part0009

Sergeant Bronson kicked Musen and Walton’s cots and said, “Get ‘em up and get ‘em packed.” What followed was a tent full of soldiers trying to jump out of their asses. They loaded up their assault packs and went over weapons and equipment, replaced batteries and pressure switches, and distributed frags and smoke.

They spent two days on stand-by until they finally got the go-ahead to mount the C-130's that flew them north to Bagrum. The Brass billeted them in a large open building next to one of the D-Facs, and they practiced room-clearing drills, performed weapons maintenance, and at times stared out at the towering snow-peaked mountains that stood like titans on the horizon. The rumor going around was that they would be flying up there and running ops for a few weeks. Haji liked to do his fighting in the warm weather and hole-up in his mountain villages near Pakistan for the winter. The Battalion would be going after him.

Sergeant Bronson, Walton, and Musen sat on cots as First Squad gathered around after the op-order for NCO’s. Walton had looked at Sergeant Bronson’s notes as the leadership had gone over a host of unpleasant details, and found Sergeant Bronson writing down the words, “They’re going to get us all killed because they’re all stupid.”

“So what’s up, Sergeant?” Castor asked Walton as he approached.

Walton grinned and said, “It’s the mission of the damned. Ain’t none of us comin’ back from this motherfucker.”

“Sarge …I’m coming back,” Sergeant Bronson announced confidently over his cup of coffee in spite of his earlier reservations. “I like my apartment, and if you’re with me, you’re coming back too. Sarge is all about using the Sergeant Major as a bullet-stopper. ‘We need you to assault, Sergeant Bronson .’ Fuck you! Eat a dick!”

The squad leader looked around, and once he was satisfied everyone was there, he began. “Basically 2/87's been engaged up north so we’re goin’ there to snatch up a bunch of Taliban/Al-Qaeda leadership. It’s gonna be cold and wet and we’re gonna be at high altitudes. We’re gonna be walkin’ up mountains where the people who live there haven’t seen a conventional military force since the British in 1898, except for the Australians who stayed long enough to say, ‘Fuck this.’

“The people there are supposed to resemble us physically and they farm trees. To combat inter-tribal tree theft, they plant anti-personnel mines they stole. To hear those Brainiacs at the op-order talk, be prepared to see every weapon known to man in the past hundred years.

“Supposedly, this is the biggest thing since Haiti. They got SEALs, Rangers, Delta…Carasquay thinks they might even have Star Trek gettin’ in on this motherfucker. Check it out though; these people wear flip-flops and burn poop for God’s sake. Don’t get all freaked out by this shit.”

While Sergeant Bronson explained the details of the upcoming operation, Walton thought about what the First Sergeant had said to the NCO’s at the end of the op-order; “This mission is one hundred percent planned by officers, but it will be one hundred percent fought by our soldiers, and it will be one hundred percent led by us. This is the biggest event I’ve ever seen. The benefits of the success of this mission are immeasurable, just as the consequences of failure are immeasurable. If we must lose a man, let it be from something we couldn’t control.”

Later, Walton tried to quit staring at the ceiling and get some sleep, but it was slow in coming. The smells and sounds of hundreds of sleeping soldiers packed into one building filled his senses and gave him comfort in the fact that they were all still alive.

He thought of his home and family in the same way he used to pray when he was a little boy and summoned the faces of all those he loved. He wondered how they were and what it might be like to see them again.

As his mind wandered down the path that led to sleep, a thought touched his brain like a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. It had been months since he had written to Amy.

She must’ve forgotten about him. Or maybe it had all just been an act. Getting men to believe in the fantasy of the spell she cast over them was how she made her living. She had probably just been humoring him as a lonely soldier far from home whom she had taken pity on like a lost dog. She was no doubt cervix-deep in the fun and excitement of being a part-time professional object of desire/full-time force of nature. Or maybe she and The Vegetarian had worked things out. The last thing he felt before sleep embraced him was loneliness.

Alpha Company flew out with the rest of The Battalion the next evening to land near a village held by 2/87 who jeered at them under their breath because The Battalion had flown out in Shithooks like a bunch of fucking champions while 2/87 had ridden trucks. The Battalion picked up and split off into companies and platoons who spent the next few days walking blisters into their feet, burning in the sun, and shivering in the dark.

It rained the second night out and Dominican Lou spent his twentieth birthday under a damp poncho hooch freezing with the rest of the platoon. He quietly sang Happy Birthday to himself and Walton thought it was one of the most hysterical and simultaneously sad things he’d ever seen. An Uber-Joe with a golden soul like Dominican Lou deserved a pile of pussy and all the Johnny Walker and steak he could handle, and Walton wished he could’ve provided it for his Joe’s special day.

