Short Story

Your four man sniper unit is watching a platoon of infantry advance. The infantry is checking house after house in a housing community.
You split into your two man teams. Your job is to fire and scoot, in relays. Never letting the platoon organize, or extract it's wounded.

The first one is in the upper leg of the leader. The shot hits him in the hip, where he has no body armor. He goes down hard and starts to scream in pain. As he lays there screaming, you get the medic who comes to his aid, again it is not a lethal shot. It is a gut shot that leaves both men down on the ground in pain, screaming for their lives.

Your team leaves it's first hide and moves, as the other team takes the platoon under fire.

They get each person who comes to the wounded comrades aid.

After the second, or third one your team is in position to take on the platoon, and keep them pinned down.

Every time someone tries to help their wounded friends they are shot. It doesn't take long for the members of the platoon to decide it is not safe to help the wounded, screaming, leader they were so quick to follow before, or their friends who are slowly dieing in front of them.

You put a second shot into the leader and he screams even more. The unit has to set there listening to him scream, as he bleeds out. It is 20 minutes of torture for the entire unit as their friends slowly dies. Finally the convulsions hit as the wounded commander dies.

You move to your over watch position to protect the other sniper team as they pull out.

That night as you eat a can of corned beef you think what will become of that unit you face today. The unit will react in one of two ways, it will become vicious and create more freedom fighters, or it will collapse and become useless as a combat unit.

As you lay there waiting for exhaustion to take over and allow a few hours of sleep, you know it was a good day, because you are alive, none of the men in your sniper teams has been hurt, and you have done your duty. Still it takes a long time of lying in the dark before your get the screams out of your head, and fall asleep.

hefferman1