The last person to talk to Sergeant Alphabet about the incident that day was the Sergeant Major, the senior enlisted man at their base—what had once been an Iraqi meat processing plant and was still known to both locals and soldiers as “the Chicken Factory.”
The Sergeant Major was the rare kind: his knees and back weren’t destroyed despite having been a paratrooper for as long as many of the battalion’s soldiers had been alive. He could still run and move. He was a big man who probably landed hard on jumps, and that made his vitality all the more impressive. He wasn’t quite as tall as Sergeant Alphabet, but thicker. He had the muscled forearms of a major league shortstop and put one of those tattooed limbs around Sergeant Alphabet’s shoulders. He pointed at Alphabet’s chest with his other hand.
“If you ever have any doubts about what’s the right thing to do,” he said, “just remember that your job is to bring these boys home. None of us got hurt. That’s the important thing.”
Sergeant Alphabet said, “Roger that, Sergeant Major,” and the Sergeant Major clapped him on the back and told him to get some sleep.
The colors of evening drained from the sky and the night was chilly. The last call to prayer sounded from a nearby mosque, a distant wail, and a wind rattled loose sheets in the tin roof of the warehouse.
The next day at about thirteen hundred, Lieutenant Sugar pushed aside the canvas flap of Sergeant Alphabet’s tent and saw him lying on his cot, his size thirteen boots pointing to either side. He wore headphones. A CD-player rested on his chest, and his hands were interlocked over it.
Two fluorescent bulbs lit the tent. There was a row of cots on each side, cardboard box nightstands, and equipment under the cots and hanging from nails in the wood tent-frame. At the far end of the tent, Specialist Tommie slept on his side wrapped in a sleeping bag. Sergeant Alphabet’s eyes were closed.
“What’s going on?” Lieutenant Sugar asked, and when no one heard him, he said louder, “What’s going on, Joe?” pretending that he just entered and was asking for the first time.
Sergeant Alphabet saw Lieutenant Sugar. He pulled a headphone from one ear and said, “Oh, not much, sir.”
After a pause, Lieutenant Sugar asked, “You doing okay?” Alphabet startled at the question. “Of course I’m doing okay.”
“The boss says I have to go make nice with the kid’s family.”
“Great,” Sergeant Alphabet said.
“I want you to come with me.”
“You want me to go?”
Lieutenant Sugar nodded. He didn’t want to explain every decision to his subordinate. That shows a lack of confidence, he thought.
Sergeant Alphabet shrugged. “Just say when, sir.”
“Probably tomorrow. Early. So we can get back inside the wire and prep for the big mission.”
Sergeant Alphabet nodded and when Lieutenant Sugar didn’t say anything else, he put his headphone back in and pressed a button on his CD Player.
Lieutenant Sugar sat on an adjacent cot and flipped through the small stack of CDs on Sergeant Alphabet’s nightstand, pretending to be interested.
“Ser-geant Alph-a-bet!” The voice of their platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class McPherson, boomed from the other side of the warehouse.
At the far end of the tent, Specialist Tommie lifted his head and listened like an alert deer. The whole chain of command had been on his case ever since he lost accountability of some spare weapons parts.
“Ser-geant Alph-a-bet!” Sergeant First Class McPherson called again, his voice closer.
Confident he wasn’t needed, Specialist Tommie lowered his head and went back to sleep.
Sergeant Alphabet rotated up on his cot, setting his big feet on the floorboards. He removed the headphones from his ears and wrapped the cord around his CD Player. He placed it gently in the shoebox beneath his cot, then took his M4 carbine from where it hung on a nail and exited through the canvas flap.
Sergeant First Class McPherson had just been told about an upcoming issue of cold-weather clothes and needed to update the platoon’s roster of sizes. He communicated this to Sergeant Alphabet who said “roger” and went to find his squad. His guys were taking their turn on the wire, and he would make the rounds and double-check their sizes.
The tent felt empty. Lieutenant Sugar walked to the far end where Specialist Tommie slept, then back. He listened to his footfalls on the floorboards.