Walton was on point and not sure what to do about it. Sergeant Cade and Lieutenant Howard had positioned First Squad at the head of the formation and Sergeant Bronson had put Walton up front. He was glad to be getting more experience, but he was still nervous about fucking up. Sergeant Bronson was right behind him, though, and the two scaled rocks all day like lizards, looking for accessible routes for the rest of the formation.

Though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, the more Walton was on point, the more he found that he liked it. With the distractions of the modern world replaced by the possibility of violent death with every step, he felt like the hours of vigilance and anticipation (and fear) he spent up front sharpened something in him. Ancient instincts lying dormant perhaps. Being on the hunt with his tribe…there was a rightness to it all that appealed to some fundamental aspect of his masculinity in a way which he found both thrilling and liberating.

The Bad Man, however, was still at work. During a patrol break, Walton set his assault pack down with the intention of resting against it. The assault pack was having none of it, and immediately began to roll down the steep hill as soon as Walton turned his back on it. It started slowly at first, and Walton scrambled after it with his arms outstretched, yelling, “NOOO!”

The assault pack sensed his desperation and picked up speed. It bounded from one rock to another. Walton could only watch impotently until it settled on the ground below. He stood there looking down at it for a second, feeling disgusted and betrayed. He cast his eyes toward the heavens and silently shook his fist.

“That was fucked up, Sergeant.”

Walton turned to look at Lou sitting at his position next to a boulder with the SAW. He had seen the whole thing. “Yeah, Lou. That was fucked up. I’ll be right back. Shit.” He sighed and walked down the hill under the eyes of his Joes and some Haji kids sitting on their roofs in the distance. He figured that was about par for the course.

When at the bottom, Walton half-heartedly kicked his assault pack for being a dick, and then put it back on. He looked up the steep hill and went through a litany of profanity. He spent five minutes climbing up to be greeted by laughter, cheers, and clapping from his Joes.

He smelled cigarette smoke and turned around to find Sergeant Bronson grinning. He asked, “Are you sure you want to get out, Tom?”

Walton gave him a dirty look.

Second Platoon picked up shortly thereafter and resumed their march. Their path gradually narrowed to goat trail on top of an irrigation dyke that hugged close to the mountainside. Sergeant Dobbs lost his footing, fell, and broke his ankle. The platoon shifted gears and retrieved him, loaded him onto a skedco, and carried him through the broken terrain to ground open enough to facilitate the medivac bird.

They spent the better part of the next day walking eight klicks then halted. Lieutenant Howard walked up to Sergeant Bronson and pointed to the highest peak in a nearby ridge commanding the view over a river. It stood like a giant among the high ground, ugly and raw, carved and broken with sharp angles that bred shadows which devoured light; a natural monument built not to the handiwork of God, but the Devil. As he pointed up to it he said, “We’ve got to set in an over-watch up there.”

Sergeant Bronson strained to look up at the peak, shading his eyes with his hand. He turned to look at Lieutenant Howard angrily. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, Sir.”

“No, Sergeant, I’m not. Your squad, the team leaders with the 203's, and the gun teams are going up there.”

“That’s some bullshit, Sir! Charlie Company’s already puttin’ soldiers up there, and it’s almost night. Those boys are gonna get fucked up tryin’ to climb that shit in the dark.”

“Then you’d better hurry.”

Sergeant Bronson grit his teeth. “Musen, Walton! Get ‘em the fuck up and get your asses on the road!”

The trek up began with a bridge made of rope and ancient wooden slats. It swayed slightly from a faint breeze and the skittish soldiers crossed it one at a time. There were more gaps than boards, like the broken teeth of a homeless man, and with each soldier the bridge-contraption moaned with agony, causing Walton to wish he could get the go-ahead to shoot it and put the poor thing out of its misery.

At the end of the far side of the rope bridge, rough-hewn blocks wound up the mountain like stairs and within the first five minutes of the climb, the mountain staircase earned the name Stairway to Hell. The soldiers paused occasionally to give a moment of rest to leg and back muscles that ached with fire. Lieutenant Howard’s voice blared out of the I-com every few minutes to tell them to hurry. (Walton turned his off.)

As a lone Haji scampered past them on his way to his home near the top, Walton observed, “That’s one anti-social motherfucker to live up on top of a place like this.” He wiped the sweat away from his forehead with the back of the beat-up black flight glove on his non-firing hand. The other never left his pistol grip.

