Join the new world

The air is thick. Whether it is humidity or tension is hard to tell. The unit starts to move out to the sound of boots marching on the hard ground. The Lieutenant has given us our orders, "Take and hold the road and bridge leading into town". Time is short because the follow up units need that road to move on to the next big objective.

The Lieutenant breaks the unit up into squads. We move apart, keeping space between our selves and the other squads but not so far as to let anyone slip between us. Every leaf and twig crunched underfoot sounds like a cannon shot. The enemy has to hear.

The Sergent motions us to stop. The road we need is just ahead on a small rise. There are several small buildings nearby. A couple of houses and a small shop and a barn or two. We move forward quietly.

The first gunshot from the closest building breaks the silence and the Sergent does not even need to yell "get down" but does anyway. We hit the ground with a force that knocks the wind from by body. Training kicks in and I don't even remember bringing my weapon to my shoulder. A few rounds from our assault rifles and the firing stops.

We move forward, covering each other as we go. Checking the buildings we find them empty. Whoever fired on us, civilian or enemy forces, we never find out because they are long gone.

No one tries to take the road from us. We must have really scared them. Or they are busy elsewhere. Soon the sound of our motorized units come from back down the road. We have done what we set out to do. Mission accomplished. We were lucky, no one got hurt. As a new unit arrives to relieve us we get ready to move on down the road to our next objective. We can't help but wonder if we will be so lucky next time.