Just another Gravestone

I sat on my phone in the back of the transport scrolling through the news.

"We're off," said our sergeant.

I hopped off along with the other 15 teenagers in the back of the armored school bus. We had to clear mines so our troops could continue to advance.

"Alright boys line up," Sergeant Pickett ordered.

"What kind of mines we dealing with," I asked.

"PFM-1s AKA Butterfly mines," he said holding onto his vest.

Butterfly mines were horrible to deal with. They were small, green, and shaped kind of like a butterfly. They blended in with grass and looked like toys which caused civilian deaths. It only takes 10 lbs of pressure for it to explode and it would shoot out shrapnel and acts as a effective pipe bomb. It was outlawed in warfare but BRICS dont care.

I was part of the 15 and under branch of Burning Eagles. Our task is to dispose of mines, help set up outposts, help assist mechanics, and in rare cases relay messages between commanders on front lines.

We werent allowed to participate in battles, but we would occasionally be in the crossfire of a firefight. They assigned us each a pistol in case of this. I turned 16 in a few months, and I couldn't wait.

I grabbed my shovel and flashlight and walked to the grass. I looked closely at the grass not wanting to set off a mine. I found one of the mines in the tall grass.

I took my knife out and cut the tall grass around it. I grabbed my shovel by the handle lowering it down to face the mine. I got the blade of the shovel under the mine and I lifted it with the shovel.

I walked over to a pile of mines that already formed and carefully lowered it onto the pile.

“Sergeant, what are we doing with these mines?” I asked leaning on my shovel.

“See that helicopter over there and see that hill yonder? There’s a Russian trench line over that hill, and we plan on dropping these mines onto them. Give them a taste of their own medicine, sort of speak,” he answered spitting on the ground.

I nodded and continued to clear the mines.

It started to get closer to sunset, so we were working at double the pace. I looked at Atlas who was wiping sweat on his face.

Atlas was missing his legs, but he was one of the toughest bastards you'd meet when it came to physicality. Even without his legs he passed every physical requirement with flying colors. Atlas was born in Russia to Russian parents who abandoned him. He was adopted and his new American parents moved to Florida with him. He was your stereotypical Slavic. Long handsome face with sunken cheeks and a strong jawline. We all loved Atlas whenever he moved to our school in 6th grade. He was fun to be around and cared a lot for people. When we all decided we were going to join the Burning Eagles close to 2 years ago we all doubted Atlas due to his disability even though he played Baseball and a little bit of basketball with us for the school.

"How much longer till we can go to actual combat, and stop with this bullshit mine clearing?" Atlas asked me.

"You can already go, you turned 16 a month ago," I said handing him some water.

"True, but we have to wait for all of us to turn 16. Increase our chances of being assigned to the same squad," he said lifting the bottle.

There were 6 of us not including me. Atlas, Cole, Brady, Bryan, Aiden, and Ledger.

Cole was also handsome. I didn't think Cole was God's Gift to us like everyone else does. I mean I liked him and all, but he was way too cocky. He had a slim face and blue eyes. He had wavy blonde hair. He was the most athletic of us, and everyone in High school loved him except the ones we picked on.

Brady is who I considered one of the best of us. He was the most handsome, mature, and was nice to just about everyone. He had a square face with a very dominant jawline. He was very tan and had black straight hair.

Bryan was the funniest in my opinion. He was tall maybe 6' 4. He had a oval face with freckles. He had brown straight hair and bushy eyebrows. He had brown eyes and a thin nose as well.

Aiden was the most muscular one of us. We suspect he took something to get that big. He has short brown hair with a cut in his eyebrow. He was easy to make laugh, but he didn't speak much. He doesn't talk about his family at all.

Ledger was the one who got in trouble the most. He had no filter, and was often a dick to people if you criticized something about him. He had a rectangle face. He had long dirty blonde hair which he combed to be a middle part.

"1 hour left boys!" yelled Sergeant Pickett.

I got back to work.

BOOM!

Then a scream. Then debris.

I covered my head bending my knees and looking around. The explosion was on the other side of the minefield with someone yelling out in pain. I dropped my shovel and ran over to the scene where people gathered around. It was Henry, a 14 year old. His right leg was blown off to hell with his left being not much better with it eviscerated all the way down. His face was bloody and cut up. His right hand I noticed was 6 feet away from him. His eyes were completely exposed to us with his eyelids being blown off in the explosion. He continued to scream.

The Sergeant grabbed his Glock and shot Henry in the head as mercy.

I backed away feeling sick in my stomach. I bent over with my hands on my knees. I looked to my left and I saw Ledger with the medic who was fixing the cuts on his right side of his face from the shrapnel. I approached Ledger.

"Didn't they tell us to duck on our first day?" I asked him.

He flipped me off while grinning.

Trucks, Armored Personnel Carriers, and 2 tanks arrived not long after. We finished up the mine clearing and loaded them into a large tarp. We tied the tarp and attached a metal hook to it for the helicopter.

"Alright boys gather around... Good work today on the mine clearing. We lost one of ours, but we're thankful for his service and yours. We're packing up in 10 minutes then we're heading back to our brand new FOB, Felix Outpost. I expect all of you to go to bed early because starting at 3 AM we will be helping our men fortify the base. Am I understood?" said the Sergeant holding onto his base.

