Okay, so this is the first story I have wrote that was not for school. Hope you like it and Honest feedback would be nice!
The year is 2015, four years since the worlds most wanted man has been killed, Osama Bin Laden. Yet America is still waging war with the Taliban. A young boy, age of 19 enlisted when the war heightened in 2013, he understood that this war was far from over. The boy’s name you may wonder? Johnston, Kingston, he enlisted and went to the air force rangers, the elite of the elite for the USAF.
He was immediately deployed to Afghanistan, when he got the notification his heart raced, all he could think about was what it would be like over in a war zone. He is shipped a week later; he arrived safely, once there sweat poured off of him like water coming off a water fall. The 2nd day he is there they got a mission, this mission was helping a seal team so the mission was very hush hush. He grabbed his load out he needed for the mission, Johnston carried his trusty old M-16 his father used on Vietnam, and a switchblade strapped on his leg. All the soldiers boarded the C-130 cargo plane headed to the drop zone.
The engines started up and roared like a strong wind on a summer’s day back in the states. Johnston took a seat near the middle of the aircraft, as he looked around he saw some soldiers reviewing battle plans, others praying, others just sitting there. He looks at the maps then takes a nap due to the drop zone being 2 hours away.
Suddenly he is awoken by the sound of multiple explosions and a burning piercing sensation on his forehead, like a knife cutting through his skin. A soldier beside Johnston screams, “Medic!”
As Johnston begins to lose conscious he hears another boom, then a soldier yelling, “Flak, were going down, brace for impact!”
Johnston’s eyes close slowly as he slips into unconscious, the deep red of the blood from his head covers his face as the medic tries to save him. As the medic works franticly the plane slowly descends, engine one and three are on fire. The plane hits the ground within 2 minutes of Johnston slipping to unconscious, the jolt of the impact and the sound of metal banging together like the sound of a junkyard crane, wakes him up. The medic says to Johnston, “You’re ok; you’re going to make it, just keep that bandage on your head and get your rifle, we need some covering fire!”
“What happened?” Johnston asks as he picks up his rifle.
The medic replies, “The Taliban have gotten ahold of some old flak guns, you took a piece of shrapnel to the head.”
Johnston quickly finds his M-16 and spots a few enemy soldiers charging the downed C-130, the sounds of gun fire is popping nonstop like fireworks on the fourth of July! One after one he sees a spent cartridge fly out of the bolt on his weapon. Then suddenly he hears, “Hold fire!”
He takes his finger off the trigger but keeps his weapon shouldered. The area the C-130 crashed in was just an open desert with a hill, on this other hill was a small enemy encampment, that is where the attacks came from, he looks, he can’t figure out where the hold fire order came from. None of the plane crash survivors said it. Then 4 U.S navy seals come out of the sand in ghillie suits. Johnston is in shocked; he couldn’t believe how well they were hidden in the sand of all terrains.
The seals and the survivors of the plane crash begin helping out the medic treating the wounded. One of the seals has been trained in field surgery. He grabs the medic bag, and searches franticly for a needle and some thread. Johnston asks, “What do you need thread and needle for?” As he loses conscious again.
The seal screams, “I need another needle and some… O negative blood!” as he checks Johnston’s dog tags. The medic quickly finds a needle and another seal steps up and says, “I have O negative blood.”
They quickly begin a transfusion and stitching up Johnston’s head, an hour later he comes too. He hears the sound of air whipping, the quickly realizes he is on a chopper headed back to base.
He finds a soldier he knew on the C-130 and asks, “What happened to them? Did they continue on the mission?!”
The soldier looks at him and just nods his head.
Two weeks after he arrived back at the base after the crash, he is returned to active duty. He is assigned a new mission immediately, he was told to report to the briefing room at 0300, three in the morning.
He walks in, the lights are dimmed very low, cold hard metal chairs for the soldiers to sit on, and the smell of cigarette smoke fills the air like a thick morning fog. A colonel, in a standard desert camouflage fatigues walks up to the oak wood podium at the front of the room.
“Hit it!” He yells, the lights shut off completely; the room is pitch black, like new roads asphalt. Then the whir of a computer can be heard from the back of the room. Then a projector displays a map on the wall behind the colonel and his podium.
“Gentlemen, this mission is of the highest level of secrecy. You 25 men have been chosen to do the op because of your high skills each and every single one of you have. Chances are on 10 of you will make it back alive, if you are not willing to take this chance, please exit now.”
