Austin Yaeger
Mrs. Jank
English 2
December 19, 2017

Note to reader: This is my final draft of my creative writing story. I’ve written a rough draft, and have revised it about 3 times. The rough draft was very rough and needed a lot of help. I changed many things and now I’ve come to this. I really liked writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Mission Two
It was the second, and final time we had to go to Iraq. I always had a love – hate relationship with that place. Our first trip wasn’t very successful because some Iraqi soldiers just had to flank us and we had to haul out of there. The first trip there was fun… at first. I got a couple decent long range kills and so did my buddies. I also made a new friend on that mission and his name was Paul. Paul was twenty two years old and I was twenty three, so we were pretty close in age. Paul joined the marines at the same time with me and we were always in the same squad, but we never talked. We started talking about life, war, guns, and many other ‘guy’ things. We slowly became friends and Paul became my right hand man, which was my spotter. My spotter was my best friend, just because he sat by me for three days straight scouting out enemies and trying find where to go next. During the first trip, we learned a lot more about what war was like, and what soldiers really had to deal with. Our main goal was to take an outpost on a hill in the northwestern corner of Iraq. We were almost there when we got ambushed from the south. The soon to be second trip will be the same goal. Take out the main outpost, kill the terrorists and save the refugees or anyone else that needs help. Our deploy date is September third, which is in five days.
Five days later
The day had finally come where we were heading off to Iraq. Our officer woke us all up at 0400, pronounced ‘oh four hundred’, a fancy name for 4:00am, and we packed up everything and hopped in the humvees, which is just another name for a hummer. We headed to the airport to take off and threw all of our stuff in the plane. I had to take a quick stop to throw up just from all the butterflies in my stomach. As we boarded the plane, one of my other friends said to me, “Wake up, this is only the beginning.” I already knew that but I didn’t want to tell him that and make him feel bad, so I kept it to myself.
We flew from San Diego to some weird small airport in Iraq. The landing was very rough, as our pilot was a newby. I had to give him crap for it because my bag unzipped and all of my clothes and supplies were scattered. We unloaded all of our stuff and headed to base camp. We arrived in Iraq time, which was around 2000, so when we arrived, we dropped our stuff and crashed. We woke up around 0400 again to start the mission. Our goal was to not make the same mistakes as last time, but to capitalize on what we did wrong. As a team, we need to make sure we are more stealthy, which is why I think we got flanked and lost us the first mission.
I think we walked a solid twenty miles by the time we reached our destination. The team and I were face to face with a giant hill. The hill was lined with trees, even though the hill was at a seventy degree angle. There were many shrubs and bushes, but the odd thing was they were all brown, even though the other hills were green. I didn’t think much of it while I was there, but now that I look back on it, it’s really strange. The hill was about two hundred feet tall and let’s just say I was not prepared to climb it. As we slowly made the incline up, we always had two navigators and two spotters telling us where things were. As we were climbing, we reached about halfway up the hill, and one of the spotters abruptly stopped and said, “Stop! East, halfway down the mountain.” We were headed north up the hill, so all eleven of us turned our heads to the right, almost in perfect sync. It turned out it was just a goat on a rock, but I can see how a spur of the moment situation, it could be anything. As we made it three fourths of the way up, no one was really paying attention to the east anymore. The others were looking up the hill to see how much further we were from the top. I decided to look eastward and saw even more goats. I didn’t think more of it, but a little further up the hill were four or five herders. They were holding something in their hands. I couldn’t tell if they were guns or staffs, so I quietly, but at the same time loudly, “East! With something in their hands!”
Again, all of my squads’ heads turned and all of our bodies dropped. I was praying to God they didn’t see us. One of the spotters pulled out his spotting scope and got a visual on them. Two of the four had guns, which looked like AK-47s, the typical weapon used by Iraqi’s. We tried to hunker down best we could and crawl up the mountain without them noticing. The hill was very steep, which made the climb so much more enjoyable (sarcasm). We accomplished that goal and made it all the way up without them noticing. At the top, we pointed out the town that we had to take over. We spotted about fifteen Iraqi soldiers with weapons.