He’s a rough one, Sugar thought, but he’s got a soul like everyone else. He’ll go with me and not talk back. It’s a tragedy, this thing, sure, but my duty is to make the Iraqis understand that we’ve come to help them with freedom, and honor, and duty. Courage, Sugar thought.
A little plastic dog tag printed with the Army values dangled from Sugar’s neck, beside the stainless steel ones bearing his name, social, blood type, and religion.
Sugar exited and walked to his own tent where he lived with Sergeant First Class McPherson. He reread a letter from his girlfriend. It was chatty and all wrong. He read carefully, looking for an undercurrent of pity and longing. The hell with that, he told himself. I have responsibilities to worry about. I have people relying on me. He read the letter again. It was all wrong.
* * *
On the way to dinner, Lieutenant Sugar and Sergeant First Class McPherson spoke about the upcoming mission. Rumors had been circulating about their platoon being the main effort. They’d supposedly be going after two high-value targets. The similar mission they’d done turned out to be a dry hole, but that didn’t stop everybody’s anticipation, nerves. “This might be the one,” Sugar told his platoon sergeant. “Whether it is or it ain’t, let’s make sure the boys are ready,” said McPherson. Together, Lieutenant Sugar and Sergeant First Class McPherson led and ran Second Platoon. Sugar was glad he could speak freely to his platoon sergeant.
They ate their riblet dinners, mopping up bright red sauce with dry pieces of Wonder Bread, then filled their pockets with packets of peanut butter and jelly, grabbed a loaf of bread, and returned to their hooch.
Lieutenant Sugar asked his platoon sergeant if he felt like a little Halo action. He did, and they set up. Lieutenant Sugar carried over a pair of plastic lawn chairs and switched on the television and Xbox.
It’d been great since their forward operating base got a second school-bus-sized generator. Power was now reliable enough for long games of Halo on Xboxes, or Madden on PlayStations. But now more soldiers found reason to travel the thirty miles out of their way during patrols to the big base at Baghdad International, where they stuffed themselves in fancy KBR chow halls, ogled the many female soldiers, and returned with satellite receivers, televisions, DVD players, game systems, and all the junk food they could carry, and the load was showing signs of being too much for even the two school-bus-sized generators that hummed 24/7 between the warehouse and the wall of the base.
SFC McPherson poured hot water into two mugs and the room filled with a warm, sweet smell. Sugar used a pen to stir the cocoa smooth. He pulled off his boots. This, finally, was living.
Sugar let his platoon sergeant get the first few kills because he wanted to keep things competitive. After the previous night, he didn’t want SFC McPherson to become discouraged and quit their semi-regular games. Soon, they were both laughing and cursing and swaying their bodies as their characters ducked, ran, and threw hand grenades at one another on the television screen.
Eventually, Sergeant First Class McPherson went to sleep, and Lieutenant Sugar turned to a newspaper he’d received in the mail. He just looked at it and didn’t read. Then he folded it along its original creases and set it atop a plank of wood that rested on two cinder blocks and served as a shelf. He placed it atop novels sent by various friends. Novels he really did intend to read. He put his boots back on and went outside.
Tommie was in the motor pool dragging a heavy plastic chest out of the quadcon. He wore a headlamp that illuminated his nose, lips, and chin, and had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. His M4 carbine lay
on the ground beside the connex, resting on his uniform blouse. He wore a T-shirt and sweated in the chilly night. He was in trouble all the way up to the Sergeant Major for losing accountability of the spare weapons parts.
“What’s up, Tommie?” Lieutenant Sugar called.
Tommie dropped the chest. He had a habit of grinning that made Lieutenant Sugar do the same.
“I heard you and the Sergeant Major having a chat a little while ago. Something about weapons parts.”
“Oh you heard that did you, sir?” Tommie giggled. “Yeah, old Willie and me were having a talk about the importance of proper accountability of Army equipment. He wanted me to blow it off, but I think I talked some sense into him.”
Lieutenant Sugar loved Tommie.
“Is that what he wanted?”
“Yeah, sir. I really had to put my foot down. I said, ‘Look here Willie, I’m gonna find those parts, even if it takes me all night.’” He giggled. “It’s a good thing he backed down too. For a second there I thought I was gonna have to get loud with him.”
