Marine at War

by Merrell Michael

  “One more year closer.” I tell him. “One more year closer to getting out.”

  Bill grunts. “Were never getting out.” He says. “Both of us, were going to be stop lossed forever. Were going to be stuck in first platoon, India company, until peak oil hits and the revolution begins. Oh fuck. What is this shit?”

  The mortars appear to have chosen the spot for their pit in the densest pile of little trees possible. Half of them appear dead, or near dead, yet still upright. The branches have arranged themselves in ugly twists. There are four other Marines here, in their green skivvy shirts, hacking away at the mess with their E-tools. I prop my rifle up next to the others, and join them. There is a satisfying chop with every impact. In the air is sweat and the noise of exertion, and as always, Bill wants to talk.

  “You know what this is like, dude?” He says.

  “Im pretty sure your going to tell me.”

  “This is like, with those guys. In warcraft three. The peons are whatever.”

  “Yes, me lord. More work?” A goofy looking private chimes in. I search my mental database for his name, and come up with Meier.

  “Right! Exactly. Thanks dude. That’s what it is though. This is building a base, and were the bottom of the food chain, the guys that actually do it. It’s a great experience. Once in a lifetime.”

  As usual, I cannot tell if Bill is being sincere or not. There is usually an undercurrent of sarcasm in his voice. Maybe I am simply too tired to judge things correctly. “I don’t really play strategy.” I tell him. “I’m more of a first person shooter guy.”

  “And that’s it.” He says. “That is why the Marines will always disappoint you.”

  “So far, its been pretty good.”

  “Because your scaling your expectations back.”

  “Hey, Chuck and Larry.” A lance corporal calls out. “Why don’t ya’ll shut the fuck up and work?”

  “Hey!” Says private Meier. “There’s some metal shit here!”

  A bell slaps me in the face. It feels like a wave of air and wood, and after I fall it sits in my ear and rings. I cannot breath. My breath is gone. There are spots of blood and dust on my hands.

  Bill is helping me stand back up. Under me is Heather, the rifle. Somehow I have managed to land on my rifle. I grab it and stand up. I wobble back and forth for a minute. Something has torn a jagged path through the middle of the branches. Laying in the hole of dirt is Meier. A piece of green steel is sticking out of his calf. I can see pink meat and tendons inside. The lance corporal who wanted us to shut up is kneeling next to him and calling for a corpsman. He is bellowing it, and all I can hear is a whisper.

  I start to pat myself down. As I do it I am suddenly aware of my own place in the universe as meat. Not as pixels in a game, but as meat, breathing meat, here on earth. This is the lesson of the working party. People are running from farther down the line. Someone grabs me and asks if Im all right. I look back and see them surrounding Meier. Helping. Beware your actions, they become your character. My action is to walk away. What is my character?

  My character is not the hero. The hero is Rielly or Major Fight or Colonel Lynes. My character is not the villain. The villain is osama, the men in the castle, Schueher. My character is the peon. My character is the foot soldier. My character is the one who was simply there.

  “Hey, Mikey.” Rielly stops by my hole. “Be careful where your digging. One of the weapons guys just hit a land mine, his foots pretty bad off.”

  “Yes Sargeant.”

  “But keep digging. I want this at least waist deep, tonight.”

  “Roger that.” I grab my e-tool. I start to dig, trying not to think as I do so. Bill comes over and starts to stomp around the rim of the fighting hole. He brings over a foot, up and down, stamp stamp.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask.

  “Checking for land mines.”

  “Didn’t you see what the fuck just happened.”

  “Oh yeah. Perfection. That’s what happened. Did you see where it hit?”

  “His leg.”

  ‘Right. His leg. But below the knee. An injury like that, and the first thing they do, is, they put you on a plane and send you to Germany. Pump you full of some good shit. Demerol, which is pretty much morphine. Then they chop it off below the knee, which is like, the best amputation ever.”

  “How is that the best amputation ever?” I say. “How is any amputation the best amputation ever?”

  “Easy. One: Your non-deployable. Two: your physically disabled, so you can get a medical discharge. Three: although you physically disabled, they’re going to give you a prosthetic, that is good enough so you can do all the same shit that you were doing before.”

  “That’s three reasons.” I tell him. “For the best amputation ever, I would need four.”

  “Okay, heres four. How well do you know Meier?”

  “Okay, I guess. Not that great.”

  “Meier smokes weed. He popped on the piss test. After deployment, he was getting kicked the fuck out. After this, hes damn near going to come out a hero.”

  “Unless they fuck him on the discharge.”

  “I don’t think they would do that shit.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Depends on which way they want to spin it.” I cease the talk and return to the dig. By nightfall it is indeed waist deep. Bill and I crawl inside, in our flaks and kevlars and pointing our rifles out, stare at nothing. Both of us are living on Schuehers formaldehagen now, spitting. in the hole and covering it up with more dirt.

  SIX

  That night, it begins to rain.

  I awake to the flood in my sleeping bag covered in water. The rain is fierce, hard thick drops. I was having a nightmare when they woke me. I was having a dream about the boy.

