I knew the moment the first shot was fired. I was an entire ocean away, but I knew the moment it happened. I didn’t know the details until they came out though.
The South Koreans had found the many tunnels built by the North while crossing the border. They understood the tunnels would enable the North to secretly strike before anyone knew what was happening. The North had worked on those tunnels for years and now they wanted to use us them. Since they were obviously preparing to attack, the South added men and dogs to guard the border. The dogs had been trained to kill North Koreans, so at first sight of the North, the dogs went crazy. Despite the South’s efforts to try and stop the dogs from crossing, they did. The very first dog was shot in the head with great accuracy and speed. This was the shot I felt and saw and heard and knew everything about; the North Koreans were trained well. The conflict might have stopped there, but there were many dogs and when one went, all the dogs followed. In all, eight dogs killed thirteen North Korean men. The last dog was crossing the border to safety, but a north Korean shot it just as it crossed. Unfortunately, the trainer had gotten attached to the canine and at the sight of his beloved dog being killed, he went berserk. He picked up a rifle and charged across the border. Immediately he was shot. From this point, the Korean War had begun yet again, but would this time would be more bloody and fierce than before. This time the blood shed would now spill into other countries.
Eventually the North began winning the war because they had greatly overestimated the South and too soon the South began to run out of its best soldiers. With the South elite gone, it was elite North vs. regular South. Within days the North had the South at checkmate. Even though Korea had once been united under the Communist flag, Korea was Hungary for more land and power. Most would expect the war to end at this point, but them being even more powerful just made it worse. Then China decided it would be okay for them to join in. With their vastly larger armies, they were rarely opposed by surrounding countries. This alarmed everyone in the world, especially Russia, and also the small Asian countries nearby. It was obvious that North Korea (now Korea) and China wouldn’t stop they were bent on world domination. A day after China took Mongolia; I came into this story as a recruit in America. I joined because I knew I had to defend my homeland. Communism was on the move yet again and that usually meant war. I proudly marched into the recruitment station and signed up in the _______. America wasn’t at war yet, but I could see it happening very soon and they could too, because they had me sent to boot camp immediately. My new base was at Fort Stockton in ____________, the very place where I was born and raised. The streets were nice and tidy and the sounds of soldiers marching or running to cadence could always be heard. Where the soldiers were trained, usually smelled like gun powder.
“Okay maggots!” Drill sergeant MacAndrew yelled “Today is the first day you make something of your pathetic little lives. You will start with PT, and then you will move onto weapons training, last you will do the course. If you live through the bullets and explosions, you will get a chance to kill a red or die for a cause greater that your pathetic lives, is this understood?” This wasn’t hurtful to me at all. He was too short to be threatening and too geeky with his big thick glasses. The only thing that could be even remotely intimidating, aside from his voice, was his scar on the side of his nose, but it was too small to be a knife or bullet wound.
“Yes sir!” chorused the soldiers.
“Then let’s move to a two mile run!” During the run there were men huffing and puffing. I had actually become concerned for the other guys a time or two. As we ran to a cadence, one of the cocky ones thought it would be cool to do a silly little dance. The drill sergeant caught him and had him do pushups till he lost his lunch, then after that had him smack himself. Before it was over, he was bawling in front of everyone. I could see the sergeant hold onto this and the others actually get intimidated then and we went back to running.
Over the course of the days, we were yelled at and humiliated over and over, but we also got stronger, faster, and tougher. I stayed by myself and quiet. Finally came the day of the last obstacle course. We had to run a quarter mile and then crawl under barbed wire in a muddy field. Once we got a good ways into the field, they shot bullets over your head and started detonating C4 to mimic artillery. The field itself looked gruesome and the smell of the smoke burned my throat. The first part of the course was fairly quiet though we could hear gunfire in the distance. The road we ran on was dusty, so by the end of the run everyone and everything was gritty and dusty. My battle buddy went ahead of me; he was usually confident and fearless. But when we hit the field and he saw the explosions and heard the bullets, the first thing he did was puke.
