Pup

by Christopher Slater

  I forced myself to look out the door and realized that we were starting to descend. I heard someone shout out that we had fifteen seconds. I made certain that my weapon was ready and closed my eyes for a quick breath. I felt the bird settle into a hover and heard the order to deploy. I opened my eyes and got out of my seat . . . or tried to. I hadn’t unfastened my harness yet. I stretched against the harness and yelped when it didn’t give. It hurt in places that it’s not fun to hurt in. I actually managed to shift that to the back of my mind and unfasten my harness. I knew I had just held several soldiers up for an extra second or two, and I could only hope that it didn’t cause a problem. I made it to the door and hopped down, surprised that I didn’t break my leg under the weight of my rucksack. I followed the rest of the squad as they ran to a tree line about fifty yards away. Once there, we spread out and made sure that the small copse of trees we were harboring in was clear of any enemy soldiers or booby traps.

  Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think about anything. I heard the helicopter gain altitude, fly a few miles, and then descend again to make a false insertion. I looked around to make certain that I had some clue who was near me. Jethro was the closest to me. He gave me a thumbs up and then whispered across to me, “You OK, Pup?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

  He let out a little laugh. “You were running pretty funny to the tree line. You reminded me of a three-legged dog I once had.” I thought about what he said and wondered why I might have been running oddly. That was when I remembered what had happened with the harness and where it had hurt. I also realized that while I had been running in a crouch, I hadn’t been hunched over under the weight of the rucksack. I then had an almost irresistible urge to hurt Jethro. The pain from the harness came back full force, and the weight of the rucksack and gear became unbelievably noticeable. That was when I truly understood the meaning of the notion that ignorance is bliss. Jethro must have known what he had done because he laughed again and whispered, “Don’t mention it!” Asshole.

  The Professor checked in with HQ and then gave the order to move out. Nickel took point and set the pace out of the copse, and the rest of us fanned out according to our training. I tried to position myself exactly as I had been taught and concentrated with every fiber of my being on what was around me, the location of the rest of the squad, the smells, sounds, and sights of the environment, the position of the sun, and anything else that could possibly give me the slightest advantage if we should happen to make contact with enemy forces. I stayed at that level of alertness for about twelve minutes. It was exhausting! Finally, I decided to look at what the rest of my squad was doing. It looked like they were alert but at a much lower level than I was. They looked to be prepared for the long haul whereas I had approached the patrol like I was playing a video game. Of course, I had never played a three-day-long video game marathon, so I decided to adjust and tone things down to the same level as my cohorts.

  The truth was that there was very little cover where we were. Most of the land we were walking through was pasture or short crops surrounded by remarkably steep-sided mountains that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. The bad part of this was that we were in the wide open. That was dangerous from a tactical point of view but unavoidable. The good part was that we were seeing some amazingly beautiful countryside. Sure I was looking out for enemy movement, but you couldn’t do that without looking around, and you couldn’t do that without noticing the landscape. It was a nice way to pass the time for a while. I could picture several of the areas that we were marching through on postcards.

  It didn’t take long for the landscape to stop holding my attention. I would say that occurred about five or six miles into our patrol. That was about the time that I remembered that I had feet. Put more accurately, my feet reminded me that they were there and that they were very unhappy at the punishment I was putting them through. I began to believe that I could feel every pebble that I stepped on at first, then proceeded to feeling every blade of grass. I tried to take my mind off of it by watching the landscape again, but rather than finding it picturesque anymore, I saw everything as a potential obstacle that we might have to march through. When I realized that approach wasn’t working, I tried working out chemical equations in my head. This was something that I used to do whenever my parents were lecturing. It used to bring me great comfort, or at least great distraction. How many times must I remind you that I am a nerd? Intellectual challenges relax me! Unfortunately, they also take a great deal of concentration. I was reminded of this fact when I almost smacked into an outbuilding belonging to a farm we were marching through. You’ve heard the saying that someone can’t hit the broad side of a barn? Well apparently I can, with my nose. Finally I tried to just ignore my feet, but they seemed to keep shouting at me for attention to make certain that I noticed their discomfort. I finally snarled “Shut up!” at them. It didn’t work and earned me a very concerned look from Jethro. I finally just put up with the pain and accepted it as part of the march.

  The rest of the day went without incident. We stopped a few times along the way, whenever we found a defensible position, to drink water and once to eat an MRE. The MRE, or Meal Ready to Eat, wasn’t bad, although it took me most of the time we were given for lunch just to get the packaging open. I ended up eating my pound cake dessert as we marched. As the sun began to descend, we began looking for a good place to set up for the night. We found a slightly wooded area that backed up to an old dirt road through the countryside. The Professor called for the squad to halt and informed the platoon over the radio to begin setting up their evening defensive perimeter. I was hoping that would mean we could settle down and rest. Nope. That wasn’t in the cards. While Hannibal and Rabbit were sent up the road to find a good spot for an evening listening post, I was put to work with an entrenching tool and dug a series of foxholes that we could use if we were attacked during the night. An entrenching tool is basically a little shovel that you can fold up and carry around with you. They are convenient for carrying, but they certainly do suck for digging. By the time I was done, my hands were shouting at my feet to shut up because they hurt more. Once I was done with that detail, I had to dig out my own scrape to sleep in. Finally, I had an opportunity to sit down and eat my MRE.