  Inside the hole the water is up to Bill’s knees. “Hey dude.” He greets me. “Its fucking raining.”

  “So it is.”

  “I was shivering my balls of in this cold shit. Just listening to you snore. You fucking snore loud, dude.”

  “So I do.”

  As I try to miserably drape my poncho halfway across my body Bill provides an unexpected comedy for me, trying to find a place to sleep. The dusty rock ground has transformed itself into muddy pools of water. Our packs are soaked through, next to the foxhole. Bill takes out his bag, and looks around like Elmer Fudd looking for a wabbit. He gives an exaggerated shrug, and tosses the bag into the corner of the hole, where it lands with a plop. He crawls in fully clothed. The bag lays cockeyed, halfway in the hole, halfway out. As if a giant phallus had given up its quest to fuck the earth, and now hung limply spent. The boil of its semen Bill’s own helmeted head. And still the rain came down.

  A man can change his life by changing his attitude. And so there, sitting in the rain, my attitude changes, from watchfulness, to anger, to misery. What else is there to do? Stay awake. Stare at rain. Become rained upon. The misery of the field. The joke of it being, every time a Marine goes out into the field, it will rain. And here we are, in a desert. The definition of desert implying a lack of water. And it is raining.

  I check my watch, before realizing that its set to zulu time. Three-seventeen P.M. Three-seventeen P.M. in the night or in the morning. Water has seeped across every inch of my socks. I am trying to remember what I know about Meier. I did not know Almodovar but I knew Meier.

  Meier built a bong one day in the barracks out of an old rocket tube, a canteen cup, and a gas mask. It was a beautiful thing, worthy of the cover of High Times itself. You had to wear the gas mask to use it. I was there in the Barracks with his, coughing into the mask, giggling like a baby. He had a shaved head and red, swollen lips. After a fight he had a gap between his teeth where some missing chompers left him. After going AWOL one weekend, he had a large red iron cross tattooed on his chest. “Not because Im a Nazi.” He told me. “Just because Im German.” No one believed him in the barracks. He got into more fights. The Mexican kid that punched out his teeth broke his n
ose. He was branded a fuck-up. Someone to avoid.

  His first name was Paul. He told me this, a week we were both working on the chow hall on the aircraft carrier. We were tossing kitchen waste overboard on international waters and smoking cigarettes out on the catwalk. The sea breeze was cool in the night and the sound of the ocean waves was relaxing and hypnotic. As he smoked I studied the glowing red ember of the flame between his lips.

  “I was named after this guy.” He said. “Paul Atriedes. From Dune. You ever read Dune? It’s a great book. Its about this desert planet. And this guy, this guy Paul, hes like a prince. So, his dad dies. Is murdered. And Paul, him and his mom, they flee into the desert. And they meet these sand people, who take them in. Because his mom is a witch and shit. And so, he takes over the galaxy and rides a giant sand-worm. And that’s what I want to do. That’s what I aspire towards.”

  He was gone now. Gone from the desert, from any potential sand worm riding destiny. I had never told him that I had read Dune.

  “Wake the fuck up, Mikey.” Schueher slaps my helmet. “Your standing the rest of this watch. Let Bill sleep.” I nod numbly.

  The rain splashes down sporadically, and slowly begins to change itself into mist. I wake up Bill. Dawn is coming, the colors of the sky are changing again. As the light brightens to grey, I can see my hands. They are white and wrinkled and cracking. I cannot feel anything in my fingers. I remember what trench foot looks like. I did not know that it was possible to get trench hand. Bill yawns widely.

  “Shit, dude.” He says. “Why’d you let me sleep that long?”

  “Schueher caught me passed out.”

  ‘And he made you stay up.”

  ‘Sort of. Its not like I could sleep anyway. In this shit.” I stand up out of the hole, and feel the water slosh off of me. I am shivering from the cold. I strip off my clothes and replace them with another set from my pack. I feel reborn, alive again. Reborn underneath the water. Baptized. I heat up a meal in an MRE pouch and smoke a cigarette. When the water drains again I know it will be time to dig.

  That day I hear the rest of the Ospreys landing. India Company has arrived, and I look up from the foxhole to see the rest of the guys moving across the airport. Second and third platoon. They are spreading across the perimeter, to make a three-sixty around the airport. Buckey comes up to my hole. “Fuck, dude.” He says. “you guys look like shit.”

  “It rained last night.” I tell him.

  “How long have you guys been here?”

  “Three days. The first day we got shot at. Its been fucking crazy the whole time.”

  “I’ll bet.” Buckey whistles. He is a small person, small and slight, with a fresh, young face. In the barracks, all I would ever talk about was World of Warcraft.

  “Wouldn’t it be crazy to play WoW out here?” He says.

  “I don’t know. Theres really no internet connection.”

  “I know, but still. To be able to have your IP address to say: Afghanistan. That’d be some real shit. I’m thinking about my next toon.” He continues. ‘I’m really leaning torward a Pally. And pretty much like we were talking about, Im going to roleplay like, a fantasy version of this whole experience. Just like, A pally invading the lands of darkness.”

