by Bruce George
Broken Soldier
This story is copyright 2015 by Bruce George. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
***
Broken Soldier
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The End
Index of characters and items of interest
***
The tiny eyes of the drone watched him for two days. They floated around the tree branches and beneath low shrubs, seeing everything he did and said, not that he talked very much. He did sing a few lines from his late wife’s favorite song and occasionally he uttered a curse word, as his opponent scurried away, before he could capture the illusive creature.
The eyes were infinitely patient. They had no emotion to compel them into doing something foolish that might expose them. The intelligence controlling them was in no hurry either. It was obvious the human would eventually finish his game and return to the trap that awaited him
Chapter 1
Mike Hurst had been fishing here all his life and he knew this part of the river quite well. Cautiously, he moved out into the shallows, pleased that his prosthetic legs held up well against the rapidly moving current. By carefully placing his feet on the rocky bottom, he became one with the crystal clear waters.
With a flick of his wrist, the thin filament line traveled back and forth three feet from his head. The sound of it pleased him and evoked a memory of time spent here in his youth. That had been many years ago and it remained one of his favorite memories.
He didn’t care if he caught anything or not. That wasn’t entirely true, because he did like to win. Where fishing was concerned, winning meant pulling in as many trout as the law allowed. Still, just being there, standing awkwardly in the shallow rushing water, was reward enough for him that day.
Fly-fishing at this spot had been one of his most cherished recollections. He reflected on those recollections, as he recovered from that horrible explosion during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. He was one of three survivors in a squad of eight men, who had helped take Kuwait back from Sadam Hussein’s army.
***
Mike’s company had seen little action in the drive north, into Iraq. He didn’t know it, at the time, but it would be the last day of the conflict for the allied forces.
On the fourth day, his battalion had been tasked with providing perimeter protection for Forward Operation Base (FOB) Viper, which was primarily a helicopter refueling and rearming site for the 101st Airborne Div. The worst of the fighting was over. Just a few miles south of their position, the northern outskirts of Al Busayyah had been bypassed. Yet, it could still pose a threat to the FOB. So, it had to be double checked.
The company commander, Capt. Parker, summoned him. When he walked into the tent, Mike saluted sharply, announcing, “Staff Sergeant Hurst reporting as ordered, sir.”
The CO held a sheet of paper in his hand, looked Mike in the eye and said, “Staff Sergeant,” he paused and chuckled, before saying, “I’ve got good news and bad news. This piece of paper just arrived telling me that you were promoted to Sergeant First Class eight days ago.” Capt. Parker held out his hand, saying, “Congratulations, Mike. You’ve certainly earned it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
After a brief pause, The Captain told him, “And now for the bad news. You know Sergeant Kilgore busted his kneecap. He was just walking over to get some chow and he tripped on a damned tent peg and landed knee first on a rock. He made me promise not to put him in for a purple heart.”
Mike smiled, but kept his mouth shut. He knew that the bad news was still to come.
“Well Sergeant First Class Hurst, I need you to take over his squad for the rest of this operation. I know it’s unusual to drop you down a peg, but the alternative would be to put a less experienced Corporal in charge. I want a combat vet with some savvy to take his group into northern Al Busayyah to be sure there’s not any substantial force present that could threaten the FOB.
“Check with Lt. Simak, in Intelligence, for the details and the exact location we need checked out. We’ve been told there doesn’t seem to be anything sizable hanging around out there. But, I’d feel better if we looked for ourselves.”
“Will do, Sir.”
So, he took seven men out to see what was what. He knew these men, but not as well as their squad leader, Sergeant Kilgore. Still, they seemed to have their shit together.
Five hours later, Iraqi snipers had quickly killed two of the men and the remaining six had taken refuge in the nearest building.
It had been foolish for all of them to bunch up like that, defying all their training. The men should have known better. But when two members of their squad fell so suddenly to snipers, everyone jumped to the safest looking place they could find and that had been the nearest doorway.
