Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC #7) by Scott Hildreth Read Free Book Online Page B

with Suzanne while they were dodging bullets and returning fire under someone else’s command.
    Someone far less capable of protecting them than me.
    “You know,” I said as I lifted my head. “Most of the men think I’m lucky or something.”
    She turned toward me and wiped her eyes. “And you think you have some sixth sense about danger or whatever.”
    I nodded my head. “Men are going to die in this war, Suzanne. I can’t change that. But what I can do is do my best to protect the men in my command. In my platoon. And in doing so, we rid this earth of what is evil, one bad guy at a time.”
    “You know what’s sad? I can’t argue with you. I want to, but I can’t, because you won’t listen. You think you’re a superhero or something. It’s been almost five years, Alec. Five years. Five years of me sitting here crying myself to sleep, waiting on the next letter, and hoping each time I go to the mailbox I’m not going to be met by two Marines in dress blues who are here to tell me the man I love is coming home in a god damned flag covered box.”
    Apparently I wasn’t the only one worried about me coming home in a casket.
    I stood from my seat. “I can’t sit here and let my men die.”
    She stomped her foot on the floor so hard she shook the pictures hanging on the wall. “You’re not obligated to protect them. Your obligation is to be my husband.”
    I pressed my cupped hands to the outside of my thighs and stood erect. After clearing my throat, I recited the oath I had taken upon entry to the Marine Corps.
    "I, Alec James Jacob, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice . So help me God ,” I said, pronouncing each and every word clearly and precisely.
    She blinked her eyes and stared.
    “I took an oath before God, before the flag, and in the presence of an officer of the United States Marine Corps; and, I took an oath to be your husband. You took one as well, Suzanne. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Well, this is the worse and the sickness . I’m upholding my end of the two oaths I took. I’m still your husband. And, until this god forsaken war is over, I’m going to be a Marine,” I said.
    “You’re always right, aren’t you?” she asked.
    I cocked my head to the side, shrugged my shoulders, and smirked.
    “Go find Osama or Saddam or whoever it is you’re trying to find, kill that son-of-a-bitch, and come home, okay?” she said as she slowly walked in my direction.
    “So, we’re good on this?” I asked as I spread my arms wide.
    “As good as we’re going to be,” she said as we embraced.
    And that was all I could have asked for, because even when Suzanne and I were at our worst, we were better than any other married couple on earth.
    And I loved her for it.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Summer 2005, Haditha, Iraq
    In a briefing with my commander, I learned a six-man Marine sniper unit had been overrun outside the city of Haditha, and all six men were eventually killed. Five of the Marines died relatively quickly, possibly executed as soon as they were identified as US Marines. The one Marine who lived – while covered in blood and stripped of his uniform – was paraded through the city with the five dead members of his unit, and the event was videotaped and played on Iraqi television. Later, the sixth Marine’s throat was cut by his captors.
    Two days later, Operation Quick Strike began, and 1,000 Marines were sent into the city – not as a retaliatory action – but in an attempt to identify and capture the insurgents who had overtaken the city. At the onset of the operation, an amphibious assault vehicle carrying