After I gave a moment to take some deep breaths and get ready, we went into the middle of the fire. But I knew my buddy wasn’t coming out. He started hyperventilating and I tried to reassure him so that we could keep going, “Hey man, calm down. We’ll make it through this.” I told him soothingly, but I had to speak loudly over the guns, yelling and explosions.
“No, we won’t! We’re going to die! I need to get out of this place.”
With that he jumped up and tried to run across the field, but he didn’t get two steps before he was shot in the head and died instantly. I had heard that people died during training before and the Sergeants told us the ammo was live, but there was still doubt among some of the soldiers. Now we all knew for certain. The gunfire and the explosions stopped and for a second, I thought my heart also stopped… my battle buddy was dead and it was entirely my fault… I was a disgrace to my family and my country to let my friend die in training. While I wasn’t too attached to him and didn’t know him all that well, he would have been a good soldier. I should have done something to save him. I was there when they told his mother about the accident; she just put her face in her hands and silently wept. I didn’t know what to do. But if I were going to be able to find a way to redeem myself, then I had to earn the honor of Green Beret. If I earned this prestigious honor and became an elite member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, then I would most defiantly be able to forgive myself. He was always talking about becoming a Green Beret and how much he had wanted that honor. I would train to become a Green Beret, do the things he would have wanted and when my service was over, I would place my green beret on his grave. I would tell him of all the things I had done in his honor and be able to find peace. I was determined to get into that elite group and win the beret for my fallen buddy and my homeland. So again off to training I went. The next two years flew by and I have very little memory of that time because it was all the same training day in and day out; always shooting and punching stuff. Before it was all over, I could kill a man fifteen different ways with my bear hands, improvise an explosive (though not as well as Markus because he was an engineer sergeant), save three men simultaneously with one hand tied behind my back; a skill that I needed being that I was a medical sergeant, and survive in the wilderness for years without ever getting supplies. One time I fought a civilian for hitting a girl. He threw the first punch, so as I had been trained, I flattened my hand and thrust it towards him. I was so fast that I landed before he did right above his belly button and it was so powerful he landed on the ground and still didn’t get a punch on me. Afterwards, I ran so fast he never would have caught me I could have even walked away and he wouldn’t have been able to catch me because he stayed on the ground for a couple minutes.
Late on, I got stuck with a group of people who had become my unit and to be honest, they were pretty fun to hang around with. But sometimes they made me wonder how they even got into Special Forces. The only one who really stuck out was Markus. He was taller than the average person, but thinner, too, yet still he managed to carry more than me during training. Then the day finally came. It was time for S.E.R.E. or otherwise known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape maneuvers where we were literally beaten half to death. It’s a P.O.W training course in order to make sure we wouldn’t talk if we were captured by the enemy and beaten or tortured for information about the location of the training prison. This information was unknown and it was the last test a soldier must pass in order to get into Special Forces.
“Your mission will be to complete a simple reconnaissance operation. You will not tell them this, If you reveal any of the details of this mission, you will not pass training. You will not earn the title of Green Beret and you will be a bigger disgrace than you are already to your country. Is this understood, George Mason?” the sergeant looked right at me. Two years had passed and they still hung my buddy’s death over my head, even though I did deserve it. I gave a quick and loud, “Yes sir!”
“Good! See you around then,” I saw a smile cross the sergeant’s face. At first I was confused, but then within seconds a bag was rammed over our heads and ropes tied our hands and feet together and suddenly all was darkness. Next thing I knew, a bucket of water was thrown on me and I woke up tied down to a table. A man was holding a sharpened stick. He started talking, but I couldn’t understand him. I was so groggy; they must have used some sort of tranquilizer. I looked around the room and it was dark and dirty. A single light bulb hung from a wire in the center of the room. There were two men in the room; the one with a stick and the other was huge. If he stood up straight, his head would go through the seven feet tall ceiling and his arms were bigger around than my head.
All of a sudden the man shouted, “I asked what is your mission?”
Although I was tied down, I jumped at the sound of his voice. When I did not answer, he took the blunt end of the stick and hit me across the face.
I cried out, “My name is George Mason” I was two seconds into the training course and it was already harder than I ever imagined.
“What is your mission?”
“I will never speak!” I suddenly was enraged and if it weren’t for the big guy, I would have tried to kill him.