He screamed for them to quickly clear the other rooms. Just as the men began to leave the room and check out the building, a woman came running out of a back room, screaming as she set off the explosive device she wore.
He vaguely remembered a blinding light. The next thing he recalled was lying in a hospital bed, with a tent over his legs and feeling heavily medicated. Mike was in and out of consciousness for several days, before he was able to realize he had lost both legs, just above the knees. The bandage over his left eye indicated that was gone as well.
The doctors kept telling him he was lucky to have survived, but that didn’t make the reality of it any easier to deal with. The most frustrating aspect of being wounded was that no one could tell him what had happened to the other men in the squad. He knew he was in a hospital in Germany, although he had no memory of being transported there. It was so frustrating that none of the doctors or medics had the answer to that question, which he repeatedly asked.
After four days of drifting in and out of sleep, his sedatives were reduced and he began to face reality. A corporal came by, holding a clipboard and introduced himself. “I’m Corporal Tagert and you must be Staff Sergeant Michael Hurst.”
“Yeah, I’m Hurst. Actually, I was promoted to Sergeant First Class.”
“Oh. Sorry for the mistake. I’m with recovery services and I am here to help you adjust to your new situation. Is there anything I can do for you…anything I can get you?”
“Yeah there is. What happened to my men?”
Tagert flipped a few pages on his clipboard and told him, “That’s one of the most common questions I get from the wounded. We try to gather this info as quickly as possible for all the men involved. We do that for the wounded and for the troops still in the field who want to know your status, as well.
“I see here that there were eight men in your squad and all but three of you survived. The report they sent is rather lean on details. It does say a suicide bomber charged into a room and lit you up. You, Corporal Alphonso Benson and Private First Class Denerious Jackson were the only survivors.
“I’m sorry about the other men, Sergeant. It’s always difficult when you lose men in combat.”
>
He tried to recall a face for those two men, but Benson was the only one he could picture. “Benson and Jackson, the only others to make it? Damn, I barely knew them.”
Then he asked, “What about my wife? Has she been notified about my condition yet?”
Tagert looked down at his clipboard, and then told him, “The Army has notified her that you were wounded and now in Germany. She was not told about the extent of your wounds.”
Tagert was about to ask him whether he wanted her to be informed as to the nature of his wounds, when Mike explained, “I was with that squad, but it wasn’t really mine. I was a replacement. Their Sergeant was injured and I got assigned to the patrol.”
Mike looked away and mumbled, “I didn’t really know any of them, but they were sure as hell my men to my way of thinking. I should have immediately had the men spread out to the other rooms. I might have saved a few lives.”
Tagert smiled and told him, “You did save lives, Sergeant. You saved yours and Benson’s and Jackson’s. Corporal Benson told me that you tripped the woman who came running into the room. When she fell, most of the explosives were facing down at the floor. So, the force of it went out from beneath her.
“You lost both legs and an eye, because you were closest to the blast. Benson lost his left foot and Jackson lost both of his. If you hadn’t reacted as quickly as you did, everyone in that room would have been killed. Per this report, what did the most damage was an RPG that hit the room after the suicide bomber got to you guys. If you weren’t already down, you would have bought the farm”
Mike hated hearing some rear echelon pencil pusher try to sound like a combat veteran.
Still, on that day, and in that theater, the squad was his and he was supposed to see that they came back alive. That responsibility weighed heavily on him and his expression must have revealed that.
Tagert told him, “I see this sort of emotion all the time. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s called survivors guilt. That feeling that you didn’t do enough and that you don’t deserve to be alive. But you’re wrong to think that way. Under the circumstances, you did what you could and did it in a microsecond. You’re a hero, Sergeant, although you don’t feel like one at the moment. You saved your life and the lives of two good men.”
Mike asked, “Where are they now? Is Jackson near by?”
“Jackson’s here. Benson flew out two days ago. You, Jackson and several others will be going back home in a few weeks. The docs just want to be sure you’re stable and strong enough, before they fly you out of here.”
