Price of Duty

by Todd Strasser

  I still haven’t answered Aurora’s question about how long I’ll be over there if I finish my deployment. I have to make something up. “Six or seven months.”

  For a few moments she’s still, and then she slides out of my arms and sits up. She looks out the window. I can’t see her face. Somewhere in the dark distance a dog barks.

  Without turning, Aurora asks, “Do you want me to wait for you?”

  If ever there was a loaded question, this has to be it. Is she saying that she’d rather not wait? Is she saying she will only if I want her to? Or is she saying that she wants to wait, but feels like she needs more of a commitment? And what if I say yes, and then in a few days do what I know deep in my heart I should do? Then she’ll get to be the girlfriend of “the former hero” who thumbed his nose at the military, who is suddenly the town pariah. Hell, a national pariah, as far as half this country thinks. It’s a no-win situation for her.

  ALJAHIM

  I have to assume the sniper is coming down from the roof to finish me off. I get to my feet, M-16 aimed, swiveling, moving slowly along the side of a building. A dozen parts of my body throb and burn. Glancing back at the ground where I rolled to avoid being shot, there are splotches of red in the dirt.

  The firefight is still going strong on the other side of the wall. Single shots and longer rips of full auto. Sounds like nonstop Fourth of July festivities. That’s good news. There must be enough of our guys left from the convoy to give us a fighting chance of getting out of here.

  But not without Skitballs. Is he still alive? He hasn’t cried out for a minute or two.

  And what about that damned sniper?

  I slide along the wall to an open doorway and quickly glance in. Walled stairs go upward. I take them, expecting at any second to encounter the sniper coming down. But if I can get to the roof, I can locate Skitballs.

  A sound comes from above, from around the corner where the stairs double back. Just a soft thump. Is it the sniper? Is this a trap? Is he perched at the top of the next flight of stairs, waiting for me to come around the bend? I squat in the stairwell, aware of the heat, the pain in my legs, the dampness of my uniform where it’s soaked with sweat and blood. There’s no time to waste.

  I toss a smoke grenade around the corner. Instantly there’s rifle fire and rounds slam into the wall near me. I count three shots, then poke my M-16 around the corner and fire a couple of three-round bursts upward into the thick smoke. There’s a grunt and a thud. Something metallic clatters down the steps. A second later a Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle lies on the landing near me.

  As soon as the smoke thins, I head up the stairs, stepping over the body of the dead sniper. At the top is a door, which I’m pretty sure leads to the roof. I kick it open and dive through in case there’s another bad guy up there. But the roof is empty, save a couple of dozen shell casings from the Dragunov.

  I’m back under the hot sun. The firefight is still going strong. Luckily, there are no roofs higher than this one, nowhere for a triggerman to fire down on me. Staying low, I creep toward the parapet, take off my helmet, and stick it on the muzzle of my M-16. When I hold it up to the edge of the parapet, no one shoots at it. I put the helmet back on and peek over the ledge.

  On the road below is the line of damaged vehicles that was our convoy before the daisy-chained IEDs obliterated them. Every forty feet or so, there’s a crater in the road. Some must be ten feet across and four feet deep. The IEDs were probably made from huge artillery shells. The sight of American bodies lying on the ground fills me with rage.

  Below to my left, a bunch of our guys have formed a defensive position behind a couple of overturned vehicles. To my right, a soldier lies in what looks like an open sewer. From this distance, I can’t be sure it’s Skitballs, but if it is, that explains why the insurgents weren’t able to finish him off. The sewer runs a foot or so below the level of the dirt road, keeping him out of their line of fire.

  Farther down the road to my right, another group of our guys is hunkered down behind an overturned heavy tactical truck. When I check the roof above and behind them, I see someone wearing long, loose clothes and a cap. He’s carrying an AK-47.

  I aim and fire. The guy goes down. But how long before another takes his place? This firefight is turning into a real meat grinder. Meanwhile, the golden hour for Skitballs is fast ticking away. But as much as I need to get to him, I have to protect those guys on the road from another insurgent getting on that roof and firing down on them like fish in a barrel.