“Haj ain’t fuckin’ around, that’s for goddamn sure,” Sergeant Bronson said after taking a sip from the mouthpiece of his CamelBak, and stretched. “I’ll say this for him. He’s a hard motherfucker. What gets me, is think about the effort these motherfuckers put into building some shit like this, and they still ain’t figured out running water yet.” He looked at Walton questioningly, then they both shrugged and began again.

They caught up with the stragglers from Charlie Company and pushed past them to the peak. After negotiating with the owner of a house there, Lieutenant Howard placed the soldiers on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. The LT was giddy at the advantage the over-watch gave them, and his pride at what they had accomplished infected the soldiers.

Cold came with the darkness, but the LT and Sergeant Bronson started a small fire that flickered below the over-watch, concealed by the house and the surrounding wall of its tiny courtyard. The soldiers greedily lay around it when they were allowed to sleep, while those on guard watched the valley and waited for someone to kill as they huddled together to try to keep from freezing. As they pulled security, they passed the time by talking quietly to one another about the lives they’d live when they were back in the real world.

The night passed peacefully, and in the morning many were angry that they had gone through the effort of climbing to the top and hadn’t even had the chance to shoot at anyone. They climbed down as the sun rose and continued their movement until they arrived at the company patrol base located near the river.

As they arrived, the I-com opened up with Sergeant Wider’s voice saying to his fellow former Marine, “Happy Birthday, Jarhead.”

“Yeah, it was the best fuckin’ one yet,” Sergeant Bronson replied dryly.

Sergeant Wider laughed over the net. “You know, on the Marine Corp Birthday you’re either fucked up drunk, passed out in a gutter, or sitting on a mountain freezing your ass off.”

“That ain’t no shit, brother.”

Sergeant Bronson replaced his I-com back into its pouch, then looked at Walton and ordered, “Come with me.” Walton followed him until Sergeant Bronson halted at a bend in the river. He pointed nearby, saying, “I need you to build a rock bridge right here.”

Walton looked at the current and furrowed his brow with a muted but heartfelt, “Fuck. Roger, Sergeant.” He glanced upriver hopefully. “Do you think I should push upriver some and try to find a shallower spot?”

“No. Build it here. We’re gonna use it to get to the PZ either today or tomorrow. I’ll get you some men.”

The detail began trickling in and Walton started them on a human chain to carry the heavy rocks to the river. The current swept the stones away, so Walton waded into it to make sure they were seated properly. Brickham joined him, and after forty-five minutes the two stood shoulder to shoulder in the water as they set rocks in place like bricks. Walton slipped while pushing toward the middle of the river, the current protesting their efforts by carrying off the basketball-sized rock in his hands. The chill of the water took the air from his lungs, forcing him to fight to breathe until he righted himself. Others joined in the attempt but it became apparent it would take a long time to make a bridge suitable for the company to walk over. They continued building.

The First Sergeant came to stand on the bank and watched them work in the frigid waist-deep water. He shook his head and called out, “That’s enough. Stop what you’re doing. We’ll find another way. No sense in drowning to build a fucking rock bridge.”

Brickham and Walton splashed out of the water, soaking wet with chattering teeth. Dechico stood by the bank, and when the two neared, he nodded his head in approval and said with a grin, “Proper.”

BOB soon clocked out for the day and night passed quietly save for the occasional rip of sound from Specter gun-ships opening up on enemy personnel five klicks away. Walton looked up at the stars that sparkled above the river, rocks, and sleeping soldiers, and smiled at the sound. He wasn’t sure what the gun-ships were shooting with, but whatever they were using made them sound like what he imagined dinosaurs would have and he pondered at how a sound can mean death for some and comfort for others. The world was wild and she would not be tamed.

“Here, Tom, have some coffee,” Sergeant Bronson offered in the morning as he approached Walton’s position.

“Thanks,” Walton said as he smiled at the gesture. He took a sip and handed it back.

Sergeant Bronson sat down on a rock, taking the cup back, and had a drink. “How’s your shit?”

Walton nodded at his drying clothes laid out upon the ground. “They’re still damp, but serviceable. I did burn a hole in the crotch of my pants, though, when I was drying them on the burn pit. So I’ll be sportin’ polypro pants underneath to keep my junk civil till we get back to Bagrum.”

“Well, it’ll dry when BOB gets his shit together,” Sergeant Bronson said as he appraised the gray dawn. He then looked over at Walton, who sat with matted hair and a dirty face in his wet weather pants and jacket, and wrapped up in his woobie. Sergeant Bronson shook his head with a grin. “I wonder what your mama would have to say about you now.”

“Best she don’t know. She don’t exactly cotton to the idea of her boys falling into these sort of circumstances. Still, it’s kinda fun, though.”

