by Nico Walker
QRF1 meant we were supposed to go out if anything happened in the battalion’s area of operations. Should a patrol get hit or make contact, we were its backup. Should EOD get called, we were its escort. So it didn’t make sense when we were sent out to pull security while one of the miscellaneous sergeants from our headquarters platoon flew a small, remote-controlled airplane around outside the base. The little airplane was called a Raptor. I didn’t like it.
You were wide awake when you got out on the ground outside the wire for the first time. You expected to get shot any moment. We had stopped at a random spot where you couldn’t see anyone around but you were nevertheless sure that there was a haji out there who had been waiting all day just to shoot you. And you were as ready for it as you could get, but it didn’t happen. The sergeant fucked around with his airplane. The sun went down. The sergeant got his airplane back and we mounted up and left. It had got dark fast. On our way back we heard the battalion net saying a Charlie Company patrol was hit out on Route Polk. And we were supposed to get there. The problem was we had been out fucking around with the little airplane and we were on the wrong side of the FOB. We had to go through the Main Gate on the southeast end, then cut through the FOB to get out at the North Gate. We went half a klick on Martha and turned right onto Route Grove, which got us to Polk. If we had been on the FOB to start with we’d have made it in five minutes. As it was it took us close to thirty minutes. Half the battalion had beaten us to the spot. A long column of vehicles was between us and the Charlie Company Patrol.
It had gone out over the net that there were five casualties from an IED: two KIAs, three WIAs. I was in Lieutenant Heyward’s truck, and I asked him if I ought to go and help out, seeing as I was supposed to be a medic. He sent Specialist Sullivan with me.
An up-armored Humvee was overturned and on fire in a bomb crater. There were three wounded lying on the road near the truck and two dead in the truck, in the fire. The wounded were stable—broken bones, minor burns, concussions, shit like that, nothing life-threatening. The Charlie Company medic had done well getting the wounded ready for medevac. Some medics from HHC had come out, and they’d helped him.
The medevac helicopter touched down in a field to the left of the road. We took up the litters with the wounded and carried them out into the dark and over the broken ground. We were all crouching down low well before we were under the rotor blades, and with what little light there was I could see the man on the litter I was helping carry. His eyes were wild and grieving. He was in his lizard brain. We made eye contact; and I said, “I got you.”
I said it real loud so he could hear me over the helicopters. And then I was embarrassed because it was a stupid and melodramatic thing to have said and I had said it.
Back at the road the upside-down Humvee wasn’t on fire anymore. There was a wrecker trying to take it out of the hole in the road, and a lot of people were in the way trying to get a look at the bodies that were still inside the truck. A master sergeant was ground-guiding the wrecker, and he got to yelling, “EVERYONE OUT OF THE WAY. THIS AIN’T A FUCKIN SHOW.”
Sullivan and I were in the way. So we walked back to Heyward’s truck, and Sullivan said, “Did you see those bodies? You could see all the bones.”
When we got back to the FOB, guys were waiting for us in the motor pool. They asked us what all had happened and who had got killed and what we had seen. I wasn’t much good for telling them anything. I went and talked to Shoo. Shoo thought it was funny that I was being such a bitch about it. He was laughing at me some. He said I’d just got my cherry popped. I went back to the room I stayed in. Some of the others who stayed in the room were there. Burnes, Yuri, Lessing, Fuentes, Cheetah: they were there. All of them but Arnold were there. They wanted to know what had happened. I didn’t really know what had happened but I told them anyway. Fuentes left to go to the company TOC. He had to go on radio guard. He left the room solemnly, like he was off to embalm his own grandmother.
Arnold came in. Fuentes had relieved him. He said he’d heard on the radio that the three guys we had put on the helicopter were dead. It fucked me up; I was kind of devastated. They hadn’t looked like they were going to die. What had we missed?
Arnold’s boss, Staff Sergeant Drummond, came in, and I said, “Sarr, is it true the guys we put on the medevac are dead?”
“No. Who told you that?”
“Arnold said he heard on the net that they were dead.”
“Arnold’s a retard.”
“I thought that was what I heard, Sarr.”
“Shut up, Arnold. And you, calm down and don’t get so excited. You’re acting like a woman.”
Drummond left.
Yuri said, “That guy’s an asshole.”
We all smoked cigarettes.
Lessing was pissed off; he said, “We got our asses kicked today.”
Lessing was from Chicago.
Burnes was doing some math. “We took eight casualties today,” he said, “out of a population of what? Maybe eight hundred?”
“And we’re here for a fucking year,” I said, “a year’s worth of fucking days.”
Yuri said we were fucked.
Lessing said, “What did you guys think you were coming here to do?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A few days after Christmas, Second Platoon had an IED go off on one of their patrols. A Humvee was torn up and on fire. All the soldiers got out of the truck okay, but a reporter was still inside. The reporter’s head was fucked up pretty well from the blast, and he was unconscious in the backseat of the burning truck, next to the ammo boxes. Sergeant Thorpe went back into the truck to get the reporter. This was brave of him to do since the truck was on fire, plus he thought he was getting shot at. The shots he heard were rounds cooking off.
