Just Imagine This...

It’s another hot day, the kind of heat that seems to suffocate you. The sun bakes the earth and the wind blows warm air that offers no relief. To make matters worse, you are wearing an outer tactical vest (OTV, made of Kevlar and equipped with small arms protective plates in the front, back and sides) that weighs around 50 pounds with all of the loaded magazines, the small dismount radio, frags, smoke grenades, etc. On top of that, you are in the back of a Bradley with 7 other dudes. Ya know when you’re cramped up in a small area with another person, the body heat being generated will warm you up? Well, imagine that x8 in a metal box with the temperature outside reaching 135 degrees. Now imagine that you’ve been sitting in that Bradley for 12 hours. Your ass is throbbing since the bench you’re sharing with your buddies wasn’t designed for comfort. When the Bradley moves, the forward motion pushes all of your weight onto one cheek and no matter how hard you try to shift your weight to distribute it evenly along your aching ass, there’s never enough room to move around with all the other bodies in there so you just have to do your best to ignore the soreness. You can grab a hold of one of the straps hanging off the inside of the compartment and pull yourself up, temporarily giving your tender butt a reprieve but you can only hold it for 15-20 seconds because all the extra weight hanging off your shoulders beckons you back down onto the bench. You grab a bottle of water from the cooler, or have someone else grab it for you depending on where you’re seated. The ice inside the cooler melted hours ago and the bottle has warmed up. It’s likely that the original bottles of water that were in the cooler with the ice to begin with have already been consumed so the one you’re holding in your hand at this point isn’t just warm, it’s fucking hot since it had been laying on the storage space between the seats and the hull before it was thrown into the lukewarm, now very dirtied water (dirty from everyone sticking their filthy dick-beaters inside it). Someone says fuck it and pops the TOW hatch open just a foot or so to allow some air flow (the TOW hatch is about 1 meter long, ½ a meter wide and is centered over the back of the Bradley behind the turret, it allows for dismounts to re-load the TOW launcher if necessary). When the TOW hatch opens, all of the dust that had collected on the back of the hull pours into the dismount compartment covering everyone’s weapons, receiver, barrel, optics and all in a fine layer of soil. The dust that settles on your sweat soaked uniform turns into a thin layer of mud. The air stops circulating once again and if there is a breeze outside, all it brings is more warm air and dirt. The TOW hatch is then closed since it wasn’t having the desired effect and it would be hard to justify somebody getting fucked up by shrapnel or God-forbid some kid is able to throw a grenade inside all because we were uncomfortable. Somebody mutters “This shit was not in the fucking recruiting video,” and everyone nods in agreement. You sit there, staring at each other, smelling each other’s un-washed bodies and farts, too miserable to even think of anything but your own misery. Somebody notes “Man, imagine where we could be if we’d joined the fucking Navy or something… I could be like, on a ship somewhere in the Pacific about to go on port call to the Philippines or Australia or somewhere cool like that” and everyone thinks back to the days before they enlisted and wonders “Why the fuck did I join the Army?” The patrol moves out once the explosive ordnance disposal team you have attached to you clears a suspect pile of rocks on the shoulder of the road. The EOD guys you have with you now are being extra cautious since they just replaced the ones you had originally brought out with you after their vehicle was disabled by a couple of anti-tank mines equipped with a pressure wire. So far, they’ve already destroyed two other IEDs. The patrol continues and the only thing you can do aside from be incredibly uncomfortable is think. Your mind wanders back to something that happened only hours before. A Humvee gunner manning a .50 cal lit up a truck that was parked in a palm grove after he identified individuals moving around it with weapons. The armed men fled the scene and you were kicked out of the Bradley and ordered to sweep the palm grove in search of them. The .50 cal had been shooting armor piercing incendiary rounds that ignited the dry grass causing a brush fire. The flames were spread out along a 100 meter front forcing you to traverse the “line of fire” and sweep around behind it. The smoke from the fire was choking everyone out and you were becoming light headed. You push your body to its limits and get upwind of the