Aug 5, 08:58 AM by Mike Mitrovich
Mission Accomplished: Memories of a 9 year old commando
It wasn’t Vietnam. It was a suburb of Seattle. And it wasn’t a standard issue army helmet. It was a faded white football helmet, far too large for a child’s head, with a facemask that rattled as I walked.
I wasn’t a gorilla and it wasn’t the jungle, though vines were found in plenty and a thick evergreen canopy cast all in shadow.
Our foe: geriatric commandos of doom, hell bent on keeping whippersnappers like us off their property.
Our company:
Karen, the girl I loved to hate and hated that I loved. Marcus, the pastor’s son. Me, the tag along.
Our goal:
A statue of the virgin mother. Pristine. Pretty. Perfect. And protected.
There’s nothing like the sound of pellet fire raining down on an oversized football helmet. Nor the hissing gritted teeth of the old codger firing from the hip like he’s el bandito out for revenge. Every wrinkle, hard etched and quivering with fury.
If you added the ages of my company together, you might reach 25 if you were lucky. Not even a dent in the crusty husk of life currently trying to fill us full of lead. But where he had firepower, we had the shadows, and feet swift like ninjas.
With our ears filled with the swish swish swish of rushing leaves and our enemy’s bellows, we rushed our target.
“Git off that hill you bitches!” growled the old prune. I could hear the tick tick tick of pellets hitting leaves and occassionally the hollow “tock” of a pellet careening off my helmet.
The three of us rushed on. I took up the rear. Not because I was the youngest or slowest, mind you. My job was to draw fire with my helmet to protect me. That, and it kept flopping down over my eyes and I needed to see my compatriots’ feet to keep my bearings.
And before we knew it, 3 sets of hands touched the holy prize and three hearts filled with elation. And with that, we faded back into the bushes, the warbled howls of our frusterated enemy sending us off.
Mission accomplished.
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4 comments on "Mission Accomplished: Memories of a 9 year old commando"
1
Mike,
That’s a wonderful retelling of your adventures as a kid. I love memories like that. They really are priceless.
When I first started reading the story it reminded me of that show “Band of Brothers”. Have you seen it? It was an HBO original series, and now you can get the whole series on DVD for around $50 I think. It’s well worth it though, everything about it is phenomenal.
Hope you’re doing well. Haven’t talked to you in a while. Just wanted to stop by and say hi.
2
Nice posts there. Thank’s for the interesting information.
3
Nice posts.
4
The kid is cute! Thanks for the post and information.