  I climb over parapets until I’m right above them. From here I have a 180-degree view of the scene and can see what the soldiers below can’t see—a pair of insurgents sneaking toward them along a wall. One has an AK, the other an RPG launcher.

  Because they’re to my right and down below hugging the wall, I’ll have to lean out over the parapet and shoot lefty, not something I have a lot of experience doing. I set my weapon on three-round burst again, lean out, and try to take aim.

  Thwuck! Next thing I know, I’m lying on my side halfway across the roof. My ears are ringing. While it doesn’t seem possible, my heart feels like it’s pumping even harder than before. I’ve been hit in the head, but I don’t know by what. My hands go to my helmet. On one side is a hole where a bullet entered. Near the top of the helmet is a gash in the Kevlar where it exited.

  The shot must’ve come from below. Had the bullet struck a half inch lower, it would have taken off the top of my skull. I still have to get those insurgents sneaking along the wall, but when I rise to my hands and knees, I suddenly feel light-headed. My peripheral vision starts to go gray and I think I’ll either faint or puke.

  Suck it up! I tell myself, lowering my head to the rooftop.

  The sick feeling passes. I get into a crouch. Staying low, I cross the roof to a door, and down another set of stairs. Through a sun-washed courtyard to an arched doorway that opens to the street. Through the doorway, I should be able to see the guys pinned down behind the tactical truck. But instead, there’s just empty road.

  I’ve miscalculated.

  DAD

  Rap! Rap! Two short, quick knocks. I know who it is. “Come in, Dad.”

  My door opens and he strides in wearing his full lieutenant colonel’s uniform with the tabs, badges, insignias, stripes, and bars—just about all the chest candy a soldier can earn without seeing action.

  Lori’s made some adjustments to my Class As, letting out the left pants leg so the cast will fit under it. As a private first class, I have a lot less egg salad on my chest than Dad does, but I do have one he’ll never have—the Combat Action Badge.

  It’s hardly two inches long, a wreath with a bayonet and a grenade. Rarely has something so small meant so much in the lives of those who’ve earned it.

  And in the lives of those who haven’t. Dad could have seen action in the Gulf wars, but a trick knee kept him out of the fight. He also comes from a military family. His father, Herbert Liddell, was a Navy commander, and Dad’s brother was a Navy fighter pilot. Both saw action in the Gulf War. Dad’s always been a quiet, stoic sort of soldier. Maybe not as gung-ho as some others, but someone who accepted his lot and did his job.

  Before I enlisted, I felt bad that he was the only one in our family who’d never been in battle. Now I can’t help thinking how lucky he’s been.

  He’s never had to kill another human being. The memory of the first time I did is still as vivid as it was the moment it happened. One moment there was the swarthy, bearded bad guy I’d been trained to kill. The next moment there was a fallen soldier who’d probably believed as firmly in his cause as I did in mine. I’d taken a life, done something that could never be undone. My father doesn’t have to be haunted by that.

  “Ready?” Dad asks. It’s time for my next “engagement.” Not with the enemy, but with a select group of the General’s two hundred closest “friends.”

  “I guess.” Now appearing at the carnival sideshow. The bearded lady. The sword swa
llower. The wounded military hero.

  “We’ll try to make it as painless as possible,” Dad says with a thin smile.

  He means it. And I appreciate that. Ever since I deployed, things have been a lot different between us. A lot better. Back in high school, you wouldn’t believe the fights we had. For three years he was on my butt 24/7.

  Why wasn’t I getting better grades? Not that they were terrible. They just weren’t great.

  Why wasn’t I captain of a team? It wasn’t enough to be a starting second baseman or cornerback. I had to show leadership.

  Why wasn’t I volunteering or doing any extracurricular activities?

  For him, it was all about me getting into Hudson High, the USMA, West Point. The first step toward becoming a high-ranking officer in the military. That’s what he’d done. That’s what I’d been told I would do since the moment I’d marched around the living room in a diaper with a plastic rifle on my shoulder.

