A Letter Home
Posted By: Hikaru-119<hikaru119@email.com>
Date: 3 October 2003, 12:50 PM
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File: LT00148/HM/2a
Date: 25 October 2541
To: Adam Gless Civilian key G7712-099-3345 KL
From: PFC. Lucas Gless Military ID G7712-118-0020 KM
Subject: A Letter Home
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To Dad(and anyone that intercepts this),
Hello from Hell. At least that's what it has been for the past seven days. I'm writing this message from the front. On the surface of Draco III to be more exact. This is the first letter I've been able to write in a month and I fear it may be my last. I wish to get my final words out should I die on this campaign. So I'll shall hurry and pray these words of mine get out of the system.
As both of you know this date marks the one year anniversary of my enlisting into the UNSC Marine Corps. I have seen half a dozen planets glassed and have lost hundreds of would be friends to the Covenant. I've recieved three purple hearts since the last time I wrote and I am tired of war.
This enemy we face is implacable. Day after day we shoot it out and expend thousands of rounds of ammuntion and kill nearly just as many thousands, but they still keep coming. I don't know what keeps them going. Intelligence tells us that they fight for some damned religion, but logically it makes no sense. When we beat them on the ground they just glass the planet from orbit and barely any of us are lucky to get out before that happens.
Their soldiers hurl themselves at us until we expend our ammunition and don't stop. Wave after wave of attacks come for hours sometimes days at a time. And when they fail they send in the best they've got.
In the night is when they attack us with Banshee air raids, following up with the normal hordes of Grunts. Should that fail they scatter us with their Ghosts then break our defense and minds apart with their damned Jackals.
When we do sleep in their ravenous attempts to break our will and our minds they howl an alien tongue so horrifyingly evil you'd think they were a pack of wolves starving for blood. Even now as I write this the enemy is on patrol above my fox hole with a pair of dropships searching their damndest for me and my squad. At least what is left of it.
Do not take this example as the norm though. On the ground we do not always lose. As of just yesterday we had our third ground victory on Draco III and even managed to advance to another one of their positions. That was until they forced us back to Fire Base Alpha where they slaughtered us. To make matters worst the Covenant have no restraint in mutilating our men and hanging their corpses out on display for when the recon goes out to see where they are holding up.
I hope and pray I can leave very soon. This place reeks of death and decay. Of the original 125 men of my company only 12 of us remain. We managed to patch together a mix unit, but most of us on the edge. Some of the men have completely snapped and lost their lives, while others are as silent as space and live on to survive.
Dad I'm begging you to pray for humanity. We have had dozens of ground victories. Many of which were all thanks to some anonymous group. The Spartans or at least that is the rumor as to what they are called. I've think I saw one of their members, but I was unable to speak to him. Unfortunately though in space we are losing and it is there where we need our victories the most. Last I heard the fleet did manage to stave off the glassing of this wretched world saving me from an unfair death.
Normally I would not write as such. But as I finish this letter up now I will get the last thoughts and words out of my head for today.
Tell mom and I love 'em. I know you shouldn't lie, but tell the Church I'm doing just fine. Just make sure no one but you reads this letter. And please deliver this message to everyone.
Enlist, donate, pray. Do whatever to help us. Fight, live, and win.
Sincerely your loving son,
Lucas
P.S. Dad we can't afford to lo-
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The letter ends, the writer dies, and the message is never sent. Last words are lost in the searing heat of plasma's hell fire.
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