Tommie offered Lieutenant Sugar a cigarette. He took one and lit it with the lighter from his pocket and inhaled the harsh smoke into his lungs, then blew it out through his nose. He didn’t cough.
“There,” He said. “How did that look? I’ve been practicing”
“Not bad, sir. I’ll have you addicted in no time. But it’ll take dedication.”
“Oh, I’m dedicated.”
“That’s good, sir. Speaking of which, I got some weapons parts to find.” He got up, and began carrying more things from the connex: windshields, bags of uniforms, an enormous box of toilet paper.
Lieutenant Sugar smoked and watched him. Tommie worked inside the Conex with his headlamp while he sucked the cigarette without pulling the harsh smoke into his lungs.
He sat on the plastic chest and looked at the rows of Humvees and five-tons in the motor pool. A soldier from his company paced back and forth with an axe handle on his shoulder. They suspected the guys in Alpha Company of swiping parts from their vehicles but had yet to catch the dirty bastards in the act. A row of tracers rose slowly in the sky and winked out one after the next, and Lieutenant Sugar watched for more but didn’t see any. It was nothing.
“I want you to come with me tomorrow morning on a little mission I got. You’ll be my driver.”
Tommie was dragging another chest along the concrete. He set it down. “Hoo-ah, sir. You know I’m gonna be looking for those weapons parts all night.”
“I know,” said Lieutenant Sugar.
“You say run, Tommie say how far. You say shit, Tommie say what color.”
“We’re leaving at oh-six-hundred. You’ll drive me in Delta Six,” Lieutenant Sugar said, naming the commander’s vehicle.
“And then Tommie will polish that turd and put a ribbon on it and pretend it smells like roses.”
Tommie continued unloading the connex, and Lieutenant Sugar finished his cigarette.
“Need a hand?”
“Nah, sir, this is supply work. I don’t think you infantry guys could handle it.”
Lieutenant Sugar saw his grin lit by the downward light of his headlamp.
“That’s why they sent me,” Tommie continued, “to look after you all, and keep you out of trouble. I don’t know what this company would do without me.”
“I don’t either, Tommie.”
* * *
Lieutenant Sugar wore his watch when he slept, and when he woke at three, morning was still infinitely far away. He went back to sleep and forgot about the kid and the mission. He fell asleep imagining his girlfriend unbuttoning his uniform, then woke up at four thirty with morning too close to ignore and lay there, trying to sleep until he heard the company radio guard walk hesitantly into the tent.
“Sir?” he said, “I was supposed to wake you, sir.”
Lieutenant Sugar rose from his warm sleeping bag and dressed quietly in the darkness so Sergeant First Class McPherson’s sleep wouldn’t be disturbed.
The ponchos bungee-corded around the heavy weapons to keep the dust out were removed and tucked away in the beds of the gun trucks. Heavy boxes of ammunition were mounted to the gun cradles beside the automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, and the belts of ammunition were draped into their chambers. Shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets, which could also destroy bunkers and knock down structures, were lifted from the bed and fixed with their shoulder straps around the open hatches of the gunners’ turrets.
Sugar tied his boots and walked to the motor pool where Sergeant Alphabet had his trucks running and his men ready to go. Tommie was there too, wearing a tired grin.
Lieutenant Sugar dropped his kit in the passenger seat of Delta Six.
“I’m going to get the terp. Meet me at the gate. I’ll be right there.”
“We got to go, sir,” Sergeant Alphabet said.
“I’ll be right there.”
Sergeant Alphabet directed the four Humvees to the gate, and Lieutenant Sugar went to wake Stuttering John.
He opened the door of the interpreter’s hooch. A battery-operated lantern cast shadows about the room. It hummed on the floor beside one of the interpreters who prayed on his rug. Stuttering John was asleep. Despite his grey hair and wrinkled face, Stuttering John looked like a young boy as he slept. Another interpreter prayed, and Lieutenant Sugar said nothing to him. He shook Stuttering John’s shoulder and the old Iraqi man woke. Lieutenant Sugar watched him sit up and put his feet on the floor. He wore long underwear and looked around like he didn’t know where he was.
