Point A

Chapter 2

Point A

I sat in the middle of the bar with buddies at each side of me. I puffed on a cigar while everyone else drank beers. Several guys were playing darts, a few more were drinking drinks I never even knew existed. I looked over my shoulder and saw several privates taking shots of Jack Daniels whiskey, I swear it looked like two shots would of had them drunk off their asses.

I looked around taking in the bar. Huge plasma screen televisions broadcast football and basketball games, as well as UFC, baseball and hockey. Expensive scotches, bourbons, whiskies, and other alcoholic drinks lined a glass shelf behind the bar. There were several pool tables in the side room where several Marines played pool and joked around.

To the left of me was the ‘Nostalgia’ room. It was a room straight from World War II. As soon as you walked in you stepped back into the 1940’s. 40’s style music played; M1 Thompsons, Lee-Enfields, an MP-40 and several other weapons hung on the walls, with pictures of men in combat as well as medals and other relics and equipment from the Marines on the beaches in the Pacific. The place was covered with Marine Memorabilia; pictures, artifacts, a giant scarlet and gold Marine flag hung in the center of the room above the bar. An M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun hung above the flag.

The Bar was about a mile from base and was owned by a rich wall street guy whose son had been in the Marine Corp, he had been killed in combat in Afghanistan. It was a hotspot for Marines, and people from the cities near the base. The main bar was super modern and nice. As you walked in though, you were still greeted by a the same massive flag that hung in the ‘Nostalgia’ room.

The end of my cigar glowed a brilliant red as I took a long drag on it. I pulled the cigar out of my mouth and slowly exhaled the smoke.

“Damn, it feels so good to just sit around and drink beer.” Private First Class Victor Radson said.

“Hell yeah it does.” Said Corporal Conrad Etts.

Etts and Radson were the newest members of my squad but had still been with us since the last year-and-a-half of the Afghanistan conflict.

“Beats slogging through knee deep mud in back in Alabama.” I remarked.

“Damn straight, sir.” called a cocky Sergeant Rex Kade. Kade and I went way back since before High School. We had joined the Marine Corp together but I went to Officer Candidate School and he went to Boot Camp. He was one of my closest friends and had seen me go through everything in Afghanistan; hell, we nearly died together in one of those God-forsaken caves.

The men I was closest to in the entire Marine Corp were sitting here right with me.

Lance Corporal Juan Desavo, our loud-mouthed radio man, had been with us since Afghanistan. He was outspoken and loved to talk about his madres cooking back home in  New Mexico. He was one crazy b*****d, but a damn good radio man.

Corporal David Etts was our explosive expert. He smiled all the time, but those smiles were always bigger when things were exploding. He always carried the SMAW’s and any other rockets or explosive equipment we needed. He was one hell-of-a-shot with any kind of explosives. He worked in Artillery before coming to my squad.

Sergeant Evan Kade was our support gunner. He carried the SAW and if you needed suppressive fire he was the man to give it. He had a rep for being tough as nails, and one kick-a*s Marine. He was a real imposing figure though. In Afghanistan he was permanently scarred, with a huge red scar running down his face and neck. When his shirt was off you could see it run down his chest as well. His face and massive, ripped frame reminded me of the Russian from Rocky IV.

Radson was our SDM, or Squad Designated Marksmen. He carried and updated M-14 Tactical. Combat. Rifle. or M-14 TCR. Capable of nailing targets at greater ranges than our SCAR-H's he wasn’t a sniper but you could be damn sure he killed the man he aimed at.

Reid was our grenadier and amateur medic. If you were minorly hit he could patch you up, we alway gave him hell about it too because all he did to learn that s**t was go to a weekend medical seminar. Reid was a great guy though, he was tough as nails and could make you laugh your a*s off, even in tight situations.

We were Marine Corps Force Recon and because of that, we had been through countless s**t storms and I wouldn’t trade these men for anything. They had made me a promise when we came together in Afghanistan, three years ago in 2014, that they would follow me through the gates of hell as long as I was calling the shots.

Even though we had been pulled out of Afghanistan we knew we would be deployed soon. We had been training non-stop for almost a year. Working on desert tactics and improving all the skills that we would have to use back in the middle east. The part that was the most interesting was the fact that they had lots of guys including myself, learning Hebrew. Because I had learned German and Arabic, and spoke both fluently, it was easier for me to pick up a third language.