The squad leader handed the metal canteen cup back to Walton. “You know, you oughta meet my wife one of these days. Compared to her, I’m a saint.”

“That’d be a trip,” Walton said as he held the warm cup. “I have a tough time imagining you domesticated. Lou said it looks funny on ya.”

“You’d be surprised. I’m actually pretty mellow around her. I really don’t even drink around her.”

Walton tried to picture the salty bastard who had been his mentor for over three years in a quasi-normal home life, but had a hard time doing so. However, he figured if anyone deserved a happy home, it was him. “So what’s the story on us leavin’? Is that still happening today?”

“No. Did you hear that shit last night? Well, the motherfuckers who’ve been runnin’ from us for the past sixty-five klicks ran into a blocking position held by the Secret Squirrels or some shit. Haji didn’t do so hot last night.”

“Well, fuck him,” Walton said with a shrug. “I reckon he had it coming.”

“Yeah. You know what’s funny? Sandlin and Feran gotta go back up Stairway to Hell. That’s fuckin’ awesome. You know, when we get back to KAF, I’m gonna eat five bowls of ramen and sleep for two days.”

Alpha Company picked up the next day and walked to the PZ. Within a few hours the Shithooks extracted them and carried them to Jallalabad where they performed weapons maintenance, shat and beat off in the porta-johns, and napped under the shade of makeshift tents consisting of their DCU tops hanging from the muzzle of their rifles. The leadership even turned a blind-eye to the Joes as they rat-fucked the more choice selections of MRE’s, provided they rendered up tribute to their team and squad leaders. Once the priorities of work were finished, they rested away the hours waiting in the sun until other birds took them back to Bagrum.

“Goddamn, you fucks bought a lot of CD’s,” Walton said the next day as he sat down on his cot after making a hot chocolate run to the on-Post coffee shop. Lou sprawled out on the cot next to him and two PFC’s, Percy and Shipley, sat on the ones across the aisle divvying up a stack of CD’s between them.

Percy gave a big, blonde, ear-to-ear grin. “Guess how much they cost? Nothing! That’s why I go nowhere without my black man.” He rubbed Shipley’s head affectionately like a genie’s lamp.

“Look here, I could die tomorrow for a country that’s fucked me my whole life. Do you think I’m gonna pay for some AAFES shit, here of all places? Oh hell no,” Shipley said as he waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.

Lou opened an eye and looked at them. “You know, my dad always used to say, ‘When you’re making something, you need to add something stolen, no matter how small. It adds something extra.’”

“See? Goddamn Dominican Lou understands.”

Walton looked at them with a tired humor. He didn’t approve of them lifting stuff from the PX, but he didn’t want to narc them out to their team leader. Anyhow, apart from capers of petty larceny, they were outstanding Joes in the field, and that was what mattered. “Whatever. If you fuckers get caught, though, that’s on y’all’s ass.” He did a double-take. “Wait a minute. We got a Jew, a black guy, a Dominican, and a white guy. I’d say we’ve got the makings of a very fine joke.”

“Almost got him!”

“What the fuck?” Walton turned toward the commotion and saw Dechico chase after a mouse with single-minded intensity.

Sergeant Bronson looked up from an issue of Perfect 10 that was making the rounds as he lay on his cot. He barked, “Dechico come here!” Dechico drew near sheepishly and Sergeant Bronson stared at him. He then rolled up his magazine, sat up, and swatted the Joe’s head with it. “Don’t be fuckin’ around with that mouse! You might jinx us and fuck up our karma. Maybe we’ll all get captured and get treated like that. Now sit the fuck down.”

“Don’t worry about jinxing us, Dechico,” Sergeant Sandlin countered with grin. “It’s called the food chain, bitch. If you don’t like it, get the fuck out!”

The Shithook bucked wildly as the pilot tried to steer her close to the top of the terraced hill, days later. The steep angle of the terrain made landing the helicopter impossible, and those closest to the ramp watched the tip of the rear propeller nick into the terraces. Second Platoon stood looking out the back, poised and waiting on the word. The bird settled in mid-air for a second, and at the command of the door gunner, the soldiers jumped out of the back, hit the ground, and pushed down the terrace to make room for the next falling Joe. Within fifteen minutes, LZ Goose was riddled with three-man positions pulling security all around it.

As night fell, Sergeant Bronson climbed up the terraced hillside to the position he shared with Walton and Sergeant Feran. “Hey, y’all want to hear something funny? First Platoon got dropped up in the snow line.”