Thorpe pulled the reporter out of the truck and got himself shot by a cooked-off round in the process. He was hit on the inside of the thigh. But he wasn’t hurt bad—just a flesh wound, as they say.
The reporter was the worse for wear. He was burned on his face and upper body and had what would prove to be some brain damage. But Burnes, who was Second Platoon’s medic, helped him out and kept him from dying till they could put him on a helicopter. The guy ended up living. So Burnes had done well and Thorpe was a hero—a no-bullshit, shot hero.
* * *
—
THORPE’S WIFE was pregnant. She was in the Army too. She was with 4th ID but she hadn’t deployed. She was with the rear detachment back at Fort Hood, and she’d got knocked up there.
Seeing as Mr. and Mrs. Sergeant Thorpe had said goodbye to one another in November, and seeing as it was still December, you’d think she’d have tried telling him the baby was his. But the thing was she couldn’t. The reason being Mr. and Mrs. Sergeant Thorpe were white people and Mrs. Sergeant Thorpe had got knocked up by a black guy.
When she first told her husband about this, she said it was a consensual thing between her and the black guy. Then she said the black guy had raped her. The police must have believed her because the black guy was in jail.
Sergeant Thorpe more or less lost his mind over all this. And he’d talk to anyone who’d listen about what had happened to him. He’d get all philosophical about it and quote Top 40 radio songs. He had this look in his eyes, like he’d about died; she’d almost killed him.
Staff Sergeant Drummond said, “I could’ve told you ol girl was a whore.” Thorpe was on radio guard and we were talking about him behind his back because we all felt bad for him, even Drummond, who wasn’t big on sympathy. He said, “Me and my wife had those two over to our house for supper one time, and this was in September, and she told me and my wife, right in front of her husband, how she’d screwed her first-line supervisor in a Porta-John when she was deployed back in oh-three. She said it right there at the table while we were eatin supper. My wife couldn’t believe it. She thi
nks that woman’s trash. I felt bad for Thorpe. I knew it was going to turn out bad for him. But what could I say to him? Your wife’s a no-good straight piece-of-trash whore? No! Now old Thorpe, he’s not the sharpest tack in the box. He’s a good man, so don’t get me wrong. He’s better’n most of the idiots we’ve got in this company. Still he should’ve known better than to get hisself hitched to a whore like that one. Cripes! Foolin around on him with a gosh-dang porch ape, son.”
* * *
—
THERE WERE two rows of chemical toilets: one in front of the company area, atop the berm that came up to the motor pool; the other in the back, atop the berm that went up to the road that took you through the power plant. All told we had a dozen chemical toilets. Most of the shitting, pissing, and masturbating to be done inside the wire would be done in these.
Once a week this permanently sunburned Russian came around in a special truck and sucked all the shit and piss and jizz and etcetera out of the chemical toilets with a big hose and he sprayed the chemical toilets down with a pressure washer, looking like an old fisherman in a gale. He was a friendly guy too. He always smiled and gave you the thumbs-up if you waved to him. I’ve often wondered if he was a spy.
If you wanted to buy something you went to the haji shops, little plywood shacks that sold more or less all the shit you needed and some more shit you didn’t need. I went and bought a carton of Miamis for $5. It was a good deal at 50ȼ a pack, so good it made up for the Miamis tasting like bug spray. I bought three cans of Wild Tiger too, and a box of Metro bars. Metro bars were alright. Wild Tiger was fucking great. It was like Red Bull but with nicotine in it. It was real expensive by haji shop standards, but it was so good it didn’t matter. It was New Year’s Day. Happy New Year.
I went to the phone tent because the phones were back on and I could call Emily. The phones had been off since Christmas on account of the casualties. There was a line and I had to wait awhile till a phone opened up and I sat down. I’d had the calling card in my hand already for a half an hour and I put the card number in and put Emily’s number in and I got through.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Better now. So much better. Goddamn. The sound of your voice, you know. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. I’ve been waiting for you to call. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. How are things?”
“Things are good.”
“Anything new?”
“Nothing really. I made a new friend.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Who’s your new friend?”
“He’s interesting, man. He’s from Puerto Rico and he robs ATM machines.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, he robs ATM machines. But don’t worry. He’s really nice. He’s a cool guy.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“What?”
“Nothing. How old is this guy?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Uh-huh. That’s nice. How did you meet him?”
“At a party with some people from work.”
“Great. May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you seriously think the twenty-five-year-old Puerto Rican guy who robs ATM machines wants to be your friend? Don’t you think it’s more realistic that he just wants to fuck you?…You there?”
“He’s just a nice guy. He’s cool.”
“Sweetheart, I love you, but that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“…What’s your fucking problem, man? Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you. It’s just that there’s no such thing as a nice guy. Believe me. I’m as nice as they get and I’m a total piece of shit.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about this motherfucker.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I trust you.”
