George Adams Journal 19 March 2034

Sunday
19 March, 2034

Journal,
Mattie has been gone for a week now with no word where she ran off. I am George Adams, Mattie’s Father and the night before she climbed out her bedroom window and ran away, I took this journal that she had been writing in and I will be recording the events in our lives just as she had been doing before she went through her change.
Talking to other parents from Mattie’s school I have found that other children also ran away from home last Sunday. It is as though they had been programmed to do this at their school, during what they call the Quiet Meditation hour. None of the parents that I have spoken to can figure why the school would want to turn our children on us but it has happened and there really is nothing we can do at this time.
First off, let me tell you a little about Mattie’s family. As I said, my name is George Adams, I am 42 years old and my parents named me after George Bush SR. He was the President when my dad was in the Marines during the war against Iraq in Kuwait in 1990. My wife’s name is Debbie and she is also 42. We met in grade school and became high school sweet hearts. After high school in 2010, I joined the Marine Corps and she went off to College at CSU. One might say I was fulfilling a family tradition, just like my dad and grand father had done before me.
In 2011, they sent me over to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After a year in Afghanistan my unit was shipped off to Somalia. It seems that some pirates had captured the USS Stockdale, a guided missile destroyer off the coast of Somalia. That story was pretty amazing in its self, how a bunch of little speed boats could capture a United States Navy ship is beyond my comprehension. Obama had developed a theory that the pirates were not a real threat to the world’s economy and if ignored would not cause any real harm. The fact that their actions had nothing to do with any Jihad had a lot to do with this theory.
The really bad thing is that the pirates still have the USS Stockdale 21years later. The missiles were all sold off to other pirates who have used them to sink two Royal Navy ships on the East coast of Africa.
My unit set up a staging area in Kenya and used it to off- load supplies for the operation. The plan was for us to fly by Osprey from Kenya and attack of the pirate town of Xarardeere, about 12 miles from the east coast of Somalia. Several hijacked ships were anchored off shore, including the Stockdale. I was actually kind of surprised to find the ships were not in any harbor but along the Somali coast there are very few inlets to anchor a ship or boat.
Along with my unit, the 3rd Marine Regiment was a Brigade of Army Rangers. We boarded the Ospreys on April 22, 2012, at 0300 hours. Our mission was to rescue the crew member of the Stockdale and someone else was supposed to recapture the ship. Reports told us that the captive crew was being held in Xarardeere and we figured we would run into lots of resistance from the local bad guys. At the same time we also figured on some covering Naval gun fire and close air support from Navy and Marine fixed wing air craft as well Army and Marine helicopter gun ships.
It was still dark as the Marine Osprey V-22s dropped us into the landing zones about 20 clicks (13.4 miles) due west of Xarardeere. Even though I could see some lights from the town, there was no sound coming from any of the buildings. I was a radio operator for my platoon leader, Lt. Johnson, a tall Texan who was built like the football player he once was for the University of Texas. He was always talking about the Dallas Cowboys and could not wait to get home in October to go to one of their games. Running the twelve miles from the landing zone we finally came near some curved stone walls around some local homes and a building that was probably a barn or work shop.
Suddenly, a flare exploded over the top of us and it lit the whole area like it was day light. Explosions shook the ground and the pinging and popping of rifle and machine gun fire assaulted my ears and erupted all around us. We had been ambushed, they knew we were coming! Crouching next to the Lieutenant, a round pinged off the wall next to my helmet, sending pieces of stone into the side of my head. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and I could feel the sticky goo running down my neck as I fought to stay alert. With a shaky voice I called one of the Cobra helicopter gun ships overhead that we were under attack and told him to look for a red smoke that would indicate our position. As I was talking to the gunship, Sergeant Hernandez tossed a red smoke grenade in between us and the bad guys. Before he could get back behind cover a rocket slammed him in the head tearing it from his torso. Blood spurt form his open neck wound like a fountain of red. My stomach was starting to feel like someone was turning it in knot and I felt like I was going to throw up. One of the buildings at three o’clock started to burn with flames throwing weird shadows on the other buildings all around us. Someone in back of me screamed and Smith who was our Navy Corpsman ran past me to a fallen Marine. Jackson, who was our machine gunner, started laying down fire at the roof of the building in front of us and someone else started firering rifle grenades at the building. My heart must have been beating at 300 beats per minutes and I could feel each pump of blood leaving my heart. It was so damn hot and as I was crouched next to the stone wall gnats started buzzing around my head. I could hear the gun ships coming from our left, but could not see anything for all the smoke and blowing sand. The stench from the rifle fire and all the explosions was over powering and I could taste the bile coming up from my stomach. The pinging of passing rounds was like angry wasps flying around my head and a bright explosion in the next block sent more sand swirling down on us. Looking overhead I saw one lone red cloud in the predawn morning and it reminded me of the cartoon character Snoopy sitting on his dog house yelling, “Curse you Red Baron”. The Cobra gunship was firering it’s 50 caliber machine guns, sending bright red tracers flying into the buildings. Sitting down in back of a stone wall, I could see the outline of the landscape as the sun started to rise in the east. Looking at my watch, I saw we had been in this one location for one minute, yet