I will never forget that day. It plays over and over in my mind. It felt so surreal. It was just like any other day. It all started the same way just like every morning. My alarm goes off at four AM. I remove my covers and, my wife’s arm draped over where my warm body just was. I pull the cover back over her so she does not wake up. I go over to the closet, grab my florescent green shirt and my work jeans and slap them on. I head downstairs not before I pass my little girls room I crack open the door. There she is all curled up in a ball, she always sleeps so wired. I make my way down the stairs, I grab my lunch box and fill it with the two sandwiches a bag of chips and some waters. My wife lays them out every night for me so I don't have to waste time in the morning. I go to the door and put on my boots. I always leave them here so I don't drag mud through the house. I walk outside and it's a calm, peaceful, and a very still day. I look at my house, it's not the best, but it's my little slice of heaven. I get in my old beat up Corolla and began the 2 hour drive to the new job site we are working at today. I work construction, building and tearing down buildings is how we pay the bills. It's not glamorous, but it's a job. I finally arrive to to job site. I park my car next to all of my coworkers big jacked up trucks. They always make fun of me for driving a turd car. I used to have a truck, but with the tightening economy I had to sell it for a more affordable option. But anyway, we always meet around the shack, a little building where are boss puts all of the blue prints and keep all of the paperwork. I notice a man in a suit walking out of the shack. It's not every day we see someone not wearing a green shirt on the job sight. The man gets in a black car with very dark windows and drives off. My boss Chip begins talking about this place. It is an abandoned military base they used to store planes here. It's like any other normal demolition job. Tear the hangers down and get rid of the waste. But the sheer size of these hangers are amazing there are about 25 of them and each one is the size of a small college, or at least how big I imagination one would be. I never went to college. Chip began handing out our assignments, and I get the excavator today. It's pretty easy. You get in and smash things, not much to it. We begin getting to work. We are a 30 man crew, most on operating machines, excavators, cranes, and dump trucks. We start smashing into the first hanger when I start hearing noises. It sounded very choppy. I turn off my excavator and step out wondering if the noises are coming from my machine. Then I look up and I see a wave of helicopters. I began thinking, this noise was atrocious. The dust they are kicking up is tremendous. They began landing on the run way. My fellow co-worker and I look at Chip, and he begins walking towards the dust cloud that has just been created. I look left and right and realize all of my fellow crew members are standing outside of their machines staring at Chip. I hear a quick pop pop pop and Chip hits the ground. From the dust emerges about 6 men with rifles. I hear a couple more quick pop pop pops and I see two of my coworkers fall off there machines in a pool of blood. I quickly duck behind my excavator. I can feel my hands shaking and heart racing a mile a minute. From the cover my excavator I hear another barrage of gun shots. I look around and I realize I need to find a place to hide. About 200 feet away is hanger. I take off running and as I clear my excavator I see about 50 more soldiers emerging from the dust. I hear another barrage of gun fire but it different this time. I can hear the bullets landing in front of me and zinging by my head. I put my head down and keep running. I dive behind the hanger, my face covered in dirt and the sweat pouring down my face. I look down my and hands are covered in blood. I wonder is it mine? I have never been shot before. Then I noticed the hole in my belly with blood pouring out, and I began to panic. I quickly grab a handful of dirty and jab it into my wound. I grit my teeth through the pain but I need to stop the bleeding. I pack the wound with a bloody mess of dirt I look around the corner of the hanger, and I watch the soldiers blow down 3 more of my co workers with no mercy. I realize it's only a matter of time before they come for me. I clear my head and I stand up. I look down and notice my dirt filled gun shot wound did not hold. The wad of dirt is spilled out on the floor and the blood is pouring out of me like a stuck deer. I look around the corner again and see the solders are moving closer. I open the door to the hanger and look around. I see a fire extinguisher. I grab it off of the wall and I hear footsteps outside the door. I aim the nozzle at the door as my vision is getting worse and I can feel myself losing consciousness. The door flies open and I slam my hand down on the trigger a huge puff of white powder explodes in the man's face. His gun goes off and I feel Four impacts from my leg to my chest. I hit the floor, I look and I see I have five more holes in me. My leg is useless, my shoulder is hanging off my my body, and blood is everywhere. I look up to see the man rubbing his eyes and his gun between. Us I crawl towards it knowing it's my only hope. The blood makes things very slick for me to move. The door flies open again and another solder runs through it. We lock eyes. His eyes are dark green, and he has a big, wide frame, not much different from any other person. He raises his gun and I am staring right down the barrel. I hear one more shot and it's all dark.