Sergeant Feran laughed. “Yeah, well, they’re all hardcore. A little snow ain’t shit to them.” Sergeant Feran was a soldier from the state of Washington, and he had transferred to their unit prior to the deployment. His curmudgeonly disposition caused him to assimilate easily into Second Platoon.

“You know what kills me?” Sergeant Bronson asked rhetorically, “They spend all this money to fly us out here to get this fuck, Faqirullah , or whatever the fuck his name is, and they just set us outside the village and have us wait. Now you tell me; if you’re a motherfuckin’ terrorist mastermind or some shit, and the Army drops a battalion of motherfuckers a klick away from your home, and they just sit there, what the fuck are you gonna do? You’re gonna pop some motherfuckin’ smoke that’s what.”

Sergeant Bronson took out a cigarette from the pack in his plastic travel soap carrier, lit it, shook his head, and mumbled over it. “We’re gonna spend the night freezin’ up here, then tomorrow we’re gonna go down there and search and not find shit, when we should start combing that bitch right now to find his monkey-ass.” He removed his K-Pot and scratched his head.

Night dragged on in an effort not to die. The cold bit through the thin part of the sleeping bag they’d been allowed to bring, and the heat of a few months ago seemed like a dream. Walton walked a circuit around his position to keep his feet warm and imagined what he’d do when he was back in the States and out of the Army. He sang songs in his head until his turn at guard ended. He approached Sergeant Bronson, and as he prepared to wake him, he heard his voice say, “I’m up, Tom.”

“Roger, Sergeant,” Walton replied, then began getting ready to rack out.

Sergeant Bronson sat up in his own bag with a sincere, “Fuck this bullshit,” and put in a fresh Combat-Dip of Copenhagen.

“Sergeant, I like to think you and I are reasonably intelligent men,” Walton grumbled from inside his sleeping bag. “Yet, here we all are, on a mountain, freezing, and about to search a place for people we know are gone. All because someone said so. We should all be rulin’ the world, not freezing here.”

“Just remember this when you’re out,” Sergeant Bronson’s disembodied voice said in a hushed tone as he could be heard getting up. “I’ll tell you one thing. You’ll appreciate shit like showers and beds a whole lot more.”

Walton lay on the ground and shivered like a dog shitting peach seeds. He didn’t think he’d been this cold in a long time. Winter in The Boz’ had been bad too, but in a different way. Old Second Platoon had often been out in it, and during one particular road march, Walton had been so mad at the world over the situation that the anger behind his thousand-yard stare had drawn the attention of Oversnach. After a brief discussion concerning their miserable circumstances, the tattooed soldier, who had walked next to Walton like red-headed Zen in a set of BDU’s or the Tao with a rucksack, had laughed amiably and said, “Your convictions are honorable. Put down the stone.”

That was what he needed to do; put down the stone. Walton tried to quiet his mind by breathing deeply, but the effort never lasted long and soon gave way to his imagination.

Life would be a lot easier if it were a ZZ Top video, he thought to himself. The Bearded Ones (and the mustached drummer) would magically appear on the frigid hill in bum-fuck Afghanistan and give him the keys to a funky red hot rod with three chicks in it. Music would ensue. He’d drive away a hero with his tarts to a sexy-assed world of classic rock and sunny beaches. There he would dwell in a magnificent thatched hut that came with clean white sheets on a big damn bed and bright-eyed naked girls smiling and squirming all over each other. With Amy thrown smack dab in the middle of them all just for good measure. Maybe he’d even get one of those cool guitars that spun around. When he was out of the Army, maybe he’d grow himself a righteous, patriarchal beard…

Sergeant Feran nudged him two hours later. “Hey Tom, it’s time for your shift. Say, Mulane’s over at the next position and he just told me a joke; what’s the difference between Michael Jackson and acne? Acne doesn’t come on a boy’s face till he’s thirteen.”

The Battalion converged on the hillside village of Aranus before dawn and they began a systematic search. Men were separated, then searched and questioned by the male soldiers while a small group of female MP’s searched the women. They spent the day walking up and down the mountain and talking to one Haji after another. All told the same story; Faqirullah was gone.

After the day’s activity, Walton sat with Bravo Team on the roof of a building pulling security down into the valley below, and eating handfuls of Haji bread that the leadership purchased off the locals. He rolled around in his mind the memory of the first building he’d searched in the tilted village that clung tentatively to the mountain. The sprawling home was said to have been Faqirulla’s.

Walton had stood at the front of a stack with his team behind him and pushed through the open front door into a long hallway lined with doors and crannies. As they’d begun their search, a part of his mind had been wound up with fear, wondering when they would find a bearded man with a rifle in his hand, hiding behind something and waiting to take as many soldiers with him as he could.

