“Get down, get down, imminent shell bombardment!!” Jack yelled out to his squad mates.

Seconds after, the dugout sand bunkers that Jack and his comrades were hiding in got carpet bombed with M107 rounds. The first lot of shells hit the desert ground penetrating force which caused seismic tremors that made the ground shake violently.

“We have to get out!…..” Cried a stricken medic desperately.

Jack shook his head in disbelief when that medic got bluntly shredded by shrapnel from a RPG squash head. Jack dodged the remainder of shrapnel but was caught by the medic’s liquefied brain matter travelling at supersonic speeds.

In a matter of minutes the hardcore carpet bombing stopped as suddenly as it was started and it had succeeded in killing everyone in the bunker, except for Jack.

Charged up with adrenaline Jack climbed out of the shattered bunker with an XM8 assault rifle, five 7.62 Mags and four 9mm mags for his M9 pistol. He had only one mission and it was to get out of Iraq alive and in one piece.

Pacing himself Jack started to run to designated Alpha Three Zero, which was a safe evacuation point that was made for Jack and his recently deceased comrades due to reports of recent terrorist activity in the region. Abruptly, a string of tracers passed by Jacks head giving him the fright of his life and knowledge that enemy forces were nearby. He started to strafe (evasive sidestep) left to avoid incoming fire but then dropped himself and commando crawled a few metres forward. Positioning the XM8 high powered assault rifle while prone, Jack peered through the well rounded scope and started firing sharp bursts at the spotted enemy. Within the first three well aimed bursts, Jack was able to drop five terrorists. Their bodies went down noisily. There he had a window of opportunity to run up 20 metres to get clear single shots at the rest of the lightly armoured patrol without oncoming fire.

The XM8 sprung into life as Jack calmly double tapped the trigger and speedily dropped the rest of the patrol with deadly precision.

Sighing with relief, he wiped the salty sweat off his head with the sleeves of his uniform, took a drink out of his canteen and re adjusted the but stock for optimal firing performance and comfort. Revising the strategic plan to Alpha Three Zero, Jack started to make the travelling time shorter by limiting the amount of rest breaks and by using no stealth at all. Jack was risking his whole life on a designated evacuation that he might not reach in time.