it seemed like a life time. Off in the distance, a man could be heard calling the faithful to prayers. How strange I was thinking, they are actually going to church while people are dying here. The Lieutenant grabbed the radio hand set from me in slow motion and started yelling to the battalion commander that we were trapped and that we needed more men. All I could hear was the static from the hand set and in mid sentence he stopped screaming. There was an almost terrified blank look on the Lieutenant’s face and without a sound he fell over on his side. He had been shot in the head and there was blood oozing from his ears and mouth. I picked up the handset and told the battalion commander, Colonel Smith, that the lieutenant was dead. More men were being hit and I was now the senior member of my platoon and I was just a Corporal. Sergeant Hernandez was lying in a heap ten feet from me still holding his rifle but his head was some distance from his body and blood was still trickling out of the top of his uniform where his neck used to be. Someone to my left yelled something and then he stood up while holding his machine gun under his arm pit and started running at the building while firering the weapon. The Cobras were coming in for another pass and it seemed like all the Marines around me had jumped up and were running toward the building following the machine gunner. What were they thinking? Explosions rocked the ground and red hot metal projectiles were flying from the buildings like someone had lit off fire works from a Forth of July celebration. The noise was deafening, between the explosions, gun fire and men yelling all around me. I was caught up in all the craziness like I was in a dream and no one could touch me. I was invisible! Standing up, I felt the ping and snap of a round passing my head. The only thought I could think of was from an old movie called, Little Big Man, “Today is a good day to die.” Once in awhile I have reflected on that moment and still wonder what the hell was I thinking? I started running; it felt like my feet were not even touching the ground. Men were all around me now, some were lying on the ground coughing and crying and others were still running toward the buildings. I slipped on something looked down and saw it was blood from a wounded Marine; he was still holding the machine gun but was missing a leg and he was crying and asking for someone named Fligger. It was the same guy who had led the charge with the machine gun. I took a closer look at him and recognized him from boot camp. Pollock was his name and was a big black guy from Mississippi. In boot camp he had told me that after he got out of the Corps, he was,”Gonna open up one of those fish taco stands along a beach somewhere. He had dropped out of college to go off to fight for his country and now he was probably going to die for his country.
Someone yelled,”Doc!” just as a bullet hit Pollock in the chest. It went right through his flack jacket and just made a soft thud as it embedded itself into his heart. He arched his back and then slumped to the ground, his legs and arms lay limp at his side.
The smoke was so thick I had a hard time seeing any further than three feet but I could hear the sounds of men yelling is two languages and felt the flash of rounds passing my head rather than hearing them.
Feeling along the wall of the building, the air was so thick with sand and smoke I could hardly see anything until someone rushed me. He was just a 12 year old boy wearing a pair blood spattered shorts and no shirt. He had a crazed look of someone on some sort of drugs and was pointing a mean looking AK-47 rifle at me. Before he could fire the weapon, I raised my rifle and shot him in the leg and he went down screaming in pain.
Stepping over him I looked down and saw he was crying and the crazed look had been replaced by that of just another little boy crying for his long lost mother. There were so many orphans in Somalia back then that it was not really surprising that a mere child would cling to war as his new found family. Sometimes I wonder if that child ever found peace in his life.
Through the smoke, noise and explosions I made my way to the back of the building trying to keep from being seen by the enemy. Finally I came to the rear of the building and stepped into a sort of alley. To my left was what looked like a large warehouse. According to our intelligence this was where the crew members from the ship were being held. Soldiers and Marines were in fierce hand to hand combat all around me and it looked like snipers were on the roof shooting down at us from the roof of the warehouse. I still had the feeling that I was invisible and no one seemed to pay me any attention as I crossed the alley to the back door of the warehouse. An explosion hit the roof of the warehouse as a Cobra gun ship fired on the snipers. My world was full of pain and bright lights as the shock waves hit me like a sledge hammer hitting me in the chest. I was knocked off my feet but regained my balance and charged the door using the butt of my rifle as a battering ram.
Inside was pitch black but I could hear American voices crying in pain in the far corner of the large room I had entered. I flicked on my flash light and saw a large wall of steel bars cutting across half the space of the ware house and I went toward it. Finding the door to the steel wall, I shot the padlock off the bars and entered inside. Men were laying and sitting around the walls of their cage and barely looked up as I entered their world. I yelled at them to follow me but still they just looked at as if they thought I was their collective imagination playing tricks on them.
I knelt down to one of the men, an officer and shook his shoulder and screamed in his face to get his men and follow me if they wanted to live. He looked me in the eye and finally it sank in that I was a real person and he needed to get his men to follow me. Slowly he stood up pulling the person next to him along with him. Finally signs of joy started to dawn on their faces and the entire group of 380 men and officers jumped and rushed me to touch me and know I was a real American come to take them home.
The explosive sounds and sights of battle were still going on as we emerged from the warehouse. Slowly I opened the door and saw the path to escape was closed. How was I going to get 380 unarmed men out of their temporary prison to safety in Kenya?