The Soldier's Battleground part 3

The ominous sound had stopped and some of the Arkadian soldiers heaved a sigh of relief, at least one problem was out of the way. Jun on the other hand was in a bit of a pinch, in order to run without a problem, he had left his rifle behind and was now pretty much defenseless. Well he did have his bayonet with him in its sheath, but that would only be effective if he was right in front of an enemy soldier. That left only one thing to do, run straight at the enemy and take a weapon from them. He pulled out his bayonet and scrambled the rest of the way to the machine gun nest, upon arriving there he found one of the gunners severely wounded but still alive. A quick slitting of the throat took care of that problem and the enemy soldier lay still.
That’s out of the way, now where is a weapon I can use?
Jun quickly looked around for something to use but found nothing of use.
“Great just my luck!” He ducked to avoid some enemy fire. A logical answer would be to use the machine gun as a weapon, but this weapon was meant to be operated by two people if not three, and the fact that it was damaged by the grenade he threw didn’t help the cause. His predicament was answered in a roundabout way, when a fellow soldier dived into the machine gun pit and after firing off a round, got shot in the chest and fell down. Jun reached over and gave basic first aid to the man before taking the rifle and ammo belt. The fighting had now become close quarter once again and soon the first line of enemy defense for the city had fallen. But at the rate the Arkadian soldiers were being killed, taking the city was becoming a major challenge.
This was war though and they had orders, so Jun along with the remaining Arkadian forces pushed into the city. While providing good cover to hide behind, taking the town brought about its own problems. Enemy snipers now joined the fray, alongside more enemy machine guns. The fighting had become gruesome and just trying to survive was a problem in of itself.
Jun and a few other men had just successfully taken over another machine gun position, but this time the gun was undamaged and fully operational. With the help of the others, Jun rolled the gun into a position that would be able to fire at the enemy. Once everything was set up, Jun opened fire on the enemy soldiers, making many of them dive for cover as to not get hit. With many casualties and wounded happening along the way, the Arkandian soldiers slowly pushed into the town and started to drive the enemy back. Things seemed to be going fairly well considering the circumstances. And soon over half the town had fallen under Arkadian control. Enemy resistance had all but fallen and victory seemed close at hand. In all of the gore and bloodshed, Sergeant Jun Nihei had successfully led and captured three machine gun positions and killed many enemy soldiers, but all that was all for not. Jun was making his way to an enemy position alongside his fellow soldiers when an explosion went off. He felt his body become airborne for a few seconds before blacking out from the force of impact as his body slammed into a nearby building.
As the 276th battalion pushed the enemy back, with the losses they incurred, the other battalion was called to provide reinforcements. Despite the hardships and casualties along the way, after some time had passed the city of Ravenswood had finally been taken over by the Arkadian military. This would have marked the first time in the war that an Arkadian city had been taken back from the enemy, but the casualties involved in taking this town meant that it never quite made headline news. They had started the operation with over seven thousand soldiers participating, they had lost over half their numbers taking over the trenches, and the the 276th which Jun Nihei was apart of suffered over eighty percent of their forces trying to cross the open ground into the city. But the real shocker was after so many of their forces, the remaining soldiers were killed retaking the city. Almost all of them. If not for the other two battalions being called up the city would have fallen back under enemy control.
Of the two brigades that participated in the operation, only a few remained from the 276th, everyone else had been killed or mortally wounded. An Arkadian city may have been taken for the first time in the war, but this battle also marked the first time an entire battalion being wiped out in one operation. Before the war ended, many battalions would dissolve and combine with other battalions when losses occurred. But this time was not one them. Due to the delicacy of the situation and public moral, the Arkadian government manipulated the truth. The fact that an Arkadian city had been retaken was released, but it was said only one brigade participated and only a third of their forces had been killed. The knowledge of the 276th battalion participating in the battle was never released. Thinking that an amazing victory had been won by Arkadia, the government thought they had made the right decision.
Still, even the dead had a way of surviving.