‼️‼️This episode is intense.‼️‼️
It’s been the hardest ever. I had to pull all the resources I could. Wikipedia, AI, military research.
For your perusal, there are references attached to some military terms.
Anything you see that is not aligned to the military, forgive me. I did my best🥹🙏
Now!! Enjoy!!
AKILAHYEL’S POV
The staging tarmac at the brigade headquarters was absolute, chaotic hell.
The night had dropped over the cantonment like a heavy wool blanket, but the blinding, blue-white glare of the industrial floodlights made everything look stark, washed-out, and hyper-real.
Everywhere I looked, iron was clanking against iron. Heavy tactical utility vehicles were backfiring, their diesel exhausts throwing thick, choking plumes of gray smoke into the humid air.
Soldiers from the strike unit. Young boys with hard, unblinking eyes and starched desert camouflage were heaving green wooden crates of 7.62mm ammunition into the flatbeds of the lead trucks.
Effiom was about fifty yards away, his tactical vest slammed tight against his ribs, barking raw orders at a platoon sergeant whose radio rig kept dropping its frequency.
I stood by the open door of my command vehicld, the weight of my combat gear pressing heavily into my collarbones.
My tactical helmet was resting on the hood of the car, my beret tucked into my shoulder strap, but my hands were completely locked around my personal phone.
My mind was split clean down the middle. One half was calculating fuel capacities, grid coordinates, and the anti-aircraft capabilities of the insurgent coalition.
The other half was stuck in the quiet, terrified void that Soteria had left behind when she zoomed out of my driveway.
I had dialed her number several times.
Several times it had rung out into the emptiness of the network.
The knot in my stomach was tightening with every passing second, turning into a hard, cold ball of anxiety that had absolutely nothing to do with the firefight waiting for me on the frontline.
Suddenly, the phone in my palm vibrated violently, the screen lighting up with her name.
My Queen👑
I pressed the receiver to my ear so hard the plastic scraped against my skin, my voice cutting through the ambient roar of the idling armored personnel carriers.
“Soteria! Why did you leave the house frantic like that?” I demanded.
The raw, unpolished panic of a man who thought his world was splintering, bleeding straight into the line.
I didn’t even give her a chance to answer before I checked the tactical digital watch on my left wrist.
“Look, baby, I have barely ten minutes on this phone. The battalion is fully staged, and I need to deploy immediately. How are you? Are you good? Talk to me.”
On the other end of the line, the silence was heavy, vibrating with a fragile, brittle tension.
I could hear the distinct, rhythmic catch of her breath, desperately trying to construct a wall of composure that she simply didn’t possess.
“Akila...” she started, her voice cracking open on the very first syllable.
She tried to swallow the emotion, clearing her throat in a frantic bid to sound stable.
“I... I’m okay. I am home. I just... I wanted to call and tell you that I love you. I love you so much, Akila. We will... we’ll have a proper conversation when you get back, okay? Just focus on what you need to do.”
I heaved a massive, ragged sigh, my chest expanding against the tight nylon straps of my body armor.
My jaw clenched so hard the muscles ached.
A soldier learns to read terrain; a man in love learns to read the slightest shift in his woman’s breathing. She was not fine.
The hollow, trembling resonance in her tone told me she was currently standing on the edge of a complete emotional precipice.
“Ziniya, you are not fine,” I said, my voice dropping from the authoritative bark of a Captain into the low, agonizingly tender rumble reserved only for her.
I stepped away from the door of the vehicle, turning my back to the floodlights to create a sliver of privacy amidst the chaos of the mobilization.
“Don’t do this to me right now, please. What is the issue? Tell me what is hurting you like this.”
Before she could utter a single word, a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder.
I snapped my head around to find the Battalion Adjutant standing behind me, his face grim under his ballistic helmet as he pointed toward the lead armored vehicle.
“Captain Gaya, the Commanding Officer is in the saddle. All frequencies are green. It’s time to move the column out, sir.”
I nodded once, a cold, automatic mask settling over my features.
“Give me sixty seconds, Lieutenant. Get the lead section in formation.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” he saluted, stepping back into the smoke.
I pulled the phone back to my mouth, the desperation in my chest rising to a fever pitch.
“Soso, I have to go, baby. They are calling the column forward. Talk to me.”
