Sam Greenfield Short Story

Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands . . . Jack stood up, holding out his

He clenched his outstretched hand around the severed lips, recalling the lurid scene from which they had come. The blood that likely still slunk from step to step ... the pearly white, up-rolled eyeballs....

Some of the bullets managed to hit some of the barrels which caused a chain reaction of explosions. Soldiers everywhere were returning fire while other gasping for help. Fletcher scanned around the room for Marcel. He saw him lying behind a brick wall as cover. He seemed to be severely injured as his hand, tainted with blood, covered of what seemed to be several bullet holes. Fletcher couldn’t believe what was happening. There were soldiers lying lifeless here and there. It was complete chaos. Fletcher knew he had been fooled. He knew that secretly there was no prize. He knew that he had to

The main theme of this book is how everyone in the city works hard in order to survive every day of the siege. The men on the hills and the ongoing war have thrown everyone’s lives into utter chaos. In the first chapter, the following quotation is repeated three times: “It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded” (Galloway 1, 3, 6). These two quotations serve as a connection to the beginning of the war and how a single mortar shell transforms the lives of tens of thousands of people.

An explosion rocked the town, widows shattered and cars alarms wailed, A line of twenty Abram tanks rolled side by side on parallel roads, through the town of Mesa Grande, but, all heading the same direction, to the west. Boom, boom , boom-boom, as the Abrams fired their 120mm M256 smoothbore guns in a hellish symphony toward their targets, the Heat rounds strike time and again on target, plumes of fire, smoke, and sand leapt in the sky, forming craters across the desert to the west of town.

Quickly, I make my way to the waiting Blackhawk helicopter. Even with my full combat load strapped to my back the rotor wash threatens to push me over. My face is pelted with grass and other debris; motivation and determination makes me run harder. As I reach the Blackhawk the Black-shirt directs me to one of four repel lines anchored to the aircraft. I wrap the line through my d-ring and climb into the cabin. I wait, crouched in the doorway, for my three other comrades to finish their hookup. The Black-shirt completes his check of our hookups and gives the pilot the thumbs-up. Abruptly, the helicopter lifts into the air leaving my stomach somewhere below.

Corporal Walter Gordon was sitting up outside of his hole at the top of hill 303 the air was thick with soot and he could barely see twenty feet in front of him. Ringing filled his ears as shells exploded overhead, along with the screams of dying men. The enemy was on his front doorstep. While his comrades fell

“Stop!” he thunders, but it’s too late. The enemy, seeing you stand and run, has opened fire. You sprint for your trenches, forgetting the others exist, but you feel something smash through the back of your skull. There is a flash of fiery agony, then everything blazes white. But you still have time to see your friends fall around you. Dead, because you tried to

Frank emerged from the trench lifting himself onto the sludgy earth that once had green blades sprouting from it.James saw a fireball erupt from the trench as the grenade shattered like a vase, spitting metal fragments in every direction.But something odd happened, instead of a bang all James heard was Frank's cries of despair and agony.

“GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!” as soldiers come over the hill, gunfire blazed through the night sky hitting and wounding most of the

I brought her hand up to my lips and gently kissed it and allowed my lips to travel up arm. She pulled away from me as I made it to her shoulder.

“Fall back!” I shouted. My cries were in vain, however, as men dropped like flies to the floor. The ones who did survive were trying desperately to defend themselves, but with no knowledge of where the shots were coming from, their attempts failed to do any

At that instant I saw the RPG, everything went into slow motion. The moment is engraved in my mind. Remembering the flash, the power of the projectile, the ground shaking like a herd of buffalo. I remember the ringing in my ears as I looked up, seeing the cargo truck ahead of us engulfed in flames. Marines were sprinting to the ditches, behind boulders, anything to get them out of the gunfire that echoed out from above.

The author reference to bombs bursting in air is in relation to the hard times in life.

I could feel the blood pounding in my chest. Blackness crept into the fringes of my vision. My voice was hoarse from screaming; I didn’t remember screaming though.