Free Hell Happened by Terry Stenzelbarton, Jordan Stenzelbarton

This time they were aiming at Eddie and not Jerry, which was both good and bad.
    He heard his truck start up and knew it’d be here in less than 15 seconds.
    Three more shots came from the building and Eddie returned each shot with one of his own as Terrill screeched into the parking lot as fast as the big truck could maneuver. He slid the truck between Jerry and the building from where the shots were coming, slamming on the brakes as he was shifting it into park before jumping out to help Jerry load the two men.
    The unmoving Jeff was freed first so Terrill could grab him while Jerry worked on freeing Tony.
    “Oh, Christ,” Terrill exclaimed as he pulled Jeff’s jacket. He immediately let go, instead grabbed at the fragmentation grenade that fell out of Jeff’s shirt. Jerry didn’t see it and didn’t look up. He was focused on cutting through the last wire holding Tony to the post.
    Jerry never saw the grenade or the last act of heroism by the former soldier.
    ~      ~       ~
    Terrill’s life ended six seconds after the pin popped off the grenade inside of Jeff’s jacket, but it stretched out long enough for Terrill to feel like he was redeeming himself for the life he’d lived.
    In those six seconds, Terrill’s life did flash before him.
    He’d been a coward in elementary school, beaten up and picked on by others because he was small, weak and passive. In high school he had few friends and played no sports because he had always been afraid of losing or getting hurt. When he joined the Army after high school, he hoped they’d teach him to get over his fears and help instill in him the courage he never had.
    He became a communications specialist and found he was not like a lot of other soldiers who were a little afraid, but ready to fight. It was what they were trained to do and he heard others talk about how they were ready to be deployed and see some action.
    Terrill joined their bravado talk even though inside he knew he was a lot afraid.
    His first tour as a private, he was assigned to a signal company and spent most of his time fixing radios. It was boring, but not life threatening. After 12 months he was rotated back stateside. Six months later he was scheduled to be deployed again with his battalion.
    He was assigned to a transportation unit and worked for the unit’s commander, Lt. (P) Luther Morgan, as radio operator. Where ever Lt. Morgan went in the field, Terrill was there with the radio.
    Lt. Morgan was a West Point graduate on the fast track for promotions and was currently on his third tour in Afghanistan. He’d already served as a platoon leader for an infantry unit twice, and was waiting for his captain’s bars to be awarded. The IED which killed him exploded and the HUMVEE flipped 270 degrees landing on the passenger side. The lieutenant, outside whose door the device exploded, was dead before the truck landed. His upper body landed in Terrill’s lap.
    Morgan’s captain’s bars were awarded posthumously.
    The specialist driving the HUMVEE died hours later from shrapnel wounds.
    Terrill was stunned, but never lost consciousness. He felt a lot of pain in his right leg when it was crushed, and he knew he was partially deaf. He couldn’t move because of the equipment crushing him and he cried and prayed and screamed for help as soldiers from his unit struggled to cut him and the others out of the HUMVEE, all while taking fire from insurgents. The fire from the explosion burned his right side with an intense pain like none Terrill had ever felt before.
    He cried in the hospital and refused the medal offered him by the officer who visited him at Walter Reed. He just wanted to hide from the fear he always felt.
    He started drinking after he left the hospital. He couldn’t hold the most menial job because he was drowning in the bottle. His family tried to help, they tried to get him to seek professional help, offered him money and a place to stay, but Terrill just wanted to be away