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Sunday, 02 September 2007 |
The whistle blew and the game began. Being the first game of the day my body was flooded with emotion and my adrenaline was pumping. Three of us on the blue team, with blue fabric tied around our right arms and goggle straps, sprinted to the tape on the right side. My newly acquired Tippmann A-5 felt good in my hands as I ran. Once we got to the tape we began a quick crouched walk up the side of the field. We had gone about 20 yards before we began to take fire.
We then began to belly crawl through the dry, dense brush up to a small hill that provided us with some cover. As we crawled, the sounds of paintballs whizzing overhead could be heard amongst the familiar popping sounds of paintball guns firing. Once we reached the hill we spread out. I took the extreme left of the hill. As I crept to my position I would occasionally peek up over the hill through the brush to try and spot the other team.
Once I reached the left most edge of the hill I tried once again to spot the other team through the dense brush. I could hear them firing their paintball markers but I could not see any of them. Once of my teammates, who had taken the middle area of the hill, was just within my eyesight to my right. I signaled to him to see if he could see any one but his view was as good as mine.
Just then my teammate that had taken the very right side of the hill charged forward in a barrage of gunfire. I heard three people call themselves out one of which was my teammate. Now there were just two of us left behind the hill. The air was quiet now as there were not paintballs flying overhead. I could hear a bird chirping and an airplane going by overhead. However, I could not enjoy this tranquility because I had other matters at hand. Realizing it was now quiet, I was busy trying to calm my breathing as to not give away my location to any of the other team that lay waiting in the brush ahead of me.
As I laid there I could not figure out how many, if any, of the other team were in front of me. Then I look to my left and saw something. The other team had completely advanced down the opposite side of the field past my location. I told my teammate to hold down our position in case there were members of the other team in front of us. I then hopped up and ran.
I strafed laterally the other side glancing to the center to see if there were any members of the other team in the middle of the field. Not seeing any I continued to the opposite side of the field. I then saw that the other team had pushed way up on our left side. They were hammering my teammates, who had tried to move up that side of the field. They had good cover and good numbers. I was now behind them.
The first person I came across I dispatched with threes shots. I then looked up and saw the rest of the opposing team. There were two of them directly in front of me crouched down providing cover fire for two more that were behind a bunker raining fire down on my team. They all had their backs to me and had no idea that I was there. I fired six shots into the group that was immediately in front of me knocking out both of them. I then moved about ten feet ahead and began to unload into the two behind the bunker. They whipped their heads around in disbelief of where the fire was coming from. I immediately took out the left of the two of them and then began directing my fire to the other. Just then a paintball smashed into my leg.
I raised my marker and put my barrel sock on. I looked to see where it had come from. To my shock it had come from the middle of the field. In my hurry to get to the other side of the field I had over looked one guy crouched behind a bunker right in the center of everything. As I walked off the three members of the other team that I had taken out first were there waiting for me, like the great sportsmen that they were, to congratulate me on getting behind them and taking them out. We exchanged laughs and walked over to the dead box.
It was a great way to start of a day of paintball.
Josh "Yeti" Goedl
OCMI Unit Commander |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 16 November 2007 )
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