I walked into a metal-walled room. My battalion was standing in a crowd, talking.

They heard the low clank of my armored boots against the linoleum floor and fell silent. I counted fifteen soldiers.

“Form five lines of three!” I commanded.

The lined up accordingly and waited.

“This is a simple mission” I stated, they had already been briefed. “Do it right. You will follow all of my commands without question. Are we clear?”

I will always remember the simultaneous Yes sir that I heard from my battalion.

He boarded our stealthy transportation plane as we tuned our radios to the same frequency. They call this kind of plane a BlueHawk.

I found that Mark was sitting across from me. His expression was different, more serious, maybe even determined.

He’ll do good.