fire, leaving the smoke behind as well as a cow who is apparently caught somewhere near the flames. As the fire grew, the unseen cow’s mooing grew louder and louder. It almost sounded as if the animal was shrieking, if that is even possible for an animal with such a baritone sound. All of a sudden, the mooing stops. While patrolling through the brush, a man wearing all black with an AK47 in hand leaped out of a ditch and tore off at a dead sprint, throwing his weapon to the ground in the hope that you won’t shoot him. He would have been better off just surrendering because he is promptly cut down by your platoon sergeant’s 5.56 and he crumples to the ground, gasping the last breath’s of air that will ever enter his now bullet ridden lungs. As you jogged past the dying man, you saw his eyes blankly staring into the sky, blood seeping out of his mouth and flowing from the holes in his chest. And you felt absolutely nothing. No joy, no sorrow, no delight, no remorse, no pleasure or amusement, no hatred or loathing, just nothing. He’s not even a real human being to you now. He is just another dead corpse. You vainly attempted to shoot three more individuals some 500 meters away fleeing into another palm grove but the distance to the targets and your heavy breathing caused your rounds to miss completely. You searched the area but found nothing more than nourishment in the form of the sweetest grapes you’ve ever tasted growing in a vineyard. You mounted back up into the Bradley and found out that the other dismount team found a bunch of anti-tank mines inside the muj truck. You sat in the back of the Bradley and watched the squad leader's display mounted by the turret and got to see the truck get blown into basketball size chunks and smaller. You’re now riding in the back of the Bradley thinking hard on your reaction to the dying man and wonder what it all means. You realize that you barely even reacted. A few months ago you would have stopped and stared in wonderment, maybe even gave your buddy a high five and snapped some photos. Now, you’re just numb to the sight of another dead body. You don’t get too deep into thought because you’ve finally reached your destination; some no name village dozens and dozens of kilometers from anything other than farm land, palm groves and other tiny villages just like it. You step outside the Bradley and the flow of blood that had been staunched by the weight of your body and the forward motion of the tracked vehicle resumes its natural course and your ass feels blissful. But you can’t soak it up for long because you’ve taken up a light jog through a muddy ditch. The vehicle’s stay behind as you head towards the village. You see why the vehicles can’t follow you into the village; a giant ditch has been dug out of the road rendering it un-passable. It’s just you and about 12 other guy’s on foot heading into town. The village seems quiet, almost as if it were abandoned. You’re there to find the locals and see if the reports that your headquarters had received were true or not. Supposedly, the all Shiite village was attacked by members of the Islamic State of Iraq dressed as Iraqi Policemen and Army soldiers. There were reports of a hundred people being murdered in the streets. You absolutely have to get there before CNN gets wind of the situation and assess what’s really going on in the village. As you approach the village, a couple of people carefully peer out of doorways and around mud walls. Somebody in your patrol points his M4 at a man in order to use the gun sight with its magnification to get better eyes on the individual. The middle aged, disdasha wearing man rightfully takes off down an alley after having a loaded weapon pointed at him. You and your buddies get excited and become more anxious. You enter the village and notice shell casings of various calibers littering the streets. There’s 7.62mm brass from AKs and from PKCs. There’s .51 caliber shells from a Durschka. You see blast marks on the walls from grenades and RPGs and even find a dud hand grenade of Belgian origin. You come across a brown stain splattered along a wall and realize that color was once red and belonged to somebody and it wasn’t put there for decoration. The oldest man in the village appears with an entourage of younger men all carrying AK47s and wearing ammo vests. There’s a brief moment of unease and weapons are raised yet not aimed because of the non-threatening posture they demonstrate. Your uncertainty is finally put at ease when your interpreter assures you and your buddies that these men are friendly and only carry weapons to defend their village. The old man takes your patrol to his home, a walled off compound with three or four houses inside and at least half a dozen families. He shows you one house that is riddled with bullet holes