Left Behind: Prologue - Chapter 1

-Prologue
            "Two minutes until touch down! Check your weapons!" the pilot screamed at us from the cockpit. The canopea instantly hummed with a symphany of cracks and clicks.
    "Check."
    "Check."
    "Check."
    "Check."
    "Check."
    "Check."
    I check the carbine even though I've cleaned the weapon a dozen times last night while reconstructing it over and over again, as I do every night. But this time it was more than just the pre-mission jitters, I just didn't feel right about this one. Six choppers, thirty-six troops, no support... this just screamed Somolia reanactment. But I keep quiet, i have to let the rest think I'm ready; think that I'm brave.
    Jackson sits next to me by the door of the Blackhawk helicopter in mid flight and peers out at the landscape. Nereby, a scattering of locals rush up a sandy hill to a small shelter. "Well will you look at all those ragheads humpin' up that hill."
    This is just too easy, "Not all they hump, Jackson. Hey how's your mom doing?" I say. He nudges me gentley in the ribs with the butt of his rifle, "Come on now..."
    "Just asking."
    The pilot is the only one who doesn't laugh. He's been through this a million times. My smile fades away, and i look up into the spinning roaters. Maybe their sound will block out this discomfort within me. It doesn't; an RPG skims off of the belly of the chopper by a foot. It keeps going until it blows up on the side of another hill, dotted with civilians who had previesly desided to flee the warzone up ahead. Rock, sand, and limbs are scattered about the blast zone. I look away before the dust clears out. I don't need to see that, don't need to think of my squad in those people's place.
    "Collins' vioce is recieved through my comm, "That could have been us." Pisspants, the new kid who had earned his nickname after we were pinned down inside of a muddy ditch the other day, swallows hard and looks down at his boots. He gets a pat on the shoulder, by non other than Isaac Kaparske. You see, Isaac's best buddy Abley got his arm smeared into a nasty mix of blood, muscle, and bone fragments. Pisspants was his replacement, but nobody can replace a friend. Everyone thought that Isaac would hate the new kid, but I guess he just liked him more. I don't blame him, Abley was perverted anyway.
    It's straight silence inside the helicopter, and I shut my eyes, thinking of a good reason to be here. I can't think of one God damned thing. Jackson, maybe...he's my best friend. But then again, I didnt even know him before my little "initiation" into Fox Company. Now wasn't that a little slice of Hell, before I realised what Hell was really like.
    Bradshwa, a captain in our squad, checks his watch, then sighs deeply. The pilot yells, "Thirty seconds!" Jackson takes his place at the door and takes the end of the droprope in his lap. He looks at me and winks.
    God...thirty seconds. Here we go.
    A blinding light flashes in the doorway, and then Jackson isn't there anymore. Collins grabs his neck, and a very dark shade of red seeps through his fingers. The pilot swears something, and a red light flashes in the cockpit. I can't hear the beeping alarm. Infact, I can't here anything at all. The chopper spins and spins and spins. And then the canopea filled with light. I think I heard something; Kwaler..."Pisspants." I can't even remember what would be his final words.
    My team called me Lucy. Fully, my last name is Luisentine. Private first class....None of them call me anything now.

-Ashley Luisentine, PFC
Foxtrot Company
106 Ranger Regement
2007, June 19

-Chapter 1: Staff Sergeant Wilks
Act 1, Day 1, Middle Eastern US army replacement camp.
Private Chaz Galtine
Foxtrot Company
106 Ranger Regement
2009, May 12

    "Galtine!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "You eyeballing me, son!?"
    "Sir, no sir!"
    "Are you in love with me, soldier!?"
    "Sir, no sir!"
    "What? Do I not look good in my uniform?"
    "Sir, Staff Sergeant looks great in his uniform, sir!"
    "Oh, so you're gay then!"
    "Sir, I'm not gay sir!"
    "Did you just say, 'I,' Galtine!?"
    "S...Sir, yes sir!?"
    "There is no 'I!' There is no 'my!' You are not an individual, you are now property of the United States army!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Are you religious, Galtine!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Outstanding! I expect you to give a prayer to the entire company everyday at dawn and every night at sundown!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Ableson!" Staff Sergeant yells while wipping around to face Ableson.
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Why the Hell are you so God damned short, soldier!?"
    "Sir, this recruit has always been short, sir!"
    "ARE YOU FLINCHING, BOY!?"
    "Sir, no sir!"
    "Yes you are! You're flinching every time I speak! Are you afraid of me, soldier!?"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Wrong answer, kissass! If you flinch just at my vioce, then how the fuck are you supose to sight your target when grenades are blowing up right in your face!?"
    "Sir, I'm sure-"
    "Did you say 'I!'"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "What the Hell did I just say to Galtine!? Repeat it!"
    "Recruits are property of the United States army! There is no 'I' or 'my,' sir!"
    "Outstanding soldier!"
    Staff Sergeant Wilks walks past the recruits and stands infront of the room. "You are no longer black, or brown, or white, or yellow, or red! You are light green! Or dark green!"
    The entire room sounds out with, "SIR, YES SIR!"
    "Severson!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "What the Hell? You look like you're forty fuckin' years old!"
    "Sir, this recruit is only thirty-six years old, sir!"
    "Only!? For fuck's sake, soldier, are you gonna' keep up with these high school washouts!?"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Prove it! Give me a hundred and fifty push-ups, now!"
    "Sir, yes sir!" Severson drops to the floor and starts kissing the dirt. I figure Staff Sergeant Wilks is satisfied for now, until he looks at Jamenson. He's about twenty years old.
    "Jamenson!"
    "Sir, yes sir!"
    "Louder, boy, I can't hear a damn thing comming out of your mouth!"
    "Sir, yes sir!!"
    "How old are you!?"
    "Sir, eighteen years old, sir!"
    "Why are you here!? Got plans for college!?"
    "Sir, this recruit signed up for college intuition, yes, sir!"
    "Guess again motherfucker, you ain't even making it off the jeeps!" Wilks turns around and faces the room, "I'll expect all of you to expect to never make it out of here alive! For all of you that want to live life, I suggest that you get yourself the fuck out of here as soon as possable because there is no way in Lucever's red Hell that you are going to make it! Now for the rest of you suicidel, murderous little bastards, do you have what it takes to be the meanest, cruelest, toughest, most brutal sons of bitches to walk God's green Earth!?"
    The whole room explodes with three little words, "SIR, YES SIR!"
    Staff Sergeant may make you miserable, he may talk about your girl, or insult your dad's drinking problems, but Staff Sergeant Wilks sure has a way with words.
    We're dismissed from the administration office and go straight to our new barracks. They're only large tents here, for now at least, but we get comfortable. We hang pictures up on the supports and set up our own personal little corners. The three "son's" and me. Ableson, Severson, and Jamenson...and me. Well, it sounded weird to say, so Severson shaved his name down to Sev, and Jamenson is just called Jamey. I always thought that it was kind of ironic that people in the service just shortened thier last name into a first name, rather then actually use their real first name. But here we are, doing it just like in the movies or something. But after that warm welcoming the Staff Sergeant gave us, maybe this isn't going to work out exactly as I thought.