“North about fifteen soldiers, all carryi-“
Those were the last words my friend said to me, as he was shot, directly in the head. My best friend, laying on the brown grass, motionless. Blood sprinkled and coming from his head. My ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear anything. I quickly rushed over to him, but my team yelled at me to stay down. My ears blocked the yelling out and instead, yelled back for a medic. It was too late. It was from a sniper, but the location was unknown. We looked everywhere, but being careful at the same time. One of the members called in air support and everything alike. No one knows why he called it in, but I’m sure glad he did; because we needed it. About a minute later, we were surrounded by Iraqi soldiers, but had the high ground. Shots coming all around us, no where to go. My worst nightmare was this. We sat for about thirty minutes, letting them waste all of their ammunition. Our thought was if they have no more ammo, they become defenseless. The soldiers then stopped shooting, which was very odd. We thought they ran out of ammo.
Then, out of the quietness of the day, came the very distinct sound of an A10 warthog, “BRRRRRRRRRRTT”. (look it up it sounds awesome)
My squad new that noise from anywhere; The sound of freedom. The sound of four thousand two hundred bullets a minute. I knew now that we had backup, but I knew it wasn’t over. We couldn’t rely fully on just air support, we had to rely on ourselves too. As the enemies were distracted, we rolled down the hill; quite literally. The fastest way down was rolling, because of how steep it was. We reached the bottom and didn’t care to wipe the dirt off or clean up. We didn’t have time for that. We needed to complete our mission. We charged the town, while air support gunned down the big stuff. As the soldiers were distracted, we cleared out the town. We checked each and every house for refugees or anyone else that needed help. Rodney, one of my other good friends, called for a helicopter to come pick us up, which is exactly what happened. The chopper came about thirty minutes later. When the helicopter was landing, there was so much dust flying that no one could see. Eventually, we all loaded on the the helicopter and we all escaped, except for Paul. Paul was only twenty two years old, married and had a child on the way. I couldn’t stop thinking of it. It killed me inside that I saw him get shot and how I couldn’t do anything to help. I kept thinking to myself of a way I could’ve saved him, but I knew deep down that I had no chance.
After the, what felt like forever and a day, drive, we finally arrived back at the same airport we landed at. We all piled in and the pilot booked it all the way back to San Diego. I’m pretty sure we were all knocked out as soon as we hit the seats because no one knew nor remembered the flight back. When we arrived at the airport at the base, I grabbed all my bags and items from my room and gave my last goodbyes to the place I called home for nine long years. I yanked my wad of keys out of my pocket and spammed the unlock button, waiting for the horn to honk. I hopped in my Ford F-350 and stuck the key into the ignition. The sound of the massive power stoke firing up mixed with the turbo winding was the most satisfying thing I’ve heard in a long time. I slowly drove out of the parking lot and got on the interstate back to my house. When I rolled up to my house, my wife was waiting outside with a big sign and everything of the sorts. My dog, Nickel, also waiting very patiently next to her side, just like I taught him. I slammed the shifter into park and let out a deep sigh and thought to myself, “It’s good to be back.” But I knew that it wasn’t all good for everyone. I instantly thought about Paul’s family and everyone that knew him, and my feelings suddenly changed to deep sorrow. I also thought about his son, and how he will never be able to see, or know, how great of a father he would have had.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9

Authors Note – This is the final draft of my creative writing piece. I really like this piece because I like to write in non fiction. I really like this story because it shows the struggles of war and what soldiers have to deal with. Some struggles with this piece were trying to find the right words for the right situations. For this piece, I would like you to tell me if I used certain words too many times. I also want to know if my sentences flow easy or if they are too short. All in all, I’m really happy with my writing and I hoped you enjoyed it too.