiced Major who was often referred to as ‘Mac’ ridiculed. He was tall, medium build and had short grey shaggy hair both on his head and what seemed like every inch of his body. He looked like he was built Tonka tough, a real muscle tank, but, from what I’ve heard he just acts tough for the job and is really like an over grown Care Bear with fur and muscles.

Heck yes it was a tight squeeze, but I didn’t expect anything less. This is what the American army and the SAS are all about, secret missions in the middle of the night and close encounters with the extraterrestrials otherwise known as my posse. More often than not you don’t know where you’re going, why you’re going there, anyone you’re going with or whether you will ever go back. On your first couple of dispatches it makes your blood boil, you shake partially in fear but also partly in excitement as your heart pumps both blood and adrenaline through your body. Everything is echoed until it as soon as it started begins to fade and suddenly you could run a marathon if you could only take the first step. Things are a little different for me now though, I’ve been working for the SAS for about 4 years. You get use to the fear eventually and you learn how to harness it in your favour.

“Well, get use to it ladies, if you’re not cut out for this, you should have signed for the navy. We will be arriving at our landing point at approximately, 0100 hours which is, 2 hours from now. We will bring with us, the element of surprise. You are all aware, that this mission is completely top-secret and for that reason I will now brief you in the safety of this plane.
The situation is, that we, America, have been tipped that the Islam terrorists, are planning future attacks to our beloved country. It is possible that the information and perpetrator, maybe within our grasp, finally. We have the coordinates for a hidden base, supposedly, below a seemingly harmless village. Under the cover of night, we will, be seeking secret access.
Our mission is to search for and retrieve, if possible, any information, items of interest or persons’ that are relevant to terrorism.
I’ll repeat, our mission, is to search for and retrieve, if possible, any information, items of interest or persons’ that are relevant to terrorism.”

Sounds about right, it’s funny, they make the mission statement so achievable, they’re suppose too of course, so even if we’re not successful, we still completed the mission and therefore have a minor success makes us look less like complete ninnies when we come having caught the wrong person or searched the wrong place.

“Our landing point is, 48 kilometres, in a south easterly position from the village. You will be issued exact coordinates, upon touchdown. Following final information conversion, you will be issued your weaponry and communication devices, with that and your PPE, we will travel firstly, by two vehicles. They will leave, 45 minutes apart. The first will head north westerly and will park, 10 kilometres north of the village. The second will head north easterly and will park, 10 kilometres south of the village. Both teams will communicate their coordinates before commencing. From there, both teams will split into pairs and head in opposite directions allowing us to come at the village from all directions. Being as we do not know the exact entrance location to the hidden base, it is best for us to spread out and search. Stay, with your partner at all times, this is our only safety precaution; if you lose your partner, you are, as good as dead.”

Tell us how you really feel? Mac’s not the first to give such a blunt statement. In fact statements like this are often the ones that keep you on your toes and as a result alive. So you don’t let comments like this get to you, because if you do, you are as good as... Well, dead!

“Search both methodically and meticulously as this, maybe our only chance to obtain this information. We will depart from the parked vehicles, at exactly, 0600 hours, so, time your leave in accordance. If you do not make it to your vehicle in the allotted time, you have, 3 options. 1 hijack your way home, 2 enjoy your new home or 3 kamikaze our preferred option, because gentlemen, if you are captured, America, doesn’t know you, so save yourself the torture.”

Some more encouraging advice, the guy next to me was shaking out of his skin, guess he hadn’t been doing this long. He looked pretty young compared to what I’d become use too, I hoped he didn’t crap himself the second we landed.

“There will be no, I repeat no rations for this mission so feel free to help yourself to any of the food and water in the eskies and tubs below upon arrival. You all have your supplied Personnel Protective Equipment all we are requiring concerning this is that you all hand over your dog tags before exiting the plane, as I remind you if captured, America does not know you. There is a small supply of weapons in the tail storage of the plane you may have your pick but please keep in mind, the element of surprise. We have 3 first aid kits at our disposal. They will be located in the cockpit of the plane, and under the drivers’ seats in both vehicles and you also have your personal packs. If any urgent medical attention is required our landing base is equip with a state of the line medical centre.”