I began putting dots together when the news started telling how the Hamas, a terror organization in Israel, had teamed up with other pissed off Palestinians and had pretty much declared war on Israel. To some it was nothing, they just said ‘Don’t worry, they’ve been fighting for over two millennium.’ but I was worried. The US government started aiding the Israelis with Airstrikes and other assets. It made me think we would be deployed to Israel soon.

“Hey, Ryder? Get your head out of your a*s and answer the question.” Called a Etts, laughing.

“What was the question smart a*s?” I jokingly replied.

“Should Kade go talk to that smokin’ blonde over there!” He said pointing to the back of the bar.

“Damn, boys’ calm down.” Kade remarked as he emptied another beer.

“Holy s**t bro, you should. Shes hot as the Chihuahuan Desert.” Said Desavo, his eyes getting big as ping pong balls.

“Come on Kade, she too hot for you?” I asked with a grin.

“You know what maybe I will go talk to her.” He said. “Just to get you guys to shut the f**k up.” He laughed.

He stood up, shotgunned his beer and walked over to her. He must’ve stood a full foot taller than her. Kade was big guy at nearly 6’ 7” but the girls petite stature made him look like Goliath.

I had just finished my cigar when someone called, “Room, attention!” From the back of the bar. The whole place fell silent and all of us became stiff as boards, standing rigidly at attention.

“At ease Marines.” Boomed the authoritative voice of Marine Corp Brigadier General Moses.

“Marines, I hate to ruin your night but we need you back at base. We are going to be deployed. Officers and squad leaders get your men ready and meet at Hangar 2 for briefing. Dismissed.” He thundered.

We all ran to our vehicles. I had driven Kade; Etts and Desavo drove together then Reid and Radson rode separate. I hopped in my Jeep and threw it in reverse. We made it out of the labyrinth of cars in the parking lot and then hauled a*s to base. Kade reached down and turned on the radio. We dropped the windows and turned it up. Kickstart my Heart by Motley Crue blared as I accelerated down the road.

We pulled into base with Reid behind us and Etts following close behind him. We moved into the hangar and started checking my pack. I had kept it ready to go on the fly if we had needed too. I pulled my SCAR-H up and checked everything on the weapon; its ACOG optic was good to go, my foregrip with laser attachment were mounted on my picatinny rail and ready as well. Everything appeared fine at the moment. I looked around at my platoon and watched as we all readied up for the deployment. We had been training non-stop for this. I walked down to hangar two to listen to our briefing.

“We will be on a plane to Tel Aviv and then flying into Tel Aviv.” Boomed Lt. General Stryker,  “Once to Tel Aviv we will proceed via helo to Rafah, assisting the Israeli army to crush the enemy coalition in the city. Rogue Egyptian mercenaries are rumored to be with them and aidin’ them. Lieutenant Shay’s, Captain Knights, and Second Lieutenant Booker stay here. The rest of you grab your gear and head to your planes.” he paused for everyone to leave.

“Listen guys, theres a reason you’re with me right now. You guys are heading up the three recon teams that will go in before the rest of the Marines. Your jobs will be to take out mission critical weapons stores and gather intel for the rest of us. You’ll have additional resources waiting for you on the ground in Israel. That is all gentlemen, dismissed.”
I walked back over to our plane. My guys were suited up, clothed in deep sandy brown fatigues, their faces were not painted yet but we were bringing it with us. We had a long plane ride ahead of us.

“What’s going to happen boss?” Radson questioned.

“We’re going into an Israeli city near the Egyptian border, search and destroy orders on enemy weapon stores.”  

“S**t, so much for getting out of the desert heat.” Remarked Reid. The Globemasters colossal doors closed locking fifty-four of us inside along with a HMMWV and a 105mm Howitzer. The turbo-fan engines fired and we taxied down the runway. I thought about my wife. I had sent a text to her just before we arrived to base. I figured she had just gone to sleep an hour or so before. I remembered her telling me that tomorrow, well this morning in a few hours, she would be going to see her parents who lived in Florida. It would be good for her to get away for a while and to see them. As I thought about her my eyelids became heavy, allowing the darkness to engulf me. I could see her in my mind. Her beautiful dark brunette hair, her bright blue eyes, and her radiate smile. I already missed her. I let the thought of her take me away, and I fell asleep.

I awoke several hours later, we were still flying. I pulled out my phone and plugged in my headphones and started listening to music. This seemed almost ritualistic to me now. This would be my sixth combat tour of duty. I was deployed to Afghanistan five times, and now Israel once. I often pondered how many times I would go, how often I would fight. It was something my wife and I talked of seldomly. I stopped thinking and let the string ripping riffs of Van Halen take me away.

