14 a start to a career

As I watched through my scope I could see the dust cloud getting closer and closer.

"Shit," I said as I watched.

I looked over at Larry.

"This could get bad," I said.

"No shit, with the gun power those rebels are carrying this could get fuzzy."

Looking back through my scope I looked at the rebel fighters.

They had finished removing all the hardware from their trucks, and from the look of it, they were now just waiting for the convoy to arrive.

Now all we could do was wait.

Pulling a protein bar from one of the pockets on my camo pants, I start munching away.

Larry looked over at me.

"I know you need to eat a lot, but how are you eating in this situation?" He asked me.

Looking over at him I say.

"Because I'm hungry, and there's nothing for us to do at the moment, we can't start shooting until they do."

Balling the wrapper up once I had eaten it in three large bites, I shoved the wrapper back into my pants pocket, then looked back through my scope.

The uneasy feeling I was getting continued to send alarms to me, that something was up, and I needed to stay vigilant, but there was nothing I could do yet.

This time when I looked through the scope at the Rebels I watched as one of them went around and handed out black armbands with something on them, but at this distance, I couldn't see what was on them.

Looking away from my scope I looked at Larry.

"Can you see what is on those armbands"

Larry grabbed his binoculars and looked down At the rebels.

After adjusting them a few times, Larry told me.

"It looks like some circles all together to make one big circle."

I looked at him.

"What is that, the rebel groups identifying marks or something?"

"Hell if I know," Larry said in response.

At that moment the rumble of the humvees could be heard in the distance.

And 30 seconds later the first humvee appeared around a bend, followed by nine more humvees behind.

Looking through my scope, I could see most of the Rebels tense at the appearance of the humvees' arrival.

Watching from above I watched as the humvees approached in a straight line down the narrow road before they got to the open area where the meeting was to take place.

"Tango has a rocket launcher," Larry said urgently as he looked through his binoculars.

Turning from the humvees, I look at the group of Rebels.

And as Larry said, two of them had rocket launchers placed on their shoulders and aimed at the line of humvees.

"Shit." Was all I was able to say before the first one fired his rocket at the leading Humvee.

He fired before I could comprehend what was happening, causing me to hesitate.

But now that he had fired, I knew I needed to stop the second launcher before he fired and did more damage.

Moving my scope, I lined up with the second rebel who was holding a launcher, he was about 700 feet from our location, with no cover, making it an easy shot.

As soon as my bullet blew out his brains, the first fired rocket hit the swerving humvee, the rocket hitting the humvee in the rear quarter, blowing the humvee off the road, allowing the other humvees forward, where they spread out so they were no longer lined up.

As the humvees moved to get in better positions to fight, my brain went on auto pilot.

After taking out the rocket launcher, I moved to the second one, putting a bullet in his gray matter before he could reload and fire again.

All of this happened in a Matter of ten seconds, not allowing my brain to function the fact that I had just killed two men. Of course it was something I knew at some point I would need to do, but over the hundreds of hours of training I always wondered if I would be able to pull the trigger the first time, and do what I was being trained to do, but in a Matter of a few seconds I had already killed two, and was about to kill more.

As the humvees came out of the narrow path and into the open area.

The two humvees that had machine guns on the top opened fire on the large group of cars and rebels, allowing some cover fire, for a few humvees to let the soldiers that were inside out and to some rocky cover.

On the rebel side the machine guns they had on the back of trucks also opened fire at the humvees.

The large caliber bullets of the rebels' machine guns pounded into the humvees, smashing through the bullet resistant glass and into the soldiers who sat inside.

Moving my gun over I lined up with one of the rebel machine gunners, and fired.

Working the bolt action, I lined up with the second gunner and fired again, killing both within seconds of them starting to shoot.

But even with my quick action, the two gunners managed to take out two of the ten humvees, one of the humvees that were taken out, was one of the two that had top guns.

Over and over I firered my rifle, on a type of mindless repeat, of continuous firing, then reloading when empty.

And after five minutes of continuous firing, I couldn't find any more enemies to shoot.

My chest was heaving, and sweat rolled down my face, I continued to look through my scope, as the adrenaline coursed through me.

'I just killed nearly 20 people in the span of five minutes' I thought as my hands started to shake, which also caused the rifle I had in my grip to Also shake.

"Andrew." Larry said from beside me.

But I didn't answer, the images of those I had just killed flashed through my mind, on a continuous loop.

"Hey look at me." He said, grabbing my shoulder.

Slowly, I looked away from my scop and at Larry.

"It was them, or our guys, those you just killed were bad people and deserved what they got." He said.

I slowly nodded my head.

'He's right, I knew from the beginning that one day I would need to take lives,' I thought.

After a moment of pushing all the bad thoughts to the back of my mind, I turned back to Larry and said.

