I hurridly got my clothes on and headed to the landing strip. When I got out there, Pease and Poseidon were standing there. I looked up and saw a V-22 Osprey touching down. "Well Spillman, you're just in time to see your new squad. Let's just hope that you made good decisions when picking 'em." At that moment, Po cutted in. "Yeah, 'cause these are the guys you'll be depending your life on. Good luck." "Hahaha Poseidon, you doing standup?" Unfortunately, he was right. Some of these guys are battle hardened vets and the others are either straight out of bootcamp or they never seen combat before. There was a reason I picked them though. They either were expert soldiers or they knew how to interact with the countries people. At that moment, I saw four new recruits. "Uh Pease, I picked five guys and I'm not the best math person here but I think I'm missing one." Just then a fifth man came out. Sad part was that he tripped on his own feet while getting out. Everyone there started laughing except for me, Po, and Pease. "Give me two weeks with them Pease and they'll be the top soldiers here." "Sorry Matt, but we got only nine days 'til we start the mission. You got 'til next Thursday." I sighed and went over to the soldiers who have now just formed a line. "Men, I'm Lieutenant first class Matthew Spillman. I'll be leading you through this mission and something that your commanding officers probably didn't tell you is that this is a mission that'll most likely be one of the hardest one in the history of the United States. It will require strong will and even stronger dedication. We have until next Thursday to get you men in shape. As of now, you will be training, not stopping for being tired, for hungry, not even to go take a ****. You will learn to hold it. The only time we will stop will be for scheduled eating breaks and to sleep. Your traing starts, now get to the gym and get prepped for the hardest training you will ever have. Do I make myself clear?" In unison they say, "SIR,YES SIR!" They then went into the tunnels of the Reagan, their home for the next week. "Maybe I was wrong,Matt. They have potential." "Yep, now if you'll excuse me, I got some soldiers to make."
These guys had one thing in common, they were all both strong and determined. Over time I learned there names. The first man I met was Gunnery Sergeant Zack Nichols, a green beret from Boston who was far from good...he was excellent. He was the only one of the group who was able to lay a hand on me in close quarters combat training and I found out later that he was capable to handle about any weapon aside from jets. When this is all over, I'll be considering him a permanent place on my team. Unfortunately, not all of them went up to his expectations. Private Jeremy Sanders, also know as the clumsy kid who tripped on his feet on the landing strip when they landed, was medic from Sacramento. But he was learning and he was doing well with an assault rifle and the real reason I picked him was because we needed a medic and he also knew fluent Korean, something that would be of great importance in hostile territory. Then we have Captain Mort Silven, a marine sniper and the only one here higher ranked then me, but he realize that this is my operation and is showing great humiliation when it comes to following orders. Silven has fifty conformed kills in Iraq and sixty-seven in Afghanistan. He once helped a squad getting evaced from heavy fire by sniping the mortar teams and lasering tanks so that artilery can take them out. Every bullet he had fired was a kill, which was the motto for snipers, "One shot, one kill". Now we're at Sergeant Major Deric Holmes, technilogical support and close quarters expert. He's a marine straight out of Detroit. He's a master at three martial arts and a good shot, but at long rang he struggled to hit the targets at first and he eventually was able to hit them at long range. My last team member was Allen Jerry Foster, a seasoned helicopter pilot who would drop us off to our DZ and pick us up after. He was able to fly almost any heli, whether it be a Blackhawk, Osprey, Pavelow, he can even fly the Russian Havok. He's also our navigation support. But he wouldn't be on the ground much fighting unless we were caught and he had to get us out or if we were shot down and crash landed. So there we were, the team that would help push the Koreans back to the North, along with three other teams that would strike at different locations, one being led by Poseidon and General Powell. We have three days until the mission starts and my team still need a bit more training, but they were ready. At the mess hall, we were called by Pease to get to his office on the double. "That can't be good." said Silven. Holmes responded "Yeah, wonder what he wants." "Don't know. Let's just down there and get it done. I still have food to eat." "When don't you eat, Foster?" I asked. They all chuckled a bit and then we started heading to Pease.
