‘Turns out shes fifteen.” Schueher grins. “Only good for fucking.”
“Your going to jail.” Rielly says.
“Your going to hell.” Bill adds.
“Regardless, it’s a pretty good time.”
Rielly takes off his helmet and wipes his head. His hair is matted red and stuck to his brow. “Don’t get too down in the dumps, Mikey. Your probably not next on the chopping block.”
“That’s right.” Schueher adds. “Black girls are very loyal. Just look at slavery.”
“That’s fucked up, Ryan.” Bill says.
“Mac. You cant call me Ryan in front of Wade.”
“And you cant call me Wade in front of either of them. But, fuck it. Weve all been through some shit together. Lets be Wade and Ryan tonight.”
“Fair enough. And Bill can be Bill and Mikey can be Mikey.”
“Mikey is Merrell. You know that.”
“Mikey is Mikey. He stays that way.”
“Hey, Sargeant?” Bill says. “I mean, Wade? Have you been through any shit like this, before?”
“What do you mean, like this?”
“What he’s trying to say.” Schueher says. “Did you ever kill anybody?”
There air is soft and quiet. We are all speaking in faux-whispers. I envision a fantasy north pole, invading the air space north of us, getting shot down by a stinger missile. Quietly, Wade says. “There was this one time in Bosnia.”
“Go ahead.” Schueher says.
“I was with Force. Had been with them for three months. We were in this compound. A guy jumped out of a door. I put two rounds center mass. We left in a hurry. I have no idea what happened to him after that. But somehow…I kind of knew somehow. I kind of thought I knew. It didn’t feel like anything. I thought it would, but it didn’t.”
“That’s something, man.” Scheuher says. “With us, I’m glad we got to see them. I mean, I’m glad we got to make sure.”
“You might not feel that way.” Rielly says. “In a couple years.”
“Its why I signed up.” Scheuher replies. “Its why were all here. The only reason anyone would ever join the infantry. To kill people. Nine- Eleven was the best thing that could possibly happen. Now we get to kill people, and to go home heroes. Its incredible. It’s the new golden age.”
There are moments in clarity gathered in life that do not come very often, if they come at all. Sometimes the closest we can come to these moments is while under the influence of some inebriant, pot or booze. At these times the world seems to aline itself on its axis and reveal its own dark heart. I seemed to experience it there, in the foxhole. There was my position, and there was Scheuhers, Bill’s and Rielly’s. We were not at odds in so much as we were all interrelated. The dust settled under my foot, beneath the tan suede of my desert boot. I had been kicking in a corner unconsciously, until I had managed to create a little shoe-hole.
“I don’t think.” I said. “I don’t think, that’s why I joined.”
“Money for college.” Bill reasoned.
“I don’t think I really want to go to college.” I replied.
“Everyone wants to go to college.” Schueher said. “Lots of whores and cheap booze. Lots of booze and cheap whores.”
“I really think I did it.” I told him “Because I didn’t think I would be able to.”
“But you did.” Rielly said. “And here you are.”
“Its not what I thought it would be.”
“Nothing ever is.” Rielly said.
“You see this man?” Schueher says. “This man is god. This man has been a force reconnaissance Marine and is god. You need to pattern yourself after him. Adapt your life to fit his.”
‘What do you want, Mikey?” Rielly asks. “What do you really want to do? Do you want to go home? Do you want to your old lady to push out some more kids, to get a house and a garage, and a nine-to-five? If you ever have that, do you think it could ever measure up to all this? Do you think you would ever forget about this?”
“I don’t know, Sergeant.” I say. “I mean, Wade.”
Rielly tells us all to stay awake, and leaves the hole. I take first watch, and Bill crawls into his sleeping bag and nods off. Schueher stays with me in the foxhole. He reaches into a grenade pouch and pulls out a package of cigarettes. “Look at this, Mikey.” He says.
‘What is it?” I ask.
‘I came up with a way to smoke without showing the light.” He brings out a plastic cigarette box, and puts the lit smoke through the bottom. The smell of the tobacco is in the air. Somehow it feels right and pure in the night. Somehow it feels American.
“I’d let you have one.” He says. “But you’d fuck it up.”
‘Roger that, Corporal.” I respond.
“Its okay, though.” He says. “I know why you joined.”
“because I didn’t think I’d make it?”
“No. That’s bullshit. It might be what you tell yourself, but its still bullshit.”
“What is it, then.”
“You wanted power, same as me. You see this, Mikey?” Scheuher picks up his M16. There is an audible click. “The weapon is off safe.” He whispers. “My finger is on the trigger. Im pointing it at your head.”
“Yes, Corporal. “ I respond.