Though most of the rooms had been accessible, there had been a few that had been locked, and Walton had needed to kick them open. He found that he liked kicking them open, and it had soon taken on the form of secret addiction. He’d savored the feeling of exerting himself over the object and the sensation of it snapping open under his boot, then flowing into a room the instant the door yielded to him, right into the face of what could be death; either for him or the men they hunted. There was nothing like it.

As Walton had left the empty compound, he had mused that he may have just walked through the home and touched the things of a terrorist. When darkness came, First Squad led the long line of tired soldiers back across the river and up the hundreds of thigh-high terraces to the sprawling battalion-sized patrol base.

They crossed back over the river in the morning, through the maze of the village and along the mountainside to the PZ six klicks away. Walton passed a team from Bravo Company as they left the perimeter and when he heard the song they sang and clapped to, he laughed loudly and made it his mantra for the march.

Back at Post, Sergeant Bronson gave the order, “Get them to fuckin’ chow,” and Musen and Walton sent their soldiers to the D-Fac. The servers had almost broken down lunch, but they remained open for the returning soldiers who hadn’t found their quarry.

The squad moved in like a pack of dirty cavemen and hunched over their trays, raising their eyes only to unapologetically eye-fuck the two female soldiers who still sat drinking coffee. The women were with a male POG who looked uncomfortable near the disheveled, smelly soldiers. The POG had correction on his tongue but he thought better than to say anything and they soon left.

Upon returning to KAF a few days later, there was little in the way of downtime. Between the ammo layout, the power failure, running laps around The Wire, and the platoon being stuck on QRF again, Walton toyed with the idea of ending it all in a hail of gunfire with The Bad Man’s minions like Butch and Sundance or throwing himself in front of one of the Shit Trucks that trolled the porta-johns on Post. His most recent annoyance was to be tasked with giving the Joes a class on the M4. As he sat listening to Waylon Jennings and thumbing through the M4 manual, he missed being drunk.

Sergeant Cade suddenly stuck his head in the tent and yelled, “Irene!” The squad cussed collectively and got on their gear, swearing that Sergeant Cade needed to stop watching Black Hawk Down .

“Musen, Walton, get ‘em over here,” Sergeant Bronson ordered after an eastbound Shithook ride. The two walked off in separate directions and returned with their soldiers. “Look, gentlemen, some fucked up shit went down here. When we go up that hill and secure the site, I don’t want to hear any snivelin’ or cryin’. You need to reach down, grab your nuts, be a fuckin’ man, and do your job. Understood? Walton, take your boys up front. Musen, you got trail.”

Walton left the patrol base and his team automatically broke into a wedge behind him. They continued on for a few hundred meters, then tightened into a file as they entered the village. He led them across an irrigation ditch and walked onto the main road of the village where the inhabitants sat on walls and in the dirt with their nerve-wracking blank facial expressions as they divided their attention between the soldiers and the reason the camouflaged men had come.

Walton scanned his sector as he walked, but his eyes kept returning to the bright collection of reds, blues, and greens that lay on the ground in silent conflict with the drab colors of the world around them. Small round shapes bulged under the vivid blankets with an occasional smear of blood striking out from under them. He wondered why the sight didn’t bother him.

He continued walking past the veiled gore of the scene, and at the pock-marked building across the road from a collection of silent Hajis, Walton halted. He set his team in positions around the road and the rest of the platoon completed the cordon.

“Some fucked up shit went down, here,” Sergeant Bronson said again as he joined Walton after spending twenty minutes with the leadership while they questioned locals. “Some pilot bitch was flying an A10 and opened up on some guy on a motorcycle from a mile away who was supposed to be Taliban. The guy got away but she shot one man, a teenager, seven little boys, and one little girl by accident. Sandlin looked under the blankets and said one of the kids had been cut in half.”

“Damn,” Walton said, thinking there should be something better to say.

“Yeah. Fuck it. Anyhow, the village elders said the guy’s gone, but they’ve seen him armed and know his house is right there. You and Musen are gonna take your boys and search it while they get some CSI motherfuckers to look at the bodies.”

First Squad spent the next hour rifling through the owner’s belongings. They found several AK47's, ammo, frags, RPG rockets, and even a novelty photo of the owner with Osama Bin Laden. Once they finished, they searched it again then joined the platoon in searching the rest of the village. They worked into the depths of night.

“Hey, Sergeant, check this out,” Dominican Lou called out from across the darkened storage shed.

“What is it, Lou?” Walton asked as he drew near the white glow of the soldier’s small Maglite.

