I stare out the small window seeing nothing but deep blue water under me. My sergeant, Sgt. Jones, was a strong tough man that never seemed to get worried, but even he looked nervous. I myself was a Private only starting to get used to the wars. We were flying to the desert like area in Iraq. The fighting over there has been getting more and more hostile and we were sent to help. As I stare out that window I started to doze off.

“Wake up Private, we have landed in Iraq!” shouted Sgt. Jones. I jump up and yell “Ready for action Sergeant!”. Sgt. Jones explains to me what our plan of action will be for the next couple of days. We start off to base camp to get the supplies we need to start our mission. We meet our platoon we will be traveling with through the desert.
We start the slow moving venture to the enemies. As we walked through the blazing desert our backpacks were starting to weigh us down, so we took a break to get a drink and  some rest. “When are we supposed to reach the enemy?” asked one of the other men in the platoon, as the heat beated down on us. “We will be there by tomorrow afternoon,” responded Sgt. Jones. We all had a drink and took a small nap to get our energy restored. “Alright men, let's get a move on,” insisted Sgt. Jones. We began the long journey again hoping the enemy wasn’t waiting for us. 

We finally reached our checkpoint and it was very quiet with no sign of enemy activity, in the beat up small town. I had a bad feeling of the situation we were in. Someone shouted “Did anyone just hear that? Voices talking?”. I listened closely and heard nothing. I strained harder to hear when I heard the click of a gun. Gunfire hammered in all around us with explosions happening left and right. Yelling from the platoon and enemies were all around us and I realized we were ambushed. I could see men wounded all around me. I took my gun and fired into the windows of a small hut hoping to hit an enemy. I looked to each side of myself and realized the dirt was flying up everywhere as bullets hit the ground.  The men around me were falling, some were dead and some where crying for help. “ Private! Run to me!” shouted Sgt. Jones at me from behind one of the huts. I waited for a small clearance of gunfire and made a break for it, sprinting as hard as I could to get to Sgt. Jones. “We have to retreat! It's the admiral's orders. They will come with airships to try and save the others,” yelled Jones. Bullets started to fly by our heads and I could hear the whistle of the wind as they flew by my ears. We took off running towards a hill for cover and as we were running I heard a grunt of pain next to me. Sgt. Jones had been hit in the leg. We hid behind the hill but Jones was grabbing his leg in pain and the enemy was closing in on us. “Leave me boy! I’ll be fine,” cowered Sgt. Jones. “No! I won’t leave! I can't,” I cried. “Listen Private! You have to leave or we’ll both be dead if you don't. There's no way we both can get out!”   “But I can't leave you!” I replied. Sgt. Jones grabbed my shirt and yanked me toward him, “Listen here! You have to leave, and that's an order!” I got it, but was not sure if it was the right thing to do. I made a run for it going back towards the way we came. I heard a yell from an enemy and three gunshots, I knew it was Sgt. Jones with the first shot, the second and third shots were enemy and only silence followed.

Once I made it back to base camp the admiral asked me what happened. I explained and told him everything. I was given leave and put on a flight back home after what had happened. Again I found myself staring out the small window into the deep blue water going back home. The only thing different was that Sgt. Jones wasn’t beside me on this trip.