  I expected to be chosen for a shift at the listening post. After all, I was the FNG and I figured that detail would fall to me. Amazingly enough, I was told that I wouldn’t be pulling a shift that night. I was about to express my appreciation to Hannibal, but he cut me off before I could. “I’m not doing this as a favor to you, Pup. I’m doing it for my squad. Last time you were on guard duty you fired over a hundred rounds to shoot a stray dog. If I send you to the LP and you detonate our claymores because a rat ran by, you would give away our position to every enemy soldier within a ten-mile radius. Now get your hands and feet cleaned up. All that blood is gonna bring in the bugs.” You could almost feel the concern oozing out of him.

  I looked down and realized that I was bleeding where blisters had formed and burst on my hands. I was certain that the same had happened on my feet. I stumbled over to the medic, who cleaned and disinfected my hands and feet. That man should be sainted. I didn’t even want to go anywhere near my own feet after that long march. He didn’t seem to notice. Once that was done, I managed to drag myself back over to the scrape I had dug for myself. It had gotten dark by this point, and it was getting tough to see. The Professor and Hannibal were going over a map using a red-tinted light and preparing the next day’s march, but that was just about the only light to be found at the sight. It was obviously time to get some sleep.

  I had a multitude of problems flowing through my mind when I started to crawl into my scrape. The first thing that I realized was that I wasn’t sleeping in a tent. That kind of creeped me out. I had never really slept out in the open before. I just had my poncho and poncho liner to wrap up in. I’ve never been much of an outdoorsman. I had campe
d once or twice, but one of those times was in a camper, and the other was in a really nice tent. Now it was just me and the open air. Maybe my mother just swaddled me too tightly when I was a baby. I needed that extra support. I also wondered if the listening post would be enough to warn us if enemy troops decided to go wandering at night. I also never felt very comfortable sleeping in boots and uniform, but even I was smart enough not to bring a set of pajamas on a patrol. I remembered that I had not brought any snore strips with me. If I started snoring, seismic monitors were likely to pick it up all the way in China.

  With all of these worries, I wasn’t certain that I would ever get any sleep. I wrapped myself in my poncho and liner and pulled my weapon into the scrape with me. I made certain that the safety was on. The last thing I needed to do was wake up the entire platoon by firing off a dozen rounds in my sleep. I laid my head on my rolled up jacket and prepared for a restless night of worries. My exhausted body was asleep before I finished adjusting my makeshift pillow.

  I woke up with a sunrise in front of me and an angel looking down on me. I smiled at the dreamy vision of beauty that my imagination had conjured up to accompany the sunrise. My blurry consciousness had just barely started to realize that the angel I was imagining was wearing a uniform when she started yelling at me. “Wipe that dumbass grin off of your face and wake up, Pup! Time to grab some chow and get ready to move.” I nodded blearily to Boom as she turned and stormed off to wake up some other lucky soul. It still amazes me how much I managed to tick that woman off. What a talent I had.

  I grabbed my rucksack and pulled out some food for breakfast. My mother had sent me a care package that included beef jerky. For some reason it tasted like the perfect breakfast food. After chowing down, I stood up to start gathering my gear and just barely managed to suppress a scream. I was sore. I don’t mean that I was a little uncomfortable. I mean that my body was staging a revolt against my mind that made a nuclear exchange look like a spitball fight. There was not one single part of my body that didn’t fight against every move that I made, and thanks to the incident with the harness, I do mean not one part of my body! I saw some people stretching and walking like they were trying to work out cramps. I decided to stretch to see if it could help work out some of this soreness. Guess what? If you stretch with this many sore muscles, it just makes it hurt worse! Like the pain in my feet the day before, I figured that I would just have to push through this. I went about getting my gear together, though it probably took me twice as long as it should have.

  It was about time to begin our march, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to get my rucksack on. There wasn’t a table for me to work with like there had been at Camp Wildcat. I looked around and saw everyone pairing up and helping each other get up off of the ground with their rucksacks on. I knew this wouldn’t work for me because it required pairing up with someone. I think people still thought that I had cooties of some sort after the whole dog shooting incident. I sat down and put my rucksack on and then started trying to get up on my own. It didn’t help that I was in so much unbelievable pain that blinking my eyes even hurt. After a few minutes of struggling, I saw someone’s hand reach out for me. It was Nickel. I took his hand and he pulled me up. He took a look at the bandages that the medic had placed on my hands the night before. “Don’t worry about it, Pup. You won’t get nothin’ but callouses after a while.” He smiled and smacked me good-naturedly on the arm before moving up to take point. I don’t think that he ever realized how much I appreciated that help and that simple comment. It really helped me get on with my morning. I also don’t think that he realized that I almost burst into tears from the pain of his slap on the arm. Man, I was sore!

