Journal #3 Hostage Situation

I remember a time where my skills were tested to their breaking point. I was just visiting the country of Iraq with the peace corp, and we were bringing supplies to a military base in a heavily populated war zone. Yes, the job was dangerous, but I live on danger. In fact, danger is my middle name. Anyways, we were driving out convoy into the military base with three trucks full of water, dehydrated food and toiletries to bring to the troops. While we were unloading the truck, a group of terrorists ambushed our base. They caught us completely by surprise. Three armed men grabbed the three drivers and shot them, in cold blood. That image has been burned in my mind, even after 15 years. I will never forget the faces of those scared truck drivers. They thought they were just going for a routine delivery, but in the end, they lost their lives. It was right then and there that I decided I was going to save every last person. Since I previously was a Navy Seal, I was trained in combat/hostage situations, and I possessed many skills that I knew I would need to save those innocent people. I decided that I didn't want to blow my cover right away, so I let the terrorists take me and two other people hostage. They put bags over our heads, and threw us in the back of one of the trucks. Luckily, it was the truck with the water. Once we were in the back of the truck, I could feel it moving. I tried to keep a sense of how long we had been in the truck so I could possibly judge how far we were traveling. I then took off one of my shoes, revealing the metal knife I always kept inside the sole of my shoe. Once I was free, I cut open one of the cases of water so my friends and I could drink and regain our strength. My two friends were still in complete shock, so when I cut them free, I had to convince them to stay quiet. We had been moving for what I estimated to be about 3 miles (as it turned out, we had gone about 3.4 miles) and we pulled to a halt. I told the hostages to keep their bags on their heads, and that I would take care of everything. When the man opened the back of the truck, I jumped out at him and struck him. He crumpled to the ground, and I quickly shut the back of the truck and locked it. I did not want my friends to go anywhere. I grabbed the keys off of the terrorist, and ran to the front seat of the truck, evading gunfire. I threw the truck in drive and sped off. I had a slight idea where I was, but I kept driving in one direction until I found a road. I then followed that road back to the military base. All of the soldiers were so relieved to see us, and they didn't even care that their supplies were gone. We were all flown back to the U.S., first class, and the event was never spoken of again.