Lost Battles

He fights the other one and quickly subdued him who is holding a knife as the fight carried on the bathroom and back to the kitchen. Ralph then throws the man into a chair. Ralph pulls out another chair and decided to spare the man's life on the account of him not intentionally harming Ralph. Brandon walks into a room and sees a family and two soldiers with rifles. He hold his rifle up but doesn't fire then Joel shoots from behind the wall and the family quickly flees.

After returning to camp, Joel shows Brandon a email Catherine sent to Ralph about her knowledge of his lunch with the other woman, leaving Joel and Brandon confused about the situation and what will happen to Ralph’s marriage.

At home, Joel is sleeping but is woken up by the sound of his phone and answers it.

“Joel, half of our unit is dead.” Frank tells Joel in a frantic state.

“No, that can't be.”

Joel went into the hospital after being wounded in a battle. While he was recovering, several enemy soldiers found out about the house raids and planned their own attack. Nighttime comes around and the unit were traveling in another village. The soldiers beginning firing at the unit, with some being wounded and grenades being thrown at them and the trucks exploding.

A air strike occurs when two black hawk helicopters arrives. The helicopters begin firing at the enemy soldiers on the ground and in the houses. While assisting to one of his members, Ralph is hit from the back suffering a minor injury. But he gets up, holding a rifle and runs to a gray helicopter and shoots at it.

Almost the unit survived, with the remaining members being taken to the hospital.

“What happened to Ralph?”Joel asked Frank.

“He was transferred to another hospital.” Frank replied.

Within the morning hours after the attack, Frank leads the remaining members to back to camp. Then a phone rings and he answers it.

“Guys, we're going home.” He reminded his fellow soldiers that they are being withdrawn from the country and going back home. Joel received the news and went home with the rest of the unit. He rode in a taxi to his home to reunite with Vanessa and meet their two children for the first time.

Brandon opens the door of his apartment with a look of despair on his face and his wife, Melanie sees him, welcoming him home. She noticed how upset he looked and remained silent for a quick second.

“Your brother is coming over.” She said of his younger brother of four years, Terrence. The last time Brandon saw his brother was at Terrence’s high school graduation.

“I will see him later on.” He retreats to his room.

A hour and a half hour later, a knock is heard on the front door and Brandon opens it seeing that it is Joel instead of Terrence.

“We need to talk about Ralph.” Joel said after entering.

“Can it wait? My brother will be arriving soon.”

“I don't think so. Vanessa and I talked about him last night and Catherine had yet to say anything to him.”

“Look Melanie just took the kids shopping and I was going to sleep until Terrence came.”

“Ralph isn't even home yet and she is going to say to him. I'm going to the hospital to see him before she does.”

“She doesn't even know he's in recovery.”

“We’ll just fly out there in the morning.”

A few seconds later, Terrence enters the apartment and greets Brandon and Joel. He had looked at Brandon like he had never left.