LJ-MosinFreak-Buck
Member
I'm sort of writing a story, and going in no major direction, but it was an idea I had and started flying with it. It's fictional, and is plotted in the future. It's about the USA being invaded by the Chinese (don't have a viable reason yet, but I'll have one when I get into writing the chapters. I'm writing as first-person, seing in the eyes of a reporter named Robert Strong, who is a war correspondent during the war. After the war, piling footage upon gruesome footage of the war, he decides he wants to track down the recognized and unrecognized war heroes to glean their side of the story, to find out what they felt like, to see if they felt the same remorse and revulsion as he.
I'm trying to put a lot of the characters' emotions into play here, and I'd like y'all to take a quick read, see if I'm on target. The story bounces back (with italicized text being a memory, or recording of Robert talking to another; standard text being Roberts' side of the story, and how he feels. Here's an excerpt of the prologue:
Eugene Stilz wasn't an average looking man. He looked messy, with his short-cropped hair, and stubbled chin and cheek area. He had a scar running down the right side of his face, about six inches long, only breaking at his eye. Stilz's complexion was rough, all the depressions high on his cheek bones looked like craters; the only thing that shone above the grim-looking exterior were his eyes. His bright blue eyes that shone with intensity, vitality unheard of in a man of his years, were set deep into his eye sockets. But I guess twenty years fighting will do that to a man.
I talked to this man, just the other day in fact. He was quite an elusive character. He avoided talking to me, over two weeks of me trying to get him to talk. This man either had a lot to hide, or didn't want to talk at all.
Let me introduce myself; my name is Robert Strong, and I am a reporter. Not just any reporter, though, and not a very good at the pen-and-paper side of reporting, so bear with me. I'm a war correspondent, and I report better with my cameras and voice recorders. I covered the last war with my many cameras, and even had to take a life. You'll hear about this later on in this story; but don't get me wrong, I did not want to kill that young man, but you'll read stories of those with remarkable courage, those who'd done remarkable things to preserve them and their own; to save their freedom, the steadfast reminder that we are a free people, and will fight for that right to remain so.
I ran into Eugene Stilz at a bar, just outside of town. McClelland, Iowa. A quiet place, and it seems the right place for this kind of man. I recognized him from TV. He was rewarded the U.S. Medal of Honor, with full honors therein, and overnight, by my knowledge, became the Hero of the United States of America. I pulled up a stool next to him.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Why for?" Eugene asked, gruffly. He didn't even look at me, but took another pull from his drink.
"To thank you for your service, Mister Stilz. I recognized you from the TV. Our most recent Medal of Honor recipient," I replied.
"Leave me alone," came Stilz's reply as he kicked over his stool and left the bar.
I wasn't sure what I had done wrong there. But it didn't take me long to find out. The bartender had told me that Eugene Stilz wasn't much for talking about what happened. He told me that I was wasting my time. I wasn't about to give up there, though, and as any good reporter, I didn't let up. I had seen him over the next couple weeks, seeing Eugene at the bar, on the same stool. Every time I offered to buy his next drink, he'd get up, kicking over the stool all the same and, leave.
Another night he came in, things went terribly wrong. I admit, I was pestering the man, and indeed needed to be shown humility. My methods of persuasion, gentle, like any good reporter, were impeccable. But they never prepared me for the punishmend I would receive in trying to crack the hard shell that was Eugene Stilz.
Here's what happened:
"Can I buy you a drink?" I asked him, losing count of how many times before.
"Why can't you just leave me the hell alone!? I don't want to talk to you!"
"Mister Stilz, please, I just want to buy you a--"
It happened before I knew it. He hooked his right arm wide, in a path that would take his aged, clenched fist across my chin. My vision swirling, I could hear the floor beckoning for me to come down and join it, but I stood my ground trying to get my bearings. I could hear the music stop, and I could feel the stares of everyone in the bar on me.
I managed to spit out the end of my sentence cut short, to everyones' amazement, with the word "drink."
Eugene's glare softened, I could see something in his eyes relent; something cracked. He grabbed me up and guided me over to a booth in the corner of the bar, and set me down. I felt like swooning, my head was spinning, and I noticed Eugene wasn't standing in front of me anymore.