"Yes, Sergeant!" we yelled in unison.

I walked away grabbing a water cooler and attaching it to the truck with the help of Brady.

"Long day, huh?" I said attaching the bottom strap to the cooler.

"Huh, one way to put it, feel bad for Henry's family though," he said attaching the top strap.

"Yeah, he's Freddy's little brother, right?" I asked looking at him.

"Yeah, I dated his sister for about a week or two," he said slapping the cooler after it was in place.

"Russians!" I heard someone yell.

Then I looked over and saw the butterfly mine stockpile get shot and exploded raining debris and shrapnel down onto everyone. I got on my knees looking around. The soldiers who just arrived were firing their weapons at the direction of the Russian trench.

Our rebel soldiers didn't have uniforms like a regular military. Wear what you wanted, but the Burning Eagles did provide vests, patches, and low end weapons.

I got up on my feet and noticed several Russian soldiers advancing towards our position firing their weapons continuously. Brady pulled me behind the hood of the truck for cover. He had his pistol drawn occasionally glancing over the hood. I grabbed my pistol and flipped the safety off. I chambered the bullet and peaked over the hood.

I noticed Russians were starting to come from 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock, flanking our men.

"Russians on 2 and 10!" I yelled running to the end of the truck and taking cover.

I peaked from cover and saw 3 Russians firing their guns at our men. I fired 8 shots 4 of which landed in the one closest to me. He collapsed onto the ground. I fired another shot into another's neck causing him to fall to the ground holding his neck.

The third one turned to me and opened fire with his AK-74 hitting me in the shoulder. I spun to my back facing him. I held my gun behind me and looked over my shoulder firing the remaining rounds at him before going behind the truck and falling down.

"Brady, Russian over here!" I said trying to reload my gun with 1 hand.

Brady faced me aiming his gun at the corner of the truck waiting for the soldier. The soldier rounded the corner firing multiple rounds, but Brady always had incredible luck with his first shot going in between the Russian's eyes.

I got up and joined Brady at his side as we would fire a couple of shots then duck behind the truck.

I saw Ledger with 4 dead Russians around him and the dead medic who helped Ledger out. Ledger was firing repeatedly with the Glock he illegally bought with a added drum mag to it.

He appeared to have been shot 3 times and was holding onto a different truck and firing.

A shot bounced off of the truck almost taking Ledger's head off. Ledger continued to fire unphase until a curtain of fire erupted from the side of the truck. Ledger was on fire.

He started flailing his arms and dropped his gun. He walked several feet before collapsing. He continued to flail his limbs and screamed until he finally died.

"Ledger!" I yelled starting to run away from our truck to him.

Brady grabbed me by my neck and dragged me behind the truck.

"Nothing we can do for him, I'm sorry! He's dead! No reason for us to join him by being stupid!" Brady's voice cracked.

About 10 minutes later the firing stopped as what was left of the Russians retreated. Brady and I exited the cover of our truck when we were sure the firefight was over.

I saw 20 dead Burning Eagle soldiers immediately. The Russians I think didn't take even half those losses. I saw Ledger's burnt body being taken care of by 2 of the soldiers who carried him to the casualty line.

Brady and I started looking for our friends to make sure we didn't lose anyone else. We saw Bryan and Cole immediately who were grabbing the bodies of the dead Russians and putting them in their own casualty line. I saw Aiden sitting on a crate staring at the burnt outline of Ledger on the grass while talking to a soldier.

"Where's Atlas?" I asked worried.

Brady looked around and then walked towards the line of our dead soldiers. No Atlas thankfully. We started walking towards the injury tent.

I almost puked when we entered. There were dismembered and mutilated limbs, disfigured faces, burns, and soldiers screaming out both in English and Russian.

We walked through looking for Atlas. I heard his voice, and walked towards it. There I saw the bloodied Atlas talking to the Sergeant.

"Atlas!?" I yelled relieved.

"Oh, thank God," Brady sighed.

"Howdy fellas! Just talking to the sarge here," Atlas said smirking.

"Awfully cheery for a dude covered in their blood," I scoffed.

"It's not his, Cadet, Atlas here took it upon himself to cover the left flank. Thing is though, he didn't have his pistol on him. He waited behind a tree and stabbed a Russian in the neck, that's where all the blood is from. He took the Russian's gear and started opening fire on the Ruskis. By the time the confusion ran off and the Russians knew what was going on. 6 of their comrades were already gunned down. Atlas did get shot though," the Sergeant said praising Atlas' effort.

"Thing is though, I got shot in the shin! Didn't feel a thing!" Atlas yelled laughing.

I looked down at his leg, and saw that his prosthetic leg was shattered at the shin.

"That's one benefit of being crippled, huh?" I said smirking.

"Alright boys, that's enough for now, go get the bus loaded up, yeah? Also, Atlas I'll make sure command hears about your bravery, who knows you might earn a piece of tin," the Sergeant said.

Brady and I saluted and we left the medical tent to continue cleaning up after the battle.