“If you don’t, I’ll make you speak…” with that he left and returned with a bag.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
“Just some toys”, he looked at me grimly. “You will tell all that you know.”
“I will tell you nothing!”
The interrogator had lots of time for the interrogation and it looked like he liked it, too, but I was determined to keep my mouth shut. He took out a knife and slowly run it down my arm. The blade was razor sharp and cut through my skin with ease. I clenched my jaws because it hurt, but I didn’t want him to know that it hurt too badly. My senses were dulled and the dust made my nose stuffed up and in the dim light, it was hard to see details. Next he took a water bottle filled with a yellow liquid. I was fairly sure it was lemon juice and salt because when is poured it in my wounds, it hurt like nothing I had ever felt before.
“Torture me as you might! I will never speak!”
I saw disgust cross his face, so he obviously knew about my battle buddy and didn’t want that to happen to someone else. He took his knife and cut me loose. Then he motioned for the big guy to hold me. Next he turned me around and my interrogator took his flashlight and used it to punch me in the kidneys. Though he hit me in the kidneys, it hurt my entire body. After my beating, he put me in a cell alone. I knew I had to get out or he might actually kill me. And my group was in on it, too. I saw them eating some good food as I was crossing the prison. I was going to have trouble sleeping.
“Hey, were getting out of here tonight. Here, I stashed some food for you, take it, you’ll need your strength” it was Marcus and he had brought me food. I took it into both my hands and ate it as fast I could; I didn’t even taste it. All of a sudden lights were turned on and Marcus was out of there. I heard the voice of my torturer and the big guy’s foot steps behind him. I retreated to the corner by the door. It was time for a midnight torture session and I was not in the mood. I was going to fight both of them. I heard the clanging of the metal key on the bars of my cell. My heart pumped faster and I clenched my fists. Carelessly he walked into my cell. With a powerful jump towards him, I made contact to his face with my fist. The punch was so powerful his back landed hard against the wall that was four feet away. The big guy was standing in the door way when this happened and saw me. I quickly crawled under him and pushed him into the cell with my legs. Before he went in, he dropped a dark object. As he was turning around I quickly closed the door behind him and picked up the object. It was a Taser and I laughed as I pointed it at his face. I was going to enjoy this. The look of fear froze on his face and despite his huge size he looked so pathetic that I had mercy on him. I dropped the Taser and someone came up behind me and clamped my mouth and nose shut. I tried to struggle, but two more came up behind me and to fight was useless; they had me outmatched.
“Stop struggling! We’re on your side, remember?” It was Markus again. “We were almost out, but had to come back to get you.
I couldn’t believe it I thought my squad had betrayed me, but in reality they were helping me. I felt guilty, but I didn’t tell them what I had thought they were doing. He let me go and I looked around. My whole team had been hiding in the shadows the entire time. They were completely silent as one of the guards walked past, but he saw none of us. Instinctively I ran up behind him and put him in a choke hold. Seconds of struggle passed, then he stopped the struggle. I had effectively rendered him unconscious. When he hit the ground, my squad ran straight to the woods for cover. As soon as we crossed into the shadows, we would be home free. We ran as fast as we could and a smile crossed my face when I traversed the forest line. I had made it! I was now a Green Beret and I couldn’t wait to brag to my torturer.
After the S.E.R.E, we were deployed to the heart land of North Korea. It was time where I saw combat and did the things I had vowed I would do. The humming of the engine was loud so we had to yell all our words.
“I can’t believe we are the ones that are going to kill the North Korean general” I was honored that I had been assigned such a mission. If successful, we could end this war a year earlier and focus on the Chinese who were also, harassing the Russians. Markus was going to reply, but just as he opened his mouth the plane was hit by Flak cannon. Instinctively and without looking back, I ran towards the back door which was already opening and jumped. As I fell, I expected my team to join me, but I flipped in the air and only saw the plane flying away. I then knew I was too hasty on my jump and would be considered AWOL.