The moment the word go left my lips, the fragile wall she had built collapsed completely.
A loud, broken sob tore from her throat, the sound of her weeping so raw and violent that it bypassed the digital network and struck me like a physical blow to the sternum.
“Oh God... Baby, please,” she wept, her voice thick with an overwhelming, suffocating terror.
Through the tears, she forced herself to breathe, her words turning into a frantic, desperate prayer that she poured over the line like an offering.
“May the Lord God of hosts go before you. May His angels surround your vehicle. May the blood of Jesus Christ cover you and Effiom. Any weapon formed against you both shall not prosper, Akila. You will march into that darkness and you will return to me whole in Jesus’ name.”
“Babe... please, stop crying. It’s breaking my heart,” I pleaded, my voice cracking, all the rigid military discipline I had spent a decade cultivating completely dissolving under the weight of her tears.
I leaned my forehead against the cold, metallic frame of the vehicle, my eyes closing tight as my chest heaved.
“Listen to me, Ziniya. Nothing would happen to me out there. Do you hear me? I have been doing this for years. This is my profession. I have walked through deadlier valleys than this, and God has always been with me. I am not going to leave you.”
But my assurances did nothing to stem the tide.
Her sobs grew louder, more frantic, the sound of her gasping for air in her empty room tearing through my soul.
She was shaking; I could hear the erratic vibration of her phone against her skin.
“Akila... I’m so scared,” she cried, the raw vulnerability of her grief completely exposed.
“I can’t lose you... I can’t look at another flag...”
“Soteria, listen to me!” I groaned, my voice thick with an intense, desperate emotion as I begged her from the depths of my being.
“I love you so much. I love you more than life itself, baby. I promise you. I swear to you by the living God and by the love I hold for you. I won’t die. I will not leave you alone in this world. I promise I will survive this.”
“I love you,” she sobbed, her voice a fragile thread of pure devotion amidst her terror.
“I love you. I will be praying for you every single second. Please... just come back to me.”
“I love you too, my queen. I will be back. I will definitely be back,” I whispered, the words tearing from my throat as the
Adjutant signaled a second time, the horns of the armored vehicles blaring across the tarmac to signal the final crossing of the start line.
Her continued, heartbroken weeping was the last thing I heard before I had to lower the device.
My heart felt like it had been crushed into dust inside my chest cavity, a heavy, bleeding weight that made every breath a physical struggle.
I ended the call, my fingers trembling as I slid the phone into the secure, padded pocket of my tactical vest, right against my ribs.
I stood there for three seconds in the dark, the roar of the convoy washing over me.
I lifted my face toward the starless sky, my lips moving in a quiet, fierce whisper that no one else could hear.
“Lord God. Keep me whole. Not for my sake, but for hers. Protect my steps on the field, and please... hold her heart. Calm the storm in her mind, and give her the peace that only You can provide. Bring me back to my baby.”
I snapped my ballistic helmet onto my head, pulling the chin strap tight until it locked against my jaw.
The vulnerability vanished. The pain was packed away into the deepest, most secure compartment of my mind.
When I turned back to the tarmac, my eyes were entirely dead, cold, and focused.
I walked past the idling trucks, climbed into the turret of the lead command vehicle alongside Effiom, and watched the heavy iron gates of the cantonment swing open into the dark.
SOTERIA’S POV
The sharp, hollow beep indicating that Akila had ended the call felt like a physical severing of my lifeline.
I stared down at the darkened screen of my phone, my bedroom entirely silent around me, save for the ragged, uneven sound of my own breathing.
The echo of his final words, I love you too, my queen. I will be back hovered in the cool air of the room, but the sheer weight of his absence settled over my chest like a lead apron.
My hands were still shaking so violently that I nearly dropped the device onto the plush rug. I couldn’t just sit here.
I couldn’t let the silence consume me, because the moment I stopped moving, the images of military brass and wooden coffins would flood my mind again, dragging me down into a dark, paralyzing panic.
I wiped the fresh tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand, took a deep, stabilizing breath, and scrolled through my contacts until I found the name:
Pastor Olive (Cell Leader).
Pastor Olive wasn’t just my cell pastor; she was a woman whose relationship with the Holy Spirit was grounded in an unshakeable, quiet authority.
Whenever she spoke, the chaos in my mind usually found its alignment.