I awoke again. “Hey there sleeping beauty.” I heard from beside me.

“How long have I been out?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“About three hours since you plugged in those headphones I’d say.” Etts replied.

I wanted to go back to sleep, but knew I wouldn’t be able to. I pulled a scuffed up Ipad from my pack. I opened a mission dossier and started reading and looking at maps. The dossier was thin. Apparently the rest of the Marines would meet us in a few days. Lieutenant Booker, and Lieutenant Shay’s teams along with mine would be the first into Rafah. We didn’t know much of what was going to happen. All the dossier contained was maps of Rafah and troop strength estimates. We were going in almost blind.

Author's Note

any feedback is helpful!

Reviews

[Austin Jolly]

A few things to go over (nothing serious, don't freak out lol)

This one is where a whole lot of people go wrong. When you say Marine Corps, theres supposed to be an S at the end of CORPS, otherwise you would be saying Marine Corporation, because Corp is short for Corporation haha!!

Second, to the very best of my knowledge, there is no such variant of an M14 being a TCR, much less the term TCR for Tactical Combat Rifle even existing in the book of Military literature. However...what you may be thinking of would be an RIS (Rail Interface System) variant of the M14 (which means theres a lot of rails to mount a lot of accessories) in which case you would use the term EMR, or Enhanced Marksman Rifle. The man to carry this M14 is your Designated Marksman (no need for the Squad in that meaning haha), and being in that kind of position, he needs a weapon that can shoot fast, and kill faster. The M14 may do the trick, but its insanely outdated, and the Marine Corps wouldn't outfit DMs with the M14 simply because there are better weapons that can do its job better and more efficiently. It was an accurate weapon back in the late 80's when it destroyed the competition to the AR-10, but in doing so, the AR-10 was remodeled and was outfitted with the gas system that the AR-15 had, and the end result was the SR25 (Formerly the MK11 MOD 0), where its main purpose was a Marksman / Sniper rifle. Comparing the two weapons (the M14 and the SR25) for commonalities, both weapons feed systems are 10-20 round detachable box magazines, and the operating systems are gas operated with a rotating bolt system, with semi-automatic firing modes. Both weapons also take the standard issue 7.62x51mm NATO (or .308 Winchester) cartridge. BUT...the main difference lies in the effective firing range. For the M14, the effective firing range is about 400-550 yards, and up to 800+ yards with magnified optics. The SR25 has an effective firing range of 800 yards, with a total of 1100+ yards with magnified optics, and the recoil sustainment system embedded into the SR25 is far more updated than the M14, and can sustain an accurate firing position (meaning the rifle has next to no sway or recoil when firing) when incorporating suppressing fire (even without a bipod), whereas the M14 will end up aiming at the sky when using it as a suppressing fire type of weapon. All in all, the Marine Corps would outfit DMs with SR25s over M14 EMRs.

Didnt I sound like a total geek??? hahaha!!!

Also, SCAR-H rifles are normally used by US Navy SEALs due to their effective combat range being suitable for SEALs to employ. The Marine Corps would outfit their Marines with standard weapons systems like the M4 W/ RIS and the M16A3/4, and an M249 SAW or M240B for their support gunners.

Explosives expert? Haha! Leave that to EOD! When Marines carry explosives, they are usually a part of a Rifle Platoon or Battalion with a Weapons Platoon and a Logistics Element to direct the delivery, or they're with Arty or Indirect! but if your definition of explosives varies along the lines of AT-4 rocket systems, grenades and a smoke pop in a fireteam / Squad of MARSOC guys, then that sounds about right! Keep in mind that only one or two MARSOC operators carry AT-4 systems in a Fireteam, and 2 or 3 more in a Squad!

Holy s**t, 2 Generals in a single base?? Wow, there must be a War going on between Female Marines and Air Force POGs! Usually there wouldn't be 2 Generals in a short area like a single base, a Brigadier would be enough to set the record straight, a LtGen would probably be in some training ground like Parris Island or at a Recruiting and Retention HQ.

I see you took my Globemaster! Haha no biggie! But i'm looking at this thing like GOOD LORD! There's 54 MARSOC guys, a humvee, and a Howitzer cannon!? Dude that would be awesome if that could happen, but the Howitzer cannon alone would probably be too big, let alone the single humvee that's tagging along as well (be sure to say the make and model of the cannon, which is M777)! :)

ALSO...

If this is gonna be a continuation, just make a book on it and add the subsequent chapters! :)

A good read, please continue!