and pock marks from RPG blasts and you notice that the inside has been completely torched. You pull security at the gate of the compound while the XO talks to the people and finds out what exactly happened. An ex-FBI agent turned civilian contractor and weapons consultant who accompanied your patrol bumbles around snapping pictures of every little detail and points everything out to whoever happens to be near him even though nobody gives two shits about what the man has to say. The sky is now grey and the air smells like rain. You know this means the medevac status will soon turn red (meaning no helicopters will be able to come and evacuate any wounded you may have) and you dread the thought of having to ride the few hours it will take to get back to the FOB, knowing that if you get wounded, there will be no immediate evacuation available. Just as the XO finishes up with the locals, your squadron headquarters calls and orders you to move to the nearest friendly base and wait out the weather. You mount back up in your vehicles and head to a town a couple hours drive away (as long as you don’t hit any IEDs that is) where there is an Iraqi Army outpost. On the way there you find out what happened in the village. A group of Al Qaeda insurgents did enter the village dressed as Iraqi Army soldiers and proceeded to kill 27 villagers and rob the people to fund their resistance. Although you didn’t actually see any dead bodies in the village, you did see all the evidence of the fighting and for once, you don’t think the Iraqi’s are exaggerating. The gates of the IA outpost are too narrow to fit the Bradley’s inside so as you dismount to head indoors, you laugh at the crew of the Bradley who will have to spend however long this weather lasts still cramped in their vehicles. You enter the IA soldiers’ barracks and they generously make room in their meager living quarters and offer bread, cai and generic Hajji Pepsi. Since your cigarette supply ran out hours and hours before, you find a group of IA soldiers and bum a cheap Miami brand cigarette. They light it up for you and you start to BS with them. While communicating through broken Arabic and broken English you notice one of the IA soldiers snickering and whispering to another nearby. The IA soldier looks like a young boy though you can tell he is in his twenties. He appears almost feminine. You ask him what he’s talking about and another IA soldier, the one who speaks halfway decent English tells you that the feminine fella thinks you are very pretty. You glance around at the group of IA who surround your position and all of a sudden you fear for the virginity of your anal cavity. You quickly sack the idea as ridiculous since you’re there with your entire platoon and it would crazy for them to try something like that. You politely dismiss yourself from the group and back away, thanking them for the smoke and wishing them a good night. You glance over your shoulder at them and they are all snickering and whispering as you walk away. You relax a little but there’s still some unease because you are in Iraq and you know that crazy shit like that happens here. It’s chow time now so you break open a Jumbalaya MRE and soak the contents with Tobasco sauce in an attempt to give the very bland tasting meal a little more flavor. You contemplate mixing water with the vanilla dairy shake powder but know that if you drink it, you’ll have to take a massive dump in a few hours. You’re still hungry so you drink it anyways. You’re exhausted at this point and after gorging yourself on the 3,000 calorie MRE you have a severe case of ITIS so you spread out your OTV (remember? that’s your ballistic vest), run one arm through your MOLLE gear (the vest that holds all of your mags and frags and such) so no IA soldier can swipe anything off of it, wrap your hand around the sling of your weapon and quickly pass out. Around 0345 in the morning someone comes and walks you up and tells you it’s your turn to pull guard on the roof. As you sit up an immense urge to defecate right then and there overpowers you and you tell the guy that just woke you up that you may be a few minutes late for your shift. With weapon in hand you hurriedly shuffle to the latrine, clenching your ass cheeks along the way. After stumbling around in the dark hallways you find the shitter and are less than pleased to see the small hole in the ground is almost filled to the top with other American dookie (Hajji “toilet’s” are just little holes in the ground shaped like old fashioned key holes). You know it’s from Americans because of the shit stained baby wipes and tissues that lay amongst the heaping piles of poo and you know that Iraqi’s wipe their asses old school; with their left hand. You don’t let any of this hamper your progress though because the turtle’s