I tapped the call button, praying she was awake.
She picked up on the third ring, her voice instantly warm, calm, and alert despite the late hour.
“Soteria, my darling. How are you doing? Talk to me.”
The moment I heard her grounded tone, the final remnants of my isolation dissolved.
I broke down again, but this time, it wasn’t the hysterical weeping of a helpless girl.
It was the raw, desperate cry of a woman preparing to go to war in the spirit.
“Pastor Olive... Akila just deployed,” I choked out, my fingers tightening around the white gold frame of my emerald pendant.
“He and my brother, Effiom. They’ve been sent into a high-insecurity forest sector tonight. Pastor, I am so terrified. My heart is failing me. The memory of my dad’s passing is still so fresh, and I feel like the enemy is trying to swallow my peace whole. Please... I need to pray. I cannot handle this alone.”
There was a brief, powerful pause on the line, the sound of Pastor Olive shifting her position, likely picking up her Bible.
When she spoke, her voice had
completely shifted into a deep, authoritative register that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“Soteria, listen to me very carefully,” Pastor Olive commanded softly, yet with an iron clad certainty.
“The spirit of fear is a liar, but the Spirit of the Living God is an anchor. We are not going to sit back and let the enemy play with your mind or your man’s life. We are going to hold a vigil. Tomorrow night, we gather in the spirit. Get your house ready. Invite those who can stand with you in one accord. We will touch the heavens until the atmosphere over that forest shifts.”
“Thank you, Ma,” I whispered, a sudden, cold burst of determination replacing the panic in my veins.
“Thank you. I will set it up.”
By nine o’clock the following evening, my upstairs living room had been transformed into a sanctuary of intercession.
The heavy curtains were pulled shut against the night, and the overhead lights were dimmed low, leaving only the soft, ambient glow of two side lamps illuminating the space.
Amara and Naya had arrived early, their faces grim but completely set with a fierce, sisterly resolve.
Naya had a large notebook and her Bible open on her lap, her eyes slightly red but her posture rigid and focused.
Amara sat cross-legged on the rug, her iPad and Apple pen resting on the coffee table in front of her.
On the center of the table sat my second phone, flipped onto speaker view, connecting us to a multi-line prayer call.
On the other end were Pastor Olive, broadcasting from her study, Zainab, who was joining us from her end and Brother Alfred.
A seasoned intercessor from our church known for his sharp prophetic clarity and deep prayer engine.
“Beloved, we are gathered here in one accord,” Pastor Olive’s voice boomed through the speaker, crisp and charged with spiritual electricity.
“We are not here to beg the enemy; we are here to enforce the victory of Christ over the tactical frontlines. The Bible says where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there in the midst of them. Let us begin to appreciate the faithfulness of God. Lift your voices in the spirit.”
A simultaneous murmur of tongues rose from the speaker and inside the room.
Brother Alfred’s deep, rhythmic cadence led the charge, his voice building a steady wall of sound that instantly drove out any lingering atmosphere of dread.
I dropped to my knees on the floor l, my palms pressed flat against the carpet as I joined the chorus.
“Shatalabah... katariya... mandalabah... we cover the territory tonight... we occupy the frequencies...”
For the first hour, the prayer was a steady, heavy labor.
We focused purely on establishing a perimeter of divine protection around the entire operational sector.
We lifted up Akila and Effiom by name, calling down the warring angels of heaven to encamp around their armored vehicles, to blind the eyes of the ambushers, and to jam the mechanisms of every weapon formed against them.
“We pray for all the soldiers in Nigeria tonight!” Naya cried out, her voice cracking with deep emotion as she gripped Amara’s hand.
“Father, from the officers at the high command to the young privates standing guard in the trenches! Cover them with Your feathers! Grant them supernatural alertness! Let their armor plates be impenetrable to the arrows that fly by day and the pestilence that walks in darkness!”
“Yes, Lord! Amen!” Zainab’s voice echoed through the speaker, her soft weeping turning into a fierce declaration.
“We stand in the gap for every sister, every wife, and every mother waiting for news. Let Your peace that surpasses all human understanding guard our hearts!”
As the clock ticked past midnight, the atmosphere inside the room grew noticeably heavier, thick with a tangible, vibrating presence that felt almost physical.
The prayers shifted from general supplication into deep, painful intercession.