Yeh, that’s great, but good luck getting there, especially in a state of needing it.

“Now finally you all will be issued with ear and tooth transmitters to allow us to keep communication. We will be using Aar 13 but we believe there maybe issues come, 0400 hours so if you go blind switch to Aar 15. Also try to avoid large amounts of metal as it may interfere with communication waves, at times this maybe difficult underground so just keep that in mind when moving about. We will be running a radio port at our landing base and will use standard call sign 7. Vehicle, 1 will be known as Black Panther and vehicle 2 as Red Tiger. The time is 2307... Now! Are there any questions?”

It didn’t look like it, shaking boy was still shaking and staring at the floor, the guy across from me was fiddling with his pocket knife which I think maybe added to shaker boy’s trepidation. The guy to the left of knife man was setting his watch, whilst the fellow on the other side of him was patting his pockets in what I assumed to be a search for a lighter... I hoped he didn’t search like that later. Everyone else seemed in a daze, some were staring out windows; others were looking around the plane.
Perk up people we were about to land in a war zone.

For the rest of the trip, being as it was such a lively bunch, I thought I’d write in my diary...
 




6 September 2018


Mission

Find information, items or persons that are terror related.


Element of surprise
Frequency Aar 13 / 15
Call sign 7
Black Panther 1 & Red Tiger 2
Arrival time approx 0100 hrs
Move in pairs
Be back at vehicles before departure at 0600 hrs





28 Bentley Grove
Swanbourne 1945
Miami, America


Dear Chris


Hey bro how are things back home? Yeh that’s right I’m off again.
So are Mum and Dad getting along yet? They better be...
How was soccer? Sorry I’m going to miss your game again. You will have to let me know if you’re team wins. Bet you’ll play great I promise to come watch another game as soon as I can. Anyway I bet you’ll play like a champ, the same as always.


So this time I got the call at about 10.30, they told me it was top secret, they’re still being skint on the information, but I can tell it’s pretty big. They told us we are looking for an underground base; it is suppose to be under some inconspicuous village. We are due to arrive in about an hour and a half. When we get there we are to infiltrate secretly with the cover of night and search for anything connected to terrorism.


Didn’t get a chance to get hold of Hailey, but I’ll write her when I can. If you see her can you just remind her I love her and tell her to take good care of herself and bubba? Thanks bro I appreciate it.


Finally I guess you’d better tell Mum and Dad that I love them too and that I’ll call when I get home. Alright cheers buddy, stay out of trouble ok? I’m going to try and catch some z’s before we land.


Love you bro.


Your favourite and only brother

Mike


P.S. I left a little something for you under my bed, don’t show it to Mum or Dad ok? Just get Mum to take you past after school, use your key and put the stuff in your school bag. O yeh... Enjoy!
 




With that I tore out the letter for Chris and put it in the black box for the plane, I knew that if anything went wrong that that box would protect my letter and would eventually get to my brother.
I shoved my note book and pen in my jacket pocket and laid back to the sound of the engines purr, shortly after I fell asleep.



“Michael Brian Hunt!” Oh ow… my full name, that means trouble. I turned to face my beautiful girlfriend of 3 years Hailey.
She was stood slightly to her left with her hands on her well shaped and perfectly proportioned hips glaring at me. Her expression told me ‘You’ve done something wrong’. I began walking toward her, unaware of what I’d done wrong and feeling indifferent; I was completely distracted by her, how cute I found her when she was cross.
“Yes beautiful?” I called back as I approached her, when I noticed her head drop. Why wouldn’t she answer me? I noticed tears rolling down her cheeks; I raced to her and wrapped my arms around her. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I quizzed her rapidly, question after unanswered question.
Then it hit me, something was wrong, something was different. I stepped back to confirm my thoughts through observation.

Where was our baby?