Paratrooper

You sit in the plane in a seat that is hard and angular. There are nine others, and they sit in seats around the walls of the plane, forming a semi-circle. On one side of the plane there are closed doors. You hear the sound of explosions on the ground, fifteen hundred feet below you, and you look around nervously at your comrades.

A man's voice comes out of the speaker on the ceiling. "Drop in thirty seconds," it says. You and the others stand up, checking your equipment and strapping on parachutes. You form a line in front of the plane doors, adjusting your uniform and the gun strapped to your side. You're fourth in line and you swallow hard, mentally preparing yourself for the drop.

"Open doors," the man on the speaker says. The person at the front of the line grabs the lever to unlock the doors, pulls it, and then slides the doors open. The cold air blasts through the open doors and you shiver slightly. "You're cleared to jump," says the voice on the speaker. You watch as the first man braces himself and steps out of the plane and disappears. The second man is quick to follow but the third one, the man right in front of you, hesitates for a moment before jumping out. It's your turn and you step to the edge, not looking down. With a shiver, you step out of the plane and fall into the cold winds.

As you fall a rush of adrenaline courses through your body. You angle yourself so you are facing downward and your arms and legs are spread. The cold wind rushes past your face and it's hard to breath, but you keep falling. Below you are the three that jumped before you and behind you are the rest. In that moment you feel a sense of teamwork with the others, even though nobody is talking. Above you the sound of the planes engines slowly fades into the distance and the only sound is the wind rushing past you.

Below you are clouds. You brace yourself as you enter them, moisture condensing on your face and uniform. You can feel yourself speeding up and you are out of the clouds almost immediately. Now you can see the land below you and you can see the battle. You can see the explosions of grenades and the smoke from fires. You can hear the sirens and the gunfire. A strap that is lose on your vest flaps madly back and forth as you fall. You have to turn your head to the side to breathe well. Below, you can see the man who was the first out of the plane tuck in his legs and arms, accelerate toward the ground and then deploy his parachute.

A giant green circle unfolds below you, and you ready yourself to deploy your parachute. You grab the strap that you need to pull, careful not to pull it, and you look down again to see that the second man to jump has deployed his. You tuck in your arms and legs, righting yourself in midair as the third man uses his. It's your turn and you tug on the strap, letting your parachute unfold above you.

The wind catches your parachute and you stop suddenly, the straps tugging hard into your shoulders. You realize that you haven't actually stopped it just seems that way. You check your equipment strapped to your vest and you see that everything is intact. You look up and all you can see is the green canopy. The adrenaline of the fall leaves you and is replaced with the nervous feeling before battle. You look down again and study the battleground. It appears that the enemy have noticed the array of paratroopers descending and have started to fire at you. You're too high up for their bullets to hit you, but they might hit your parachute so you tug on one of the straps attached to your harness, turning yourself slightly to the right, and out of the way of their bullets. You hear the sound of a helicopter and you look down to see a barrage of air to ground missiles launched at the people firing at you, decimating their formation. You hear a boom and see the very same helicopter taken out by an enemy surface to air missile.

You consider what would happen if you die here in this battle. If in the moment your feet touch the ground you are shot or caught in the blast of a grenade. Would your death make any difference in the battle? And even if you don't die, will you, personally, have helped your side win? You swallow, knowing that it is entirely possible that you could die today, or go home a cripple without an arm or leg.

You can see the man closest to the ground unstrap the gun from his side and brace his feet for a landing. He touches the ground and immediately cuts loose his parachute, falling to one knee and raising his gun to take out an enemy soldier in front of him. The enemy, whose back was turned collapses in a pile of blood and dirt, groaning softly. Now the second man lands and he joins the first. As you near the ground, you unstrap the gun from your side and adjust the grenades on your belt. As you do so there is a gunshot and one of the men below you collapses onto the ground, blood staining his uniform. The third paratrooper lands right next to him and shoots the enemy who did it. You look around to make sure that you won't get shot immediately when you land. You bend your knees, bracing yourself for the landing. Even though your not going that fast it looks like the ground is rushing up to meet you. You hear an explosion and you turn to see bodies flying everywhere over in one of the trenches that your side has set up. You swallow and look back at the grass expanse where you are about to land.

The ground is only a few feet away from you. You realize that you could die today, and for the first time in a very long time, you're scared. You raise your gun and your feet touch the ground, your knees bending. You unclip your parachute harness and charge forward. Your fear is replaced by ice-cold resolve fueled by adrenalin. Nothing can stop you; you will fight until you can no longer move. There is a gunshot and a bullet hits you in the chest. You fall to the ground, and your chest feels as though it is on fire. Your vision flickers and then everything goes black.