John chokes on the tears he’s trying so hard not to let fall. Not yet, not until he’s alone.
“I need to use the phone and get back to the bus station,” John tells him, when he’s sure he can speak without his voice breaking.
“Sure, let’s go to the station, and get something to drink. You can use the phone there and I’ll take you to the bus station whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks.”
John couldn’t wait to get on a bus to North Carolina, a place that maybe, for once in his life, could come to feel like home. And he’d never come back to this God-forsaken place again.
*
“Sun’s gonna be up soon, Bro,” John mumbles to Brian.
They’re in Zaidon, in the Al Anbar province, Iraq, and the United Nations has recently ordered Saddam Hussein to dismantle all of his weapons of mass destruction. The war with Iraq has officially begun, and four countries have invaded Iraq including the United States. To say the situation is tense would be putting it very mildly. Hussein and his sons have gone into hiding, and there has been little resistance to the incoming occupation of the country by the U.S. and other forces.
The men are on fire watch, standing guard for twenty-four hours straight, right now in near-freezing temperatures. Soon, the sun will be at its highest and the temperature will shoot up to over a hundred degrees. The desert is an unforgiving place, and the people who inhabit it are just as unforgiving and cruel. The air is black and hot, thick with putrid smoke from the raging oil fires the Iraqis have set. The heat from the fires, combined with the heat from the day is unbearable. This place is definitely hell.
“Yeah, I know, another fucking day in paradise,” Brian laughs sarcastically.
It’s been almost two years since John and Brian went through boot camp together, and they’ve come a long way since those yellow prints. They’ve had dirt from all over the world coloring the soles of their boots, but none as horrendous as where they are now.
The tortured victims they have rescued, and the bodily remains of others, is nothing that any human being, or any living creature, should ever have to witness and endure. The prisoners have had the bones in their feet broken, their genitalia burned or electrocuted or disfigured in some way. This all comes after the they’ve been repeatedly raped, beaten and tortured. Sometimes the entire body would be burned alive after fingers and toes have been cut off, or some other grotesque torture done. The cruelty inflicted on these people, both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, is not human. Only the devil himself could do such things.
Things have been eerily quiet for the past twenty-four hours, and the men are starting to get antsy. There are a total of eight men and women from their platoon, on watch, and all of them are waiting for something they are sure is going to come.
“Something is not right, Dude,” John whispers tensely.
“I know, Bro,” Brian has come up beside him silently.
Brian has the gift of silence. His body moves like the wind, everywhere and anywhere, but quietly and unseen. He is like a ghost.
John has a sixth sense, an uncannily accurate intuition that guides him and directs him with precision and perfection. He can sense something telling him things, guiding him, showing him what to do.
These gifts have earned the men the respect of their peers and the leadership roles they have now. They are in charge of their men, their lives, along with countless civilians, are in their hands. There isn’t a second that John and Brian ever forget that.
The platoon is doing another round through the vacant buildings and streets of the village they’re in. All of them have said that something is different tonight.
Something jumps in front of them, from out of the shadows.
“What the fuck?!” shouts the new kid, Peterson.
BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT!!!!
“What the fuck Dude, don’t just go shooting at shit, you could have killed one of us!!” John shouts at him, yanking his gun from his hands. Their ears are screaming from the gunshots echoing off the walls, in the confined stone brick space.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I thought it was the enemy,” he shouts, practically in tears.
“It’s ok, everything’s the enemy until we ascertain otherwise but we confirm before shooting,” John reprimands him, but tries to calm him as well.
“Yes, Sir,” Peterson answers, breathing heavily.
“You good now, Peterson?” John asks him.
“Yes, Sir!” he shouts.
“Stop fucking shouting, you’re not in boot camp anymore,” he says as he shoves the rifle back against his chest.
The platoon begins to walk slowly forward again, resuming their watch.
“The fucking kid is going to shoot one of us in the ass, as jumpy as he is,” Brian half jokes half warns John.
“I know, and I’m trying to figure out how to get him over it,” John says annoyed.
John and Brian are not the same boys they were when they enlisted. Their bodies have filled out to become imposing figures of authority. Both of them are over six feet tall. John is built like a bull and Brian is built like a brick wall; both of them are hard, mean, and impenetrable.
As they exit the war torn building, the sun is just breaking over the skyline of the village. This area is on the outskirts of the city-center, filled with residential buildings with stores and offices scattered throughout. Well, it had been before the bombings and war. Now it’s mostly piles of rubble with some buildings still intact here and there.
John and Brian are ahead of the platoon, with their men fanned out behind them. The group continues down the empty street, then they turn down a small side street. The only sound in the early morning is the rubbing of their clothes with their movements and the crunching of gravel