  I envision the beating Buckets must have received growing up. I envision his friends, overweight virgins with a distinct lack of personal hygiene. “That’s cool, Buckets.” I tell him. “I think your on to something there.” A sergeant barks for Buckey in the distance. He waves goodbye and I continue to dig.

  Life passes in this order for the following week. All day long the sound of helicopters, Ospreys, and C-130’s can be heard landing and taking off from the airport My foxhole grows deeper and deeper, until at last it’s a deep trench that can be stood up in. There is a berm up front and around the sides built with sandbags. Over the top is a piece of tin, and scattered branches. There are seats built into the earth so I wont have to stand all night on watch. There are numerous other, secret patches: There is a grey discolored spot where I sometimes masturbate, that soaks with unused semen. There is a tear in the sandbag where I put my cigarette butts during the day, and where I spit my dip at night. There is a rock one meter in front of me in no-mans-land that I stare at, that I give pause to when I can think of nothing else to fill my mind with. There is a spot in the sand that I sometimes smooth over with the batteries from my night vision goggles, a small spot, five inches wide, rolling them back and forth. When I wear the goggles at night there is a spot between the trees past the road that I am sure is moving. On the front of my M16 is a device called a Paq-4, a laser that can only be seen while wearing Night Vision. This is not as cool as it sounds, the laser is wildly inaccurate. But when I wear it, I always focus on that spot. Between the trees that might be pine, if only they did not grow on Mars. Or Dune. Or planet Telex, or whatever this terrible not-earth is truly named.

  One morning after watch, I finally break down and ask. “Sargeant Reilly. How long are we going to be here?”

  He laughs. “Till its done.” He says. “Take your ass to the runway, they need a working party. Bill can dig today.”

  I walk back to the terminal building. Everywhere, there are Marines running around. There are con-ex trailer boxes near the flowers. There are humvees parked in the circle around the terminal arches. A bustle of activity. Grown from the will of America. Mercs walking around, in jeans and t shirts, with long haired mullets and AK-47s. Cory Hunter is with me. He has grown a handlebar mustache since coming here. His face and hands are stained with dirt and filth from days of nonstop digging, as I imagine mine are. Around his neck and shoulder is slung his M249 SAW, a light machine gun. A warpig. He regards me with a nod.

  “Schueher loves to put you on this shit, huh?”

  “You’re here too.” I say.

  “After that DUI, McMillian holds me in similiar regard. You got to love our squad leaders. That’s okay though.” Cory shuffles into his cargo pocket and pulls out a small bottle of golden Listerine. They don’t get any mouthwash.”

  I take the bottle from his giant hand and unscrew the cap. The whiskey smell is strong. Jack Daniel’s, probably. I lift it in a slight toast and take a deep swig. I savor the burn on its way down, the warm glow enveloping me.

  “Did they tell you what were doing here?” Cory asks.

  “Just to go to the runway, for a working party.”

  ‘Probably getting boxes of MRE’s again. Im going to be the first to rat-fuck them, this time. Im tired of getting chicken tetrazinni. I want some motherfucking beef stew already.”

  Back at the runway is a group of fellow lance corporals and privates standing around. A merc. Is chomping on his cigar, eying us in careless disgust. From this side I can see the fruits of our rock-cleaning efforts. There are airplanes everywhere. In front of us is a C-130, its engine off. “Is this everyone?” The merc asks. No one responds. “Fucking jarheads. Alright, listen up. Get these guys off of the bird, park their asses on the runway, and leave them there. Watch them until the spooks get back. Don’t talk to them, and don’t give them shit. Not a fucking thing. They-got-nothin-coming. Just remember, these are the same guys, who did that shit in New York. These are their friends. Everyone copacetic?” Nods and murmurs of ‘yes sir’. “Okay. Cmon.” The merc steps up to the ramp. “Get UP! UP!” Inside the back of the C-130, I get my first look at a detainee.

  They are sitting on their knees in the back of the plane, sixty to a hundred of them. Their hands are tied behind their back in flex-cuffs. A rope is tied around their waist, and run through the cuffs. Over their head is a sandbag, greenish black. Most of them are wearing the traditional haaji robe, brown or white. One or two of them is wearing jeans. From their bodies is the smell of unwashed flesh, and also urine. They sway back and forth slightly. When the man in front gets up, he pulls on the rope and the man behind him must also rise. “Forward!” The Merc grabs the ones in front, pulling him forward. “Move!”

  A few of the
Marines are joining in, grabbing the detainees and shoving them forward, off the plane. They sway and speak in their own language, and then start to move as a mass. It is impossible to be moved by their wretchedness. The blind horde, moving in the direction that they are poked, and guided by foreign words. They jut off in a shuffle, moving in a square herd. Like a centipede hiding in a cardboard box, moving with a group of feet.

  “DOWN!” Yells the merc, grabbing a haaji and pushing him to his knees. All around me, Marines are doing the same, stepping between the ropes. The merc finishes his work, and takes a swig from a water bottle. After finishing he wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead. “That’s it.” He says. “Hold ‘em here until I get back.”

  We stand around to every side of the detainees. They mutter to themselves and bob the sandbags up and down. Cory shifts forward to take some of the strain off his back, then sighs.