You wake up the next morning smelling coffee and chocolate and you look over and see the Gunney working over a little stove and he is boiling up some shit in there and then pouring it out into some cups and you sit up and he hands you one and you drink deep and you can feel the coffee working its way into your arms and legs and the chocolate sitting down pretty in your stomach and then Mr. Holden comes into the tent and says rise and shine petty officer time to go to Iraq.
So you grab your shit and stumble out in to the early morning with the hills all soft and gray in the before the sun comes up light and across the fields with the dew wet on your legs and then to a ’46 with its rotors just starting to turn, blowing soft dawn air into your face and you look up and see the pilots in their helmets looking at you and so you go around back, no rotor this time, and then up the ramp where your pallets are all tucked in, and then to a seat and you buckle in and you see Mr. Holden across from you buckling in, and then you look up to see the crew chief settling in and looking out the window and not at you, and then the Gunney comes trucking up the ramp and he’s got flack vests and helmets and an M-16 for you, and he hands you four magazines full off bullets and he says sign here and hands you a clipboard and you scribble your name on some sheet and then you hand it back and then you reach out and grab the rifle and set it carefully between your knees and watch the Gunney scramble back down the ramp and off to the left.
You can feel the helo shake in your butt and you suddenly feel like everything is real, you can see the walls of the helo very sharp and crisp, the shadows are like knives and the light through the windows is blinding, and then the up and your stomach drops out and you close your eyes and breath in deeply and you remember going on the roller coaster, the big wooden one, the Comet, at Crystal Beach when you were a kid, and how the cars climbed the huge hill clicking and clicking and clicking and then the hill leveled out high above Lake Erie and you could see the park and the shore and the water all out in front of you everywhere, and then there was this moment where everything slowed down and stopped just for a second before the cars started down.
And then you are over the camp and then you are over some fields and then you are over a river, and that’s when the crew chief gets up and walks to the front of the helo and grabs a big metal can of .50 caliber bullets and hauls it back to where the .50 is stuck on a pintel with its nose out the window drooping, and he opens the lid of the can and hauls out the bullets on their metal chain and slides the first round into the top of the .50 and hauls back on the charging handles and talks into his helmet and points the .50 out away from the ground and squeezes the thumb trigger and the gun rattles for a second and the chain links float up into the air and on to the floor and smoke slides back from the gun through the helo and you can smell the sharp gunpowder smell and hear the gun echo in your head and you think that this guy thinks we might get shot at and then you think that this is the stupidest thing you ever did in your life.
Then the crew chief sits down and the helo grabs the air and lifts up, and out the window you can see another ’46 kind of loosely along side of your helo and the two sway together and away like two killdeers over a cornfield on a summer day, and then you are up in the mountains with the helos diving and climbing and skittering over the mountain tops, and over camps of Iraqi troops who run out of their tents and to their guns and you can see the barrels track your helo across the sky and then down into a valley with the mountain tops above you and then up one more time where the air in the helo is very cold and clean tasting and then down one more time, down and over long fields and low hills, and then all the sudden your helo flares out and squats down and the crew chief is pointing at you and Mr. Holden and saying you and you out here and the ramp goes down and you unbuckle and stand up and look at the crew chief and he says you and you out here again and so you shrug and together walk side by side down the ramp into the Iraqi sunshine.
You take a few steps together and then jog carefully out from under the rotors and you can see the other helo circling over head and then the rotor blast hits you and you both crouch down in the tall grass and wait there while the shadow of the ’46 flows over you and then it is gone, a black dot growing smaller in the sky and you and Mr. Holden stand up a little, you with your M-16 in your hands awkward and heavy and it is quiet and you can hear a Iraqi bird singing somewhere and you look at Mr. Holden and he looks at you and you say where to sir and he says I’ve haven’t the faintest fucking clue.
