Chapter Twenty-four
You wake up in the morning and your back aches from laying on a saggy cot and you fold your blanket and put on your boots and wish you had clean socks but you forgot to pack some so you just get your stuff together and look over where Mr. Holden is still sleeping on his stomach with a sweater for a pillow and you walk over to him and shake him a little and his eyes open and you say rise and shine Mr. Holden and he rolls over and then he sits up and says holy fuck petty officer we’re in Iraq and then a Marine pokes his head through the door and says breakfast is almost over and you better shag your asses over there if you want to eat and then he sees Mr. Holden and says sorry about that sir and Mr. Holden says don’t worry about it Marine I can shag my ass just like anyone.
After you eat you and Mr. Holden get in the HUMVEE and he says our helo is meeting us at Camp Denton so we got to drive back over there and return this HUMVEE but it’s not going to be there until tomorrow so you want to go up to the camps and you say sure sir let’s go and then the Marine you drove down here shows up limping a little and he says that they lanced his foot and shot him up with antibiotics and he needs a ride back and can we get him one and Mr. Holden says sure but we’re going up to the camps first thing this morning and you mind and he says no sir I guess they won’t miss my ass for a few hours and so he hops in the back and settles in and you start the HUMVEE and you pull out of the camp to the main road and he points you left and you go up the hill to the camps.
It’s about a mile and a half up a long dirt road and as you drive up there you go by about a thousand of the tractors and Mercedes and old trucks all loaded up with people and their shit and their kids wave at you and say hello Joe and hi and they are really cute kids with dark hair and dark eyes and then you come over a little rise and there are the tents all in front of you for miles they are spread out but clumped together in little groups over the hillside with the mountains behind them and then you turn left again and pull in and turn off the key.
You can see a long line of men waiting to sign in or something and down by the water truck, there are about a hundred women and girls all lined up with water jugs, and there are two Marines up the hill sitting on a black plastic mountain of MREs, and you get out and walk up the hill between the check-in tent and the water truck and past the MREs, and you come over a little rise and there’s a tent with red cross on it and a long line of people waiting to get in, and you go into the tent and find out its those doctors without borders guys and they are working here for free to help out the Kurds and that’s pretty cool.
And then you see a kid on a table and his freaking arm is gone, just gone, all there is a big red bloody bandage where his elbow should be and you walk up to him and look at him and he’s not screaming or anything, he looks like he’s about ten years old, and there he sits with his freaking arm blown off and his eyes closed holding the bandage in his other hand, and you grab a nurse guy or a corpsman or something and you ask him what happened to the kid and he says RPG, the kid was out picking up ammo for his family and the RPG went off, those things are really unstable, you got to watch your ass around them.
You say why was he picking up ammo and the corpsman shrugs his shoulders and you are getting really pissed at the whole thing, and then his Dad or whoever, maybe his uncle, comes up to him and talks to him real low and the kid nods his head, and the doctor comes up and talks to the uncle or dad and the guy nods his head, and the doctor turns to the corpsman who’s talking to you and says let’s get him on the table and get him under, they just agreed to take the thing off above the elbow and the corpsman says catch you later like he’s going to the store or something and he goes up to the kid and helps him off the table and they go into another part of the tent and the dad or uncle is just standing there.
And Mr. Holden who heard everything can see that you are just freaking out about all this and he says easy there Kieffer and puts his hand on your shoulder but you shake it off and take a step over to the dad or uncle or whatever and you tap him on the shoulder and he turns to you and says yes and you say do you speak English and he says yes and you nod toward where the kid went and you say your son and he says no mister, my sisters son and you say you sent him out to pick up ammo and he says yes.
And you can see in his eyes that he can see in your eyes that you are really, really pissed, and Mr. Holden comes up and says we need to go and the uncle says wait and then he looks at you for a long time measuring, and says it makes you angry to see that and you say yes and he says very angry and you say yes very angry and he says I am sorry you are angry I am sorry that I send my sisters son to pick up bullets and rockets too, I am sorry that my son is dead but I would send him too, because you, and he waves at you and Mr. Holden and the Marine, because you will leave soon and we, we will have to fight Saddam again and we will need the bullets and rockets and there’s not a goddam thing you can say to that, is there.
You walk out of the camps very fast, past three kids sitting on a rusty anti-aircraft gun and swinging around in the seat and past another kid playing in the dust with some piece of metal, and you all get into the HUMVEE and you start it and jam it into gear and back up just missing a cart full of shit, and you put it in first gear and it stalls, and you have to start it again and then you get it into first and you pull away and jam down the road at about forty, and the carts and tractors and Mercedes and the trucks all pull over out of your way.
You Are Free Page 24