talonkarrde | Week 10

I slammed him up against the wall, smiling grimly as I saw him grimace in pain.

“What the hell did you think you were doing, Jason?” I snarled. “You’re just like your goddamn namesake; making friends with the locals like that is going to get us killed. They just lie to you and get into your base and then blow you to kingdom come. You’re gonna get the platoon killed, and then what?”

He twisted, trying to get some leverage. I let him almost wiggle free, and then grabbed his shirt with both hands, jerked him forward, and slammed him into the wall again. This time, he stayed.

“So how about you give me a really, really good reason I don’t get you discharged, right now, or better yet, send you into them with nothing but your shirt and pants?” I asked.

He coughed, spitting out some blood, but I didn’t step back. He had almost cost us three of the squad, and I was about to start spilling his entrails across the ground.

“We need to...push limits,” he finally spat out. “We need to engage, and be willing to blink first, and—”

And I cut him off. “When you push limits, you dumb shit, you die. You get others killed. You get taken advantage of by the enemy that wants you to roll over and show your belly. You like that myth bullshit, remember the guy that decided he was hot stuff and got burnt to a crisp by the sun? That’s you, ‘cept you’re taking others with you.”

He coughed again, but somehow, kept going.

“No — what you’re doing is giving people a chance. You're giving them a chance to show that they want peace, and you're giving our guys a chance to showcase that they're not invaders trying to steal the black gold. What you're doing—" another cough "is taking a chance, because sometimes chances have to be taken. Otherwise, people just keep killing each other. You don't want to take chances, fine; I do. If no one ever decided to go for things they think were unattainable, we'd still be living in goddamn huts peeing in a corner."

He shoved at me, suddenly, and I was unprepared, and fell back.

"The United States of America was built on reaching for the stars, damnit, and we did so well we struck down the best military in the world at the time. Don't you dare tell me not to fly for the sun. Yes, it might fail, we might get burned. But that's no reason not to stop trying. It's never a reason not to stop trying."