So you look around and you can see some kind of Iraqi fort down the hill about a mile away and you point it out to Mr. Holden and he says let’s wait a second and you both crouch back down in the tall grass and you say what if they fucked up and dropped us in the wrong spot and Mr. Holden says like 29 Palms where the Marines got dropped off in the middle of the freaking desert by accident and like five of them died trying to get back to base and you reach into your web gear and pull out a magazine and slide it in the belly of the rifle and feel it click home and then you pull back on the charging handle and let it slide forward and then you thumb the safety on and say let’s go get a closer look sir and Mr. Holden says sure and so you walk all hunched down through the grass playing war until you get about a quarter mile away and see a HUMVEE come around the corner and you stand up together and breath out and then you put the sling of the M-16 on your shoulder and realize that you were shaking all the way.
So you and Mr. Holden come swinging through the grass and you walk up to this cement fort set in a field with a dirt road running into it and you walk up to the gate and a Marine is standing there with his rifle and you say hello and Mr. Holden says hello and the Marine just looks at you and then he says who are you and Mr. Holden says I’m Lieutenant Holden off the boat and we’re bring some ship’s stores down to you guys and the Marine says Jesus Christmas you got smokes and the Lieutenant says sure and the Marine turns around and hollers for the Master Sergeant who comes around the corner and says where’d you guys come from.
And so you tell him the whole story about how the helos dropped you off in the field and you didn’t know where the hell you were and how you walked through the field all crouched down to see who the hell was down here and the Master Sergeant says you came through that field and he points and you say yup and he says hell we haven’t checked that field for mines yet and you say holy fuck and then you have to sit down.
And then the Master Sergeant smiles and says where’s your stores and you look at Mr. Holden and he looks like he’s saying ah shit to himself and then the master sergeant says those guys will probably be back on the afternoon run don’t worry and then he says you boys hungry and you both say sure cause you’re all the sudden really hungry and he says come on in we’re ready for chow and you go into the courtyard of the fort and look around at the rooms all around you, bare walls with what looks like bullet holes, and there’s a big picture of Saddam painted on one wall with all these holes in it, and you walk over to the chow line and grab a MRE out of a big stack and go back to the middle of the courtyard and sit down and tear it open and you got the chicken which is actually pretty good.
So you spend the rest of the morning sitting there, and when the sun comes overhead you move into the shade at the edge of the courtyard and you shoot the shit a little with the Marines and one of them asks to see your M-16 and you hand it over and he says shit this thing still has the grease pack in it and good thing you didn’t try to fire this fucker and then he pulls out the magazine and ejects the bullet in the chamber and breaks it down into pieces and cleans each piece and then he snaps it all back together and hands it back and says don’t keep a round in the chamber it’ll jam, don’t’ charge it unless you’re ready to fire and don’t fire until someone tells you to, got it and you say sure and you slowly slide the magazine back into the rifle and lean it carefully against the wooden railing at the front of the sidewalk than runs around the inside of the building.
And the Marine s
ays don’t sweat it petty officer none of us has even chambered a round since we got here, the Iraqis are about a mile off but they’re staying well clear, especially since the A-10s showed up, they’re scared shitless of those bastards we got here four weeks ago and deployed down here and have been sitting in our fireholes ever since, pulling our puds and looking at the Arabs looking at us. We spent a week just cleaning this place out – look in that room over there – fuckin’ Iraqis shit in there.
Right about then another ’46 comes in a lot closer this time and you can see Mr. Holden and a bunch of Marines ride out in a truck HUMVEE to the helo and the pallets roll off the back and the helo lift off and disappear and then you go over and help him break down the pallets and stow the stores in the back of the HUMVEE.
You get in and a Marine leans over and shows you how to drive the thing and then you carefully drive it over the fort and a crowd of Marines comes around and you and Mr. Holden sell their allotment of smokes and playboys and a few watches and a boom box and a lot of candy and then you get your M-16 and a map from the master sergeant with the camps marked out on it and you drive out of the fort into the afternoon sun and your last view of the fort is a Marine with clippers shaving the heads of a long line of guys.