Monday, August 16, 2010

LAD Website Original: Time to Die (No One Here’s Getting Out Alive)

Time to Die (No One Here’s Getting Out Alive)
by Scott Thurlow

The West Coast
5.2 miles outside of Los Angeles, California, USA


We were fucked. Totally fucked. I knew it, but I’m not sure everyone else did yet. They would soon. We had no idea what we were doing, and neither did anyone in charge by now. If there was anyone left at all. Even if someone up in the chain did order us to stand down or retreat, there was nowhere and nothing left to rendezvous at.

Just a year or so ago we were fighting dudes in deserts, crawling through caves and mountains, searching for people in them. Now, people were everywhere. We didn't need to look for them at all anymore, anywhere, because they’d come looking for us. At least, they used to be people. I’ll say the enemy instead. And they were about to overrun us. It was a real No Quarter situation. All kinds of FUBAR’ed. Us or Them. Victory or Death. And it dawned on me which one it was going to be for our side.

How do you fight these things when they won’t ever give up? They won’t retreat. Killing more of them never lowered their morale. They didn't care how many of them we shredded to bits. They were just going to keep on coming until we couldn't keep up. We were all fucking Fucked, with a capital “F.”

How could it come to this? We were the best goddamned army in the world. We never lose, right? It’s funny how I always thought that, but the thing about being fully aware of your fucked-ness is, there’s a moment right after you realize that you are in fact completely and in all ways possible, absolutely fucked, that this strange feeling of freedom hits you. It’s hard to notice at first, since it’s buried under the full-on fear. But when you know, finally know, that you’re going to die, somehow awfully, sometime very soon (and there’s shit all that you, or anyone, can do about it) you just kind of go with it. I just didn't give a fuck, anymore.

I decided I would go out the way they taught us. I centered myself and aimed at the enemy. Then I started emptying my clip into them. Shouting the old training chants from back in basic. Trying to catch as many as possible before they got to me. When the freshest batch was about 20 or 30 yards away, I dropped the standard issue and pulled out my sidearm.

“Semper Fi!” I yelled as I brought my Beretta up under my chin. Just before I pulled the trigger, I flipped the enemy off. Do or die, fuckers.

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