No one leaves the room. The colonel gives them a stare, “alright then, looks like we may just succeed with this mission.”
Unknown to the whole platoon, there mission is to search a few small towns for weapons of mass destruction including, nuclear, biological, and pure high explosives.
The morning sun rises; the heat boils the desert base like an egg on a side walk. That evening Johnston prepares his kit which includes items such as, plenty of ammo, C-4, his switchblade and other items that he thinks he will need on his mission.
Night comes, 2300 hours; they load onto special stealth CH-47 chinhook helicopters. Johnston feels sick to his stomach, as if he was on a ship, at the thought of getting into the air again after what happened with the C-130. It takes 2 choppers to carry the whole 25 men platoon to the drop point near the first town they were to search. Midnight, the platoon lands, Johnston takes a look around and notices the houses are made of dried mud and wooden doors with a straw roof, he thinks to himself, “There is no way any weapons are going to be hidden in this small town.”
The platoon splits up and group A takes the west flank, and group B takes the east flank of the town. Johnston is put on point for group B as they search houses one by one. His colonel, takes point of group A. Suddenly group B’s headset come alive with the sounds of screams, it was the colonel, “Armor, T-90’s coming down the road, get the anti-tank weapons on this side of town ASAP!”
Because the main road into town was on the east where group B was, they took all the anti-tank weapons. Group B scrambles into action as they can hear the enemy tanks approaching; the squeak of the tank treads could be heard from a couple hundred yards.
The colonel gets on the radio to the base, “We got armor coming, and we need immediate air support over!”
Base command replies, “Negative we currently have no aircraft available to do strike, over.”
All of the bases aircraft were running ground attack missions 300 clicks to the south of the platoon’s current location. Suddenly Johnston hears a massive boom, and feels the shockwave off of it, he screams on the radio, “Colonel? What happened over there?”
There is a silence over the radio only to be broken by the sound of another loud explosion, this time though it was closer and the shock wave greater. Johnston looks up, a two story house about a block and a half down the road has come tumbling down and dust is filling the air. Then around the corner of the block in front of them, a massive, desert camouflage and dust covered T-90 appears, Johnston lobs a fragmentation grenade at the tank, it lands beside a track and blows the tread off.
“The tanks immobilized!” Johnston yells over the headset. A soldier nearby fires a javelin rocket launcher, the war head pierces right through the armor plate and blows the turret clean off the body of the tank! The explosion is massive and sends a fire ball along with the turret high into the air. The remainder of the platoon radios base and calls for medical evacuation for the casualties.
The remainder of the platoon continues the mission, they clear the first town, and then the second then they reach the third. They come across a plain looking house, mud walls, wooden door, and straw roof, Johnston is on point, he breaches the door, and no one is there. Several soldiers walk in behind Johnston, all that they see is a hatch in the floor, Johnston slowly bends down, and opens it, the old rusted hinges creak and squeak as it gets jammed half way open, it’s open enough so the rangers can look inside of it, they see a countdown timer that reads ten minutes in bright neon green numbers. To the left of the timer is a bright yellow and dark black radiation sign.
“It’s a nuclear bomb!” Johnston yells, all the soldiers start running, they know that due to the size of it, there is a possibility they can get far enough away to avoid he blast. The countdown keeps on beeping every second as the platoon is running for their lives.
The platoon is nearly two miles away in twenty minutes. They stop, Johnston looks back at the town with a puzzled look, “Why didn’t it go off he asks?”
“Maybe it was a dud.” A private replies.
Then suddenly, the largest and brightest explosion Johnston has ever seen, the wind off the explosion throws him back about 100 feet, he hits his head on a rock and passes out. When he comes too he is in a hospital, he looks around, the walls are white, and there is a TV, he then looks to the left, there is a window with a navy blue chair beside it with his girlfriend sitting there, she is sleeping. Johnston then turns his head to look out the window; he sees the bright blue sky with a couple white puffy clouds. He quickly realizes he is back in the states! He raises his hand up to make sure he didn’t lose them in whatever event that put him in the hospital, they are there, but his legs from his knees down are gone.
“Jenny!” He shouts in an attempt to wake her from her slumber.
She opens her eyes and runs her fingers through her thick dark dirty blonde long hair. Jenny turns her attention to the bed and she becomes ecstatic!
“John! I can’t believe you’re alive!” She exclaims, Jenny runs over to Johnston and hugs him, being careful not to unplug any monitors or IV’s.
