They stared at the crisp, sinister sky. The stars were so bright and so close Max thought he could touch them. Guide me through this night, he silently begged the bright spots in the blue-black sky, guide us through this unknown, and the surely unfamiliar hell my brothers and I are about to enter. “Hey, man, what the fuck are we doing here?” Colin Haferty, the Louisiana native asked in his sweet, Deep South accent. “We are going to kick some ass!” Jock Stapleton, the man from the Bronx answered. “Hoo-rah!” The three buddies resounded. They had been together since the beginning in boot camp on Parris Island, and now found themselves on a border in a foreign land, prepared for such an occasion. No brothers could have been closer. They sat next to their green Humvee, waiting for the orders to march into the ancient sands of Iraq. They had been waiting, bored out of their minds, for the past four weeks.
