POV: Shanidar)
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The world inside the Bradley is a deafening vibrating metal box. The roar of the engine the squeal of the tracks the constant radio chatter in my headset it all blends into a single oppressive hum. I can feel the heat from the transmission through the floor plates smell the sharp tang of gun oil sweat and the faint ever present scent of diesel. My squad is packed in tight around me I keep my helmet low my face mostly hidden in the shadow of my gear 2nd Brigade.
The vehicle lurches to a sudden jarring halt. The driver's voice crackles in my headset "Contact front! Police post twelve o'clock! Heavy fire!"
Before the words finish the world outside erupts. The sharp distinctive crack-crack-crack of small arms pings against our hull. A louder WHOOSH and a gut punching THUMP as an RPG slams into the dirt just to our left showering the vision blocks with sand and debris.
"Gunner HE! Troops in the upper windows! Peel it!" Our Bradley commander's voice is calm cold steel.
The turret above us whines traversing with a hydraulic hiss. Then the 25mm Bushmaster cannon lets loose BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. The sound is immense a physical force that shakes my teeth in my skull. Through my periscope I see the upper floors of Al-Mutla Police Post disintegrate. Chunks of concrete glass and furniture vomit out of the windows. The Iraqi sniper fire from up there stops abruptly.
"Dismounts! Dismounts! Go go go!"
The rear ramp groans and slams down flooding the compartment with blinding white sunlight and a wall of noise gunfire explosions shouting. The squad surges out. I'm right behind sergeant. We spill out into a hellscape.
The air is thick with cordite and dust. Tracers stitch the air in both directions. Our Bradleys are monsters of noise and fury their cannons still hammering the building keeping heads down. My job is the ditch a perimeter trench maybe fifty meters ahead filled with God knows what.
"Move to the trench! Bradleys have you covered!"
We run a low zig zagging sprint. The sand tries to suck at my boots. Rounds snap past too close. I don't think I just run. I hit the edge of the trench and slide in my back against the packed earth. It's empty cleared by the initial bombardment or they fled. I look back the Bradleys are like angry metal gods their cannons flashing covering our advance. We push forward from the trench to the shattered wall of the police station itself. The building is a corpse bleeding smoke and dust.
"Infantry at the objective moving to blocking positions." The radio call is for the Bradleys. I see them now pulling away from us their tracks churning the sand. They rumble past taking up positions on the far side of the compound their guns now pointing down the road that leads deeper into the city. Their job now is to stop any Iraqi armor from hitting us in the back.
We're inside. It's dark hot and smells of blood and burnt wiring. We clear rooms methodically kicking in doors shouting "Clear!". It's tense nerve shredding work every shadow could be an ambush.
Then a new call over the net. Our Bradley commander his voice crackling with static "Dismounts be advised thermal shows multiple hot spots in the bunker complex south side of the courtyard. They're dug in preparing to engage."
I move to a blown out window overlooking the courtyard. There maybe a hundred meters out are low squat concrete shapes reinforced bunkers. Silent ominous.
From my vantage I see our Bradley hull down behind a low wall. Its turret is steady the long thin tube of the TOW missile launcher extended.
There's a flash a gout of smoke and fire from the launcher. The missile streaks out impossibly fast leaving a thin wire of smoke behind it. It doesn't arc it flies straight as a laser a bolt of man made lightning.
It hits the bunker's firing slit dead center.
The explosion is different from the 25mm deeper heavier a CRUMP that I feel in my chest. The entire bunker seems to lift off its foundation for a split second before collapsing in on itself in a cloud of pulverized concrete and dust. A second TOW follows killing the bunker next to it.
Silence falls over the courtyard broken only by the crackle of flames and the distant rumble of our Bradleys holding the line.
The silence after the TOWs shattered. My ears rang with a high pitched scream. I sucked in a breath that tasted like burnt wiring and blood. My hands shook. I gripped my M16A2 until my knuckles ached white.
"On your feet!" The sergeant's voice was a serrated bark "Main block now! Point SAW on the door Shanidar on me stack up!"
We crashed into a stack against the wall by the blown entrance. I was pressed between the bulk of the SAW gunner and the sergeant's solid back. Sweat fear gun oil the smells mingled. My heart hammered against my ribs.
Sounds from inside a guttural shout the clatter of a magazine.
"Frag out!"
The point man's arm moved. The grenade spoon pinged off the wall near my head. A heartbeat of pure terror then the world inside the doorway erupted.
BOOM
The blast was a physical punch. The hanging door blew inward.
"GO GO GO!"
The point man vanished into the smoke. The SAW roared to life BRRRRRAP-BRRRRAP. Hot brass hailed over me searing my neck.
I was third through the fatal funnel.
The room was a swirling fog of dust and smoke. Shapes loomed an overturned desk a filing cabinet. My training screamed slice the pie.
I swung my muzzle left. A shape. A man. An Iraqi soldier scrambling up from behind the desk his AK coming up. Our eyes locked across ten feet of hell his wide panicked mine the same.
