“Chip, can I tell you something? I was always afraid I had made the wrong decision, re-enlisting,” Mickey says. “Can you believe that? I thought the war was evil. That maybe what we did was evil.”
“Evil?” Chip says, shaking his head. And then Sergeant Gabe is there, standing over them.
“Nothing is evil when it’s done for love,” he says.
Outside of Tartus the inland hills rise in waves of scrub. Up the dusty paths Mickey and Chip and Sergeant Gabe march, their squad the vanguard of fleets of soldiers and Marines at their backs, until a regrouped enemy battalion counterattacks from above. They dive for cover and artillery shells donate around them. American fighter jets tear the sky and drop bunker-busters on the positions ahead. Chip screams to make himself heard.
“We’re pinned down,” he says.
“We have to keep moving,” Mickey says. “We have a whole Army behind us. Let’s go.”
“Stop! Don’t take that path!” Sergeant Gabe yells and grabs Mickey’s arm. His ear is pressed to the radio. “The drones can see the IEDs. That path is mined. This one is clear.” And he turns and climbs a new crease in the hillside and the squad follows him into the incoming fire.
Up they go, shooting, bounding, covering. Mickey looks out at the Mediterranean and can see the Navy’s battleships turned broadside, firing their sixteen-inch guns at the enemy positions above him. He keeps moving, always moving, up the hill, his metal legs untiring, until a mortar lands between him and Sergeant Gabe and his world turns upside down.
Mickey looks at the sky. He pats down his chest, his thighs, finds his prosthetic legs are nothing but twisted metal.
“Medic!” Chip calls.
“No, no, I just need new legs,” Mickey says.
“Medic!” Chip calls again, louder now, and Mickey sits up and sees a lump where Sergeant Gabe once was. Chip is working on him, surrounded by other soldiers. A litter appears, a form is loaded on, far too small to be Sergeant Gabe. They begin to carry him away but now Mickey’s view is blocked as an engineer arrives with a package. Two new titanium legs. Mickey is up in a moment.
The artillery comes in. The naval fire goes out. Chip is back, the rest of the squad behind him, and he and Mickey huddle for cover, pinned down by the Syrians, when they hear a new sound, a growing sound. From behind them, a Humvee is barreling up the dusty road, its machine guns clanking and pumping in an unceasing ruckus. The armored truck stops next to Chip and Mickey and they look up at the gunner in disbelief.
Strapped into the turret is a piece of Sergeant Gabe. He looks like a larva of stitches and bandages, and smells like a summer cookout.
“They say I can come back,” Sergeant Gabe says and smiles through tears. “They say I can still fight. They say I’m still useful.”
And with one hook he spins the wheel and winches the turret around and with the other he works the paddles on the M2, singing softly to himself of mama, Ma Duece, so sweet, she’s got everything he will ever need. Sergeant Gabe points his metal hose over the heads of his advancing comrades, the stream of bullets dousing the enemy hill and the men below freshened as if basking in the cooling mist thrown off by the spigot.
Sergeant Gabe suppresses them all. Mickey and Chip fight their way to the top of the first rise, toss a grenade in a machine gun nest, kill every man-jam that stumbles out dazed.
Mickey’s mother turns to him and says, “We’re so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Mickey, look at what you’ve done for all of us,” his father says. The pile of corpses rises to his waist. “All is forgiven. You are welcome home any time.”
“Dad, I have things I need to do. My squad needs me,” Mickey says.
“Of course. That’s the kind of man you are. We understand. Your mother and I love you.”
“We’ve always been proud of you,” she says.
Another Syrian hill awaits, and another, and yet more. Mickey and Chip follow Sergeant Gabe in his Humvee as they slowly work their way inland, up the rise, clear the trench, advance again. The Syrians squirm in their holes like maggots in meat, and Mickey throws his grenades, shoots every rifle mag, is down to his pistol, down to the last click, when Chip arrives with reinforcements and clears the trench.
Mickey’s grandfather claps him on the shoulder and smiles.
“Good job, Mickey,” he says.
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
He hands Mickey a new bandolier of rifle magazines.
“Mickey, we can take this hill,” his grandfather says.
“You’re right, Grandpa.”
“I’ll stay here. You and Chip out-flank ’em.” And they do, his grandfather boiling off his Browning machine gun in an endless belt of covering fire.
“I want to tell you all about the war, Mickey,” his grandfather says. “What it was like in France and Germany. Everything you’ve always wanted to know. Come walk with me.”
“Where are we going?” asks Mickey.
“We’re marching to the Pacific,” he says, and puts his steel pot on his head.
“It’s what we should have done to start with, right after 9/11,” says Chip.
“It’s Manifest Destiny,” says Mickey.
“That’s right, we’re going to wipe ’em out, from the Med all the way to Korea, and then they’ll sign the peace treaty, and when we get home, there’s going to be a parade.”
