Reflection

Physical training was definitely the order of the day with Phil sitting down to do his training at the weight machine.

With the world obliterated and much of the country torn up into radioactive dust, there wasn't a whole lot to do other than to sit in the bunker doing stuff. But at least there was enough stuff to keep from being bored out of one's mind.

When one is an introvert, bunker life may be no skin off one's back, but when one is an extrovert, like Harriet, bunker life is complete and utter mind-bendingly insane. She had to cause problems and drama up to and including bothering Dwayne Price while he was working on his Sim Fu or making troll-posts on IBC (Inter-Bunker-Chat) forums which somehow...survived the nuclear inferno.

Occasionally when the weather turned, radioactive particle laden clouds that still navigated the globe came overhead and dumped nuclear fallout or black rain onto the ground which soaked it up and well...made the Geiger counters in the bunker go absolutely nuts, but at least they were shielded inside the bunker to a certain extent considering the two feet thick concrete bunkers.

RADM AJ Chegwidden, Secretary of Defense Edward Sheffield, SGT Jared Frio and Navy Captain Jack Keeter were slated to take the next external foray out of the bunker, so donning envirosuits they headed out into the hostile wasteland. RADM AJ Chegwidden stated to SECDEF that he needed to carry weapons, since they were out in hostile territory and that they needed to be on the alert in case someone engaged them with weapons fire. Also, they needed to find out if there were patrols of Chinese or Russian soldiers around. So far no signs had indicated that they had been invaded, but AJ wasn't about to take chances. The vice-admiral had been clear in his command, no-one was to be outside the bunker's walls without a weapon on their person.

And it wasn't just the Chinese or the Russians that they needed to worry about. Hostilities could come from anyone up to and including the survivors of Sunset Valley. And the bunker occupants had to be able to protect themselves. Armed with Glock 17s and Barrett M107 50 caliber sniper rifles, they were able to conduct CQB (close-quarters battle) as well as take out someone from long distance from over a mile away, provided that they had shown signs of hostility before-hand. There was no need to engage a hostile in CQB once the subject had shown its intentions.

Sergeant Jared Frio: This is an absolute wasteland. I'm looking around thinking that it couldn't have been this bad. Now I see just how bad the situation really is. And it's opened my eyes up to the fact that my old life as a jerk is over. Our life will never be the same again. It's going to take generations for this land to recover just because a bunch of big-wigs couldn't come to an understanding before they pressed the nuclear button. And my job is as a military non-commissioned officer is to make sure that we are fully capable of being a part of the rebuild process and defending our home from all those who would attempt to take it from us by force. It's a sobering realization that I can't be the jerkface that I used to be. I may still be the same Jared Frio inside, but this Jared Frio has to grow up and become a man. I am a leader molding men in the same vein as the vice-admiral and I have to do this for the sake of our future.

As SecDef and the RADM and CAPT Jack Keeter approach me, it's understandable that they measure me: me as a former civilian of Sunset Valley am not a part of their circle of friends that they had before they came to Sunset Valley, however they also are understanding enough to know that I am being given the opportunity to prove myself as a soldier, as a Marine, to defend my country.

There is an eerie silence that hangs over the graveyard. The dead were here before the war and now more have joined them. And most of the newly dead do not have graves, nor will they ever be memorialized except in our minds. But I will remember each and every one of them and will make the most out of the chance that I have been given to survive in their memory.

The sunset has a horrible beauty, the golden rays of the sun setting below the horizon throwing its light upon a ruined landscape. A landscape that will take hundreds if not thousands of years to be healed. And we, as a species, did this to ourselves. I ask myself "Why?" but the answers don't come.

The streets are deserted as my colleagues and I skirt the perimeter of the blast zone. It is still too radioactive to go near Crater Lake but the center of town was an airburst so there isn't much radioactivity. The Chinese knew to go after Fort Gnome...when you see that Crater Lake stands where Fort Gnome once was. As my eyes take in the devastation wrought upon what used to be a picturesque town, I can barely imagine the terror that the populace felt when they knew in an instant that their life was over, some, before it really began.

I acknowledged RADM Chegwidden's order to continue to take point as we continued our way amongst the ruins.

As we end our extra-bunker foray, I am more and more pensive as my thoughts stumble over themselves trying to make sense out of images that don't seem to make any sense. How could we as a species do this to ourselves? How could we understand the term Mutual Assured Destruction and still hop blithely into the abyss? How could we destroy innocent creatures with whom we'ved shared our existence on this planet, with bombs more powerful than any before in imagination, the same bombs that we said that should never be used...ever? Yet we...we as a species allowed this to happen. We were too egotistical in our perceived invulnerability to look beyond: too sure that no one would be that "unhinged"; to realize that if two irrational leaders were to go beyond goading each other, each daring each other to push the nuclear button, that we as a species were doomed to suffer nuclear h-ellfire.

As VADM Nakamura so eloquently said. "God have mercy on our souls." May God have mercy on us...