Keep Going

• Qasim Aamir, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2015

As the helicopter came landing in the Fleet Base East in Sydney, I held the necklace carrying the picture of my three year old son. My name is Ryan Kingston. I’m a sergeant in the Royal Australian Navy and I just came from Afghanistan. I’m going to burst into tears because I’m about to hold my three year old son for the first time. I stomp my foot on the Australian soil and hold it there for a short while so I can let the clean Australian air drift into my nose. I was in Afghanistan for 6 months. As the rotor blades of the helicopter slow down I see my wife holding my son walking towards me. I grab my son from her grasp and hug him as tight as I can.
As I walked into my sturdy one storey house I felt my miserable heart pumping as fast as a cheetah . The reason is that I lost my best and only mate in Afghanistan. He got shot by a sniper and on that day I thought I lost my life. But I didn’t stop there just because I thought I lost my life. I kept going because I knew I had a life to live even though he didn’t. It all started when Captain Lobo told us that we had to go to the city of Kabul. We flew in a helicopter and landed at 9:17 am. We landed on some hills with dried grass flying everywhere. Our mission was to rescue 8 hostages from the terrorists. I set up the equipment with my friend. We had 6 hours before the helicopters came back to pick us up. My friend, I and three other soldiers slid from the hills down onto the ashy concrete of the city. As I crashed in to the concrete hard, I could smell burning fire from the cars straight away. I saw my friend’s blonde hair already had some grime in it. It was already 10:43 am as we walked past the ruins of a demolished building. My friend whispered to me “I can’t wait to see my parents in two weeks and lay in the Aussie...“
A roaring noise cut off the last words, as if I was standing next to a rocket blasting off. Suddenly red covered my friends smiling face. He fell straight to the ground. “Oh no”, I didn’t think this day would come so early. I grabbed him from his waist and put him on my shoulder. As my allies fired at the sniper a small house about 15 metres ahead was opened and 8 people came running out screaming with their hands held high, screaming. I signalled them to come this way. The shooting stopped and I ran forward and grabbed a child who looked about 4 years old. The rest of the civilians kept running, I knew I was in danger of getting shot. As I ran behind the building our helicopter came into view.