“What happened?” Johnston asks.
Jenny looks at him, “You were in a nuclear bomb blast, and the explosion threw you back almost 100 feet!”
“Did… did any of the rest of the platoon survive?” He asks.
“No…” she pauses, “You are the only one who made it.” She replies.
He breaks down crying; Jenny goes out and gets the Dr. to let him know that Johnston finally awoke.
When the Dr. and Jenny come back in he says, “How… how am I the only one left? How did the radiation and shock wave not kill me?”
“The blast that threw you back must have thrown you over something that protected you, that’s all the field medics and I could figure out as to how you survived.” The doctor replies.
“What happened to my legs?” Johnston manages to mumble out in-between sobs.
“The heat from the blast caught some papers you had in your pants pocket on fire, which caught your pants on fire, and then your legs, I’m sorry there was nothing we could do to save them.” The doctor replies with a low, soft voice.
A few months later pass; he has recovered enough to be released from the hospital. Johnston now dedicates his life to supporting the military anyway he can. Jenny and him make comfort boxes for the troops; send money to the U.S.O so they can do a tour over in the warzone.
Johnston gets prosthetic legs a few months after he was released from the hospital, he learns to use them and begins taking long walks, and he tells Jenny it gets his mind off bad memories.
One day Johnston is at home, his phone rings, he is getting ready to go for a walk, but the piercing annoying sound of the phone ringing drives him to answer it, “Hello?” He asks shrewdly.
“Is this Johnston Kingston?” An older man’s voice asks.
“Yes, who are you?”
“Well, to you I’m colonel.” The voice replies.
“The T-90...” Johnston mutters out.
“No kid, it didn’t kill me.” The colonel’s voice softens and becomes kinder.
“But the whole building came down, how did you make it?” Johnston asks franticly.
“Look, don’t keep asking questions, the important thing is, we are both still alive, even though I don’t know how you are after that nuke blast…” The colonel pauses, his voice gets even softer, “I’m retired from the military now, do you want to meet somewhere and catch up?”
“Yeah, I’d like that” Johnston says.
Later Johnston and the Colonel buy their own fishing boat and Johnston proposes to Jenny. They get married and years later have their first child, Johnny.
The end.
The year is 2015, four years since the worlds most wanted man has been killed, Osama Bin Laden. Yet America is still waging war with the Taliban. A young boy, age of 19 enlisted when the war heightened in 2013, he understood that this war was far from over. The boy’s name you may wonder? Johnston, Kingston, he enlisted and went to the air force rangers, the elite of the elite for the USAF.
He was immediately deployed to Afghanistan, when he got the notification his heart raced, all he could think about was what it would be like over in a war zone. He is shipped a week later; he arrived safely, once there sweat poured off of him like water coming off a water fall. The 2nd day he is there they got a mission, this mission was helping a seal team so the mission was very hush hush. He grabbed his load out he needed for the mission, Johnston carried his trusty old M-16 his father used on Vietnam, and a switchblade strapped on his leg. All the soldiers boarded the C-130 cargo plane headed to the drop zone.
The engines started up and roared like a strong wind on a summer’s day back in the states. Johnston took a seat near the middle of the aircraft, as he looked around he saw some soldiers reviewing battle plans, others praying, others just sitting there. He looks at the maps then takes a nap due to the drop zone being 2 hours away.
Suddenly he is awoken by the sound of multiple explosions and a burning piercing sensation on his forehead, like a knife cutting through his skin. A soldier beside Johnston screams, “Medic!”
As Johnston begins to lose conscious he hears another boom, then a soldier yelling, “Flak, were going down, brace for impact!”
Johnston’s eyes close slowly as he slips into unconscious, the deep red of the blood from his head covers his face as the medic tries to save him. As the medic works franticly the plane slowly descends, engine one and three are on fire. The plane hits the ground within 2 minutes of Johnston slipping to unconscious, the jolt of the impact and the sound of metal banging together like the sound of a junkyard crane, wakes him up. The medic says to Johnston, “You’re ok; you’re going to make it, just keep that bandage on your head and get your rifle, we need some covering fire!”
“What happened?” Johnston asks as he picks up his rifle.
The medic replies, “The Taliban have gotten ahold of some old flak guns, you took a piece of shrapnel to the head.”
