It was May 1998, when we suddenly had a tragic moment. It’s a tragedy that claimed not only money, but also lives. It was a hot morning when I found myself sitting at the classroom of my college. It was a strange day when things were too quiet in the morning. The class was supposed to start at 08.30, but very few people came that day. The teachers were absent and even the office boy were nowhere to be seen.
Some people were even too scared to get out from the campus building. I didn’t have much time to think and rushed to save my car at the parking lot. People were running everywhere and cars drove like crazy trying to find a safe spot. There’re no visible threats yet at that time, but I didn’t want to take any risk. I hit the gas and drove my car to the residential complex, which was about 3 kilometers from my campus, followed by some of my friends and other people from the shopping mall nearby.
The residential complexes were also in panic. People were looking at each other with confusing expressions. The phone lines were busy and the sirens started to roar, meaning that we should be wary and took cover. I called my parents at home far away from my campus and they’re ok. They told me to stay here and don’t try to go home yet as the situation was still dangerous. Well, my parents were a lot safer in their house, and I was much safer in here too.
So, here I was, stuck in my boarding house / dormitory, along with some of my friends and many other local residents. The girls and women gathered in some of the houses, terrified and looked shocked. Few men were busy comforting them, but apparently didn’t make things better. Rumors said that the mobs were near and approaching the area.
Soon enough, I saw some men did more useful things like making themselves weapons. Any kind of things could be used as a weapon. So I decided to join them and made myself one or two weapons. We even prepared two buses, just in case we needed to evacuate from the residential area. One man took command as the leader setting barricades along the road so that the mob couldn’t enter the area. We even prepared few Molotov cocktails and fireworks just in case the situation got out of control. That was far more useful rather than crying and hiding.
Time went by fast. My stomach told me it’s time for lunch. So I took a moment to eat my lunch at my boarding house. I still didn’t believe things could be like this. It’s like we’re going for a war or something. Praying was the best thing we could do, hoping the situation didn’t get much worse. Few people gathered near the front gate of the residential area and other people seemed busy searching for information using mobile phones and walkie-talkies. It’s said that some places in the city were already burnt down and robbed. Stores were closed and the streets were full of barricades and angry mobs.
When the sun started to disappear behind the clouds, I saw thick smokes coming from the direction of the shopping mal nearby. I took my binoculars and rushed to the roof of my boarding house. My binoculars could only see 1000 meters radius. Although the distance to the shopping mal was about three times longer than 1000 meters, I could still see that the shopping mal was already under attack and had been set on fire. The view was much better from there so I decided to spent longer time watching things.
Funny thing, I was too busy watching the surroundings hundreds meters away that I didn’t realize a man was watching me not far from my boarding house. He waved his hand toward me, asking me to come down to him. He looked polite and nice, so I walked toward him. After a few conversations, he turned out to be a local resident who lived nearby. “How did you know that was a good spot?” He asked.
“Well, that happens to be my boarding house and I know I can get a good view from there”. I replied.
He told me to wait a moment and took out a scope from the bag which he carried. The scope looked better and more sophisticated than mine. “Wanna try this?” He asked with a big grin on his face.
“Let’s find ourselves a good spot.” I smiled and walked back to the high spot on the roof of my boarding house.
The view from the scope was excellent but what I saw was not a good thing to see. The shopping mal had been robbed and set on fire. But unfortunately, the mobs couldn’t get to the residential area because the army had arrived and barricaded the location. Few panzers, tanks, and military vehicle were ready along with military troops equipped with guns. Thank God…
Suddenly I realized that the scope I was holding was not an ordinary scope. The man told me that it was a scope from a sniper rifle. But he didn’t bring the rifle with him. He said that it was too dangerous. The man told me stories that he used to be in the military and trained as a sniper. Gosh, my heart pounded hard as I like to imagine myself being a sniper, and there I was, face to face with a real sniper.
We couldn’t see much longer as the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the sky got dark. All the men were not allowed to enter their houses and were told to stand guard at the front gates / barricades. The women and children were told to stay inside and took cover in their own houses. We slept on the streets that night with cardboards as the mattresses and the stars as the roof.
The man with the scope told me lots of stories while we slept and guard the front gates. He said not to worry as he was sure that the army would hold back the mobs and we would be just fine. He was a former sniper and had retired. He looked a bit old, but still in good shape. I enjoyed his stories so much as we talked about his experiences as a sniper for almost 3 hours. He told me that he was leaving to another city 2 days from that time and asked me to keep his stories for myself. It looked like he just needed someone to share his experiences as he didn’t share any confidential or important information anyway.
Being a sniper turned out to be boring and not as exciting as I would have imagined. The main duty of a sniper is searching and gathering information about the enemies. Much likes a secret agents or informants, but we do it from a long distance and cannot allow ourselves to be spotted by enemies. Waiting and watching are their most frequent jobs. They have to wait in the same spots for hours and days. They even have to bring plastic bags for them to take a pee or take a leak. The most dangerous enemies for snipers are of course the enemy snipers. Snipers cannot risk themselves to be spotted as they will be killed on the spot. Snipers become the primary target for the enemies to be eliminated.
Snipers are like ghosts. They start their training with short range guns and later proceed with reaction shots target practice. As they advance, the distance of the shots gets longer and longer until they finally get a chance to hold the real sniper rifle. A sniper should and must kill with only one or two shots while maintaining concentrations and reflexes, which usually got disturbed because of lack of sleep and long waiting period. Most snipers have good stability with their breath, along with great coordination between their eyes and hands. It means you cannot have those shaky hands to shoot with a rifle. They have to calculate the winds, distances, directions, weather, and many other things before actually make a shot.
The man left me at about 12 o’clock at night because he had to pack for his departure the next morning. Never saw him again since then. I fell asleep at about an hour later, and woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning. I slept on the streets all night, along with other local residents. Things were pretty quiet and the riots seemed to be over. I rushed to my boarding house and packed my things as I thought this was a good chance for me to go home.
Three girls rode along with me on my way back home. They’re all my friends from campus and their homes were on the same route as mine. We left the complex at about 05.30 in the morning, passing the soldiers who still held their automatic weapons toward us. But when they saw we’re students, they let us through. The streets and highways were full of debris and trashes. Many buildings were burnt and scorched. There’s nobody on the streets and no cars too. It’s just us alone. It was a long and tiring day. The ride home was quiet and scary but we got home just fine.
Ivan the Freelancer
1 comment:
Wow, scary.. Hope you're ok..
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