1. The Mission
! 20th May, 1969, 0030 hours. It was a rainy night on the chopper, in the middle of the
North Atlantic. Cpt. Kill, Sgt. Lock, Cpl. Break, Cpl. Mac and Pvt. Boom had been in the
chopper for half an hour, and it had started to rain heavily. Because they had to rope down
at a moment’s notice, they couldn’t close the side door of the chopper. Within a minute
they were all wet, if not drenched from head to toe. They were in the middle of an op that
would be taking place on a container ship in the middle of the North Atlantic. In an hour’s
time, the 5-strong SAS team would be fast-roping down on to the deck of the container
ship and planting a bomb that would sink the ship. They would hopefully also be fast
enough to locate and recover the sheets of important intelligence about the Soviet Union’s
armies. The SAS team members were each carrying MP5SDs, which was a silenced
version of the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun specially designed for special
operations. They were also wearing dark green-black camouflaged BDUs (Battle Dress
Uniforms) to camouflage them in the night. The commandos would be encountering a lot
of heavy enemy resistance, so they had been specially selected for this mission from the
entire Regiment (Special Air Service). A special mock-up of the container ship was
provided for their training. They had trained and practiced extensively for this mission
during the past 2-3 months, and had developed a special bond between each other. Their
teamwork was flawless because of the training. Each of them covered each other’s backs,
and they never left a man behind. During training, the troopers had created an extremely
detailed battle plan, which in its short version dictates that Cpt. Kill was to plant the bomb
in the engine room at all costs, with the other team members providing support. The
helicopter flew on as Cpt. Kill and his team went over the complicated plan one more time
with his team members.
Foster 8/5/2013!
most people think of choppers
as having doors

2. ! The moment had finally arrived. Cpt. Kill went down the rope first, followed by Sgt.
Lock, Cpl. Break, Cpl. Mac and Pvt. Boom. As the SAS troopers landed, they already had
their MP5SDs in the ready position. They efficiently took out all the enemies at the bow of
the ship, then moved on to the middle. They’ed roped down on to the front of the ship, and
were slowly making their way to the bridge of the container ship, searching for the pieces
of intelligence along the way. At first, they encountered heavy resistance, but as they
progressed, the resistance let up a bit. As the team moved along the length of the ship,
Sgt. Lock consulted a receiver that was getting signals from a tracking device implanted in
the paper. He found out that the intelligence was in the cargo hold of the ship.!
! “Let’s go, troopers!”, Cpt. Kill shouted over the roaring wind and rain. They made
their way over to the engine room and planted the bomb. Then, they went to the cargo
hold. Surprisingly, overwhelming resistance was in the cargo hold hiding, waiting for the
SAS team to come in. The SAS team had thought that because of the lack of troopers on
the deck of the ship, the cargo hold would be easy to penetrate. They were wrong. 20
minutes later, Cpl. Mac was down, and they were still fighting. !
! “Man down! Man down!”, Sgt. Lock screamed. Pvt. Boom immediately went to Cpl.
Mac’s side and gave him a shot of morphine. He used Cpl. Mac’s morphine, as he might
need his own for later. He discovered that Cpl. Mac had taken a bullet in the thigh, and it
had hit the bone then gone strait through his leg. Pvt. Boom realized that the bone was
completely severed. Pvt. Boom, using all of his first aid skills, managed to stop the
bleeding and stabilize him after a few minutes. Pvt. Boom then called for an immediate
medevac using his radio. Meanwhile, the other members of the team defeated all the
enemies in the cargo hold and started to move toward the location of the intelligence. !
! Sgt. Lock discovered that the papers were in one of the cargo crates. He put a
breaching charge on the door of the crate, then shouted “Clear!”, activated the charge and
stepped back. The breaching charge effectively vaporized the metal doors, and the SAS
Foster 8/5/2013!
paragraph
slowly making
paragraph
this sentence should go before
the previous sentence to keep the
time sequence
paragraph

3. troopers stormed into the crate, Sgt. Lock taking point. Cpl. Break was just about to grab
the pieces of paper containing important intel when a huge explosion rocked the ship and
sent the troopers crashing to the floor.
“What the hell was that!?”, Cpt. Kill yelled into the radio.
! The response came back from the helicopter overhead, “Apparently the bomb you
planted had a fuse malfunction and it detonated early.”
! “How did that happen!?”, Cpt. Kill exclaimed.
! “We don’t know, and we probably will never know.”, radioed the heli overhead.
! Cpt. Kill now calmly said into the radio, “Can you arrange an immediate evac at the
stern of the ship?”
! “It’s going to be rough, but we can make it. ETA 5 minutes. Make sure you’re there.”
! Cpt. Kill said to his teammates, “We are leaving, people! Come on, let’s get off this
big ship. It’s sinking!” Sgt. Lock quickly grabbed the sheets of paper containing the
intelligence and started to sprint toward the exit. The other troopers followed. 2 of them
carried the injured Cpl. Mac on their backs. The SAS team was running along a corridor
when the team heard a loud, deep boom. Suddenly, a wall burst and huge torrents of
water flooded the entire hallway. Sgt. Lock was knocked backwards by the force of the
water. When Sgt. Lock had regained his balance, all 5 commandos ran even faster. They
had finally reached the deck of the ship when it started to keel over. All the commandos
jumped aboard the rear loading ramp of the chopper, but Pvt. Boom missed. He tried
again, and he caught the ramp by his bare fingertips. Cpt. Kill immediately stood up from
the bench and pulled him aboard to safety. All the troopers got comfortable within the
helicopter, and the rear loading ramp closed up to seal the heli’s cargo compartment. It
was 0500 hours, and it was starting to get light already. As they started to return to base,
the commandos in the chopper could just barely make out the sinking container ship
Foster 8/5/2013!
indent
always indent first line of a
paragraph (including indenting
first line of dialogue)

4. against the driving wind and rain. Cpt. Kill thought, “Good riddance, the mission’s finally
over.”
Foster 8/5/2013!
Foster,
You are good at creating pictures
of complex scenes with your
writing. The helicopter, storm,
getting down to the bow and the
blast are all vivid events for me.
Good, concise writing.
There are details, though, that
would give the reader a fuller
picture. For instance, giving detail
about color, sound, distances,
clothing, etc.
Your characters are obviously
well-trained soldiers, but who are
they? Although combat
description is entertaining, It’s
hard to care about it when we
don’t know anything about the
people. Or at least how they
relate to one another.
Think about ways to make your
people more accessible to the
reader. Remember, the enemy in
the story won’t read your
revelations :), so it’s OK to tell
what they main characters are
thinking and feeling.
Your fan,
MSD