We found ourselves crying out not just for our men, but for the entire broken landscape of the nation.
We interceded desperately for the lost and the kidnapped, for those innocent souls currently sitting in the dark, damp corners of those very forests, hidden away in captivity, terrified and forgotten by the world.
“Father, look down upon those in captivity tonight!” Amara wept, her face buried in her hands as her shoulders heaved.
“Break the iron bars! Shatter the wooden gates of those hidden camps! Let Your light pierce through the thickest canopy and locate the missing! Provide a way of escape where there seems to be no way!”
We cried as we prayed, the collective weight of our grief and hope mingling into a powerful, unified groan before the throne of grace.
It was an agonizing, beautiful labor. An exchange of human weakness for divine strength.
Then, around two o’clock in the morning, the atmosphere suddenly shifted into a profound, heavy silence.
The loud, chaotic prayers died down into a low, vibrating hum as words of knowledge began to drop, landing in the spirits of different people on the call at different intervals.
Brother Alfred was the first to break the silence, his voice dropping into a low, intense whisper that made my heart stop.
“I am seeing an adjustment. There is a specific movement. The enemy has laid a physical snare, a metal obstruction across a narrow logging trail under the heavy trees. The Holy Spirit is whispering: ‘Diversion’.”
The moment the word left his lips, a sudden revelation hit my own spirit like a bolt of lightning.
A distinct, visual impression of Akila’s vehicle halting before a fallen mahogany tree.
“I see it too!” I gasped out loud, my eyes flying open as I gripped the edge of the coffee table.
“They are trying to trap them. Father, we veto that diversion right now! We release the spirit of wisdom upon the commanders! Let the eyes of the lead drivers see through the deception before they hit the grid!”
“Line up with that word, people of God!” Pastor Olive commanded sharply.
“We break the power of that snare! We command the light of God to expose every hidden IED, every buried mine, and every coordinated ambush along that logging line! Turn the enemy’s trap into their own funeral! In the name of Jesus Christ!”
We targeted that specific word for twenty minutes, praying with a localized, aggressive focus until the heavy, oppressive feeling in my chest regarding that specific trap was completely lifted, replaced by a clean, smooth sense of victory.
Shortly after, Zainab spoke up from her line, her voice trembling but filled with an intense prophetic clarity.
“I see a dark cloud of confusion dropping over the communication arrays of the enemies. They are trying to coordinate with a secondary cell but their radios are turning into static. The Lord says,‘I have fractured their tongue.’”
“We enforce that static!” Naya shouted, her fist striking the air.
“Let their frequencies fail! Let their leaders be struck with sudden blindness and disagreement in their ranks!”
By three o’clock in the morning, the prophetic flow reached its peak.
Pastor Olive and Brother Alfred began to give direct prophecies of what they were seeing unfolding in the invisible realm over the forest.
Pastor Olive prophesied, her voice ringing with an ancient, apostolic authority that filled every corner of my room.
“I see a vision of a great shield. A massive, golden buckler descending from the heavens and resting directly over the lead armored vehicle. I see arrows of fire bouncing off that shield and turning back into the brush. The Lord says, ‘I am thejr rear guard. I am their front shield. They will not stumble, and they will not fall. I am bringing them out of the smoke with their heads lifted high.’ “
Brother Alfred followed immediately, his tone laced with a fierce, holy triumph.
“The battle is turning at the gate! I see the enemy scattering into seven ways. I see a massive clearance of the sector. The nest of the adversary is being dismantled even as we speak. There shall be no civilian casualty, there shall be no loss of military life in that specific unit. The blood of the covenant is speaking better things over the soil tonight!”
The relief that washed over me at those words was so profound that I collapsed completely onto the rug, my face pressed against the carpet as tears of pure gratitude poured from my eyes.
The terror that had suffocated me the previous day was entirely gone, burned away by the holy fire of our intercession.
We spent the final segment of the vigil rounding off our prayers, finishing exactly at 3:45 AM.
The heavy intercessory groans dissolved naturally into a sweet, triumphant chorus of worship.
We sang together, our voices tired but our spirits completely soaring, blessing the name of God for His faithfulness, His protection, and His answers that we knew were already manifested on the battlefield.
When I finally cut the call and said goodnight to Amara and Naya, who fell asleep on the guest room beds, I walked back to my own room and looked out the window at the first grey light of dawn breaking over Abuja.
