The French Town

In the far reaches of his vision, he could see trees swaying in the breeze. Their lush green leaves glinted in the soft summer's sun. The field surrounding those trees was rich and pleasant; it was nothing like what he thought of as a battlefield that would, in time, be the death bed of so many men just like

him. These were the thoughts racing through Jack Dawson's mind as a young man trapped in World War II. He had never wanted to fight in this crazy bloodbath the politicians called a war, but he had been drafted and was given no other option.

"I'm only seventeen. What did they think they were doing stealing my life from me like this?" Jack though, wiping a lone drop of sweat from his brow.

He drew his eyes closer to the foreground of this picture, no, this reality. He had to keep telling himself that every few minutes. It was all still so hard to believe. There was a small town below him. It was simple and complex at the same time. Everything needed to make a comfortable place to live was here. There was a barber shop, hotel, and little stores all along the streets carrying items needed for daily living. And of course, the cozy homes were situated comfortably in the midst of it all. The only thing missing was people, and it made Jack's skin crawl. He felt wrong; this felt wrong. Tearing people

from the one place they knew to be home, so that he and the enemy could turn it into a pile of rubble.

Jack gripped his rifle with both his hands sending a prayer to God that he'd make it

out of this alive. He had a girl back in St. Louis waiting for him. He knew Alice would still be there when he returned; she'd promised him that. He would have to hold up his end of the deal and actually come back though for that to happen. Then, there was Alan. The only real friend he'd made in this place had been killed three days earlier in a trench, and he had asked Jack with the last few breaths he'd had left to make sure his little brother, Jimmy, was taken care of. Jack had every intention

of fulfilling Alan's final request.

He had to get out of this church tower first though. His platoon had been given orders to knock out a German squad a few days behind them. Sergeant Marshall wanted

Jack to pick a few of them off before the rest of their team finished them on

the other side of the town. That was Jack's job. He was a sniper. It wasn't his fault he'd unintentionally

become an expert shooter. In fact, he almost wished he'd purposefully missed a few targets while he was in training so he could have avoided this nerve-wrecking assignment. He didn't though, and now he was stuck