Lou flashed the light at a wooden box, and said in a conspiratorial tone, “There’s a bunch of money and shit!”

Walton observed the wad of out-of-date Afghan bills for a long moment. “Looks like Haji Monopoly money.”

“Can I take some, Sergeant?”

Lou’s toothy white grin made Walton think of the Cheshire Cat. “Motherfucker, I already let you snatch a set of brass knuckles.”

“I know, Sergeant. I can’t help it. I like to steal.”

Walton frowned in thoughts ending with the words, Fuck it . “Alright, Lou, but just take a small bill. And get me one too.”

They exited the shack and Walton noticed Private Tasker walking into a building to help a team search. He was struck by how much the young soldier looked like a little boy, and it reminded him of his youngest brother back home. The sight of Tasker, appearing so out of place under all his weapons and equipment as he walked among the dead children, made Walton feel hollow until anger seeped out, making, “I fuckin’ hate Afghanistan,” the words he’d go to sleep to.

“Man, I’m getting fucking tired of running all the time. I’d like to put on some mass,” Brickham said over his breakfast.

“I’ve been sayin’ that for years now,” Walton replied. He looked down at his skinny frame and felt the embarrassment he’d carried in his pocket since he couldn’t remember when. He looked at the others in the D-Fac and was willing to bet he could tell which ones were infantry and which ones weren’t; POG’s being the ones with the time to go to the gym. He shook his head, wondering when they had all become a bunch of goddamn twelve-year-old girls. “Still, I’d rather do sprints than run all over the fuckin’ Post like we did when we first got here. You know, I’m really proud of Lou. He has a tough time with this shit, but he keeps pluggin’ away. You don’t hear about that shit in the States, though.”

Brickham scraped the bottom of his bowl of instant oatmeal and gestured with his spoon. “Did you see Lou’s latest issue of Playboy ? They had motherfuckin’ Kato Kaylen sitting around and chatting at the goddamn Playboy Mansion. What the fuck did he do? Meanwhile, we run all over Afghanistan and our water smells like poop. What the fuck?”

Walton laughed and tossed his napkin onto his tray. “Fuck it. I just keep remindin’ myself I got less than six months left. Unless they put a Stop-Movement down on us, I’ll be back in the real world in February. Provided of course, I don’t get shot in the face.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. Are Dechico and Dobbs still going back?”

“Last I heard they were. How’s shit back on the homestead?”

Brickham shrugged. “It’s alright I guess. My wife might be going to Iraq and that pisses me the fuck off. Having my wife in a combat zone...God! But the rest of the familiy’s okay. It’s definitely another world, though. I got a letter from some people at my parents’ church who said, ‘Wow, when you get back from Afghanistan you must have all kinds of neat stories.’ What the fuck? I can just see me having milk and cookies with these people saying shit like, ‘Oh yeah, we went to this one shithole where we fucked this one guy up with the gun and my buddy put one in another guy’s fuckin’ nugget.’ Those people back home are living in a whole other fucking world.”

In the quiet pause that followed, Walton suddenly overheard a bit of a conversation between Percy and Gypsy (AKA: Specialist Gedespie from Second Squad) who sat nearby. They were discussing an alleged rape case in California, and according to them, a woman had gone up to a man’s room, had sex with him, and then later falsely accused him of rape.

The twenty-one-year-old, one hundred and fifty pound Gypsy remarked dispassionately, “That is why the only safe sex you can have is with a prostitute.”

Percy laughed so hard at his statement that it sounded like he might have a seizure. When he could finally breathe again he declared, “She’s a scandalous bitch and should be shot in the face!”

A girl in a pilot’s uniform walked by, and Walton tastefully eye-fucked her with a smile until she passed from view.

He and Brickham soon left the D-Fac tent, and after throwing out their trash, they ran into Heinz and Ericks. At the sight of them, Walton grinned and asked, “What’s up fellas?”

“I think I’m losing it, Sergeant,” Heinz answered. “I need to be able to go to the gym on my own. The only time I get to go is when the fucking POG’s are there, and they just stand around at the weights and fucking talk.”

“I like it when chicks work on the medicine ball because I imagine I’m behind them and having sex with them,” Ericks said in his clipped, collegiate manner.

Heinz turned to look at him angrily. “What the fuck did I tell you about using proper English ‘n shit?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ericks replied, then began moving his hips back and forth with his hands out in front of him. “I meant, ‘I imagine I’m fucking them in the ass.’”

“That’s better.” Heinz lowered his eyes, looking dejected. “I think I’m losing my will to live. I don’t even beat off any more.”