  It came to a head the day I enlisted. I didn’t get home until early evening. Dad was in the backyard spreading manure in his vegetable garden. When he saw me, he stopped and leaned on the shovel. It had been a hot day and swallows were wheeling and diving in the air above us, snatching whatever flying insects had just hatched. Up close, the acrid smell of the compost manure burned my nostrils.

  “I signed up,” I said.

  It didn’t come as a surprise. I’d told him that was what I planned to do. He pursed his lips. Behind them, he was probably clenching his teeth. “Write a letter to the recruiting commander telling him you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I’m not doing that, Dad.”

  He just stared. There wasn’t a lot about me enlisting that we hadn’t already said, shouted, screamed at each other a dozen times. He wanted me to go to West Point so that I wouldn’t have to enter the Army as a grunt infantryman—the most likely to see action, the most likely to be killed or wounded.

  I argued that neither his father nor the General had taken that route. Both had enlisted and seen action in Vietnam. His father had made it to Navy commander. The General was, of course, the General. I wanted to prove myself just as my grandfathers had. I didn’t want to have life handed to me on a platter. I didn’t want to go to West Point and have everyone think I was a shoo-in because of my famous family.

  Overhead, the swallows rose and dove. I braced myself for Dad to start shouting. Or pull out his phone and call someone at recruiting headquarters. But he did neither. Instead, he stared at the ground and blinked hard. His eyes suddenly looked watery. It was probably the acrid stink of the manure that did it. “Go back in the house,” he said, then turned away and started shoveling again.

  Now, in my room, he steps close and tightens the knot of my tie, straightens my Combat Action Badge. He claps me on the shoulder and smiles. “See you downstairs, soldier.” He does an about-face and heads back down.

  My phone vibrates. Aurora? I wonder hopefully as I reach for it. We haven’t spoken since I dropped her at her house last night. Actually, we haven’t spoken since the moment she asked me if I wanted her to wait for me.

  I can’t help thinking about what happened to Skitballs. One night, probably about a month into our deployment, we were in the DFAC eating dinner and suddenly there was a loud bang! and food went flying. Everyone dove for the floor, thinking it was an incoming and we were under attack.

  But we heard a clang! And someone cursing up a storm. And another clang! So it wasn’t an attack. We got to our feet and there was Skitballs going nucking futs, ranting like a madman and smashing a metal tray against the edge of the table. Glasses fell over, spilling bug juice and milk. Sugar shakers rolled off the table and crashed to the floor.

  Guys started yelling at him to stop because he was making a mess and ruining dinner, but Skitballs ignored them. Morpiss and I decided to take the calm approach and started toward him. Only when he saw us, he grabbed the napkin dispenser and reared back like he was going to throw a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball straight at our heads.

  That’s when Brad came out of nowhere and tackled him. He wrestled Skitballs to the floor and pinned him. Skitballs was still cursing. And now we knew it was about his girlfriend. The one whose credit card debt he’d paid off with his enlistment bonus.

  Only it sounded like she wasn’t his girlfriend anymore.

  When Skitballs had calmed down, Morpiss and I took him back to the barracks. The poor guy had only been away from home for a month and his girlfriend had taken his money and dumped him.

  “She said she’d wait!” Skitballs sobbed, wiping his eyes and nose on his sleeve. “She promised!”

  In the barracks, he washed down a couple of pills because there was no hooch allowed. By now the anger had mostly passed and he was bawling. That was the thing about Skitballs. He wore his heart on his sleeve. If he could be that open and honest about his feelings, you knew you could trust him.

  But even back then it seemed to me that anyone who was really going to wait for you didn’t have to ask if you wanted them to.

  In my room, a text comes up on my phone. But it’s not Aurora. It’s Brandi: Meet again?

  THE GENERAL

  The General’s house has tall white columns in the front, verandas all around, and probably eight fireplaces. His idea of “a little get-together” is a catered affair in the backyard with a dozen tables covered with white tablecloths, crystal, china, and silver. A crowd of well-dressed people hoist drinks and stand around yakking. I chat with the mayor of Franklin, a US congressman, and a couple of state senators, as well as an assortment of military brass and well-to-do business folk.