Chapter fifteen When we got to Pease's office, he looked concerned. "What's wrong, Pease?" "I got some bad news, son. Sit down." Me and Holmes were the only ones able to sit since there were only two extra chairs in his office. "We have satellite pictures of the main Korean force of Pyang Pyong, the northern capital, have been assembling. We think they may be trying to go after another country." We all looked concerned. Silven then asked, "Who do you think the targets gonna be?" "Don't know,Mort. They'd be crazy to attack China and they don't have enough air and sea power to go for Japan. Doesn't matter at the moment. The Pentagon just called and ordered me to start the operation early." That's when we really got concerned looks on our faces. "Boys, as of know, you, Poseidon's, and Powell's team will be the main force behind Operation:Interception. You leave in two hours." "What about the fourth team?" "China has given us special permission for Team Omega to stay at one of their outposts on the Chinese/Korean border. When you and the other teams have successfully put most of the military force back to their original bunkers, that will be when the main force of marines and Omega will create a pincer move with the Koreans right in the middle. Now good luck, you leave in two hours."
Chapter sixteen We were quickly updated with the orders. Poseidon's team would come in the western part of the peninsula, Powell from the east, and me and my guys go right down the middle. Each team would attack key places, like airfields, supply depots, and SAM sites and slowly make there way to the border, that's when the real invasion begins and when we can go home. Home. Something I haven't seen in over a year. Anyway, we were told where to strike and where to go after we taken the target, then we were told about our weapons. Each man would have a LWRC M6A3, an enhanced version of the M4 and a weapon that could fire both the NATO 5.56 millimeter round or even a 6.8 round which had the velocity of the 5.56 and the power of the 7.76 millimeter which the Ak-47 shoots. We also got standard issue Barretta M9's. Some of us though got more. Silven got a variant of the Cheytac Intervention that weighed about 15lbs, Holmes got a TDK Kriss and a little wrist computer that he would use to enter into enemy databases, and Sanders got a standard issue med kit. We now had less than an hour until we're put into Hell, without backup on what seemed as a suicide mission and would be the death of over twenty of the best soldiers we've ever seen. Before we left though, I took a little walk around the ship, because for some reason I would miss the big piece of floating metal. I then walked by Po's cabin and saw him sitting on his bed holding a picture. "What's wrong, man?" I guess he was in deep thought because when I asked him, he seemed startled. He sighed and said, "I miss my family, Spillman. It's been too long." "Been too long for alot of people,man, but just think. When we get back from this, we'll be done for along time." "We don't know if we're even coming back." Those words shocked me. "Come on man. We're gonna make it." He then took out a piece of paper and handed it to me. "In case I don't, want you to give this to my family in Washington." I took the paper and agreed on it.
At first I was tempted to look at Po's paper, but I thought it over and decided just to keep it in my pocket. Before we left, we were given a good, hot dinner, I guess it was their way of saying good luck. We then went to go get our equipment on, just standard combat gear and a new type of body armor called Dragonskin. It was a cancelled project a few years back, but a private military corporation bought the idea in 2013 and perfected it. The way it works is instead of having one ceramic plate like in most armor, it had individual tiny plates overlapping each other. We also got combat knives, waterproof suits, and even ghillie suits in case we had to hide, but mostly it would be for Morten and the guy spotting targets for the skilled sniper. After getting our stuff, we were hurridly put on the Osprey, with Foster in the cockpit. Before we left, though, Pease gave us some words of encouragement and told us to be smart and safe out there. We then started to go airborne. "Ok, men," I said, "Operation:Interception is now underway." Zack then said, "To think, we'll probably be up to our necks in Koreans when this is all over, either when we're alive or in hell."