“Are you awake?”
He nodded.
“I have a difficult mission. I want you to come with me. You. No one else. I need your help.” Lieutenant Sugar spoke in short phrases, in the tempo of an Arab’s broken English.
“Would you like some tea?”
“There is no time.”
“No breakfast?”
“No time. I have an MRE for you in the truck.”
Stuttering John found his glasses. “I need to pee,” he said, and rubbed his face.
“There is little time. We leave as soon as you are ready.”
Stuttering John nodded again and looked back and forth, as though he’d lost something.
“It is a difficult one. I do not like this mission.”
Stuttering John dressed, his face puffy and expressionless.
“We have to find the family of a child and speak to them,” Lieutenant Sugar said. “We shot the child yesterday. Sent him by helicopter to the hospital. I’ll talk. You just translate. I need you because you are the best.”
Stuttering John was the best. He translated, and almost never entered into his own conversations with locals.
He buttoned his shirt and put a cap on his head. He stood up straight, stomped one foot on the floor, and raising his chin said, “Sir, I am ready, sir.” The other interpreter continued to pray by his lantern.
The two gate guards spoke with Sergeant Alphabet. They probably heard about the IED. “This is bullshit,” Lieutenant Sugar heard Sergeant Alphabet say. “First these fuckers try to kill us, and now we got to drive down that same fucking road to kiss their asses.”
* * *
Outside the main gate, a row of laborers sat on the ground against the wall, waiting for the escort who would watch them spend the day spreading piles of gravel over the field. The cooks worked busily over stoves beside the chow hall, and in the motor pool, a mechanic leaned all his weight against a torque wrench.
Lieutenant Sugar climbed into Delta Six and called a radio check with Alphabet.
The SAW gunners clipped drums of ammunition to their weapons and kept at least three more drums on their persons. Riflemen, including Sergeant Alphabet and Lieutenant Sugar, opened their optics and adjusted the size of the little red dot. They slapped magazines into their weapons. Frag grenades fit into pouches specially designed for the body armor, or beside the magazines in the old-style pouches some soldiers still used. Concu
ssion grenades didn’t fit anywhere and were often reinforced with hundred-mile-an-hour tape and tucked by their spoons into the loops on a soldier’s body armor, or else they were kept inside the vehicles with their spoons around a taut piece of five-fifty cord that ran along the wind-shield. Smoke grenades were kept in a similar way, arranged by color so they could be quickly found—or as quickly as is possible in the confusion of the mysterious event called contact.
A gate guard scribbled some marks in his ledger, then dragged the strand of concertina wire out of the way.
The gate lifted. As they rolled through, SAW gunners slid the charging handles on their machine guns back and forward and each rifleman let the bolt of his carbine slam forward, chambering a round. The gunners in the turrets slammed the feed tray covers down on their heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers. The gunner on the lead vehicle waved his palms toward the traffic on the highway until it came to a stop, and the convoy rolled into the middle lane of Route Lion.
A few locals were already out in the market. The first merchants removed the thatched grass mats from the fronts of their stalls. White chickens fluttered in their cages and a cool dampness hung in the air. Stuttering John pulled his cap lower and didn’t look out the window.
They veered off Route Lion after the market and drove along dirt roads, snaking between farms. Sergeant Alphabet was in the lead vehicle looking at his GPS. They came upon two mud houses partially concealed by a small grove of date palms.
Sugar saw their thick, sturdy walls. The houses were all by themselves and surrounded by fields, which was good. Soldiers could see far in every direction. The Humvees drove to two adjacent corners and all the soldiers but the gunners dismounted. Tommie cut the engine of Delta Six and dismounted with the shotgun.
Two Iraqis ran toward them from far out in the field, and Lieutenant Sugar asked Stuttering John to exit the vehicle. The figures dropped their shovels as they ran and lifted their legs to make progress in the soft, loose ground. Sergeant Alphabet stood beside Lieutenant Sugar.
Fire and Forget Page 12
