Youngblood

by Matt Gallagher

  He directed a fist my way. “I’ll be relieving both the platoon leader and the platoon sergeant, and that gunner—well, I’m not sure yet.”

  I sat up straight, clearing my throat. “From what I understand, sir, he followed the rules of engagement.”

  A pulsing neck artery and deep scowl suggested the Big Man felt otherwise.

  “I understand you’ve been having some issues explaining the nuances of our mission to your platoon,” he said.

  “I have?”

  “Sir.”

  “I have, sir?”

  “Lieutenant, counterinsurgency is a complicated task. A thinking man’s war. Requires care, restraint. An appreciation for the gray.”

  “Sir, I’m all about the gray,” I said, grasping for a foothold on which to hoist myself back into his good graces.

  The Big Man wasn’t having it. His eyebrows rose like crucifixes until I stopped talking.

  “We’re the army, Lieutenant. We like blowing things up. For years, we’ve been trained that we’re the hammer and every problem is a nail. That’s not going to do it here. This is a guerrilla war. Where were you during the Invasion? I was in-country. You know what we learned?”

  Another “Clear-Hold-Build” speech was coming. I’d memorized it long ago: Clear an area of insurgents. Hold that area to keep it clear, so the bad guys can’t move back in. Build up the area with civil affairs projects and money and shit. So while the Big Man went on about battles I’d never heard of and soldiers I didn’t know, I stared at a speck of dirt on his pink, bald head and thought about how unfair it was that Will, of all people, was free and blithe while I was stuck in this hellhole. He’d been so awkward in high school—all honors classes, cross-country races, and student newspapers. He actually came home his prom night, like an idiot. I’d been twelve at the time and stayed up playing The Legend of Zelda, telling our mom to lay off the cigarettes and go to bed. After he closed the front door quietly at midnight like a good boy, I met him in the kitchen and asked if he’d finally done it. When he told me to shut up because he didn’t want to talk about it, I promised myself I’d never be like him.

  The crimson flush in the Big Man’s cheeks brought me back.

  “You hearing me? We’re replacing your platoon sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean . . . wait, what, sir?”

  “I’m a patient man, son, but you’re testing it. I’ve received reports that your platoon needs a jolt. To refocus on the fight. I talked with Captain Vrettos, and in addition to replacing first platoon’s leadership, we decided Sergeant First Class Sipe is burned out. He’s been reassigned to operations staff. Which means you get a chance to start over with a new battle buddy and prove yourself more capable of the responsibility with which you’ve been charged.”

  “Who’s my new platoon sergeant?”

  “Staff Sergeant Chambers.”

  An anchor dropped through me.

  “Sir, Staff Sergeant Chambers is not—”

  “This isn’t a democracy, Lieutenant Porter.” He smiled and came over to my side, patting me on the back. “You’ll learn a lot from him. He’s a perfect match for you, and for Ashuriyah. Been over here before, you know. Very same place. The green machine loves itself some irony. Isn’t irony something your generation appreciates?”

  I stood up and mumbled a “Yes, sir.”

  “Surf’s up, Lieutenant Porter.”

  I saluted and left the room to retrieve my rifle. Already at headquarters, I made a quick detour to the civil affairs office. The cavernous trailer stunk of stale potato chips and freshly ripped ass. A dumpy, haggard-looking major was alone there, playing StarCraft online. It took five minutes to sign out twenty-five thousand dollars in stacks of hundreds, our company’s Sahwa payment for the next month. I held my breath as I waited. The money fit into a black canvas backpack that the major had me sign out.

  “We’re responsible for those,” he said. “Return it next time you’re here, and I’ll give back your hand receipt.”

  I thought about the Big Man’s words, and the major’s, too. In college, I’d learned about tragic irony and dramatic irony. But on the long walk back to the maintenance bay, I couldn’t remember the difference.

  10

  * * *

  The Big Man had asked where I’d been during the Invasion, though he hadn’t waited for a response. I was glad for that. I’d been protesting it.

  It was the month of my seventeenth birthday. Marissa and I weren’t dating yet, but I’d asked her to prom ten weeks in advance to make sure no one beat me to it. After two years of riding the junior varsity bench, I hadn’t made varsity basketball, so I went to games with friends and made fun of the guys who had. I was smart, but not as smart as I thought, and lazy, but not as lazy as I pretended to be.

  I tried not to deal with the Global War on Terror, but it couldn’t be helped, both at my mom’s house and my dad’s. Will had completed his officer training and joined his unit. He was going either to a war in the mountains or to a war in the desert, and neither parent could stop talking about how “real” it suddenly felt. Try as I might, I never felt the same.

  My mom had always insisted we eat dinner at the table, but now angry television debates about weapons of mass destruction and yellowcake filled that time. I had to remind her to eat her whole meal, usually after she talked about how another pasty, overweight middle-aged man from the office had told her how much he respected her eldest son.

  “Three or four?” I’d ask. My mom and I liked playing the Vietnam deferment game.

  I hid out in my room and took the dog to the park a lot. Nothing about anything made sense, especially not my goofy older brother going to combat. He’d never shot a gun growing up. He’d never even liked G.I. Joe. His bedroom was as he’d left it, spartan clean with comics and baseball cards in the closet, but now there were framed diplomas from West Point and Ranger School on the wall.

  I didn’t go in there much. It reminded me of a tomb.

  School proved a welcome refuge from world events, at least until a Friday government class in late winter. I walked in at the bell and took my seat, finding the whiteboard too late.

  IRAQ: FOR OR AGAINST? it read. Usually I didn’t mind class discussions, but this one felt different, like a threat.

  People had opinions about Iraq, strong opinions. As discussion turned to argument, eyeballs began sneaking my way. Trapped in the back corner, I couldn’t escape them, no matter how far into my seat I slid, no matter tightly I crossed my arms. A usually quiet baseball player said we had a responsibility to spread freedom. An always-loud student government rep said we had a responsibility to listen to the United Nations. That made the baseball player and his allies laugh. “Back-to-Back World War Champs!” someone shouted.

  “What about the people who have to fight?” the student government rep said, her voice cutting through the laughter. While I didn’t know her well, I knew she came from the other side of Granite Bay, the not-as-nice part. “Easy for us to joke, no one from here joins the military. No one from here will get hurt. Or . . .”

  Now everyone in the class was looking at me, open-faced. Stupid Will, I thought. Why did he always need to be different? I didn’t say anything, though. I just straightened my back and kept my arms crossed. Fuck these people, I thought. They deserve shit.

  The teacher, a pasty middle-aged man old enough to not have three or four Vietnam deferments, called on me.

  “Your brother,” he said. “This must feel very real for you.”

  I stared blankly and thought about what to say, trying to figure out what the rising feeling in my chest was. I decided to be brave and say nothing at all.

  The baseball player talked again. “Porter’s brother is going to kill terrorists. How awesome is that? A freaking hero. Anyone who thinks different doesn’t love this country. Protestors? Pussies, that’s what my dad says.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The words spat from my mouth like little arrowheads. “So du
mb,” I said. I’d always hated being told what to do, how to think, being pushed around for other people’s means. It was probably why Chambers bothered me so much years later, and definitely why this guy did. No simpleton jock would use my brother’s life to win a class debate. In those mad, dizzy seconds, I thought of my mom, I thought of my dad. They weren’t pussies. They were the opposite, something I’d always known but only then understood.

  “So dumb,” I continued. “Being against war makes you un-American? Okay, Joe McCarthy. I’m proud of my brother. But he’s glad people are protesting, even if he disagrees with them. ’Cause at least they’re thinking.”

  That got me thrown against the lockers a week later by a group of outfielders, though no one threw a punch, because they didn’t want to get suspended.

  After class, the student government rep walked over as I packed up my things. “That was great, what you said.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “A group of us are going to Sacramento tomorrow morning,” she said. “You should come.”

  “For what?” People didn’t just go to Sacramento.

  “For the largest protest in human history.”

  “Sounds dramatic.”

  “If you count everyone across the globe,” she continued. “Kind of cheating.”

  When I told my mom I was going to Sacramento, she didn’t say much, just asked if I had money for lunch and reminded me to layer.

  There weren’t as many people there as the newspapers would claim, but there were still a lot. It was more carnival than rally: there were bongo drums and cowbells, chants and synchronized dances. A group of college-age girls were naked except for yellow warning tape wrapped around their bodies. We marched down 10th Street, past the state capitol, to Cesar Chavez Plaza. There were a lot of peace signs made out of Hula-hoops, chalk outlines of dead bodies, and at least four different guys dressed as Jesus. It’d rained the night before, so it was cloudy and damp, and some of the others bought overpriced sweatshirts that read NO BLOOD FOR OIL because their moms hadn’t reminded them to layer. Street vendors sold puppets of the president and vice president, and I thought about buying one for Marissa but I didn’t know what her politics were, or if she had any. We ate the Peace Rally Special for lunch, a seven-dollar chicken club.

  Eight of us had come from Granite Bay, making the thirty-minute trip in someone’s parents’ Yukon. I knew everyone there, but not well; they were older or more involved at school or both. I’d slept on the way there, but couldn’t do that while walking, so I made small talk with the student government rep and her friend, the theater club vice president who’d once filibustered a pep rally over the Cuban embargo. I asked why she’d done that.

  “You know,” she said. “Do my part.”

  I nodded solemnly.

  Once we got to the park, we crunched together like tinfoil to fit everyone. A state senator gave a speech, followed by the star of a mildly popular 1990s sitcom. They weren’t the A-list protestors that San Francisco got, but they were both good. It was hard to hear them over a man in a Guy Fawkes mask who kept shouting “Liar!” anytime a politician’s name was mentioned, regardless of their stance on Iraq. He even called Desmond Tutu a liar. To tune him out, I watched a demonstration in the far distance, near the fountain, a group of men lifting a coffin draped with flags: they’d carry it a few feet, set it down, and do it again.

  Those are vets, I realized, tipped off by their olive jackets and navy mesh caps. Some were even pasty and overweight, though most were angular and ragged. They weren’t yelling about liars. They didn’t seem to be saying anything at all.

  I watched the vets and their coffins for the rest of the rally. They slowed over the ensuing two hours but never stopped, cutting through the crowd like a piece of large driftwood. I was transfixed by the ceremony of their movements, by their commitment to one purpose. I romanticized each man’s life story as I found his face: the ne’er-do-well from Oakland who was a medic in the Delta, the country kid from Auburn who learned to fly helicopters in the army, the rich boy from Napa who moved like a fucking jungle cat.

  They’re not here because things are simple, I thought, like everyone else is. They’re here because things are complex.

  Then the speeches ended, and the vets went one way and we went the other.

  Back in the Yukon, people were excited, raw energy passing from person to person in a current. Sitting a row ahead of me, the student government rep asked what I thought. I said the Vietnam vets had impressed me greatly.

  “Baby killers,” her friend said, the filibustering one. “Guilt is why they do that. Guilt for the war crimes they were never punished for.”

  I waited for her to smile, to show she was joking. It never came. That bothered me. My uncle had served in Vietnam. So had a middle school history teacher. They were kind men. They hadn’t been at My Lai. They weren’t baby killers, and neither had my grandfathers been, in their war.

  “Urban legends are funny things,” I said. “You hear about the crazy girl who hijacked a pep rally? To rant about a country she’s never been to?”

  That earned some snickers from the group, but it also ended any hope for peace in the Yukon.

  “At least they have an excuse,” my adversary said, shifting in her seat to look at me properly. “They were drafted. They didn’t volunteer to murder innocents.”

  Distantly, beyond the loud anger, I heard someone say that most Vietnam vets had volunteered, but the time for thoughtful discussion had passed. What mattered now weren’t good points, or accurate points. What mattered now was victory.

  We turned onto the highway, heading northeast. Back to suburbia, back to Granite Bay, back to lakeside summers and fireplace winters. I took a deep breath and rested my chin on a fist. Then I asked if she liked the song “Imagine.”

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s so powerful.”

  “Imagine no countries,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Nothing to kill or die for,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “All the people living life in peace.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now,” I said. “Imagine a worldview more nuanced than a three-minute pop song written by a stoned degenerate.”

  I knew next to nothing of Lennon’s personal life, but damn if it didn’t sound good coming off the tongue.

  Things escalated from there. She called me glib. I called her shrill. She called me a warmonger. I called her a poser. She called me an asshole. I called her a bitch. She said that my brother had volunteered to kill babies, which made him a baby killer, which made me a baby-killer apologist.

  In later years, I’d imagine myself responding with something smart, like “In a representative democracy, we’re all complicit.” Or “Your parents pay their taxes? They’re as guilty as anyone.” Or “Soldiers volunteer to serve their country. It’s their country that decides where to send them.” Instead I just said I wasn’t going to listen to a goddamn moron who couldn’t get into Chico State. Which was a silly thing to say, and not just because she’d matriculate at Reed in a few months.

  We were both yelling, and the driver pulled over and said we needed to stop or get out. I did so without a word, though it was still surprising when the Yukon pulled away, leaving me with a mouthful of highway dust. I walked to the nearest exit and into a McDonald’s for a milk shake. I was trying not to cry but couldn’t help it, and the Hispanic kid behind the register gave me a large shake for free. I sat alone at a corner table until I calmed down, then I called my dad. He always made jokes about his protesting days, so it seemed better to call him.

  When he arrived, we sat in quiet for a few minutes. The tears were gone, but I knew my eyes were still red.

  “Tough day?” he eventually asked.

  “Just dumb,” I said. “All of it.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That can happen.” Then he took me home and made his specialty, toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches soaked
in honey, and we watched an Eastwood movie.

  11

  * * *

  The afternoon bloomed desert reds and desert golds. We waited at the front gate of the outpost for the two brothers to collect their blood money. They were late.

  “Arabs,” Snoop said, spitting out sunflower seed shells onto the dirt path, his voice filling the sticky May air. “Not like the Sudanese, Lieutenant Jack. We are a timely people. And consider-ate. Arabs make jokes about clocks not following time. Not even funny jokes.”

  The soldiers tasked to wait with us agreed with our young terp; it was my crew, two on the ground, one in the Humvee’s turret behind a limp machine gun. They all looked as hot and bored as I felt, our body armor and helmets like shackles fixing us to the ground. We need to build that sentry shack, I thought, if not for safety, then for some goddamn shade. Without it, we had no choice but to wait in the open, blast walls behind us, fat sun above, the little town of Ashuriyah to our front.

  “Chill, guys,” I said, beads of dirty sweat running under my helmet and down my face. “Their cousin got shot for driving down the road. Funeral probably ran long, that’s all.”

  “We didn’t kill him,” Alphabet said from the turret. He took a swig of bottled water before continuing. “First platoon did, trigger-happy cowboys. Who do they think they are, the SEALs?” Then he burped, loud and proud, wronged as only a young soldier pulling someone else’s duty can be.

  I agreed with him, but couldn’t let him know that. So I told him to make himself useful and scan the two-story apartment buildings across the dirt road to our south. He grabbed the binos and stood on his tiptoes, his wide, blocky frame limiting his mobility.

  “Empty and abandoned, sir,” he said. “Like always. Staff Sergeant Chambers says the guards on the roof should scan those buildings, not us. He says we couldn’t do anything from here even if we needed to.”