Walton slapped him lightly in the face then pointed his finger at the soldier in mock umbrage. “I don’t ever want to hear those words come out of your mouth again! Ever! You’re a goddamned infantry soldier! You need to beat off at least once a day whether you need to or not. That’s probably your fuckin’ problem.”

“Remember this: rich whores are always lookin’ for someone to use to piss off their daddy,” Sergeant Bronson sagely advised while a contingent of Second Platoon watched a bootleg copy of the Paris Hilton sex tape during a game of Axis and Allies .

As Tasker positioned his armies in Africa, Sergeant Feran turned to Percy (who eyed the bank), and said to the soldier, “Percy, if I catch you extorting money, I’m gonna take you outside and set you on fire!”

While Percy convulsed with laughter, Dechico shook his head. “What the fuck is with that laugh? You should have heard this fucking guy when the safety inspector checked out the tent and told Sergeant Bronson we’d have to move the water resupply away from the back door because it was a fire hazard. Sergeant Bronson told the guy, ‘You know we’re in a tent, right? We have the technology to cut ourselves out if we have to.’ It took forever to shut this kid up after that.”

“Hey! I’ve been told I have a very endearing laugh.”

“That’s right, Percy, you keep your head up,” Brickham encouraged. “Women like a guy that can laugh.” He looked over at Dechico. “Why aren’t you playing with us, you dirty Wop? It’ll expand your mind.”

“I already expanded my mind. It’s called Ecstasy.”

“That green shit makes me feel like I’m watching this with my NOD’s,” Castor remarked as he viewed the boudoir grappling on the TV. A mischievous impulse then noticeably seized him. He tilted his head toward Doc, who sat next to him, and announced loudly, “Everybody knows Puerto Ricans are the fucking shit-bags of the Hispanic race!”

Doc’s eyes widened theatrically. As a Puerto Rican, to get shit from a California Latino was more than he could bear. He took Castor’s bait and thus reignited the latest front in the never-ending ethnic ass-grabbery. Doc demanded satisfaction on behalf of his people. “No way! Sexy Ricans are head and shoulders above you peasant Spics!” A tirade of Spanish ensued.

Gonzo looked up thoughtfully from his boys in China. “You ever notice how there aren’t any horses around? Rambo must’ve killed all the horses in Afghanistan. I haven’t seen any. If they do, they’re probably like those cows in the villages. All emancipated and shit.”

Walton almost shat from laughing. “You mean emaciated . That’d be like Lincoln issuin’ the Emaciation Proclamation, and all those kids in Ethiopia with flies on their faces bein’ emancipated.”

Tasker paused from deploying his forces to ruminate over the issues at hand. “Dude, if we had horses I’d have them carry all my AG gear and 240 ammo. I’d be like, ‘Thank God!’”

Sergeant Bronson directed his attention to the Cherry. The younger soldiers had taken to calling the squad leader Psycho Dad at times and Walton had the impression that he secretly relished playing the role of the paterfamilias. “Tasker, there is no God. The sooner you get that through your fuckin’ head, the better off you’ll be. Percy, where was God for your people sixty years ago?”

“Tasker, we so have to hook you up with The Yeti when we get back,” Dechico added while watching Miss Hilton with a bored expression. He finally lost it and yelled, “God, I miss pussy!”

Sergeant Bronson turned next to the Italian. “Y’all don’t hook him up with a fat chick his first time out, Ginny. You’ll scare him of pussy. A word of advice, though, gentlemen; don’t try to get some ass your first night back. You’ll just embarrass yourself. Feel on some titties, eat some pussy, then go to bed.”

As the game wore on, Walton watched his platoon laugh and tease each other with the openness reserved for siblings. He could not imagine such camaraderie and freedom of discourse among as disparate a group in the civilian world. The PC Thought Police would have denounced them on national TV for “hate speech” and tossed them in the gulag until someone apologized and kissed the ring of whatever community had been offended. Then there would be the smug entreaties about the need to “open up a dialogue,” and to “have an honest discussion in this country” about whatever was the fill-in-the-blank media-driven cause of the moment, or some other bit of cockamamie horseshit from the progressivist totalitarian field manual. If it was really significant, they’d even get a bunch of ornamental people to weigh in on the twenty-four hour news networks to help “raise awareness.”

Walton thought about his ETS date with bitter sweetness. He was going to miss these fuckers.

When it ended, Walton returned the DVD to the Second Squad tent. As he passed Sergeant Feran on his way out, he wished him a Merry Christmas. His holiday greeting was returned by the NCO who promptly yelled, “Yeah, ho, ho, ho. Go spread some Christmas Cheer, ya fuck!”