My heart was completely at peace.
The man I loved was fighting in the dark forest, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was walking under an open heaven.
AKILAHYEL’S POV
The morning sun did not bring relief; it brought a sweltering, suffocating heat that baked the interior of our armored vehicles until the steel walls were hot enough to blister bare skin.
We had crossed into the dense, old-growth forest reserve hours ago.
The dirt logging trails were narrow, choked with overgrown brush, and heavily mined with improvised explosive devices.
The local administration had completely abandoned this sector eighteen months ago, leaving the insurgent coalition to carve out heavily fortified complexes within the deep canopy.
This wasn’t a standard counter-insurgency sweep. This was a meat grinder.
By 1400 hours, the vanguard section had been fighting continuously for nearly six hours.
The enemy was deeply entrenched, using a complex system of interconnected dirt tunnels and log bunkers that completely neutralized our initial air reconnaissance.
We weren’t just fighting men; we were fighting the terrain itself.
“Incoming! Get down!”
Effiom’s roar over the platoon intercom was instantaneous, but the sound of the detonation bypassed the electronics entirely.
A massive, command-detonated 122mm artillery shell, buried deep in the red clay of the road, exploded directly beneath the front axle of our lead tactical truck.
The shockwave was a physical fist.
The blast threw our twelve-ton armored personnel carrier sideways, the steel plates groaning as the vehicle tilted violently on its suspension.
Dust, scorched leaves, and razor-sharp metal fragments shredded the air.
Through the smoke, a hail of 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds erupted from a hidden trench line less than thirty meters away.
They snapped against my turret shield with a rhythmic, deafening clack-clack-clack.
One round, a heavy sniper caliber shattered the glass of my main periscope, passing exactly three inches from my left ear.
The supersonic crack felt like a physical slap across my cheek, leaving a thin, burning trail of gunpowder residue against my skin.
“Akila! Check your nine o’clock!” Effiom screamed, his voice cracking from the smoke pouring into the cabin.
He had dropped low to pull our driver away from the buckled steering column.
Through the cracked optical block, I saw a hidden insurgent team lifting an RPG-7 tube, targeting the ruptured underbelly of our disabled vehicle.
If that rocket hit the fuel cell, we were all incinerated.
My thumbs slammed onto the butterfly triggers of the 12.7mm machine gun.
The weapon didn’t just fire; it hammered out a wall of heavy steel.
The massive projectiles tore through the brush, obliterating the rocket crew and collapsing the dirt lip of the trench.
But the enemy numbers were overwhelming. They were pouring out of the dense undergrowth like ants from a broken mound.
To our right, the third section was catching pure hell.
“Man down! Ironhide Three, we have a catastrophic breach!” the radio headset crackled violently with the frantic voice of Sergeant Usman.
“Corporal Bello has been hit! Heavy arterial bleeding! We are being suppressed from the high ridge!”
Corporal Bello was a twenty-two-year-old kid from Kaduna.
His wife had just given birth to twins three weeks before our deployment.
“Effiom! Cover the rear flank!” I yelled, popping the mechanical hatch of the turret and exposing my upper body to the crossfire.
“I’m going out to pull Three section’s line.”
“Akila, negative! The ridge is completely covered!” Effiom shouted, lunging upward to grab the hem of my tactical vest, but I had already dropped down the exterior hull.
The moment my boots hit the muddy red dirt, the air was alive with the deadly hiss of passing bullets.
I ran low, my heart hammering against my ribs with an erratic, primal rhythm.
Mud flew from the heels of my combat boots as I scrambled across the open logging trail toward the ditch where Usman’s section was pinned down.
A burst of automatic fire kicked up the earth right between my feet, a stray fragment of stone ripping through the fabric of my trousers and grazing my calf. I didn’t feel the pain.
The adrenaline had completely numbed my nervous system.
I slid into the ditch, my shoulder slamming against the muddy berm beside Usman.
Corporal Bello was lying on his back, his face completely gray, his hands clutching a massive, jagged shrapnel wound in his femoral region.
The blood was dark, thick, and pulsing out into the dirt despite the tourniquet Usman had desperately tied.
“We’re losing him, Captain! We can’t get the medevac truck down this lane!” Usman roared over the sound of a mortar shell detonating fifty yards behind us.