“But you don’t.”
“I do. I fucking do. So shut up and I love you a lot, okay?”
“I love you too.”
“Really though. I mean you’re it, you know? Like you’re it for me.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Just watch out, okay. Cuz, this guy, I have a feelin he’s bad news.”
“It’ll be okay. You can trust me.”
“I trust you. That’s not it. It’s just I think he might be bad news.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The infantry were fired up and eager to kill. They were impatient to begin killing. They wanted to kill so bad. There was a profligate confidence in our firepower. There was a bullshit comradery. But sometimes having all the guns and ammo lying around was a problem, like when PFC Borges told Corporal Lockhart that Lockhart was a faggot and that Lockhart’s wife knew he was a faggot but she’d married him just to take all his money. Borges was kind of fat and could be a real nasty motherfucker. That and the meth had got his face. He’d done some pimping before he joined the Army. He had liked pimping but his country needed him. He said his bitches still wrote. Borges had the devil’s own luck. Not Lockhart though. Lockhart was one of those ones to say people took his kindness for weakness. Really it was just the weakness they took for weakness though, as it always is. And that night Lockhart pulled a 12ga on Borges and Borges said, “Do it, faggot.”
And Lockhart said he was going to do it.
But he didn’t.
I was riding with Sergeant North and his fire team in the lead Humvee. We were going to an Iraqi Army base. They’d sent us to win the hearts and minds of the IAs there. We didn’t know what that meant, but we would see what happened. We arrived at the base without incident and had falafel and Zamzam colas with the IAs. The patrol leader went and talked to whomever. He got done and we mounted up to head back to the FOB. It was after curfew.
We took a wrong turn somewhere and got lost and ended up on the opposite side of the river from the FOB. We could see the FOB from where we were, but nobody knew how to get there. We were traveling on a narrow strip of road and we were driving fast without headlights. (You didn’t ever use headlights.) A white sedan came around a bend in the road, and North radioed back. The last Humvee turned so as to block the road off, and the white sedan didn’t try to go around. If it had it would have been lit up. So it didn’t.
North and I left the truck and walked to where the white sedan was. North looked like Morrissey. As far as I know that was all he had in common with Morrissey. North was a killer. And he was from Idaho. But he looked like Morrissey. I think he was about 23 then.
Two hajis were standing on the road with their legs apart and their arms out, getting frisked. They were both wearing man dresses and sandals. The older of the two of them had thick strangler wrists and a no-fucking-around mustache. The younger was wiry and clean-shaven, and he had the young-Elvis hair like a lot of the hajis did.
Some joes searched the car. Two joes covered the hajis. One joe was saying that the two hajis were probably boyfriends, and the other thought that was funny and said the two faggots had no clue how close they’d just come to getting smoked.
The patrol leader asked the mustache haji questions about what he was doing out so late and where he was coming from and where he was going. An interpreter translated.
The car was clean.
The radio said to let the hajis go on their way.
The patrol leader said to the interpreter, “Tell them that from now on they must respect the curfew. It’s for their own safety. They could’ve been hurt out here tonight and we don’t want that to happen.”
And the interpreter said something. As far as what he said, we’d have to trust him. So that was that.
The white sedan went on its way, going south by southeast. We mounted up and continued on, heading north by northwest.
And we hadn’t been driving a full minute when North said, “Stop stop stop.”
There was an EFP on the side of the road. EFPs could cut through anything. The Iranians liked them. But this isn’t a big deal. North spotted the EFP, and the driver stopped short of the pressure plate. It was close, but close is just another word for nothing. So nothing happened. And we made it back that night.
* * *
—
A POG got the first confirmed kill.
(Personnel Other Than Grunt.)
The POG was a cook.
She did it with a fifty-cal.
Foxtrot was bringing a KBR convoy out of Baghdad to set up a DFAC on our FOB. (Kellogg Brown & Root; dining facility.) PFC Livingston was up in the turret of one of the Humvees. Presumably somebody had put her up there as a joke, because I don’t think she weighed more than 100 pounds and a fifty-cal. weighed about a million pounds and it wasn’t like the turrets moved so easy either.
So.
The convoy was ambushed—IED, then small-arms fire. But Livingston kept her cool. And maybe she saw the haji in the palm grove before she lit him up…
The infantry were sick when they found out about her kill. It was dishonor: a fucking POG, a fucking girl.
And she’d have got promoted, but she kept getting caught getting fucked because she’d get fucked for money. And there was an E-6 who’d lose his stripes fucking her in a guard tower. (The sergeant of the guard.) They said he was hitting her in the ass.
She was definitely fuckable.
She had a nice face.
And she was hard-core.
One of God’s diamonds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Big Shia City was well south of the FOB. Getting there meant driving an hour down a four-lane highway called Route Carentan. Traffic was usually heavy on Carentan, but it served to clear the route so that you didn’t have to worry too much about pressure plates.