  Once we started moving, I managed to fall into the routine of the previous day. I admit that the routine was quite a bit tougher because my body felt like it had just danced the tango with a taffy puller, but at least it was becoming familiar. As we marched, I noticed the terrain beginning to change. The mountains that seemed to pop up out of nowhere were beginning to coalesce into a range. The terrain was beginning to put us into valleys, which made the squad understandably nervous. I could sense the tension beginning to creep into everyone’s movements. While we had not been chatty during the patrol, an absolute silence followed the squad into the valleys. That silence was shattered by what sounded like distant thunder and a loud whisper from the Professor for Hannibal to join him.

  The rest of the squad kept their eyes out for enemy activity while the Professor and Hannibal discussed things in an excited fashion and gestured continuously at a map. After about two minutes of this, Hannibal called for his squad to gather around while the Professor moved away and began making several calls over the radio net with his aide logging down the information. Hannibal looked up to make certain that we were all paying attention before pointing to a spot on the map. “OK, guys, we are here. A platoon from Camp Tiger is on our left flank and SoKos are on our right.”

  “South Koreans,” Jethro whispered into my ear. I must have looked confused . . . at least more so than usual.

  “The platoon from Camp Tiger made contact with enemy soldiers about five minutes ago,” Hannibal continued. “They estimate they are looking at a company-sized force.” I heard a few low whistles at that. “They are calling in air support and a Bone will be carpet bombing ahead of them in ten minutes. Warthogs will then be on station to help with close support. Our job is to hit the enemy’s left flank and mop up from the bombing while the SoKos sweep around and cut off retreat. Rapid reaction forces are also on the way to try and even things out. If you bothered looking at the map, you saw what is involved for us. You know how I operate, so let’s do it.” Hannibal nodded sharply and then walked back to the Professor to coordinate with him.

  I turned back to Jethro. “I caught a word or two of that but got a little lost toward the end.”

  “Simple,” replied Jethro. “One of our platoons kicked a hornet’s nest full of enemy soldiers. Our planes are going to bomb the snot out of them while we prepare to hit what’s left of them from the side while the South Koreans move to cut off their escape.”

  “OK . . . so what did he mean about how he operates?”

  “He’s talking about his nickname.”

  “We have to eat people?”

  Jethro had been taking a drink from his hydration pack when I said that and had some of it squirt out his nose. “Boy, you are dumber than a sack of hammers! He’s called that because he once saved another squad by marching his men over a mountain to surprise the enemy. You know, like that general that sent elephants over the Alps?”

  I was about to ask him how he could judge the intelligence of a sack of hammers when what he was saying sank in. “You mean we are going to have to march over that mountain?” Jethro nodded. “Could you please beat me with that sack of hammers you mentioned?”

  There was no time for more complaining or really even noticing my pain because Hannibal called for us to move out. Everyone double-checked their weapons and gear, and I figured that I would do the same. As we moved out I noticed that we were in a more correct formation than we had been using, and most of the soldiers were expressing the same level of concentration as I had displayed at the beginning of the patrol. This made me truly nervous. This didn’t strike me as paranoia from them. It told me that they knew we were going to see action, and I didn’t think that I was ready for that.

  We started up a fairly steep mountain. I began to gain great appreciation for the boots I had been issued. Their grip was exceptional as we made our way up the steeper gradient. I should have felt like my feet were ready to separate from my body, but I was too concerned with keeping an eye out for an advanced enemy patrol. Part of my mind expected to see an enemy scout around every shrub or rock. Another part of my mind hoped that the platoon from Camp Tiger had mistaken a herd of water buffalo for enemy soldiers and that we were on our way to a barbecue.

  We wer
e a little over halfway up the mountain when the sound of a large jet aircraft reached our ears. Like spectators at some macabre tennis match (yes! Another cool word!), we all looked to the south and followed the flight path of a B-1 bomber as it moved with incredible speed across the sky. It opened its bomb bay doors and then released what looked like every bomb ever created to fall on unseen targets on the other side of the mountain. I realized quickly that it wasn’t every bomb ever created when a second bomber dropped a similar payload. The bombs dropped out of our line of sight and hit on the other side of the mountain. Earlier, I had heard a sound that seemed like distant thunder. Now I heard what the thunder must have sounded like from inside the cloud. The noise was horrendous. Some childish part of my brain curled up into a fetal position in the corner of a room and cried for Mommy at the sound of the explosions. A more primal part of my brain snarled in satisfaction.

  I heard several members of the squad let out a quiet cheer. “Those Bones just decimated their reserves,” Rabbit said in a virtual growl.

  “Why not their front lines?” I found myself asking.

  She never stopped looking toward the rising smoke on the other side of the mountain. “Because our guys are too close for that. The Warthogs will help them, and we’ll start to roll up the enemy forces.” She said all this with a certainty and even a little glee in her voice.

  With the destructive air show over for the moment, we continued up the mountain. I realized that we were all moving at a faster pace than before. Apparently we wanted to get there before the effects of the bombing run wore off. The heightened pace paid off. We reached the top of the mountain a short time later. That was when I saw my first real view of war.