“I could do it, now. I could do it, and no one could stop me. I could say it was an accident.”
“Yes, Corporal.”
“This is power, Mikey. This is all power. This is what power is.”
That night I am asleep in my bag, next to my rifle. Trying to dream of Turq. Something kicks me in the gut and I curse. “Didn’t see him there.” A voice says. It laughs and says. ‘When he wakes up, tell that Devildog who he just called a goddamn motherrfucker.” I sit up when they leave, trying to catch a glimpse of the commandant. He is wearing a hat and not a helmet. I think to myself that he must be allowed to do such things. Then I fall back to sleep.
The next morning I am given time off and allowed to go to the Main terminal building. They have phones there, and I will be able to call Turqious. To hear Selah’s voice. As I walk back to the terminal, I see more growth than I had thought possible. There are tents everywhere, even right next to our now dirt filled shit hole. The Army is here, and the Air Force, I see several women walking around, laughing. Army women. Ugly as sin. My dick responds anyway.
The terminal now has heat and electricity. A generator roars in the backdrop. There is a line of Marines from the 26th MEU waiting to use the phones. I reach into my wallet and take out the phone card I bought on ship. I wonder what the quality of the call will be. On ship there was nearly a minute of delay. I want to talk to her. I try to get my thoughts in order as I wait. What to tell her. What not to talk about. What I will have time for.
The Marine in front of me puts down his phone. It is my turn in line. I pick up the receiver and dial. It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
Then it picks up, and I hear her.
“Merrell?”
“Hey Turq?”
“Oh my god! Merrell! I thought you wouldn’t get to make a phone call! Are you okay?”
“Im fine.” In my mind, my voice sounds overly dull. “Im okay. Im over here.”
‘I didn’t think you would be going over there. I thought you would be staying on the ship.”
“They needed some more people on the ground. That’s why they sent us.”
“Oh my god. Merry Christmas. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“How long can you talk.”
‘Ten minutes, maybe.”
“okay. Theres so much to tell you. Selah’s got teeth.”
“She does?”
“Yup. I found out when she bit me, and it hurt. I got a cat.”
“You did?”
“Hes your Christmas present. I call him Mr. Jenkins.”
“That sounds great.”
“You like it? I thought you wouldn’t like it. I thought you would b
e mad it wasn’t a dog or something.”
“No, its fine. What kind of cat is it?”
“I don’t know. A mutt. I guess cats can be mutts. Selah! Come say hi to daddy. Say, merry Christmas, daddy.”
“Nooo…”
“She doesn’t want to say it. The washer broke last week. It overflowed. The landlady didn’t want to fix it. I wished you where here.”
“I wish I was, too. Bill’s girl dumped him.”
“She did? The chick from florida?”
“Yeah. She sent him a letter.”
“And he got it out there? That’s so sad.”
“Turq?”
“Yes, baby.”
“If you do it, don’t send a letter.”
‘Whats that?”
“You have two minutes left.”
‘Crap, the cards about to run out.”
“Do you have another one?”
“No. There’s a line. Ive got to go.”
Oh no. My mer bear! I wubs ju! Don’t go!”
“Ive got to, baby.”
“Selah! Say hello, dammit! Say hello to Daddy!
“Hewwo.”
“Selah.”
Daddy! Hewwo daddy! I luv gabba!”
CLICK
The phone cuts off, and I softly put the receiver down. I think about bearing. About being a Marine, and about being hard. I try not to think to much about her. About my daughter. I linger an extra moment in the terminal, with the warmth. I take out the picture again. Her curly brown ringlets. A lighter skinned version of my wife. Mixed. Mullato. What will her life be like? What will she think of this, someday? Will it register in her head at all? Will I give her what she needs, later on in life? Will I be a father to her? Or will I wander forever in this desert, in this land of dust and explosives? Its Christmas. Nowhere else in this country. But here, in this terminal, it is Christmas.
Back at the hole John Sack is bundled up in a green parka, and chomping on what looks to be a cookie.
“Did you get those out of a care package?” I ask him.
“Actually.” He says. “It’s a little package of coffee creamer, that’s been baked solid. The one that comes with the MRE’s. Your roommate showed me how to make it. Its actually pretty good.”
“Did anyone show you how to make mac and cheese?”
“No. Is that a new recipe?”
“You take the butter noodles and the jalepeno cheese. As your warming up the butter noodles you put the cheese bag outside the warmer, but inside the box. That way, it get hot but you don’t have to get your hands wet to grab it. Mixed all together, its not bad.
“That’s very clever.”
“Thanks. Weve been eating these damn things all month.”
“Did you get to call your family today?”
