The helicopter blades thwapped with growing intensity as the ground began to move away. Gunfire was still raining upon them from the trees. It was a miricle anyone at all made it to the evac zone.

What was left of a force of over 10,000 soldiers, had been reduced to three men from a single platoon. As of now, everyone else was missing, captured, or dead. The three men, Harold, Joe, and Spike, had all served together in the reagion for years. But they had lost so many others that had been there with them all along... so many just a few moments ago. . .

The helicopter Climbed above the trees, and quickly began to leave the area. Anti Aircraft guns began to shoot up at them. The co pilot, slid down from the front seat and grabbed hold of a mounted gun and began firing back.

"Hold on! We ain't out of this yet!" The Pilot yelled, and then juked the Helicopter violently in a different direction.

Harold was gripping onto one of the sides of the heli for dear life. Joe, who had been injured badly on the ground, rolled nearly out of the craft. It was Spike who reached over and grabbed him, keeping him from falling out.

Within a few minutes the helicopter steadied and everyone was able to catch their breaths. Spike and Harold immediatly resumed first aid to Joe. He had been shot three times, one of them grazing his eye.

"Alright, I think we are in the clear." The pilot said.

"We good!?" Harold shouted back, barely able to hear him.

"Yeah, dont worry, we are dropping you boys off at the command center, they are gonna take good care of you." The pilot replied.

***

Two weeks later, the three survivors sat on a bench at the airport, waiting for the go ahead to board a plane back to their homeland. Harold and Spike dressed in their finest military dress, looking tired. Their friend Joe was being escorted by a nurse, and remained in a wheel chair.

Still it had been decided by the higher ups that the three of them had served their nation well. They were to be sent home from the fighting, never having to return here. Now they were free men.

"Sal would have loved to be here." Harold said somberly. "And Eddie, and Nash... Colonel Stand, any of them."

"Yeah. We are the lucky ones." Spike said sarcastically. "Gettin to go home when our brothers cant."

"It shouldn't have went down like that." Harold admitted. "Back there, I mean."

"They were waiting for us." Joe agreed.

"It was a damn mess." Spike also agreed.

There was a long moment while none of them spoke. The look on their faces was all the feel they needed about the past.

"So," Joe said after a while. "What now?"

"We go home. See our families." Harold said.

"Whats left of them." Spike said.

"So thats it then?" Asked Joe. "We just move on from all that? We just..."

Harold could see the tears in his eyes. He shed a tear himself, knowing those images he could never erase.

"No." Harold said after a minute. "I don't just move on from this. Worse off, we wont be able to escape it. They are already printing us up as heroes! We will be paraded around the nation and put on every local news!"

Spike sighed and stared at his feet. "I don't feel like a hero."

"Neither do I." Said Joe.

"You know," Said Harold. "We came here as soldiers, and leaving broken men, in a war that we didnt start and didnt end."

"I say we do our best to remind them all back home who didnt get to come home. Because we three know the truth." Joe said. "From the bad intel to the ambush, we were set up."

The group agreed in unison, then paused the conversation again.

A moment later Harold said "It won't be the same anymore, back there."

"No it won't." Spike agreed.