On the way down from the rooftop Emily noticed the old boxy BMW was gone. She looked at Mr. Smith to tell him but from the way, he was looking at the space where the car had been he knew. Mr. Smith told her to look through the vehicles for survivors. He went to help the wounded on the hillside. To her surprise, Froggy and his gunner Wendle were alive when she got to their Humvee. Froggy’ legs were mangled and he was losing a lot of blood. Emily was able to put a tourniquet on his legs. Wendle said he couldn’t feel anything below his waist so Emily told him not to move his head around and left him where he was looking for something to immobilized his neck.
In her Humvee, she was surprised to find Sergeant Caraway still alive. He was unconscious but he was still breathing. His head had a big dent in it though and Emily didn’t know what to do with that so after she pulled him out of the Humvee she left him alone. She found her M9 by the bottom of his feet. She hoped that her rifle hadn’t caused the dent in his head. She dropped the AK she had picked up and slung her M9 over her shoulder.
Emily was climbing into one of the old trucks that one of the Afghani men had been driving when she spotted a helicopter flying towards them. “Helicopter in-coming,” she called out pointing in its direction.
Mr. Smith who was trying to start an IV in Froggy’s arm climbed out of the Humvee to look. “That’s an attack Helicopter, not a medevac chopper. He’s going to provide overwatch until someone gets here to help. Never, keep looking we still have people missing.”
“Yes, sir,” Emily replied climbing into the cab of the truck to check to see if the two Afghan guys in the truck were really dead.
She found Geary between the two old trucks. He looked mangled and wasn’t breathing. Looking down at him Emily found herself feeling numb. It was like someone had shut off her feelings. She wanted to cry but she didn’t feel sad. She didn’t feel anything. “Am I in shock? Is this what shock feels like? It feels like nothing.” Emily thought to herself. She couldn’t look away from his mangled body.
“Dammit.” She whispered rubbing her short hair only now realizing that she didn’t have her helmet on. “Dammit Geary.” She sat down beside him. She wanted to tell him she was sorry that she was a bitch to him at the end and that she missed playing Chinese checkers with him on his tablet. There was so much she wanted to say to him but all she could say was “Dammit Geary.”
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Five minutes later a large evac helicopter landed disgorging a bunch of soldiers. Most of them ignored Emily and her people but charge in, clearing the surrounding buildings. Once the area was secure few went to help the people on the hillside. A few headed to where Mr. Smith’s was trying to help some of the people Never had pulled from the vehicles.
Sergeant Caraway died before any of the medics could get him to the helicopter. One the Medics told Emily that he had died the moment he hit his head and cracked his skull but his body hadn’t realized it yet. When he died it was just his body catching up to the fact that his soul had already left his body. Emily wondered why he was telling her that. Dead was dead. She was surprised when she looked up from the dead Sergeant and saw Mr. Smith on a stretcher being carried to the helicopter.
In the moves when someone on a stretcher says to wait so they could talk to someone the medics wait. In real life, medics don’t stop for anything. “He caught a ricochet in the hip. He should be fine.” Another medic told her as he looked her over as M.r Smith was rushed to the helicopter. The Medic washed her face off with a bunch of bandages and some water he had in his pack. There was a lot of blood to wash off.
She was clear by medical with no injuries but she ended up being medevaced anyway as the only non injured person left on the mission. She stayed the night at the Air Force base and hitched a ride on a huge cargo plane back to Warner. She was the only passenger on the empty flight so they let her sit up front by the cockpit and watch them fly the plane. It was a pretty cool experience. The crew she learned was not stationed in Afghanistan but in Germany. They were doing a rotation in-country for the week and then they would fly back to Germany. The pilots in their flight wing were taking turns flying out here. Even though they were officers, they were still pretty cool people. One of the pilots even hit on her, short hair and all. It was funny.
Two weeks later Emily became almost famous as a news reporter reported that the Butcher, a high ranking OCS member, was killed in a fail attempt at an ambush. The reporter got it wrong though when he said that ‘US Army Special Forces unit cornered him in a local electronics store and killed him and all his men in a fierce firefight.’ The reported ended his report with ‘His loss is a severe blow to OCS forces fighting in Afghanistan.’ Listening to the groans of her fellow soldiers at the reporter mistake in getting the Special Forces and the Rangers mixed up Emily wondered why they never gave the Butcher’s real name.