“Well, there’s no going back now, so I might as well enjoy the ride.” But as I neared the ground, I saw movement and heard gun shots. I pulled my parachute cord and as I slowed, I took out my binoculars. I saw some Chinese soldiers firing into a cave, then unexplainably I would see one drop, followed by another. I took out a grenade, pulled the pin and threw it at the group of them. The second it landed, it blew up and killed five of them. My first kill. I was still coming in for the landing at the entrance of the cave, so I hit the ground with a hard thud. I pulled down my chute and took out my knife. I saw some Chinese soldiers walk into the cave, so I decided to stop them from killing whomever they were shooting at inside the cave; after all, the enemy of an enemy is a friend. I pulled out my knife, but they still didn’t see me, so I could at least sneak up behind one of the three and end one. I moved swiftly and silently, but just before I got within stabbing distance, I kicked a rock. This alarmed them and the closest one started to turn, so I leaped and stabbed him in the back of the neck. During the leap, I lost my balance and the soldier now in front of me was completely turned around facing me. As I fell, I grabbed my pistol and shot without aiming. He dropped instantly and the one about ten feet away turned and brought his rifle up to shoot, but I had my pistol up before he did. We shot at the same time and hit each other’s guns and the weapons flew out of our hands. I was up and running towards him before he knew what had happened. Just as I got to him, he regained his composure and threw a punch. It landed on my face, but it wasn’t hard. He threw another, but I grabbed his fist with my left hand and kicked him with my right foot. He flew backward and landed on a stalagmite. I watched as it poked through his heart. I couldn’t help but look away in order to find who they were shooting at, but first I had to get my pistol. I had left my rifle on the plane, so all I had was a pistol, a knife and a North Korean assault rifle that would probably break in the middle of combat, so I wouldn’t be able to rely on it too heavily.
I walked to the cave and entered. There I saw a man on the floor, so quickly I pulled out my pistol and approached him. He had a bloody handprint on his face, but as I inspected his face, there weren’t any cuts, so I started to search for where the blood was coming from. I found that he had a ballistic knife stuck in his torso, so I started to do what I had been trained to do. When I took the knife out, I put it back in the handle and cleaned his wounds. I knew he would be hungry when he woke, so I went out of the cave and found a log hanging over a river. I took branches off the log for fire and set up a rabbit trap on it so he could eat. I went out to check the trap just before the sun set. I had caught two rabbits with two traps. I smiled because at one time I had thought that training was useless, but now it may have saved the man’s life.
I took my catch and happily walked back to our base camp. I started the fire and gutted the rabbits and was cooking them when someone suddenly came up behind me and got me in a head lock. I pushed us away from the fire and flipped him over my shoulder and with him on the ground; I punched him in the face. He brought his foot up and kicked me in the face and it immediately blood spurted out of my nose. Then he stood up picked me up and tried to throw me over his head, but I grabbed him before he could, so we both fell to the ground.
I yelled, “Comrade! Comrade!”
“Yeah, I see that now.”
“What? How?”
“I saw the American Special Forces pendent on your collar.”
“My name is James Mason, you?”
“Nikolai Putin. Why are you here?”
“Assassinate the Korean general, you?”
“Also kill the general”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Let’s get to it”
I went to where I had planned on sleeping to get my beret and I put it on. I was proud to be a Green Beret and even more proud to be American. I was fairly sure that was probably going to lead to a fight between the two of us later on.
Under the cover of night we moved, making sure not to step on any twigs and listening to sounds of birds and bugs to make sure enemies weren’t near. As we walked, one area became quiet. He looked around and discovered a small camp of men in a clearing. I did a quick recon and saw that few were guarding and most were sleeping. Nicola and I talked with our hands like charades. We agreed that I would sneak behind the ones awake and take them silently using the forest as cover. As I crept through the forest, I took them one by one. The last man was surrounded by rocks and I couldn’t sneak up behind him, so I threw my knife and got him in the temple. He ran two steps and fell. I stepped out of the forest and gave Nicola the signal and he went and to do his job. He literally ran down the rows of sleeping men taking lives; wielding his knives without blinking. I stopped him before he could take the last one. We sneaked up to the sleeping soldier and put cotton in his ears so that he couldn’t hear. I signaled that we needed to dig a hole in front of the tank so that it would fall into the hole and becomes useless. This would also force all the remaining tanks to drive it into the hole as well. Digging the hole was louder than expected, but the soil was soft so it made it easier. The hole was complete at the break of dawn. It was taller than me in height and twice in length. We put leaves and sticks on top of the hole to camouflage it and we left knowing the horror the man would wake up to. We wanted to get out quickly so that he would ignore the dirt pile. Before we left for good, Nicola did some scavenging and found three RPGs. We walked through the forest; I was tired and wanted to sleep. Without telling Nikolai, I climbed a tree and closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I heard him follow me up through the branches and we both slept on the tree.