Damn it, I told myself. I drove him away again.
A bottle was slammed down in front of me, along with an Advil, a bag of ice, and a water.
"Put that chin on ice. It'll keep 'er from swellin'," Eugene said as he sat down, shot glasses in hand.
"You've got quite an arm, Mister Stilz."
"Call me Gene. I hate that formal crap," said Stilz, ignoring the compliment. He continued on in his gravelly voice, "Now, why are you here? You've done nothin' but piss me off these last weeks, and I wanna know why. I've had all the trouble I cared for in my life, and more on top o' that! Can't a guy live his days in peace?"
I didn't answer for a minute, and sat there taking in the visage in front of me. Surely, this man in front of me deserved many things, things that never would be.
"I know, and I'm sorry, Mi-- Gene. I'm a reporter," I answered at length. "I just want to get your side of the story, for a book I am writing. One veteran to another."
I still hear popping in my bottom jaw from time to time, and that punch was one hell of a punch. I don't remember receiving worse in my time!
Here is where things started going better in my efforts to get Eugene to tell me what he'd been through, though, at the same time, I felt for the guy. I knew he didn't want to relive those miserable moments again, and I hated to do it to the guy. But my side of the story isn't so great either.
"Veteran? You're just a reporter!"
That one actually stung me.
"I am a reporter, yes. But I am a veteran as well. I fought in the same [explitive] war that you did, Stilz, and I'm no better man because of it!"
Eugenes' glare came back, boring into me like a drill to a solid rock wall. He poured himself a shot, threw it back, and poured again, filling the second glass as well. I knew what he was thinking. The images were coming to my mind, too.
"You fought too, huh?" he asked at length, in the same gravelly voice.
"I was a war correspondent. I was there with my cameras. I seen it all, Gene, and I still see it to this day. I collected tons of footage, more of it than I care for! I wish I could burn all those images I captured from my mind and the film. But the film... The film is somewhere I can't get now, for the nightly news to be played.
"I had to kill a man, Gene. I wasn't proud. That sinking feeling you get in your gut when you take the life of someone who's feeling the same as you, it's nauseating. I could tell, by the look in his eye, that he didn't want to be here, but he had his duty, and I wanted to live..."
I'm referring here to December 7th, 2019. I was following a militia detachment near Springfield, Nebraska, through fields that were to be corn-crops, but never came to fruition. A man named Eric Dawson had given me his pistol, a Glock 17, and I remember that clearly, because the lettering on the slide was filled with a dried, white liquid. He told me that I would probably need it. Little did I know, that in a short time I would.
My group came under attack around 19:42, 7:42 pm central standard time. I wasn't estranged to combat; this was probably my one-hundredth time being under fire, and my helmet-camera was rolling. I remember seeing Dawson bobbing up and down from behind the berm with his AR-15, a prized possession of his, squeezing off both aimed, and un-aimed fire at the Chinese invasion force, before ducking down to change his magazine.
We were holding off pretty good until their tanks started rolling in, with their wounded, multi-platoon charge. I had caught the whole thing on tape, well, on a Micro-SD card, but the point is moot. The militia fought back spectacularly, I was impressed. Stolen machine guns were playing their song, I heard Capparzos' sniper rifle, thundering booms adding to the amazing palate of sounds. I was, indeed, in awe.
A young man, with his rifle in hand, stepped over the berm. I took a deep long look at him, he did the same towards me. He couldn't have been much older than 17 years old, but I'm being a little conservative there. I could still see some of his boyish features on his face. The look in his eyes screamed fear, revulsion, not wanting to be there. I couldn't agree more. I was frozen in place, seemingly not able to break my trance, and it looked, to me at least, that he wasn't able to break his easily, either.
A grenade went off somewhere behind me, over-thrown by my guess, snapping us both to reality. He began to heft his rifle to his shoulder, a strange looking bull-pup rifle, one I've never seen before. Then suddenly my trance broke, and I swung the pistol up and squeezed the trigger four times, not hearing the blast, not noticing the recoil, and the boy's legs crumplled underneath him, causing him to fall forward, almost like slow motion, down to my feet at the bottom of the berm. I could see the life leaving his eyes, the pool of life leaving his body. I immediately felt the nausea coming, and swooned, one time, two times, three... I don't remember. I caught that horrible scene on my helmet-camera, too.