“Pick him up!” I commanded, my hands diving under Bello’s armor plates to lift his torso.
“Usman, lay down a continuous base of fire on that ridge! We are carrying him to the command vehicle now!”
Together, we heaved the dying soldier out of the ditch.
The weight was immense, made heavier by the dead drag of his gear.
As we turned back toward our APC, a heavy machine gun from the ridge tracked our movement.
The rounds chewed the ground behind us, following our heels like a pack of hounds.
One bullet struck the buttstock of my slung rifle, shattering the polymer casing and ripping the weapon clean off my shoulder strap.
If I had been leaning two inches to the left, that round would have taken my spine out.
We threw ourselves against the rear doors of Effiom’s vehicle, the steel hatch swinging open just wide enough for us to slide Bello into the dark, smoke-filled interior.
Seven other soldiers were already inside, huddled together with various injuries- shrapnel gouges, flash burns, and deep lacerations from flying glass.
It was only day one of the offensive, and our vanguard element had already sustained forty percent casualties.
The enemy’s defensive preparations were far deeper than intelligence had estimated.
We were outgunned on this specific axis, and our logistical lines were stretching thin.
“All units, this is Ironhide Lead,” I barked into my throat mic, my voice steady despite the blood covering my forearms.
“Break contact methodically. Section leaders, deploy smoke screens. We are executing a tactical withdrawal to Forward Operating Base Alpha. Fall back!”
The retreat was a grueling, agonizing two-hour crawl through the mud, with our rear guards fighting a desperate delaying action to keep the insurgents from overrunning our wounded.
When the heavy iron gates of the fortified base finally closed behind our battered convoy, the atmosphere inside the camp was somber, heavy with the stench of failure and iron.
The tactical operations tent at FOB Alpha was silent, save for the rhythmic clacking of the diesel generator outside and the low, muffled groans of the wounded coming from the medical bay thirty yards away.
I sat on a wooden crate, my uniform unbuttoned to the waist, my skin covered in a thick crust of black carbon, dried mud, and sweat.
A military nurse. A sharp, efficient lieutenant named Sarah was kneeling in front of me, using a pair of tweezers to extract small, jagged splinters of fiberglass and stone from the superficial graze on my calf.
“You got incredibly lucky, Captain,” she murmured without looking up, her hands steady as she applied an antiseptic swab that stung like liquid fire.
“Two inches higher and this fragment would have severed the main tendon. You and Captain Idorenyin would have been in the morgue tent right now.”
Effiom was sitting across from me on an overturned jerrycan, a white gauze bandage wrapped tightly around his left forearm where a hot shell casing had burned through his sleeve.
He didn’t say a word. He was staring at his boots, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck were pulsing.
“Bello is stable,” Effiom said finally, his voice rough and hollow.
“The surgical team managed to ligate the artery. He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing on his own. They’ll evacuate him by chopper to the base hospital in Abuja once the weather clears.”
I heaved a deep, ragged sigh, my hand automatically moving toward the secure pocket of my vest. I pulled out my phone.
There was no signal. Just a blank notification bar mocking me in the middle of this green hell.
I couldn’t call her. I couldn’t tell her that I had survived the first day, or that her prayers had literally kept a bullet from tearing through my skull.
“We can’t attack that ridge the same way tomorrow,” I said, my voice dropping into a hard, clinical register as I forced my mind back onto the tactical map spread over the center table.
“Their overlapping fields of fire are too precise. We need a secondary flanking maneuver through the southern ravine.”
“The boys are shaken, Akila,” Effiom murmured, looking up, his eyes bloodshot from the smoke.
“They saw the vanguard get chewed up in less than ten minutes. We have thirty wounded in the tents. If we don’t fix the spirit of this camp tonight, tomorrow’s advance will be a slaughter.”
I stood up, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain in my leg as Sarah finished taping the bandage over my calf.
I buttoned my camouflage tunic, grabbed my beret from the table, and looked at my childhood friend.
“Then let’s go fix it,” I said.
We walked out of the operations tent into the cool, damp night air of the base.
The camp was a cluster of green canvas tents and sandbagged bunkers, illuminated only by the faint red glow of tactical lanterns.
In the center of the perimeter, clustered around a small, smoky fire, a group of forty soldiers from the strike unit were sitting in silence.