“Yeah. My wife. I just got off the phone.”
“You let her know its alright.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Back in those other wars. In Vietnam and Korea and everything. Did a lot of guys get dumped? By like, their girls?”
“Oh, sure. All the time. It even happened back in the big one, when I was in Normandy.”
“Really? It happened in World War Two?’
“Sure it did. Not as much, because most of the men were fighting. But it would happen. Guys would get dear john letters on the frontlines all the time. Especially in Vietnam. That was the worst, the men would get pretty messed up over it. It wasn’t popular to be a Marine in Vietnam.”
“So, there isn’t nothing new.”
“No. Your wife didn’t tell you anything, did she?”
“No.”
“Well. Thank god for that. Under the circumstances, that would be a very rough thing to do.”
“Bill did, though. He got a letter yesterday.”
“Oh. Jesus.”
“He’s pretty messed up over it.”
“I can imagine.”
“They don’t really advertise that part, you know? In the recruiting. They show the dress blues, and the camouflage, but they don’t really show the part about your girl dumping you. In a war zone.”
“No. I don’t think they would. Its not really something they want to get around.”
“Put it in your book. If, you know, you write it.”
“Its still an article now. But I think that might be interesting.”
There is a history behind me, I think, on Christmas in that Foxhole. A history of men like me. Behind me. In front of me, brothers and sons wait to do what I do. To become one of us, one of the damned. No one can talk them out of it. They have minds full of glory, full of dreams. No one can tell them, that their minds are full of falsehood. That they lust over lonely months of boredom and misery, and brief, spastic moments, of sheer terror. No one can tell them that. There is no way to put it. Everything is new and fresh. They await the world.
Why didn’t I try to call my parents? My brother Jesse. Why didn’t I try to warn him, go to school, go to college, don’t become like me. How did Dylan put it? Join the Army if you fail. Join the Marines if you fail and you are desperate, desperate to somehow make something of your last name.
There are days, here, on the line, when no one much speaks. Days spent simply doing, simply counting the time, and waiting, for watch to be over. Staring at nothing, and minding the darkness.
EIGHT
In January, the Army arrives.
They are dressed neatly in brand new ACU’s and carrying gleaming black M4’s. They march in a neat line up to our holes An Army Sargeant points to us. “Specialist Neal! That way, troop!” A blob of dough answers “Hooah” and tramps through the dirt to our foxhole. It is a little past dawn, just light enough out for cigarettes, and Bill and I have lit one up. Specialist Neal pants, and drops his pack in a thud, sliding in between us.
“So, guys.” He asks. “Whats it like being a jarhead?”
“Sucks.” Bill says. “Whats it like being a soldier?”
“Also sucks.”
There is a fine sheen of sweat on Specialist Neal’s brow that tells me he is unused to his gear. Unused to the weight of his pack and rifle. I look at it now, at the M4 so nice and smooth.
“Why isn’t your weapon loaded?” I ask.
“They didn’t ship any ammo with us. They didn’t even send the rifles with us, just put them on crates and offloaded them at the airport.” He rolls the rifle across in his lap. The barrel flags me down carelessly, and I push it away. “Its brand new.” He says. “Never been fired.”
“That what the fuck” I ask “Are you guys going to do here?”
Specialist Neal shrugs nervously. He rolls his lips and I hear a clicking sound from behind his teeth. I catch a glimpse of a silver ball.
“Is that a tongue ring?” Bill asks.
“Yeah. Sarge told me to get rid of it, but I told him, fuuuck that. Lots of guys have one in. Im just going to do my thing.”
“Which unit are you with?” I ask.
“Eighty-second airborne.” He answers.
“Look at me.” His glimmering eyes meet mine and blink, moistly. “All of you. All of you are a bunch of complete fucking pussies.”
“Okay.”
“You are wasting my motherfucking time being here.”
‘Okay.” His lip is trembling visibly. For the piece de resistance, I rack my rifle, letting one brass round fly off into the air, grazing across the top of the foxhole, and raise the rifle deliberately, not quite at his head but not quite not.
‘Fuck off.” I whisper.
Specialist Neal explodes int o motion I would not think him capable of. Grabbing his pack, he drops his rifle in a clatter and leaves it there. We hear him yelping off in the distance, “Sarge! Sarge!” Bill whistles a tune to himself and grabs the M4. Methodically, he breaks it down it tosses the pieces out into the no mans land in front of our foxhole. I start to laugh and he joins me. Soon tears are running down our faces. Rielly saunters by, grinning at us.”
/> “Where’d that Army fatass go?” He asks.
“I don’t know.” Bill shrugs.
“I think he was spooked of something.” I offer.
Marine at War Page 5