Today was the day we have been training for weeks. My name is Thomas, and I am in the 31st Air born division. My squad consists of 25 men. For weeks we have be training for a mission to attack the USA. We were the first stage. My job was to secure a way for our troops to get their boots on the ground. From several weeks before, we found a old abandoned military airport, tucked back in a low populated area. For months we practiced how to assault this base. I could tell you the ins and outs of every building. We knew how many stairs it took to get the the top. These buildings became second nature to us. Today was the day we were about to put all that training to use. It was four am and we awoke from our barracks and began gathering our gear. We loaded mags with bullets and stuffed them into our plate carries. We grab gas masks and smoke canisters. We proceeded to make our way to our helicopter waiting for us on the tarmac. There where about 25 flies all being filled with different squads all heading for the same objective. It looked like clock work. No one out of line, no one missed a beat. Once loaded into the copter, we headed for the USA. Our helicopters in a line all heading for the same place. The sun was just rising, looking around I could see the focus on everyone's face. We all knew we had a job to do. I hear the pilot yell/ "5 minutes till touch down!" It snaps me out of my delusion and the helicopters split. Flying over the site we are about to drop into, I notice a problem. There are big construction trucks moving around beginning to tear down a hanger. I think this should be deserted. No one should be here. I look down at my rifle and automatically I notice my thumb on the safety and my finger around the trigger. Our chopper begins to descend, the dust kicking up, it's like a smoke screen. I put my boots on the ground and began heading forward. I look left and right and my squad meets right in line just like we have been rehearsing. I see a figure emerge from the smoke. With no hesitation my finger pulls the trigger twice. The figure drops as I walk by I see the blood pooling out of him. The cardboard targets we shoot don't bleed. It was different this time; it was a person in his last breath and we make eye contact. I refocus and look back up. We emerge from the smoke to see about 20 men sitting and standing on machines. I hear a sharp ring from my left ear and see a man fall from his truck. I look over my comrade gun raised the smoke still fresh from his barrel. I look back up, my sight lined up directly with another man's chest. Before I know it, my finger pulls the trigger three times dropping the man like a ton of bricks. His blood sprayed in the air like a red mist. Next, a whole sea of gun fire up rises. Bullets zinging through the air. The man on the trucks dropping like flies. The pool of blood running down the side of the trucks like rain on a window. I look left and a man is running. My gun follows him perfectly. I squeeze off 3 more shots. The man falls behind a building. I look over and I see Justin, one of my squad mates run across the field and slide over to the side of the building. Justin is fast. We called him "the flash" in training. I follow him close and we turn the corner of the hanger. I look down and I see a wad of bloody dirt with a pool where the man used to be standing. I refocus, and flash has his hand on the door handle and flings it open. I hear a puff and his gun go off. I quickly run in the door, gun up. I look and I see Justin on the floor rubbing his eyes, and a man on the floor blood covering him. I see the exit wounds of the bullets, the damage is tremendous. His leg is riddled with gun shoots. It looks like a piece of ham someone tenderized with a hammer. His shoulder is blown open and I can see the joint moving, but his arm won't follow. I look down and Justin gun's is between us. He is moving towards it the whole time. I quickly realize my sights have been on him. He looks up and my finger squeezes the trigger, a round splitting his head in two. The sight is still plastered in my mind till this day. We continue on with our mission that day. We secured the hangers with no casualties but we took 25 mens lives' in the process.