I aimed center mass squeezed the trigger.
CRACK CRACK CRACK
The M16 bucked. The figure jolted slammed back against the wall and slid down.
"Clear left!" I barked already swinging right my breath ragged.
"Clear right!" the SAW gunner shouted.
"Move hallway!"
We flowed into the corridor dark narrow shadows dancing every doorway a black mouth.
Ahead a junction a stairwell going up.
Muzzle flashes sudden blinding from a room on the left. The roar of AKs filled the space rounds snapped past my head WHIZ-THUD digging into the wall behind me. A piece of concrete stung my cheek.
"Contact front SAW SAW!"
The SAW gunner dropped the bipod hitting the floor with a clack. He opened up the muzzle flash strobing in the dark the sound a physical force. The incoming fire didn't stop it intensified tracers crisscrossing the dust choked air.
"Shanidar grenade now!"
The sergeant's scream was in my ear. I fumbled for a frag my hands slick with sweat. Pin pull spoon flies. I lobbed it underhand through the door.
BOOM
A scream. Debris blew back into the hall stinging my eyes.
"Clear it!"
We moved before the dust settled. Into the room. The smell copper and cooked meat. I stepped over things I didn't let myself see muzzle up clearing the corner. A soldier wounded trying to raise a pistol. I aimed fired.
CRACK
The figure jerked went still.
"Stairs they're in the stairs!"
We clustered at the bottom. We could hear them above shouts boots the bolt charge of a weapon.
"Frag on the landing!"
Another grenade another concussive THUMP from above dust raining down.
"Up up go!"
We took the stairs two at a time a frantic terrified rush into the unknown. The air thick with smoke dust the iron scent of blood every doorway a potential ambush every corner hiding a man waiting to kill me.
The lead squad reached the base of the interior concrete stairs. Heavy AK-47 fire and at least two RGD-5 grenades rained down from the second floor landing. The stairwell filled with dust and smoke visibility near zero.
"Prep the landing!" the Platoon Leader's voice crackled over the radio.
I fumbled for a frag again hands slick with sweat pin pull spoon flies. I counted to two and lobbed it up the stairs. It clattered on the landing.
BOOM
Under the cover of the blast the point man and slack man sprinted up the stairs. Two Iraqi soldiers lay dead on the landing killed by the blast.
We reached the top. A long dark T shaped hallway stretched before us. Oil fire smoke outside had turned the interior pitch black. We flipped down our NVGs.
The first room on the left was an office. I kicked the door open. A flashbang detonated with a blinding flash and deafening crack. The room was empty but a hole in the wall showed an Iraqi soldier had tried to crawl through to the adjacent office.
We moved toward the second door. Suddenly a burst of PKM fire snapped past our heads rounds sparking off the concrete walls.
"CONTACT TAKE COVER!"
We hit the walls returning fire with M16A2s and a short burst from the SAW.
The Iraqi gunner was hit and retreated into a side office. We stacked up on the door the Bradley outside monitoring the exterior windows.
I kicked the door.
As we entered the Iraqi gunner tried to fire an RPG-7 at us. He missed the rocket streaking through the doorway and exploding in the hallway behind us.
The point man engaged him at point blank range neutralizing him with a burst from his M16.
Movement in the ceiling tiles.
I fired a recon burst into the drop ceiling causing an Iraqi holdout to crash through the tiles and surrender.
We reached the Commander's Office heavy wooden doors. Shouting in Arabic from inside.
The Bradley outside fired a 5 round burst of 25mm HEI-T into the window frame. The shells exploded against the back wall the concussion blowing the doors off their hinges toward us.
Everything fades to black.
I blinked my eyes watering from the harsh sunlight glaring off the endless expanse of sand. My head pounded like someone hammering inside my skull. I squinted trying to make out the details of buildings shimmering in the distance opulent structures with sweeping arches and intricate mosaics. Music pulsed from their direction a steady beat vibrating in my chest.
I sat up slowly my body protesting the movement. My mouth felt like cotton my tongue thick and dry. I coughed feeling sand shift beneath me as a dust storm kicked up sending grit stinging my eyes. I needed shelter needed to get out of this unforgiving sun.
Spotting my gun half buried nearby I picked it up brushing sand from the grip and barrel. The weight felt familiar comforting. I checked the magazine fully loaded. Odd. I could have sworn I had used ammo back... back where?
My thoughts were hazy fragmented.
Standing on wobbly legs I steadied myself as the desert spun around me for a moment before settling. I had to find the buildings get to the people. They might tell me what happened where I was who I was.
As I got closer unease crept in. The music was loud but the area was eerily silent devoid of laughter or chatter that should have surrounded it. The distant wail of air raid sirens reached my ears their urgent cry slicing through the music.
I paused my gaze drawn toward the sirens.
Their call seemed to urge me to turn back to seek shelter in the safety of the desert.
But I pressed on.
Driven by a desperate need for answers to understand why the party ended and why I had woken alone in the desert my memories of the past lost to the swirling sands.