Semper Fi - Airsoft Team

Master Chief (Kneeling Lower right) with Semper Fi

I was a cherry then-just like the rest

We were walking on a slightly trodden path, laid almost entirely obscured by a hip high thicket. The evening air was damp, tainted by the sent of grass and decaying leaves. It was pouring that night, a jagged streak occasionally lined the night sky illuminating our path and the 6 other men with me. They were a sight to behold.

Clad in their camouflaged BDU's, water trickling down their rain soaked lousy caps. Their green painted faces betrayed no emotion or any signs of fatigue despite the long and weary march. Their rifles were wrapped in green and brown burlap, unidentifiable save for a well-trained eye.

For a brief moment I gazed upon them in awe, before being thrown back to utter blackness. I was a new-comer, a green horn by their reckoning. It was just this morning when these same guys were teaching me how to lock and load a magazine unto an M4 rifle and how to march without accidentally shooting someone in the butt. Now I was with then on a recon mission well into enemy territory in the cover of night no less.

To them this must be routine, but for me it was a totally new experience, unnerving and totally exhausting. The 20-lbs. rucksack I was lugging around didn't make our march any eassier either. In it were a couple of spare clothes I brought for an all nighter, a can of pork and beans, a half loaf of French bread, 2 liters of water in a camel back pack, a box of cheerios and an assortment of other stuff that I wish I had never brought with me to begin with. (Although I was told that they took the courtesy of reliving me much of the burden I carried by eating most of what I had last night.) But I shouldn't be bitching too much, the pack they carried seemed a lot heavier than mine. Mine mustta have looked like a small lunch box next to theirs.

Our unit has been moving for what seemed to me like hours on end. (Actual time 10 minutes. A miscalculation commonly made by couch potatoes such as myself who idea of a strenuous and challenging workout is having to change TV channels manually when the remote is in a fritz) Stopping on occasion to re-orient ourselves within the overwhelming darkness around us. The squad leader flashes a hand signal, instantly five men formed a semi circle around him, their rifles all pointing to assigned angles. I quickly followed suit. A faint red light illuminated the map on our squad leader's hand.

"According to this we're pretty close to the Opfor (Opposition Force) base, It's right above a ridge 20 meters north................" . He paused suddenly, and as if on cue he and the rest of our unit laid chess flat on the ground quickly but quietly.

I of course had no such agility. I slowly lowered myself unto the ground next to a fallen tree. Dusting the ground as I went, making sure there were no uninvited crawling thingies getting into my trousers. Footsteps could be heard making their way towards our position. The darkness, made worst by the thick forest canopy made it almost impossible to see beyond 20 paces, but the sound were unmistakably human even to cherry like me.

The unit's point man affectionately called wakko, pulled something over his eyes a bulky contraption that resembled a small VCR recorder. "Night Optics" I said to myself......Cool. I heard Wakko key the knob of his IR imaging scope. To him, the impenetrable darkness is pierced by almost inaudible whine as the optics kicked in and the forest is bathed in a green hue

"I see you, bastards!" He whispered under his breath.

"Confirm, inbound, three hostile', 30 yards and closing fast" and points his finger northwards as if trying touch the would be enemy.

By now our eyes have very much adjusted to the gloom but still the three figures were no more than just vaguely shaped shadows moving cautiously thru the undergrowth, totally unaware of our presence. We made no sound, nor movement.

At that moment, It was like all my senses suddenly shifted into hyperdrive. I could hear my heart pumping blood into my veins thump thump, thump, thump, it was almost deafening. The enemy were so close I could just stretch out my arm and grab one of them by the leg, but I felt no such urge knowing all too well that what I do at this moment may very well determine whether we all live thru this one or come home zipped in a body bag.

I could see the other men of our unit now sprawled in a half-crooked line flanking the enemy. I was too busy trying to squeeze my 5'8'' frame into a 3 foot hole in the ground to have notice how they managed that so fast yet without making the slightest sound. I slowly thumb the fire selector switch of my M4 rifle off safety and into full automatic just as the guys had taught me.

"Two clicks down", I said to myself "is full auto fire", or was it two clicks up.

It was one of those oh shit moments when you get that gut feeling that the shit was about to hit the fan and you still got your pants down. The wait seemed like an eternity, that there was probably the longest 20 seconds of my life, it took them forever to walk right pass us.

Then without warning, all hell broke loose! The poor saps didn't know what hit them. They had their backs towards us, when the first burst of fire came from our squad leader's M4 carbine rifle, hitting the enemy patrol's slack man with double tap to the chest area.

The rest of the men opened up on the remaining two tangos, almost in unison, in a symphony of death. Bullets zinging pass overhead ricocheting on the dead tree trunk I was using for cover. The enemy patrol tried to return fire, firing blindly in desperation into the darkness that has come to claim them. It seemed like chaos at that time, but in retrospect it was in fact a well-laid ambush as if thoroughly rehearsed.

I managed to squeeze of several shots of my own. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that I had in fact correctly switched my rifle to full auto mode. My M4 chattered away in a deadly staccato spewing white death at the enemy. (Or at least I knew I was trying to aim at the enemy, I was pumped with so much adrenaline that I soon found my trigger finger still stuck to the trigger even after my magazine was entirely spent.) But the other men where not as random, their fire was controlled and precise, for it was over as quickly as it began.

Cries rang out of the chaos "Hit!, Hit, Hit, Hit na!", "stop firing", ......."Dead man coming out".........."Damn it! Hit na nga eh...........When the gun fire finally died down and the proverbial dust settled, It was then that the reality of things dawned on me ........I forgot it was just an AIRSOFT game.