ABOUT THE
CONTRIBUTORS
ELLIOT ACKERMAN is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Green on Blue, and Dark at the Crossing. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. He served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He currently splits his time between New York and Istanbul where he writes on the Syrian Civil War.
NATE BETHEA served as a US Army infantry officer from 2007 to 2014, during which time he deployed to Afghanistan and Central America. He teaches at Voices From War, a workshop for military veterans and families in the New York City metro area, and is a graduate of Brooklyn College. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Iowa Review, The Morning News, The Daily Beast, and Guernica Magazine.
ADRIAN BONENBERGER wrote Afghan Post, an epistolary memoir about his decision to join the military after having protested the Iraq War, and his experiences in Afghanistan over two deployments as an infantry officer. He has a master’s in journalism from Columbia, an MFA in creative writing from SUNY Stony Brook Southampton, and helps edit and run Wrath-Bearing Tree.
BENJAMIN BUSCH is a writer, filmmaker, actor, and photographer. He served sixteen years as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, deploying to Iraq twice. He is the writer/director of the film BRIGHT, was an actor and military consultant on the HBO mini-series Generation Kill, and he portrayed Officer Colicchio in the HBO series The Wire. He is the author of a memoir, Dust to Dust (Ecco) and his essays have appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and NPR’s All Things Considered. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He teaches nonfiction at Sierra Nevada College and lives on a farm in Michigan.
BRANDON CARO is a former US Navy corpsman (combat medic) and advisor to the Afghan National Army. He deployed in 2006-2007 to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He is the author of the novel Old Silk Road and co-author of the Carl Higbie memoir, Enemies, Foreign and Domestic: A SEAL’s Story. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, and WhiteHot Magazine, among others. He resides in Austin, Texas.
MICHAEL CARSON served as a US Army Infantry officer from 2005 to 2009. He studied history in New England and now lives on the Gulf Coast with his wife and son.
BRIAN CASTNER is the author of All the Ways We Kill and Die and the war memoir The Long Walk, which was adapted into an opera a
nd named an Amazon Best Book for 2012. A former Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer and veteran of the Iraq War, his writing has appeared at the New York Times, Wired, Outside, and on National Public Radio. In 2014, he received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to cover the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, filing stories for VICE, Foreign Policy, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
MAURICE EMERSON DECAUL, a former Marine, is a poet, essayist, and playwright, whose writing has been featured in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, Sierra Magazine, Epiphany, Callaloo, Narrative, The Common, and others. His poems have been translated to French and Arabic. His theater pieces have been produced in the US and Europe and Holding it Down, a collaboration with Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd, was the Los Angeles Times Jazz Album of the Year in 2013. Maurice is a graduate of Columbia University [BA] and NYU [MFA], and he is currently at work on the playwriting MFA at Brown.
DAVID F. EISLER served as an officer in the US Army from 2007 to 2012, with assignments in Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In 2014, he earned a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the non-profit literary organization Words After War. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, Collier’s, Military Review, and the Journal of International Affairs. He lives with his wife and son in Alexandria, Virginia.
TERESA FAZIO served as a Marine Corps communications officer from 2002 to 2006, deploying once to Iraq. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Task and Purpose, Vassar Quarterly, Consequence Magazine, and Penthouse. She is the recipient of the 2015 Consequence Fiction Prize and a fellowship at Yaddo.
PJ FREDERIK deployed to Iraq from 2010 to 2011, graduated from Columbia in 2012, and worked for an NGO in Afghanistan from 2013 to 2015.
THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF is a former enlisted infantry Marine and current staff writer at the Washington Post. He has a BA in English from Georgetown University and a mean widow’s peak.
COLIN D. HALLORAN served as an infantryman in Afghanistan with the US Army in 2006. Since his return to civilian life, he has worked as an educator, writer, and visual artist, and his poetry, essays, and photographs have been published internationally. Shortly Thereafter, his memoir in verse, was awarded the 2012 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award and his follow-up collection, Icarian Flux, was released to acclaim in 2015. He lives in Boston with his wife, fellow vet-writer LAUREN KAY HALLORAN, where he teaches college writing and literature.
LAUREN KAY HALLORAN is an Afghanistan veteran and former Air Force public affairs officer. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in Boston, and her writing has appeared in Glamour, Pleiades, Cobalt Review, Mason’s Road, 20 Something Magazine, and the anthology Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors (Southeast Missouri State University Press). Lauren’s forthcoming memoir chronicles her coming-of-age against the backdrop of war, beginning with her mother’s Army career and later with her own service in Afghanistan.
MATTHEW J. HEFTI is the author of A Hard and Heavy Thing. He was born in Canada and grew up in Wisconsin, and then spent twelve years as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician, deploying twice to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. While enlisted, he earned a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing. He is now working, studying, and living in Madison, Wisconsin, where he is pursuing his Juris Doctor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He spends most of his time working for the Wisconsin Innocence Project, working to free the wrongfully convicted. His words have been seen in Pennsylvania English, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review; Chad Harbach’s MFA v. NYC; and War, Literature and the Arts.