Off in the distance, miles away it seemed, I heard jets, and they swooped low, strafing the enemy soldiers, exploding enemy tanks with their air-to-ground missiles. The enemy retreated, thankfully.
I was congratulated on my first kill. My only kill in the war that lasted almost 10 years. I was caught in a bunch of hands clapping me on my back, celebratory cheers from my friends, whooping and hollering, portraying me as a "stone-cold killer!" That was not me, I told myself. I never--
"--wanted it to happen again."
I let loose a long, drawn out sigh as I finished my tale. I took the shot that Eugene offered, thankful for its burning sensation to my cold stomach.
"That's... That's quite a story, Mister...?"
"Strong. Robert... Strong."
"You know," Eugene began, leaning back into the booth. "I can relate to that."
I looked at him incredulously. This was a man, who, by numerous accounts, had slain upwards of 150 of the enemy. I simply could not believe he could relate to me. But he noticed my misbelieving look.
"No, really, I can relate to that. What do you portray me as? Some sort of monster who enjoys killin'? I felt bad for every soldier that I brought down, Robert. Never once did I smile while on the battlefield. I felt sick, more often than not, with what I had to do. I didn't enjoy what I was doin', I don't even like fightin'! I'm sorry I hit you!"
There was a small crowd gathering around the table now, believing Eugene Stilz was finally about to crack, to recount his actions in the great war. I noticed some taking up chairs, not even an arm's length away from either me or Eugene, but the man across the table didn't seem to notice, and if he did, I took it that he just didn't care anymore.
"I was simply doin' what I had to do, Mister Strong," Eugene continued, leaning back into the conversation, pouring himself another shot. "I was kill or be killed out there. Where I could avoid a fight, I would. Not out of cowardice, but merely because they did not know I was there. I fought against the Chinese, Robert, but with no prejudice. They were attackin' my homeland. They were attackin' my ideals! They were to take our freedom, if it weren't for guys like us! But never once did I desire to kill them for bein' them. I killed them because they were tryin' to kill me..."
He downed his shot quickly, savoring the burn.
**Edited to fix grammatical and spelling errors. Some may have been missed.**
I'm trying to put a lot of the characters' emotions into play here, and I'd like y'all to take a quick read, see if I'm on target. The story bounces back (with italicized text being a memory, or recording of Robert talking to another; standard text being Roberts' side of the story, and how he feels. Here's an excerpt of the prologue:
Eugene Stilz wasn't an average looking man. He looked messy, with his short-cropped hair, and stubbled chin and cheek area. He had a scar running down the right side of his face, about six inches long, only breaking at his eye. Stilz's complexion was rough, all the depressions high on his cheek bones looked like craters; the only thing that shone above the grim-looking exterior were his eyes. His bright blue eyes that shone with intensity, vitality unheard of in a man of his years, were set deep into his eye sockets. But I guess twenty years fighting will do that to a man.
I talked to this man, just the other day in fact. He was quite an elusive character. He avoided talking to me, over two weeks of me trying to get him to talk. This man either had a lot to hide, or didn't want to talk at all.
Let me introduce myself; my name is Robert Strong, and I am a reporter. Not just any reporter, though, and not a very good at the pen-and-paper side of reporting, so bear with me. I'm a war correspondent, and I report better with my cameras and voice recorders. I covered the last war with my many cameras, and even had to take a life. You'll hear about this later on in this story; but don't get me wrong, I did not want to kill that young man, but you'll read stories of those with remarkable courage, those who'd done remarkable things to preserve them and their own; to save their freedom, the steadfast reminder that we are a free people, and will fight for that right to remain so.
I ran into Eugene Stilz at a bar, just outside of town. McClelland, Iowa. A quiet place, and it seems the right place for this kind of man. I recognized him from TV. He was rewarded the U.S. Medal of Honor, with full honors therein, and overnight, by my knowledge, became the Hero of the United States of America. I pulled up a stool next to him.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Why for?" Eugene asked, gruffly. He didn't even look at me, but took another pull from his drink.