Johnston quickly finds his M-16 and spots a few enemy soldiers charging the downed C-130, the sounds of gun fire is popping nonstop like fireworks on the fourth of July! One after one he sees a spent cartridge fly out of the bolt on his weapon. Then suddenly he hears, “Hold fire!”
He takes his finger off the trigger but keeps his weapon shouldered. The area the C-130 crashed in was just an open desert with a hill, on this other hill was a small enemy encampment, that is where the attacks came from, he looks, he can’t figure out where the hold fire order came from. None of the plane crash survivors said it. Then 4 U.S navy seals come out of the sand in ghillie suits. Johnston is in shocked; he couldn’t believe how well they were hidden in the sand of all terrains.
The seals and the survivors of the plane crash begin helping out the medic treating the wounded. One of the seals has been trained in field surgery. He grabs the medic bag, and searches franticly for a needle and some thread. Johnston asks, “What do you need thread and needle for?” As he loses conscious again.
The seal screams, “I need another needle and some… O negative blood!” as he checks Johnston’s dog tags. The medic quickly finds a needle and another seal steps up and says, “I have O negative blood.”
They quickly begin a transfusion and stitching up Johnston’s head, an hour later he comes too. He hears the sound of air whipping, the quickly realizes he is on a chopper headed back to base.
He finds a soldier he knew on the C-130 and asks, “What happened to them? Did they continue on the mission?!”
The soldier looks at him and just nods his head.
Two weeks after he arrived back at the base after the crash, he is returned to active duty. He is assigned a new mission immediately, he was told to report to the briefing room at 0300, three in the morning.
He walks in, the lights are dimmed very low, cold hard metal chairs for the soldiers to sit on, and the smell of cigarette smoke fills the air like a thick morning fog. A colonel, in a standard desert camouflage fatigues walks up to the oak wood podium at the front of the room.
“Hit it!” He yells, the lights shut off completely; the room is pitch black, like new roads asphalt. Then the whir of a computer can be heard from the back of the room. Then a projector displays a map on the wall behind the colonel and his podium.
“Gentlemen, this mission is of the highest level of secrecy. You 25 men have been chosen to do the op because of your high skills each and every single one of you have. Chances are on 10 of you will make it back alive, if you are not willing to take this chance, please exit now.”
No one leaves the room. The colonel gives them a stare, “alright then, looks like we may just succeed with this mission.”
Unknown to the whole platoon, there mission is to search a few small towns for weapons of mass destruction including, nuclear, biological, and pure high explosives.
The morning sun rises; the heat boils the desert base like an egg on a side walk. That evening Johnston prepares his kit which includes items such as, plenty of ammo, C-4, his switchblade and other items that he thinks he will need on his mission.
Night comes, 2300 hours; they load onto special stealth CH-47 chinhook helicopters. Johnston feels sick to his stomach, as if he was on a ship, at the thought of getting into the air again after what happened with the C-130. It takes 2 choppers to carry the whole 25 men platoon to the drop point near the first town they were to search. Midnight, the platoon lands, Johnston takes a look around and notices the houses are made of dried mud and wooden doors with a straw roof, he thinks to himself, “There is no way any weapons are going to be hidden in this small town.”
The platoon splits up and group A takes the west flank, and group B takes the east flank of the town. Johnston is put on point for group B as they search houses one by one. His colonel, takes point of group A. Suddenly group B’s headset come alive with the sounds of screams, it was the colonel, “Armor, T-90’s coming down the road, get the anti-tank weapons on this side of town ASAP!”
Because the main road into town was on the east where group B was, they took all the anti-tank weapons. Group B scrambles into action as they can hear the enemy tanks approaching; the squeak of the tank treads could be heard from a couple hundred yards.
The colonel gets on the radio to the base, “We got armor coming, and we need immediate air support over!”
Base command replies, “Negative we currently have no aircraft available to do strike, over.”
All of the bases aircraft were running ground attack missions 300 clicks to the south of the platoon’s current location. Suddenly Johnston hears a massive boom, and feels the shockwave off of it, he screams on the radio, “Colonel? What happened over there?”
There is a silence over the radio only to be broken by the sound of another loud explosion, this time though it was closer and the shock wave greater. Johnston looks up, a two story house about a block and a half down the road has come tumbling down and dust is filling the air. Then around the corner of the block in front of them, a massive, desert camouflage and dust covered T-90 appears, Johnston lobs a fragmentation grenade at the tank, it lands beside a track and blows the tread off.