ALEX HORTON served as an Army infantryman in Iraq during the troop surge. His writing has appeared at the New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Washington Post, and other publications. His short story “Problem Dogs” won the 2015 Veterans Writing Prize held by Syracuse University’s literary journal Stone Canoe. Alex is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he also taught journalism.
DAVID JAMES served as a Fire Support Officer in the 173d Airborne in Afghanistan from 2005-2006 and 2007-2008. He now teaches English in Italy where he lives with his wife and twin daughters. His hobbies include reading, writing, and rock climbing. He maintains a personal blog at tigerpapers.net.
After graduating from college in 2002, ERIC NELSON joined the US Army and deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry platoon leader in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He then served as a company commander in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq during the surge. His military service also brought him to Germany, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine. He has worked as a screenwriter, and has written essays and articles on topics ranging from international relations to brain hemorrhages. Eric lives in New York City, where he writes and is a medical student and researcher.
SHANNON HUFFMAN POLSON is the author of the memoir North of Hope: A Daughter’s Arctic Journey. Her essay “Naked: A Triptych” won honorable mention in the 2015 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest, and her work has appeared in the Utne Reader, River Teeth Journal, High Country News, and Ruminate Journal, among others. Polson served as one of the first women to fly the Apache attack helicopter in the US Army. She holds a BA in English from Duke, an MBA from Dartmouth, and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. She and her family live in northeast Washington.
MATTHEW ROBINSON’s first story collection is The Horse Latitudes. His words have appeared in Word Riot, Nailed Magazine, Clackamas Literary Review, and Grist Journal, and he is co-editor of the literary journal The Gravity of the Thing. He earned his MFA from Portland State University and is the recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Matthew lives, writes, and teaches in Portland, Oregon.
KRISTEN L. ROUSE served in the US Army in Afghanistan in 2006, 2010, and 2012, for a total of thirty-one months in the country. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo, Tampa Bay Times, Salon, and River Teeth. Her blog is trueboots.com. She lives in New York City, where she writes, consults, and advocates for veterans causes.
KAYLA M. WILLIAMS is a former sergeant and Arabic linguist in a Military Intelligence company of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) whose service included a yearlong deployment to Iraq. Kayla is the author of Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, a memoir about her experiences negotiating the changing demands on today’s military. She graduated cum laude with a BA in English literature from Bowling Green State University and earned an MA in international affairs with a focus on the Middle East from American University. She currently lives near Washington DC with her husband, a combat-wounded veteran. Her book Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War, about his injury and their joint path from trauma to healing, was also published by W. W. Norton.
BRANDON WILLITTS enlisted in the US Navy as an intelligence specialist shortly after 9/11, where he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Kandahar, Afghanistan. After leaving the military, Brandon went on to co-found and serve as the executive director for Words After War, a literary organization that brings veterans and civilians together to examine war and conflict through literature. His work with Words After War has been featured in Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Narratively, PBS NewsHour, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a BA in literature and writing from Marlboro College. A native of California and Maryland, he now lives in New York City.
CHRISTOPHER PAUL WOLFE, originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina, graduated from West Point in 2000 and spent six years serving as a US Army officer. He subsequently earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Duke University and worked in financial services. Chris now resides in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with his wife and three kids, where he is completing his MFA from Columbia University and working on his debut novel, The Revival of James Cartwright. His writing has also appeared in Veoir Magazine.
Advance Praise for The Road Ahead
“The Road Ahead more than lived up to its promi
se—a shockingly brilliant salvo in the next wave of literature about our perpetual wars, a diverse and strange new literature which is utterly essential if we want to understand who we are as a nation, and what this era of constant war is doing to us, to our military, and to the countries where we send our men and women to kill and die.”
—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment
“A stunning, poignant, astonishing, mournful, melancholy, brutally honest collection of stories about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes this old soldier’s heart sore. They are so well written. If you want to understand our young soldiers and the world they live in, read these stories.”
—Larry Heinemann, National Book Award-winning author
of Paco’s Story and Black Virgin Mountain
“The writers gathered in these pages are among the finest, and the material they are working with is, by its nature, powerful and compelling. The result is stories that are by turns brutal and hilarious, dark and redemptive. Every one of them speaks to a truth we should not, cannot, turn away from.”
—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
“If war is eternal, its form alters with the times. These vivid stories are the up-to-date bulletins from the frontline of today. Injustices abound, meaning eludes us, until for moments, it doesn’t. These writers deliver gut-wrecking reports of humanity at the edge of despair and offer us truths about the nature of war and the men and women struggling to survive it.”
—Susan Minot, author of Thirty Girls and Evening
“These twenty-four intimate, brutal, unusual and honest portraits show us the startling effects of war, dispelling the myth that any military solution is simple. To this diverse group of writers, women and men, I say thank you for your wrenching stories. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is greater than we could have imagined.”
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