The North PacificBoard

I never told you my name. I'm Carlos Ros. I'm the son of a fisherman and a woman who once fought in the name of Her Majesty, the mother of Her Excellency, the great Natalia.

I am a non-commissioned officer in the ranks of the 9th Battalion, Arrabal Regiment. Like many NCOs in the regiment, I led a small group of men and women. Under my command, I had rifles, machine guns, and a grenade launcher or a rocket launcher. Usually, the equipment changes depending on the mission assigned to our battalion. For now, our mission was a simple one, at least on paper: Enter the town of Marosa and provide security for the government officials who were coming from Yaneza to investigate rumors and reports of inappropriate distribution and acquisition of weapons and ammunition.

My men were not fools. They did not expect this mission to go as planned. We were used to this; we were combat veterans and we have gone through missions even in times of peace. We have served in Yaneza, and we have served in wars beyond our borders. So it was good that we did not pay heed to optimistic assumptions and proclamations among the newbies and the officers who just came out of the academy. But pay the price we did.

We entered the town at noon. It was hot. The sky was empty except for the sun and little cloud cover. We were all sweating under our caps. Nobody wore helmets during this time of the day. It simply was too unbearable to carry a heavy piece of metal, plastic, and synthetic cloth on your head. If you kept it on, you probably would have been a heat casualty. But even without a helmet, it was better to wear a cap, and smarter if you found some shade.

Around the town were trees, a hill to the north, and a stream to the east. We came towards the town from the south. And when we did enter the town, we were not expecting a welcome. We were wrong.

The newbies and the new officers thought things were normal. Children were out. The markets were busy. The roads were alive. And we were greeted by the local government. They offered to escort us into the town but we refused. Some of my men, especially Samantha Carballo, came from this town. They knew it better than some of those people who offered their assistance to us. But at least the locals were smart enough not to push the matter on us.

We were able to take positions around and in the town, expecting to wait until the investigation was over and then we would return to our base just several miles to the south. My men and I were actually beginning to relax under the shade of a few trees until Samantha and I heard an explosion coming from the northern end of the town.

It would have been something that didn't really scare us if not for us realizing that the explosion sounded just right. It sounded like any explosion that our own rocket launcher would create.

Over the radio, I heard one of the platoon commanders, an NCO like me named Aitana Capmany, screaming: "NORTH SIDE! NORTH SIDE! WE'RE TAKING ROCKET FIRE! FIRE FROM THE CREST OF HILL (------)" I was about to respond to her, trying to tell her to keep her voice down so that our ears wouldn't have to bleed, but her transmission was cut off. I realized then that she's hit.

At once, I got up, my men too standing up. We picked up our gear, our weapons, and we ran for the north, going around the town, avoiding the fate of some of our comrades who were ambushed inside the town. Despite our efforts, we were temporarily halted by fire from our left flank as we were running over a road leading north-northwest.

I'm glad that we weren't hit. But it was annoying to have fire coming towards us, over our heads. Some of the rounds ricocheted off the ground and the road. We dove into a ditch by the road. I took the time to find out where the fire was coming from.

I saw it. I called out to my men: "Window! Left hand side! 3rd floor, 3rd floor of the brick building at the corner!" and Samantha, the girl I trusted to use the machine gun, began to retaliate against the source of the fire with a short burst. That was followed by fire from my riflemen while my best man, Jose Indiano, loaded a rocket into his launcher and waited for my order to fire at the source of fire.

The great thing was that there were no civilians around. When the shooting began, they ran out of the way. Those inside the buildings did their best to take cover and keep away from the one who was trying to pin us down. Instead, he was the one who got pinned down. And we did well to blow him up.

I ordered Jonathan, one of my boys with a rifle, to follow me as I sprinted out of the ditch over to the hole we made thanks to Jose. I got in first and saw that we had killed the man.

No uniform. No helmet. No ID. The guy wore a blue shirt and khaki cargo pants. He carried a backpack with ammunition. Jonathan did the smart thing of destroying the ammo pack by tossing it into a ditch far from the town and then dropping an incendiary grenade inside. Meanwhile, I browsed through the poor guy's remains (The blast, the shrapnel, and the fire from my rifle and the rest of the squad reduced him to something that didn't look like a human being.) because I had to find ID or anything useful.

What I found instead was another guy. This time, he was coming down the stairs. He did a stupid thing with his rifle. Instead of keeping it safe, he fired too early, accidentally, shooting himself in the foot. I thought I saw his big toe fly off before I turned on him and shot four, maybe five rounds into his chest and stomach, killing him right after he fell on his back on the stairs.

No stranger to death. His insides were torn out by the rounds. Blood was pouring out of the exit wounds. I let him die twitching and mumbling as I dragged him off the stairs and dropped him on the floor. At least I allowed him to rest by his fallen comrade's side. I didn't care. I was after their documents, their gear, etc.

I didn't have to call Joel over. He did well to take the guy's rifle away. Then he smashed it against the wall, destroying it further with a hammer he always carried on his belt. It was standard operational procedure for us to destroy weapons and ammunition whenever we were operating in the west. The west was notorious for this, and so we adjusted accordingly.

Jonathan came back and told me that the rest of the squad was keeping the streets clear. I approved and told him to keep an eye out for us. He agreed, and I was left alone with Joel. He was my radio operator and I ordered him to contact our field commander (Our battalion CP was not in town, so we often relied on our field commander) namely Captain Lothar. Unlike our previous captain, he was a little less experienced. Willing to listen though. Joel made it through the net to him and I got on the phone. The convo went for about a little while until I heard fire coming from the north towards us, outside, just where my squad was.

Captain allowed us to leave and handle this. I took point. I saw Samantha laying down cover fire for the rest of the squad. They were running back to us. They were looking for cover, getting out of the open. Meantime, I looked for where it was coming from. Found it: street level, 200 meters, behind a wall. And Sam was doing a good job keeping their heads down or throwing off their aim.

One of them got hit. I got out while Joel left his stuff inside and ran to pull the poor guy out of the fire. As he did this, I raised my rifle and shot. A burst came out of my rifle. I switched. I went on one knee. One. Two. Three. Careful aim. Got the guy. Sam took out the other one with a firm squeeze of the trigger. A long burst. Cut the guy almost in half. We could see him squirming, hanging on to life.

We secured the area quickly, looking for more threats. No more. We continued on our way north. We hoped to find our comrades alive.