“The tanks immobilized!” Johnston yells over the headset. A soldier nearby fires a javelin rocket launcher, the war head pierces right through the armor plate and blows the turret clean off the body of the tank! The explosion is massive and sends a fire ball along with the turret high into the air. The remainder of the platoon radios base and calls for medical evacuation for the casualties.
The remainder of the platoon continues the mission, they clear the first town, and then the second then they reach the third. They come across a plain looking house, mud walls, wooden door, and straw roof, Johnston is on point, he breaches the door, and no one is there. Several soldiers walk in behind Johnston, all that they see is a hatch in the floor, Johnston slowly bends down, and opens it, the old rusted hinges creak and squeak as it gets jammed half way open, it’s open enough so the rangers can look inside of it, they see a countdown timer that reads ten minutes in bright neon green numbers. To the left of the timer is a bright yellow and dark black radiation sign.
“It’s a nuclear bomb!” Johnston yells, all the soldiers start running, they know that due to the size of it, there is a possibility they can get far enough away to avoid he blast. The countdown keeps on beeping every second as the platoon is running for their lives.
The platoon is nearly two miles away in twenty minutes. They stop, Johnston looks back at the town with a puzzled look, “Why didn’t it go off he asks?”
“Maybe it was a dud.” A private replies.
Then suddenly, the largest and brightest explosion Johnston has ever seen, the wind off the explosion throws him back about 100 feet, he hits his head on a rock and passes out. When he comes too he is in a hospital, he looks around, the walls are white, and there is a TV, he then looks to the left, there is a window with a navy blue chair beside it with his girlfriend sitting there, she is sleeping. Johnston then turns his head to look out the window; he sees the bright blue sky with a couple white puffy clouds. He quickly realizes he is back in the states! He raises his hand up to make sure he didn’t lose them in whatever event that put him in the hospital, they are there, but his legs from his knees down are gone.
“Jenny!” He shouts in an attempt to wake her from her slumber.
She opens her eyes and runs her fingers through her thick dark dirty blonde long hair. Jenny turns her attention to the bed and she becomes ecstatic!
“John! I can’t believe you’re alive!” She exclaims, Jenny runs over to Johnston and hugs him, being careful not to unplug any monitors or IV’s.
“What happened?” Johnston asks.
Jenny looks at him, “You were in a nuclear bomb blast, and the explosion threw you back almost 100 feet!”
“Did… did any of the rest of the platoon survive?” He asks.
“No…” she pauses, “You are the only one who made it.” She replies.
He breaks down crying; Jenny goes out and gets the Dr. to let him know that Johnston finally awoke.
When the Dr. and Jenny come back in he says, “How… how am I the only one left? How did the radiation and shock wave not kill me?”
“The blast that threw you back must have thrown you over something that protected you, that’s all the field medics and I could figure out as to how you survived.” The doctor replies.
“What happened to my legs?” Johnston manages to mumble out in-between sobs.
“The heat from the blast caught some papers you had in your pants pocket on fire, which caught your pants on fire, and then your legs, I’m sorry there was nothing we could do to save them.” The doctor replies with a low, soft voice.
A few months later pass; he has recovered enough to be released from the hospital. Johnston now dedicates his life to supporting the military anyway he can. Jenny and him make comfort boxes for the troops; send money to the U.S.O so they can do a tour over in the warzone.
Johnston gets prosthetic legs a few months after he was released from the hospital, he learns to use them and begins taking long walks, and he tells Jenny it gets his mind off bad memories.
One day Johnston is at home, his phone rings, he is getting ready to go for a walk, but the piercing annoying sound of the phone ringing drives him to answer it, “Hello?” He asks shrewdly.
“Is this Johnston Kingston?” An older man’s voice asks.
“Yes, who are you?”
“Well, to you I’m colonel.” The voice replies.
“The T-90...” Johnston mutters out.
“No kid, it didn’t kill me.” The colonel’s voice softens and becomes kinder.
“But the whole building came down, how did you make it?” Johnston asks franticly.
“Look, don’t keep asking questions, the important thing is, we are both still alive, even though I don’t know how you are after that nuke blast…” The colonel pauses, his voice gets even softer, “I’m retired from the military now, do you want to meet somewhere and catch up?”
“Yeah, I’d like that” Johnston says.
Later Johnston and the Colonel buy their own fishing boat and Johnston proposes to Jenny. They get married and years later have their first child, Johnny.
The end.