head is poking and the situation has turned into an emergency. You undo your belt and drop trouser faster than you’ve ever done in your life and as you drop down into the Hajji squat position, a colossal movement takes place along the way. While emptying your bowels you curse yourself for eating that damn dairy shake but your attention focuses elsewhere when you see the pitcher of water against the wall that Iraqi’s use to clean their hands with after they’re done. God that’s disgusting, you think to yourself and then you remember how the IA soldier you bummed a smoke off of earlier handed you the cigarette with his left hand. THAT MOTHERFUCKER! You don’t dwell on this thought since you’ve now realized that you’ve forgotten your baby wipes in the other room with your gear. You curse yourself some more. You weigh your options and even contemplate wiping Iraqi style. There IS water in the pitcher after all, and When in Rome… Negative. You quickly stifle that thought and use your Gerber multi-purpose tool to cut your shirt into strips that you can then use. It’s rough and the sweat that has soaked your shirt all day long stings the sensitive skin but at least you haven’t demeaned yourself to their level. You rush to get your gear on and jog up to the roof to relieve your buddy who is severely pissed off at you for being 10 minutes late. He doesn’t say a word as he brushes by, eager to get some sleep of his own. The next two hours are spent walking around on the roof with one of your buddies and a couple IA soldiers. After about an hour you start to get a headache from staring through your night vision goggles but you keep on scanning the surrounding buildings and streets for signs of any muj that may try something sneaky. You get a radio check with the Bradley’s and they both respond sounding completely drained. You know they’re worn out and you feel sorry for them. After you get relieved you head back downstairs and resume the sleeping position as the sun begins to rise. Just as you're about to nod off the earsplitting call to prayer echoes off the walls and startles you completely awake. You recognize the wails and awful singing for what it is and quickly pass out. You awake on your own a few hours later. Well, you don’t really wake up on your own; it’s the flies that are buzzing around your head and constantly landing on your face mixed with the repressive heat of the mid morning that wake you up. The sun is shining through the clouds as you crack open a beef stew MRE and you look out the window up at the sky and wonder why the hell the medevac status hasn’t changed yet. Before you even set in on the pineapple pound cake you get the word to mount up. All of a sudden you’re full of energy as you throw your gear back on and everyone is in brighter spirits. You wave goodbye to the IA and thank them for their hospitality and are actually very happy to be getting back inside the Brad. The patrol races back to the FOB, IEDs be damned, and arrive in record time. After clearing your weapons and refueling your vehicles you head back to your barracks. The first thing you do is drop off your gear and take off your ACU top. Everyone laughs at you because you’re only wearing half of an undershirt but they don’t ride you too hard since they’ve all been there before. You find the to-go plates from the chow hall that are waiting for you and devour the pizza and jalapeno poppers in no time. It’s time for personal hygiene now so you go shave, brush your teeth and take a cool shower. After cleaning away the filmy grime that accumulated in your under region your skin becomes raw and you are severely chaffing as you waddle your way back to your cot. You put on a PT uniform and spend an hour or so cleaning your weapon. You then stretch out on your sleeping bag, wrapping yourself up in the soft Hajji blanket you bought for 10 bucks of off Moe (short for Mohammed) at his little shop on the FOB. You roll over and see somebody is watching Stick It again. The viewer is wearing headphones but you don’t need the audio anyways since you’ve seen it a dozen times and know the lines by heart, it being your platoon’s favorite movie and all. You rack out and sleep the sleep of the dead until somebody comes to wake you up for a shift on the observation post outside the south gate or tells you to get your vehicle ready for QRF, or tells you to go to the motor pool to help change track pads or to let you know about an upcoming mission you need to prepare for. Hopefully though, you wake up on your own and find out you have some free time for yourself. You work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and have been doing so for over half a year and have half a year left to keep doing it. And after a long ass mission like the one you just came off of, a day off would be nice.