It was like any other morning. I woke up to the smell of pancakes wafting in my room. I threw off my covers and ran down the stairs. I saw mom over the stove cooking my favorite breakfast. I sit down and she slaps two pancakes on my plate and I drown them in syrup. She yells at me like she always does for using too much. I ask where dad is and mom says he had to work today. I was sad. Dad was supposed to take me shopping today, but mom said she would take me. She tells me to get ready I ran upstairs and put on my favorite. Outfit my white shirt with flowers and my blue jeans. I run back down stairs and mom tells me to brush my teeth. I always hate doing this but I do it anyway. We then load up in the car. She put on Monsters Inc for me in the car because she said it's a long drive to the mall. I fell asleep. When I woke up we were there at the mall. It was huge and there were so many stores. mom said I could get one toy. I immediately run to the toy store and pick up the new Barbie doll. This one had long blonde hair like mine and she wears a white shirt and blue jeans just like me. After buying it, mom wanted to walk around and look in other stores. All I cared about was playing with my doll so I don't remember much about the other stores. We went back to the car and went to MacDonald's for lunch. I got the kids meal with apple slices and chicken nuggets, but they gave me the boy toy. it was a monster truck. I was going to give it to dad when he came home. We drove back to the house and this time I stayed awake and watched Up. It was funny the balloon moves the whole guy's house. When we go back home I got out all of my dolls ad introduced them to Sara, my new doll I just got. They all like Sara because she was pretty. I played for a while and I looked at the clock. The little hand was on the 5 and the big hand was on the 6. I think that's 5:30 but I am not the best with time. Mom tried to call dad three times since we have been home she seemed sad, but I keep playing. I smelled the hamburgers coming from the kitchen so I sat down at the table waiting. Mom said we are going to go visit dad at work and bring him dinner. we loaded back up in the car and I had the bag which had the buns, burgers, and chips. I always liked visiting dad at work. He lets me ride on the trucks. They were so big. After driving a little I fell asleep and when I woke up mom was parking next to dads car. His was easy to pick out in the sea of trucks. Mom made dad sell his truck because she said it was too expensive. She got me out of the car and she seemed nervous. She dropped the bag of food and I picked it up and told her I could carry it. She told me to get back in the car she, but wasn’t looking at me. She was staring into the distance. I looked over there where four men were walking towards us. They were carrying something and it looked heavy. I was still looking at them when mom shoved me in the car. It hurt because she hit my head on the car seat. She slammed the door with my foot almost in them it. Her face was really red because she was sweating it was warm but not that warm. She jumped in the car slamming her door. She kept fumbling with the keys. I told her to slow down it looked like she was rushing. She started the car and I said "what about dads dinner mom?" She didn't respond ; her eyes were focused on the road. She slammed the car backwards and my head bounced off of my seat. It hurt and I yelled at her to slow down. I heard three loud bangs and mom fell forward over the wheel of the car. The car smashed into one of the trucks. The force sent me flying out of my car seat because mom never buckled me in. The car flipped and I was on the floor. The car keep rolling and I was being tossed around on the inside. My head kept bouncing off of the sides like a ping pong ball. The car finally slowed to a stop. We were upside down and my head really hurt. I crawled over to the passenger seat and mom was hanging upside down. There was blood dripping off of her onto the roof. I yelled at her but she didn't say anything. Her eyes were closed, and the blood was really coming out. It was running all over the roof. I started crying because she didn't look right. I felt very warm. I was too focused on mom to realize the front of the car had to glow of fire. The reds and oranges danced over the hood. It was very hot now. I crawled to the back seat trying to get my door open but I couldn't. The fire was getting close now. I could feel the heat right next to me. I grabbed mom's shoulder and told her I was scared. She felt cold but I didn't know how with all of the heat. The fire was inside now and it was all around me. The heat was unbearable, and it was taking the breath out of me. The flames were right next to me. I felt them burning my skin. It didn't last long and I felt sleepy. My eyes were heavy and I felt cold now.