"To thank you for your service, Mister Stilz. I recognized you from the TV. Our most recent Medal of Honor recipient," I replied.
"Leave me alone," came Stilz's reply as he kicked over his stool and left the bar.
I wasn't sure what I had done wrong there. But it didn't take me long to find out. The bartender had told me that Eugene Stilz wasn't much for talking about what happened. He told me that I was wasting my time. I wasn't about to give up there, though, and as any good reporter, I didn't let up. I had seen him over the next couple weeks, seeing Eugene at the bar, on the same stool. Every time I offered to buy his next drink, he'd get up, kicking over the stool all the same and, leave.
Another night he came in, things went terribly wrong. I admit, I was pestering the man, and indeed needed to be shown humility. My methods of persuasion, gentle, like any good reporter, were impeccable. But they never prepared me for the punishmend I would receive in trying to crack the hard shell that was Eugene Stilz.
Here's what happened:
"Can I buy you a drink?" I asked him, losing count of how many times before.
"Why can't you just leave me the hell alone!? I don't want to talk to you!"
"Mister Stilz, please, I just want to buy you a--"
It happened before I knew it. He hooked his right arm wide, in a path that would take his aged, clenched fist across my chin. My vision swirling, I could hear the floor beckoning for me to come down and join it, but I stood my ground trying to get my bearings. I could hear the music stop, and I could feel the stares of everyone in the bar on me.
I managed to spit out the end of my sentence cut short, to everyones' amazement, with the word "drink."
Eugene's glare softened, I could see something in his eyes relent; something cracked. He grabbed me up and guided me over to a booth in the corner of the bar, and set me down. I felt like swooning, my head was spinning, and I noticed Eugene wasn't standing in front of me anymore.
Damn it, I told myself. I drove him away again.
A bottle was slammed down in front of me, along with an Advil, a bag of ice, and a water.
"Put that chin on ice. It'll keep 'er from swellin'," Eugene said as he sat down, shot glasses in hand.
"You've got quite an arm, Mister Stilz."
"Call me Gene. I hate that formal crap," said Stilz, ignoring the compliment. He continued on in his gravelly voice, "Now, why are you here? You've done nothin' but piss me off these last weeks, and I wanna know why. I've had all the trouble I cared for in my life, and more on top o' that! Can't a guy live his days in peace?"
I didn't answer for a minute, and sat there taking in the visage in front of me. Surely, this man in front of me deserved many things, things that never would be.
"I know, and I'm sorry, Mi-- Gene. I'm a reporter," I answered at length. "I just want to get your side of the story, for a book I am writing. One veteran to another."
I still hear popping in my bottom jaw from time to time, and that punch was one hell of a punch. I don't remember receiving worse in my time!
Here is where things started going better in my efforts to get Eugene to tell me what he'd been through, though, at the same time, I felt for the guy. I knew he didn't want to relive those miserable moments again, and I hated to do it to the guy. But my side of the story isn't so great either.
"Veteran? You're just a reporter!"
That one actually stung me.
"I am a reporter, yes. But I am a veteran as well. I fought in the same [explitive] war that you did, Stilz, and I'm no better man because of it!"
Eugenes' glare came back, boring into me like a drill to a solid rock wall. He poured himself a shot, threw it back, and poured again, filling the second glass as well. I knew what he was thinking. The images were coming to my mind, too.
"You fought too, huh?" he asked at length, in the same gravelly voice.
"I was a war correspondent. I was there with my cameras. I seen it all, Gene, and I still see it to this day. I collected tons of footage, more of it than I care for! I wish I could burn all those images I captured from my mind and the film. But the film... The film is somewhere I can't get now, for the nightly news to be played.
"I had to kill a man, Gene. I wasn't proud. That sinking feeling you get in your gut when you take the life of someone who's feeling the same as you, it's nauseating. I could tell, by the look in his eye, that he didn't want to be here, but he had his duty, and I wanted to live..."
