jscREED

Claxfrogger, I was in your squad the other night. You seemed pretty cool, had some intereseting things to say. Dished out commands like they were going out of style, utilizing your command map to the fullest. Took an awful lot of beer breaks though, left me twiddling my thumbs in some extremly hostile enviroments, laying heavy cover fire to protect your hide while you saturated yourself with another cold one. Even saw you survive a horrendous artillery strike while you were AFK. Amazing stuff. I dove for cover behind a burned out vehicle, just praying to take some collateral damage instead of being blown sky high, and there you were. Standing tall in the middle of the open field with artilery exploding all around, just to walk away unscathed. I never saw fear in your eyes, just tried and true squad leader determination.

You were there for your squad. While listening to the helpless cries of the wounded, covered in the smoke and haze of war, you came through, guns blazing, determined to bring us back alive. When i asked you which road on the map we should take to reach our objective you clearly pointed out to me that in BF2 you do not 'TAKE' a path, you 'MAKE' one, blazed by a hail of digitally encoded bullets and C4. As we stormed the base, squad split into 2 teams, one to flank the CP and one to head a direct attack, you barked out words of encouragement and hope, and lead us into a hard battle. We struggled to capture the control point, but many obstacles blocked our path. I seen horrific visions of squad members rocketed sky high by strategically placed c4 charges. Our armored personel which led the attack were repeatedly struck by incoming stinger missles. Engineers worked furiously to repair our wounded protectors, but were unable to work fast enough, as they all were vaporized by well hidden and unoticed AT squads. I was hidden behind a sand bunker taking fire, wondering just how we would rise above this chaos of war and win the flag. I heard orders being barked out from behind a burned out building, which became our mobile spawn point as Claxfrogger stayed well protected and surveyed the slaughtering of our squad. What we had here was not an easy take over, but we had indeed walked into a well placed trap. Sniper bullets put our members to rest as fast as they could reload. A scan of the area revealed none, well hidden in the brush no doubt. Without armor acting as buffer for us, we were out in the open, taking heavy fire and unable to rush the defence due to c4 and claymore placed as a virtual wall of explosives. Just then the sounds of jet engines rushing to our aid rang through my ears. The sound of hope, no doubt, thousands of feet above and in an attack swoop. As i lay in excitement, thinking this may be our break, I hear confirmation on the VOIP "Attack jet enroute, ETA 1 minute to bombing. Rush the flag after the smoke clears!!!" The sounds of bombs dropping never sounded so sweet, digital representations of men flying through the sky, the sounds of jet engines racing from the scene, the silence that followed. Ahhh, open ground. We all rise, as if on a braodway show, and rush the flag. 3 men race for the flag, 2 more search the perimeter. I can remember the blank look on Claxfroggers face as he stood there, completly still. I wait for cheers of exclimation, of joy, maybe an 'at a boy' ............... and it all hit me at once. The lack of movement from our squad leader, the hiss of another cold one being opened, the sound of someone yelling "dinner" and a headset hitting the floor over claxfrogers VOIP, the red dot directly on top of our squad leader, revealed by our commanders map scan, and the digital scream of our squad leader being taken down by a lone wolf, and the sound of a stray claymore that took out our flag team. Before i could move i knew it was too late. Our spawn point was gone, taken from us by his desire for the sweet nectars of the man downstairs and a stray soldier left behind that finished the job. I let my excitement overcome me and leave me wide open to the shotgun blast from the opposing team that left me looking towards the clouds, wondering what went wrong and how this could happen. Why me?

I never did find out what happened, plagued by poor connection quality and a dog that has an uncontrollable lust for ethernet cables I can only wonder if the team pulled through. Claxfroger, our team put faith in you, and you lead us within inches (or ounces) of our goal. But when it came down to the final minutes, you abandoned us, left us open.......till next time