Some were holding metal mess tins they hadn’t touched; others were cleaning their rifles with mechanical, lifeless movements.
As Effiom and I approached, the men began to stand up to salute, their movements slow and heavy with exhaustion.
“At ease, men. Sit down,” I commanded softly, walking into the center of the circle. I looked at their faces.
Young Nigerian boys from every corner of the country, their eyes wide and haunted by the images of the afternoon’s carnage.
“Today was hard,” I spoke into the quiet of the camp, my voice carrying a deep, brotherly resonance that bypassed the traditional barriers of rank.
“We took hits. We lost ground. Some of you are wondering if we’re going to walk into the same trap tomorrow. Some of you are sitting here thinking about your families, wondering if you’ll see them again.”
A collective, silent nod rippled through the group.
“But let me tell you something,” I continued, my eyes locking onto a young private whose hands were still shaking.
“We did not retreat because we were beaten. We retreated to reset the line. Every single one of you standing here tonight is alive because the Almighty God has a covenant over this unit. I watched bullets graze my ears today. I watched Captain Effiom walk through a furnace untouched. Corporal Bello was dead on that field, but he is breathing in the medical tent right now.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my small, worn pocket Bible.
“The Bible says in Psalm 91: ‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.’ Tonight, we are not just going to plan; we are going to anchor our spirits.”
I dropped to one knee in the red dirt, right there in the middle of the camp fire circle.
Effiom followed immediately, his heavy frame settling into the mud beside me.
One by one, the forty soldiers. Christians and Muslims alike dropped to their knees, their heads bowing under the dark canopy of the forest sky.
“Father,” I prayed aloud, my voice deep, emotional, and thick with a raw, unpolished sincerity.
“We look to You tonight. We don’t look to our armor, and we don’t look to our tactical plans. We look to the God who holds the breath of every man in this forest. We ask for Your mercy over our wounded. We ask for Your strength to fill the hearts of these boys. Let Your warring angels take up positions on that ridge before we even march tomorrow. Blind the eyes of the adversary. Give us victory, Lord, and bring every single son here back to his mother, his wife, and his home.”
“Amen!” The response from the forty men was a deep, synchronized roar that shook the canvas of the surrounding tents.
Before I could stand, the flap of the senior officer’s quarters opened.
Three colonels and a brigadier general. The senior command element of the regional theater, men who usually spent their days in air-conditioned strategy rooms, walked out into the dirt.
They didn’t call for protocol. They didn’t demand an official report.
The Brigadier General, a veteran officer with silver hair and three rows of combat ribbons on his chest, walked straight into our circle and knelt down in the mud right beside a twenty-year-old private.
The other colonels joined, their arms locking around the shoulders of the junior officers.
The fellowship of officers had entered the gap.
For the next hour, the hierarchy of the Nigerian Army vanished within the perimeter of FOB Alpha.
There were no captains, no majors, and no generals. Only a band of brothers lifting their voices in a deep, agonizing, and beautiful intercession for the land.
We prayed for the security of the nation, for the families waiting in the cities, and for the supernatural strategy to dismantle the strongholds in the woods.
When I finally stood up, the atmosphere in the camp had completely transformed.
The heavy, suffocating dread had been evicted, replaced by a cold, quiet, and lethal resolve.
The men were no longer looking at the dirt; they were looking at each other with hard, united eyes.
I walked back to my small cot in the corner of the command tent, my body aching from the physical strain of the battle, but my spirit felt entirely light.
I laid my head down on the canvas pillow, my fingers brushing against the secure pocket where my phone rested.
I still had no signal, but as I closed my eyes to prepare for the dawn, I knew that the prayers from home and the intercession in this muddy camp had met somewhere in the heavens, creating an unbreakable shield over our heads.
The first day was over. Tomorrow, we will take the ridge.
Whooshhh!!! No words!! I’m exhausted 🥲. Prayer is the Key Frrrr🔥🔥
My love to all military wives and girlfriends.
PS: Pray for the kidnapper babies and teachers. Decree that they be released.
Father we decree confusion in the camp of the enemy
We pray that those little children be released.
By your outstretched arm, let them go back to their families in one piece ❤️
In Jesus name 🙏
This was so intense 😭
May the Lord preserve the lives of the abducted children and their teachers🥹