When we woke, it was still night, but I knew we had to get back to the mission. We moved through the woods until we came upon a road. I looked off into the distance and saw lights. I told Nikolai to stay in the bushes and I walked into the middle of the road and lay down. A Humvee was coming fast with no sign of stopping. But when they saw me, the driver stomped on the breaks. For a moment, I thought the screeching of the tires and smell of burning rubber would be the last things I would ever hear and smell. But finally they stopped and got out of the vehicle. The men were speaking a foreign language and I couldn’t tell what it was. I heard them say “American” and then put a bullet in the chamber of a gun. But during the middle of their conversation, they went silent and I heard bodies hit the ground. I look up and Nikolai was standing over them. He reached down and pulled his ballistic knives out of their temples
“Those things are handy; I need to get one.” I thought to myself. We now had access to a perfectly good Humvee, so we were on our way to Wonsan. Rumors indicated that’s where the general was located. As Nikolai drove, we talked and I searched the compartments for Intel of high ranking officials.
“How do you kill so easily, Putin?”
Killing was getting easier for me, but he did killed like it was nothing.
“Where I come from, it’s kill or be killed. You got wolves, bears, all sorts of danger. They will kill you; I’ve seen it happen. People go out to tend to animals and then boom, they’re dead.”
“Where are you from?”
“Siberia, you?”
“Fort Stockton, Texas”
“I have no idea where that is.”
“Oh, it’s just an army base. My father served America as long as he could. He loved his country and his job and was so depressed when they discharged him that we had to put him on suicide watch. But I knew he would never leave his family like that. He was a great man and I respected him highly.”
“Yes, my dad… was killed by pack of wolves. I had to bring his body back home in middle of winter. We didn’t have enough money to bury him because ground was frozen. I had to cremate him. It was hard growing up without him; I had to be the man of the house.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s fine. It’s in the past, so I say we leave it there. We have to live now, in this time. You only live once.”
“So what did you do before being a Spetsnaz?”
“I was KGB agent. You?”
“My dad opened a burger joint”
“What’s a burger?”
“Really?”
“Naw. I’m just joshing with you!”
“Oh. Ha, funny”
“Is this your first mission?”
“Yeah.”
“Scared yet?”
“Only when I think of what they could do to us. Where do we have to go to get the general?”
“Wonson.” Nickola said, glancing at the map.
“Where are we now?”
“We are ten miles past Anbyon.”
“How much longer?”
“In about a minute or two. Be ready. Load your weapon”
“Okay, got it.”
As we drove into the town, we saw a bunch of tanks rolling down the street. We didn’t think anyone could tell that we weren’t Korean, but they shot at us anyway. They missed, but it would only be five seconds until they started shooting again. I didn’t look back; I just assumed that Nicola was following me. But when I got to what looked like a grocery store, he wasn’t there. Turned out he was on the other side of the street and I knew he could take care of himself. I had to take out seven tanks with whatever I could find. Nicola only had three RPGs to disarm, so I had to do the rest. As I walked through the building it was silent… too silent. It was dark, but I saw light coming from a wall, so I went to inspect it. A large hole was cut in the wall. I looked around and found a two way radio. I knew someone was there spotting for the tanks, so I pulled out my pistol. If I took out the spotter, we would have a slight advantage. I walked through as quietly as I could and I saw a man under a table. I pointed my gun at him, but he jumped up and ran straight for the door. I let him run out of the building and his comrade commanding the tank shot him because he didn’t know the running man was friendly. I poked my head out the door and saw that Nicola had shot one of his Nikolai