Mission One: Take no prisoners

This was my first mission.

I am ready for the fight.

I am in top condition.

I kill by the dark moonlight.

I am called to the captain's tent.

He informs me of what I must do.

I am told where I will be sent.

I am not to take any prisoners, too.

Our team meets on the helicopter pad.

The team was a sergeant, a corporal, and I

Between us, not a word was even said,

As we lifted off into the midnight sky.

We land three miles behind enemy lines.

We grab our gear to carry along the way.

We carefully cross a row of the land mines.

Our target is just a half a mile away.

I am told to kill the guards in the shack.

When I am finished then signal to the rest.

I take out my knife from my backpack.

I crawl across the ground on my chest.

Upon the unpainted guard shack, I creep.

I am hidden beneath the dark moonlight.

I stabbed the first one while he took a leak.

The other, I took without much of a fight.

The team approaches from behind.

Their job, now, has just begun.

"Leave me alone and I will be fine."

As I picked up the dead man's gun.

It was the first kill I ever made.

Just look at what I have done.

On the shack floor, there laid,

The body of an old man and his son.

A few months before his seventeenth birthday, Jamal and his father, Roosevelt, found an old truck body at Ben Peeve's Truck savage yard out on Marion Junction Highway. Jamal fell in love with the rusty windowless stepside truck on site. His father reluctantly purchased the old truck body from Mr. Peeve for one hundred dollars. The Ford dealership's black and blue wrecker truck towed the rusty wreck to paint and body shop.

Since Roosevelt owned the local Ford dealership in the small rural town, the truck was restored for almost nothing. Everything was put back just as it was when the original truck was delivered from the factory. The large bumpers and the original grill were re-chromed and glistened brightly in the sunlight. The bench seat was reupholstered with blue tweed fabric and all the windows were replaced. However, Henry custom-made the treated dark brown oak boards for the bed of the truck. The useless old six-cylinder motor and transmission were replaced with a completely chromed high performance 351 Cleveland engine with a Holley four-barrel carburetor and a new racing transmission. The suspension was upgraded and the old radio was replaced with a new Pioneer sound system. Other than that, the rust brown 1964 Ford stepside truck was original.

Jamal's father was an honorably discharged Vietnam veteran. In 1967, at the age of seventeen, Roosevelt enlisted into the Army and served in Heong Nu, Vietnam with the 11^th Calvary. He worked as a mechanic in the motor pool. In 1974, he discharged and returned to Selma to marry Janie Ward. In 1976, the couple opened Walker Automotive. The first location was a small lot on Dallas Avenue. The company quickly grew from a mechanic shop into a small used car dealership. Because of three profitable years in car sales, Roosevelt purchased some property on Highway 80 near Marion Junction. On October 1, 1980, he opened the Walker Ford dealership. Jamal turned seventeen on October 31, 1997 and enlisted into the United States Army a month later.

Right before Jamal graduated from the U. S. Army ranger school, Janie, his mother asked Henry Reed, the supervisor of the paint shop at the dealership, to paint the restored Ford midnight blue with a purple pearl clear coat. His oldest brother, Randall, purchased some special low profile racing tires and custom twenty-inch rims for the restored Ford truck. They were shipped in from the Burnin' Rubber speed shop in Long Beach, California.

The date was Friday, March 30, 2001. Private First Class Jamal Antonio Walker was graduating from the Army Ranger School in Fort Benning, Georgia. Fifteen members of the Walker family came to the U. S. Army Ranger's graduation ceremony. His father and mother drove the freshly painted truck to Fort Benning for his graduation ceremony. Sandra's husband, Darnel Williams, and Reginald, Sandra's son drove Roosevelt's silver gray 1999 Lincoln Continental. Randall, his sister Sandra, and the rest of the family arrived in Darnel's eggshell white Expedition and Randall's royal blue Excursion. Right before the graduation ceremony, Jamal was assigned to the 23^rd Ranger battalion C Company. After the long traditional military graduation ceremony, Jamal decided to take a thirty-day leave and traveled home to rural Selma, Alabama.

For three enjoyable weeks, his days consisted of meeting old high school friends and chatting with Henry at the dealership's paint shop. His nights were occupied with loud wild parties, flirtatious attractive ex-girlfriends, and a lot of club hopping. Because Janie had converted his old bedroom into her home office, Jamal decided to stay at Darnel and Sandra's split level white and brown frame house. Four days before the end of his leave, Jamal hesitantly hugged and kissed his entire family goodbye. He was about to start his long hard drive to Fort Hope and begin his spine tingling journey as an U.S. Army Ranger.