  In the lull that follows the usual hero questions, I feel a hand close on my elbow and tug. It’s Lori. She stretches up on her toes and whispers into my ear, “Come with me.”

  “He’s milking your medal for all it’s worth,” my sister growls in a low voice once we’re out of earshot of the crowd. “He only got the bronze. You’re in line for the silver. Someone said the governor may even show up.”

  On the surface, this affair serves a number of purposes for the General. It is the celebration of a local hero (who just happens to be his grandson). It’s a demonstration of the pride our town takes in its military. It’s a chance for the bigwigs to rub shoulders with a hero, and a chance for me to get on their radar, no matter what career I eventually choose. Military, business, politics. Take your pick.

  But under the surface, there are some less obvious reasons for this shindig. First and foremost, to remind everyone that the General is still a force to be reckoned with . . . in this town, in this state, maybe even in this country. Second, it’s an opportunity to make it clear to everyone that my “hero genes” come from his—my mother’s—side of the family.

  Because in the General’s mind there’s no possible way those genes could have come from the Liddell—my father’s—side. Not with my desk jockey father and, even worse, the Liddells’ dark, treasonous past.

  Lori walks me toward the tables, spread out on the lawn. Most don’t have place cards, but as we get closer to the portable podium, the cards start to appear. We arrive at the head table, where one chair is bracketed by an American flag on the left and the flag of the US Army on the right. The card on the plate says PFC Jake Liddell, yours truly.

  We circle the table, checking out the other place cards. Some of the names I recognize, some I don’t.

  “Douglas Erwin? Pat Petersen?” I whisper to Lori.

  “I think Petersen’s the chairman of Precision General Corporation,” she whispers back. “Big defense contractor. No idea who Erwin is.”

  I’ve always been aware that the General hobnobbed with corporate bigwigs. Back in high school, I didn’t bother to pay attention to that kind of stuff. Who cared what company made the Humvees, troop carriers, body armor, and weapons? But then I got sent over there. When you’re at war, the quality of your gear can be the difference between life and death. When Morpiss would ask me to help him weld extra iron plating—hillb
illy armor, he called it—to the undercarriages of our vehicles, he’d give me an earful about how badly made some of our gear was.

  “Never forget, my friend,” he’d say. “Your life is in the hands of the lowest bidder.”

  I always thought it was interesting that Morpiss—pretty much a hillbilly himself, poor and from the sticks—knew more about the business of war than almost anyone else I met in the service.

  Now, here at the General’s shindig, something tells me that some of those lowest bidders will be seated at this table with the General and me. “Remind me what the General has to do with these guys?” I ask Lori.

  “He sits on their corporate boards.”

  “And translated into English, that means?”

  “It means . . . it’s time to start drinking.” Lori points at the bar and heads that way. I know my sister and her moods. Something’s ticked her off big-time. Dad says she takes after Mom—born with a built-in BS detector. I have to crutch it double-time to catch up to her as she stomps away muttering, “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

  “Can’t believe what?” I ask.

  “Did you see a place card for Dad? It’s so obnoxious. Not just obnoxious but downright insulting.”

  I can’t argue. The General has been subtly demeaning Dad for as long as I can remember. It’s because of our “treasonous past.” Because Dad had an uncle named David Liddell who brought shame to the Liddell side of the family. But in the coming days, if I do what I think I should do, the General may feel the need to distance himself from me as well. Only that will be a lot harder. He’s an older man now. Near the end of his career, whether he admits it or not. He’s never been anything but kind and loving to Lori and me. If I go through with my plan, he will be forced to live his final years in humiliation.

  Can I really do that to him?

  We arrive at the outdoor bar. Behind a row of glimmering stemware, the bartender looks familiar. His black ponytail is tucked under the collar of a white shirt. And that collar is pulled up high to cover as much of his thick, black neck tattoo as possible. It’s Barry, the former bassist with Brad’s band, the Zombie Horde.