"Radio base, tell them what happened." Larry gave a nod and picked up the radio, and reported the attack.

Looking through my scope, I moved my scope over to the soldiers, who were just now starting to emerge from their humvees, or from behind large boulders they had hunkered behind to get away from the heavy fire.

All of them were slowly merging towards the dead body's of the soldiers, all with raised guns, none of them taking any chances.

"Andrew, base says our ride out of here is with those humvees down there." Larry said from beside me.

Turning to look at him I nodded my head.

"Right," I said with a sigh.

That day marked the true beginning of my military career as a marine sniper.

One in which I became a hardened killer of my country's enemies, and that first fight, only became one of the many I would experience.

Through my first tour, I rapidly made a name for myself in the desert landscape of Afghanistan.

And those who I hunted never knew of their demise, for as soon as they heard my shot, they were already dead.

I became known to many of the rebel and Taliban leaders as "the Demon".

In the span of 4 months, I went on 22 other reconnaissance missions, and 3 target missions.

2 of the 3 were the leaders of branch Taliban groups, while the 1 exception was the money guys.

He was some rich guy who was a sympathizer of the Taliban, and funded them with his money.

And one day he made the wrong choice and decided to come and see what his money was buying. What a shame we had him under surveillance for months and knew when and where he would be.

But today I put all of that to the back of my mind, as I packed my duffle bag with all of my possessions, as I prepared to be shipper back home, for a well deserved break.

"Knock knock" someone said from behind me.

Turning, I saw my sections Sergeant, Sergeant Brent.

"Ah, sir, something I can do for you." I said jokingly.

"Yeah," he said, leaning his head into my small room, his voice serious.

"I came to tell you Colonel Johnson wants to see you in his office." Sergeant Brent said, before leaving without another word.

Confused by his actions, I set down the shirts I was about to put in my duffle. I made my way to the CC where the colonel's office resided.

What threw me off was Sergeant Brent.

Normally he was the kind of officer who was layed back, and loved to pull your leg with jokes, but now he seemed serious about something, and if something could make Sergeant Brent act seriously, something was up.

Walking into the always busy command center, I walked to the back of the room where doors lined the wall, and knocked on the wooden door of which had Colonel Johnson, on a small plack on the door.

"Come in!" A loud gruff voice said from the other side.

Opening the door, I stepped into the Colonels cramped office, coming to attention.

"At ease Lance corporal." Colonel Johnson said as he looked through a vanilla folder.

Going into ease, I waited for what he wanted.

I had only met the man once before, when I had first arrived on base, where he gave a speech about following orders and how what we are doing is blah blah blah.

The man was a hardened patriotic soldier, who I considered a stereotype, who got his start in the jungles of vietnam.

The Colonel was a man of medium stature, of about 5 '7, even though he was clearly in his later years, with short graying hair, the muscles his uniform hid, couldn't be mistaken.

Dropping the folder to his desk, the Colonel leaned back in his roller chair, and stared at me, as I locked my eyes onto the wall of his office.

"So you are the Lance corporal with the impressive kill count, corporal cole, right, or is it the "demon", as some have started to call you." Colonel Johnson said in his gruff voice.

"Cole, sir." I said not looking away from the wall.

The Colonel let out a chuckle.

"Well then "Cole", would you by chance know why you are here?" He asked me.

"No sir" I said simply.

Leaning forward in his chair, the Colonel flipped open the folder he was just reading and said.

"I'll tell you why, it's because of the impressive 73 kills under your belt, that's why." He said, in what I could only guess was the man's happy voice.

I stayed silent, not understanding why that was important, yes I had many kills, more than most, sure, but there were a few guys with more than even me?

"but there is one in particular that sticks out to me," Colonel Johnson said, as he turned a page of what I now guess was a folder about my military career.

"Maher Acdar." The Colonel said, looking up to me.

"The money man sir, he was a very well off businessman from France. brought to France as a child refuge, sir." I said.

"That's correct." He said, with a smirk.

Picking the folder back up, the Colonel continued.

"But the shot that killed him, that, that was impressive." The Colonel said.

"What was the distance of that shot corporal?" The Colonel asked.

'Fuck' I thought, as he asked.

"It was nearly a mile sir." I said, with a hint of unease.

The Colonel let out a laugh.

"Corporal Cole, you must be one of those aww shucks idiots, because it wasn't nearly a mile, it was a mile." He said, pointing a finger at me.

"The investigation team sent out after your report, confirmed it was a mile, a total of 1, 608 meters, sure it was 1 meter off, but fuck it, I like to round out the numbers." The Colonel said with another laugh.

"Now, as to why you are here." The Colonel said with an evil smile.

"There is a team being put together, a team of Marine recon snipers, and you, you're gonna be on it."

______________

The MC is going to join the team Frank Castle was on, but he won't be on there for too long.

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