I'm referring here to December 7th, 2019. I was following a militia detachment near Springfield, Nebraska, through fields that were to be corn-crops, but never came to fruition. A man named Eric Dawson had given me his pistol, a Glock 17, and I remember that clearly, because the lettering on the slide was filled with a dried, white liquid. He told me that I would probably need it. Little did I know, that in a short time I would.
My group came under attack around 19:42, 7:42 pm central standard time. I wasn't estranged to combat; this was probably my one-hundredth time being under fire, and my helmet-camera was rolling. I remember seeing Dawson bobbing up and down from behind the berm with his AR-15, a prized possession of his, squeezing off both aimed, and un-aimed fire at the Chinese invasion force, before ducking down to change his magazine.
We were holding off pretty good until their tanks started rolling in, with their wounded, multi-platoon charge. I had caught the whole thing on tape, well, on a Micro-SD card, but the point is moot. The militia fought back spectacularly, I was impressed. Stolen machine guns were playing their song, I heard Capparzos' sniper rifle, thundering booms adding to the amazing palate of sounds. I was, indeed, in awe.
A young man, with his rifle in hand, stepped over the berm. I took a deep long look at him, he did the same towards me. He couldn't have been much older than 17 years old, but I'm being a little conservative there. I could still see some of his boyish features on his face. The look in his eyes screamed fear, revulsion, not wanting to be there. I couldn't agree more. I was frozen in place, seemingly not able to break my trance, and it looked, to me at least, that he wasn't able to break his easily, either.
A grenade went off somewhere behind me, over-thrown by my guess, snapping us both to reality. He began to heft his rifle to his shoulder, a strange looking bull-pup rifle, one I've never seen before. Then suddenly my trance broke, and I swung the pistol up and squeezed the trigger four times, not hearing the blast, not noticing the recoil, and the boy's legs crumplled underneath him, causing him to fall forward, almost like slow motion, down to my feet at the bottom of the berm. I could see the life leaving his eyes, the pool of life leaving his body. I immediately felt the nausea coming, and swooned, one time, two times, three... I don't remember. I caught that horrible scene on my helmet-camera, too.
Off in the distance, miles away it seemed, I heard jets, and they swooped low, strafing the enemy soldiers, exploding enemy tanks with their air-to-ground missiles. The enemy retreated, thankfully.
I was congratulated on my first kill. My only kill in the war that lasted almost 10 years. I was caught in a bunch of hands clapping me on my back, celebratory cheers from my friends, whooping and hollering, portraying me as a "stone-cold killer!" That was not me, I told myself. I never--
"--wanted it to happen again."
I let loose a long, drawn out sigh as I finished my tale. I took the shot that Eugene offered, thankful for its burning sensation to my cold stomach.
"That's... That's quite a story, Mister...?"
"Strong. Robert... Strong."
"You know," Eugene began, leaning back into the booth. "I can relate to that."
I looked at him incredulously. This was a man, who, by numerous accounts, had slain upwards of 150 of the enemy. I simply could not believe he could relate to me. But he noticed my misbelieving look.
"No, really, I can relate to that. What do you portray me as? Some sort of monster who enjoys killin'? I felt bad for every soldier that I brought down, Robert. Never once did I smile while on the battlefield. I felt sick, more often than not, with what I had to do. I didn't enjoy what I was doin', I don't even like fightin'! I'm sorry I hit you!"
There was a small crowd gathering around the table now, believing Eugene Stilz was finally about to crack, to recount his actions in the great war. I noticed some taking up chairs, not even an arm's length away from either me or Eugene, but the man across the table didn't seem to notice, and if he did, I took it that he just didn't care anymore.
"I was simply doin' what I had to do, Mister Strong," Eugene continued, leaning back into the conversation, pouring himself another shot. "I was kill or be killed out there. Where I could avoid a fight, I would. Not out of cowardice, but merely because they did not know I was there. I fought against the Chinese, Robert, but with no prejudice. They were attackin' my homeland. They were attackin' my ideals! They were to take our freedom, if it weren't for guys like us! But never once did I desire to kill them for bein' them. I killed them because they were tryin' to kill me..."
He downed his shot quickly, savoring the burn.
**Edited to fix grammatical and spelling errors. Some may have been missed.**
Last edited:
