by Trent Reedy
JoBell had been supportive, but not excited, about me enlisting. While I was in basic training without my comm or any screen, she wrote me actual paper letters every day, telling me that she hoped I was doing good on my rifle marksmanship or my push-ups and sit-ups for physical training. She said she missed me, and even that she was proud of me, but she never came around to admitting that enlisting had been a good idea. I was pretty sure she’d be mad or at least dump a bunch of I-told-you-so’s on me when she found out I had to miss tonight’s party because of the Guard.
Driving north on the highway toward the armory near Farragut Falls, I called out, “Hank.”
“Wha’chu need, chief?”
“Speaker-call JoBell.”
“No problem. I’ll put a voice call with JoBell on speaker,” Hank said. “You want to listen to a sample of my newest song while you wait?”
“No thanks. I’m good.”
“No problem. Let me know if you change your mind. Of course you can always add the song to your playlist for only … two dollars.”
Maybe I should have paid extra for the ad-free version of the digi-assistant. Finally JoBell picked up. “Danny? Are you here? I’ll come get you on the Jet Ski.”
“Cannonball!” Cal shouted in the background. I heard a big splash and people laughing.
“I’m not at the lake.” I hated lying to JoBell, but if I made her angry over all of this, it would ruin her evening. “Mom’s having a rough night. I need to stay home and help her.”
“Oh no,” she said with real concern in her voice. “Is she okay? Is it a bad attack? Do you want me to come over to help?”
Despite how uncomfortable I felt making up this story, I had to smile. A lot of girls would be mad that I was bailing. JoBell was just worried about Mom.
“No,” I said. “No, it’s cool. I got this. I’m just bummed I’ll have to miss everything.”
“Family first, Danny. Your mom is most important. She helped me so much when my mom left Dad and me for that prick dentist. I wish she didn’t have to have it so rough like this. Maybe she could see another doctor? Maybe a different prescription would help?”
Her caring wasn’t making it any easier to lie. “She’s been to a zillion different doctors, believe me. This anxiety thing is kind of a family curse. Grandma was the same way. Anyway, I don’t want to mess up your party. Have twice as much fun for me.”
“You know I won’t have half as much fun without you. But I’ll try. I love you.”
“I love you more,” I said. “Hank, end call.”
“I’m hangin’ up.”
I drove on through my ruined night toward the National Guard armory.
After I pulled into the parking lot inside the fence, I shut off the engine and sat back in the quiet stillness for a moment. So far, the Guard had been all about training. At basic, we’d practiced marching, shooting, throwing grenades, and we ran battle drills. Everything we’d done had been closely supervised under controlled conditions, with enough safety precautions to take all the danger and fun out of it. It sounded like we were going real world tonight. What would that be like?
By eighteen thirty I was in MCU, helmet, and body armor, one of nineteen soldiers crammed inside the cabin of a roaring Chinook helicopter. I’d been on an airplane for the flight to and from basic training, so this was my third flight ever.
It really sucked.
As I settled into the miserable flight, the sweat rolled down my face and back. It wasn’t only the heat in the helicopter under all this gear. Every time the Chinook bumped in the air, I felt like my insides were flipping over. Sure, this wasn’t close to as bumpy as bull riding, but at least on a bull I felt more in control, and the fall to the ground was short. If this bird went down, I was helpless to do anything but wait to die.
The drive from Freedom Lake down to Boise took about eight hours. They said this flight was supposed to be about an hour and a half. I checked my watch. We should have been getting close.
“All right, listen up, men!” Staff Sergeant Meyers shouted over the engine noise as he walked down the aisle. I looked to Specialist Sparrow to see if she was mad about being called a man, but she was cool. Meyers went on. “The lieutenant has our orders, so stop your gabbing and make sure you pay attention so you know what’s going on!”
Nobody had been saying anything. The nine soldiers in my squad sat on the canvas seats lining one side of the bird, staring across the aisle at second squad. These guys were mostly strangers to me. Besides basic training, all I’d ever done with the National Guard was one weekend drill with my unit. First Sergeant Herbokowitz was usually the NCO, the Noncommissioned Officer, who yelled at us, but he was on the other Chinook with third and fourth squads. Second squad’s leader, Staff Sergeant Torres, hardly ever said anything. Lieutenant McFee was supposed to be in charge of the whole platoon, but the problem was LT McFee was really young, which let Meyers think he could run things. Or maybe Meyers was just kind of a dick.
Lieutenant McFee sat in the middle of second squad. He leaned forward in his seat a little and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Okay. This is your op order.” I could hardly hear him over the engine noise, especially with my stupid earplugs in.
Meyers shouted, “Sir, you’re going to have to stand up and be a hell of a lot louder!”
McFee nodded. He rose and slid his finger along his Army-issued comm in its thick green case, maybe trying to bring up the right page. The glow from the screen cast shadows above his cheeks, making him look like a zombie or something. “Paragraph One: Enemy Forces. Okay.” He held his comm closer to his face and squinted. “The situation is that protestors down in Boise in the vicinity of the capitol building are creating a dangerous or potentially dangerous environment. They have thrown rocks, bottles, or other objects at law-enforcement personnel. Some vehicles have been destroyed and a few businesses have been looted. Probable course of action is that the protestors will continue to cause injury and property damage.”
Sergeant Meyers sighed loudly. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the side of his M4 barrel.
Lieutenant McFee shot Meyers a quick, nervous look, but went on. “Friendly forces. Okay. Um. We have local law enforcement in the area. State police. EMTs. Also, um, firefighters. Soldiers from the local Army National Guard headquartered at —”
“Sir?” Sergeant Meyers stood up again. “That’s a bang-on start of a textbook five-paragraph op order. I think we can skip to the mission. These Joes just need the basics.”
Lieutenant McFee took a breath like he was about to say something, but then he blew it out and sat down.
Meyers spit tobacco juice into the empty Mountain Dew bottle he’d been using. “This is a piece-of-cake mission,” he said. “The bird puts us down on the baseball fields at Ann Morrison Park, across the river from the real downtown area. Then first squad is going to move to the east to set up a checkpoint on South Capitol Boulevard right north of University Drive. Second squad will be securing Americana Boulevard. Third and fourth squads in the other Chinook will join other soldiers to help shut down I-184. Other Guard units from across the state will be setting up the same kind of checkpoints all over. Basically, we’re one part of a big circle of National Guard all around the riot. The state police and local Boise cops will be handling the rioters. We’ll be far away from the action. We block off the road. Nobody gets downtown. It’s simple. Even morons like you can figure this out. Everybody got it?”
Private Luchen raised his hand. “Sergeant?”
Meyers spun to face him. “What, Luchen?”
Luchen was maybe two years older than me, but he seemed much younger. He was one of those little guys who sometimes had trouble making the Army minimum weight standard. “Sergeant, what about traffic heading away from downtown?”
There were groans and some laughter from the guys. “Damn it, Luchen, the hell you think?” Luchen watched Meyers with his mouth open, as always. “You let them through. We’re trying to get
people out of the downtown area.”
“Roger, Sergeant,” Luchen said. “ ’Cause I was thinking that —”
“Don’t think!” Meyers shouted. “You have to remember one thing.” He stared down both rows. “And this goes for all of you. You just do whatever I say.”
Staff Sergeant Torres and Lieutenant McFee both looked up. Meyers must have seen their questioning expressions because he went on, “Yeah, and Torres and the LT. Do what you’re told and you’ll be fine. I’m just pissed we won’t get to go down by the capitol building and kick a little protestor ass!”
Sergeant Kemp leaned over and said something close to the lieutenant’s ear. Kemp was my team leader in the squad. McFee nodded and Kemp stood up, carrying a green rectangular ammo can with him. “Sergeant Meyers makes a good point. This isn’t an ass-kicking mission. We’re going down there to stop trouble and calm things down. For some reason, we’re supposed to get ammo. I’m passing this can around.”
Ammunition? Why were we getting ammo to run a simple roadblock? Rent-a-cop security guys did this kind of traffic stuff at the rodeo parking lot and they only had flashlights. Maybe we had blank rounds to scare people, or those cool rubber bullets that were supposed to hurt but not kill.
Kemp held up one thirty-round magazine. “Each man will draw two magazines. Both will go in your ammo pouch on your vest. Do not load a magazine into your weapon. I say again, do not load a magazine until you are ordered to do so.”
My stomach heaved a little as I lightened in my seat. The Chinook was descending into Boise. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths in through my nose, trying to fight the drooly, almost-want-to-puke-type feeling. All I could hear was the loud drone of the engines and the clink of the magazines against the metal ammo can while the guys drew their loads.
Luchen elbowed me. “Dude. Check it.”
I opened my eyes as he put the ammo can in my lap. I pulled out my two clips. There were green metal tips on the end of the standard 5.56 rounds. They were issuing live ammunition! No blanks or anything. These were the real deal.
Out the back hatch of the Chinook, I could see buildings and streets below. In the distance, near the white dome of the state capitol building, the streets were full of people. Smoke rose in columns from several fires. Everywhere else, it looked like any other town.
I held my rifle tightly. I’d practiced with an M4 all summer at basic training, but this was the first time this particular rifle had been assigned to me. It felt right, warm and familiar in my hands.
The Chinook set down, and the light above the bay door switched from red to green. The flight engineer gave a thumbs-up and shouted, “Okay.”
“Okay, ladies, on your feet! Let’s move!” Meyers ran down the length of the aircraft past the helicopter crewman. He jumped down to the ground and crouched-ran at a right angle from the aircraft through the rotor wash off to the side. Lieutenant McFee, who was in charge and should have dismounted first, waited a moment before following him.
Sergeant Kemp held his hands up to slow us down. “Second squad … good luck,” he shouted over the roar from the engines and the wind from the rotors. “First squad, you’re out first. Follow Sergeant Meyers.” Kemp stepped down off the end of the ramp. He motioned for us to follow.
Specialist Stein gave a whoop like he thought this was a party as he ran after Meyers. Luchen hit me in the arm almost like we were heading out of the locker room for a football game. The others were all business. I was the last in our squad to get off the bird. Kemp grabbed me like he’d stopped everyone else. “Duck low and head out straight that way.” He pointed in the direction my squad had gone. “Get out there and take a knee with our fire team.”
A wave of heat off the turbine engines near the back of the fuselage blasted me in the face. The rotors were kicking up a blinding cloud of dust from the baseball field. As I ran, crouching low and carrying my M4, the stupid gas-mask carrying case kept twisting around to my front side and whapping me in the nuts. When I cleared the dust cloud, I could see where the others were set up. I spat to get the dirt out of my mouth, but the grit was still in my teeth.
“Hurry up! Move your asses!” Sergeant Meyers paced around the soldiers who had taken a knee in a loose group. Lieutenant McFee stood, scanning the area with binoculars. Sergeant Torres led his squad off at a slow run across the park away from us.
The damned mask carrier was hanging down almost between my knees now. There were three different straps on the case and I could never figure out how to get it secured to my leg like it was supposed to be. It was tricky to run, but I put on some speed.
“Private, slow down,” Sergeant Kemp said as he caught up to me. “Your mask is all jacked up.” He made some adjustments to the carrier’s straps. “You don’t want to trip while running with a weapon. Calm down. You’re fine.”
We joined the others. Then the Chinook sped up its rotors, stirring even more dust as it rose into the air and flew off. In the relative quiet, I could hear sirens and honking horns, shouts and chanting in the distance. A bead of sweat ran down the back of my neck. It had been blazing hot at practice earlier today, and even though the sun was low in the west, it hadn’t cooled off much yet.
“All right!” Meyers yelled. “If any of you ladies are afraid or missing your little girlfriends, get that shit out of your head right now and focus.”
“‘Ladies’? Oh, come on,” said Specialist Sparrow under her breath.
Meyers heard her. “Hey, Specialist, it’s just part of being in a combat unit, so don’t make this into some kind of feminist thing. If you want to roll with the men, you gotta toughen up!”
“I passed all events on my PT test,” Sparrow said quietly.
Some of the guys laughed. Meyers was kind of fat. If he heard her, he ignored her. “Lock and load!” Meyers shouted.
A couple guys slammed magazines up into the wells of their M4s, then yanked back and released the charging handles above the stocks of their rifles to chamber a round.
“As you were! Do not lock and load!” Kemp shouted. That was a gutsy move for him. He was a sergeant, a rank below Staff Sergeant Meyers, so he was outranked and out of line. “We don’t need to chamber rounds. This isn’t a war.”
Meyers turned to Kemp. “I gave you and everybody else in my squad an order, Sergeant Kemp. Lock and load.”
I had my hand on my weapon’s charging handle, but hadn’t pulled it yet. A bunch of the guys exchanged glances like, What are we supposed to do?
“Maybe the lieutenant should decide,” Kemp said. “Sir, we don’t need to go into this with rounds chambered. I can’t believe we were even issued live ammunition in the first place.”
Meyers pulled the binoculars from the lieutenant’s face. “LT, if this shit goes bad, we won’t have time to be worrying about our weapons. How are you going to feel if one of your men gets hurt because he was still chambering a round when trouble hit?”
“There won’t be any trouble,” said Kemp. “It’s only a checkpoint. A traffic stop.”
“Make the call, sir,” Meyers said.
The lieutenant looked from one NCO to the other with wide eyes. I knew how he felt. I basically wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Still, McFee was supposed to be in charge. Some loud shouts and the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere not too far away.
Lieutenant McFee pulled his CamelBak hose around and took a long drink. “Lock and load.”
“Good call, sir,” said Sergeant Meyers. Kemp shook his head. Meyers smiled. “You heard the lieutenant. Lock and load,” he called out to all of us. Then he stepped close to Sergeant Kemp and spoke quietly, but still loud enough for me and the guys to hear. “Sergeant Kemp, if you can’t follow orders in my squad, I will find a new alpha team leader.”
Rifles clicked all around me. I pulled back and released my own weapon’s charging handle.
Lieutenant McFee stood up straight at attention. “Fall in!”
Everybody jumped up and rushed
to stand shoulder to shoulder, grouped into their four-man fire teams, facing the officer in formation. Sergeant Meyers was at the far right of the rank. Sergeant Kemp stood next to him in the A team leader spot. I was the last guy in our team, with Specialist Sparrow and PFC Luchen between me and Sergeant Kemp. To my left was the B team leader, Sergeant Ribbon. Next to him was Specialist Stein, PFC Nelson, and finally Specialist Danning.
“Port arms!” the lieutenant shouted. I executed the movements I had been taught, bringing my rifle up at an angle across my chest. My right hand moved down low, holding the top of the stock with my left hand high under the end of the barrel. The other guys did the same, but some were pretty sloppy.
“Right face!” McFee ordered. Everyone made a one-quarter facing movement to the right.
“Forward march!” said McFee. We all started forward. “Your left. Your left. Your left-right.” He called out the cadence quietly, better than the loud, stupid, cheery singsong cadences like I’d had to do during drill and ceremony at basic all summer. D&C sucked, and it was worse on a Friday night when I was supposed to be partying with the guys and JoBell.
Even though the sun was going down, the late August heat cooked us in our uniforms. On that hot cement, we were like burgers frying on the griddle. I tried to ignore the sweat running from under my helmet and dripping down my back. Couldn’t do anything about it anyway.
We marched around the corner in the park. Across the street ahead, some kids pointed at us as they came out of the Gas & Sip. A little girl’s ice cream sloshed out of her cone as she stared. People in the McDonald’s watched us through the window. A bunch of people took pictures with their comms. Others clapped and cheered.
I held back my grin. Even though I mostly wanted to go home, I also felt kind of cool. There I was, wearing a real Army uniform, a trained soldier with a rifle. At basic, I’d been a real good shot too. Earned an expert rifle marksman badge. That’s right, I wanted to call out to the crowds, the Idaho Army National Guard is here. The trouble would be over soon.
