Ramirez thought back, then all of a sudden it hit him with the force of a shotgun. He closed his eyes and began a flashback, went back to Iraq. It was dark and warm outside, Ramirez curled in his hole trying to catch some sleep. Damn taji's why can't they just stick to a game plan? Some nights they stay active, harassing troops all night. Other nights, it was so quiet you could hear distant explosions miles down the road. The only problem is no one could tell when they would and wouldn't come out. They hadn't come out so far and Ramirez thought he could catch a few minutes of shuteye. Then the first explosion hit, Ramirez instinctively jumped out and glanced outside his hole. He looked over as another marine's foxhole was erupting in flames. Ramirez remember the black skinned body, barely recognizable as a human being. He remember him crawling out in agony, a corpsman rushing to his side, morphine in hand. Suddenly a hand touched Ramirez's shoulder, he turned to face his best friend Kurt Palmer, "sir we're pinned down, Taji's are on both sides and more waiting down the road." Ramirez blinked once, took a sip of whiskey, then handed the flask to Kurt, "take a drink, and calm the fuck down!" Ramirez peaked over the foxhole, staring at the figures in the distance. He gritted his teeth and turned back to Kurt, "Get to your team, close off the west parameter, also find Porter and tell him to get his lazy ass to the east parameter to help out the marines there and I want it done yesterday Chico."
The rest of the night it was fighting, early into the morning it was fighting. Ramirez had distinguished his marines, taking two casualties the whole night: Harris, a marine from Porter's fire team, and the poor sap who'd taken the mortar, who later turned out to be Ken Brose, an older marine who'd recently been transferred into Ramirez's platoon. But the fighting wasn't done yet, all his marines ended up pulling back into a defensive, they were all cut off from the rest of the battalion, and it looked like there would be more casualties.
Ramirez looked at Kurt, who shared a look. But instead of despair, it was a looked of hope. Ramirez took that to heart, "all right marines, I want every man that isn't dead on two legs up and unloading on those fucks!" Kurt handed him a radio, "it's the colonel sir!" Ramirez grabbed the radio, "Sir we are in the shit and we need a door to walk out of quick!" The colonels voice was calm and smooth, "we are aware of your situation son, we've managed to deploy a force recon unit in your area and they en route now. semper fi and be ready, we're going to pull you out of there soon."
The rest of the battle was hazy, all Ramirez remember was looking up at the force recon unit, all they'd sent was a fire team. A fire team, Ramirez was going to have to educate that colonel about the difference between a full unit and a lone fire team. But that fire team had done its job, they opened a hole in the Taji's offense and made their way to Ramirez's position. Ramirez remembered looking up and recognizing the face of the fire team leader. It was Blackstone, he'd actually done it. Ramirez remembered watching Blackstone leave his unit to go try for Force Recon, he remembered everyone doubting, laughing, and ridiculing him as he left. Now he was here, saving all their sorry asses Ramirez laughed to himself. His last thought was, this kid deserves a medal, and a drink.
Ramirez found himself back in the dark room, he shouted out to Blackstone, "It's good to hear your voice marine, don't lose your cool in here, I'm gonna need you if we're gonna get outta here. Oorah." He muttered to himself "oohrah" before beginning to think of an escape route.