the Iraqi Academy of physical abuse while stuck here
This is a story of we happy stuck here. This is the story of a ragtag bunch of misfits picked for a suicide mission to stuck here. A young man. From the ragtag clutches. A noble, professional Special Forces commando learns that war is young. A young hell and ragtag bunch of All-American misfits fight Japs in the South Pacific and learn war is war. A bunch ragtag of young ragtag learn the true meaning of discipline and camaraderie and war and war. A young maverick risks everything to save his father from the Libyans. A ragtag bunch of Australians go halfway across the world and learn war is is. This is the story ragtag young man.
Stuck here. Stuck here. This is the story of valor, duty, and the cost of war. A young camaraderie. This is the story of a young man who learns war always has a cost. A young wacky. This is the story of a wacky bunch of ragtag misfits trying to escape from Nazi prison. A wacky bunch of ragtag misfits running an Army hospital in Korea. A ragtag maverick valor war. This is the story of a young man’s war, the story of we happy few.
your leader will
control your fire
fear is not shameful
if it is controlled
The plane tilted on its side and through the window in the opposite bulkhead Baghdad whirled below, taking my stomach with it. Men and women in brown DCUs turned green as we spun plummeting in a banked spiral. The guy across the aisle puked in a bag and his buddy cheered.
We rolled against the sky, then at the last minute flopped flat and came in straight. The engines growled down into the final approach, and we dropped the last few inches slamming to the deck.
They downloaded our bags and we threw them in the back of a five-ton. The truck took us to a staging area. Contacting Battalion to arrange pickup, I was surprised by how eager I felt to see my fellow soldiers—I had to make sure they were okay, but as much as that I just wanted to see their faces. They understood. They knew this shit world we lived in, knew it all better than anyone I could talk to back in Oregon. I realized as well that I was itching to get back outside the wire. The berms, palm trees, and sand around me seemed not just familiar but comforting. Normal. I wanted to scan rooftops. I wanted shots fired. I wanted ninja women in abayas, hadjis in man-dresses. I wanted to hear and talk salaam a-leykum, ishta, uskut. I wanted my rifle.
It was hard to believe I’d just been back in the land of shopping malls and big hair, showing my ex-girlfriend photo after photo: this is my humvee, this is Captain Yarrow, this is Camp Lancer, this is the UN before, the UN after. How was it possible that just a few weeks ago I’d come down into Portland, rain drumming on the plane’s windows, feeling the war slip off like an old jacket?
When I got off the plane, there was my ex-girlfriend and another girl, an old friend, and we hugged and kissed and grinned. In the parking garage by the car, they lifted their skirts and showed off their matching Superman panties. My heart was full of love.
All the long ride home while the girls talked to me and each other, I scanned overpasses for snipers and watched the shoulder for IEDs. I kept reaching back for my rifle, startled that I’d lost it, and eyeballed cars passing on 205, feeling spooked, thinking I need a drink, I need a smoke, how the fuck long do I have to do this alone?
Now, after weeks of being apart, she’d be there waiting for me.
Geraldo showed up in C7.
“’Sup, Wheat Thin.”
“Good to be home, Cheeto.”
“You missed a dope barbecue.”
“Anybody get killed?”
“Naw. Burnett some caught shrapnel from an IED. Like a thumbtack. Purple Heart’s tomorrow. You have yourself some fun?”
“I didn’t know what to do with nobody shooting at me. I got laid, though. Any word on redeployment?”
“Saying April.”
“April, huh?”
“What they say.”
“That’s like ninety days.”
“Ninety days be ninety days.”
On the way back to the CP, I watched the West Side DFAC go by and the road to Gate 5. The route I had run in the mornings and the fenced-off mosque. We passed Battalion Maintenance, the mini-PX, and the hemmet lot, finally pulling into our compound. I didn’t know whether to cry or scream or shit myself.
I got out and downloaded my gear. On my way to draw my weapon, I ran into Nash and Sergeant Chandler.
“What are you doing here, Sergeant? I thought you were getting out.”
“Yeah, so did I,” he said.
“What d’you mean?”
“Three days before my orders, I get fucking stop-lossed.”
“Say what?”
“Stop-loss. No-Movement Orders come down for all units in support of OIF. Nobody ETSes out of Iraq anymore.”
“What the fuck’s that mean? You don’t get out?”
“Not till we get back.”
“That is some fucked-up shit. But it’s only ninety days, right?”
“So they say. But enough about my troubles. How was leave?”
“Fucking-A, man. I ate everything. I drank everything. I got fucked. I saw the new Lord of the Rings movie, which was awesome. And this—you gotta check this out.” I dug through my backpack. “You and me, Sergeant, we’re Person of the Year.” I handed them the Time magazine with the 1AD guys on the cover.
“No shit.”
“Yeah. There’s a big article in there about how fucked up it’s been for 4-27.”
“I guess we’re too boring.”
“It’s weird man, coming back. At the Dallas airport, there was this line of flag wavers, and anytime anyone found out I was in Iraq, they got all serious and shit, started thanking me and telling me what a great thing it was I was doing. I didn’t know what to say. Like, hell yeah, fuck hadji! I mean, what the fuck?”
“Bet you got a lot of ass.”
“Sure, well… I was fooling around with my ex, but… if I’d wanted, there was definitely opportunity. I mean, what chick doesn’t wanna fuck a war hero?”
I left them with the magazine and went to draw my rifle. As I crossed the motor pool, I seemed to be walking through a dream. I felt too relaxed. Everyone else was depressed and hateful, just like I remembered, but the difference was me: I was okay. I could see our frustrated rage, our barely checked aggression, our loneliness, our desperation, and for the first time ever, I could see it without belonging to it. If I can just hang on to this, I thought, I’ll get through. Everything’ll be fine.
Later I talked to Bullwinkle and he said yeah, that lasts about three days.
when defending, or when temporarily halted