Compromising

by C. C. Brown

  In our briefing, First Sergeant informed us that most casualties were coming from IEDs, followed by ambush. The insurgents in the area were growing bolder, and it was spilling into the sister town of Ramadi. I had seen this shit too many times to grow complacent. A simple drive outside the gates could turn into the fucking fight of your life. It was that simple. Stay locked and loaded and keep your head down. That was the key to surviving this shit.

  A few days went by, and communication was still locked down. I couldn’t remember it ever taking this long and I was growing antsy and overly impatient because I hadn’t spoken to Cassie.

  In the few days that my boots had touched down on Iraqi soil, fierce clashes between our forces and theirs raged throughout the city. Contractors had been ambushed and kidnapped, and now our forces were on the prowl to find them with explicit orders to shoot and kill anyone who posed a threat. Tensions were high, and trigger fingers were ready.

  This was a replay of the time I lost six of my brothers and felt as if I should have died with them. Having the shaking rookie with me wasn’t making that feeling any fucking better.

  Our third mission was quite eventful. A terrorist safe haven was scouted on the outskirts of town, posing as a children’s playhouse. Kids filled the street just before it, playing soccer and talking to Marines as we patrolled the area. Suspicious looks always met us from the adults at the house. They never spoke, and watched us carefully. It was as if they thought we’d make off with their kids, but that was the last thing on our mind. These kids were funny but obnoxious. It made me thankful that I didn’t have any, and wouldn’t for a long while if I had anything to say about it.

  Cpl. Vega led his usual patrol path, running across a long cord poorly hidden in the dirt that lined the streets. Following the cord, he found what looked like an old beat up cell phone attached to it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what it was, and he immediately radioed in for help.

  “What is that?” Avery asked, lips quivering as he held his rifle in the ready position. If the situation we were in weren’t so serious, I would have laughed at him.

  “It’s an IED, Avery. Calm down. EOD will be here shortly to get rid of it.”

  He nodded, eyes wide and breathing hard. The poor kid was on high alert, and I briefly wondered if I resembled him my first time in the sandbox, but that thought was quickly erased as I remembered that this kid was quite sheltered and had never even fired a gun until he was at the range in boot camp. I couldn’t fault him for being so scared.

  Two middle aged Iraqi men stomped outside of the house, shouting obscenities at us as our EOD techs diffused the poorly constructed bomb. Avery stood with his rifle primed and ready, further infuriating the men who felt that they had done nothing wrong, but were being led by a couple of MPs in handcuffs. Scores of women filed out of the house, crying and hugging their children as the men were led away. They charged our position, prompting me to step up and intercept them before things went bad in a hurry.

  “Qef!” I growled, holding up my hand. The women came to a dead stop, staring at me, but still yelling obscenities. “We just need to find out why that bomb was here.”

  They continued to yell, grabbing their children and shooing them off in the direction of the house. They were told not to talk to us. A little boy turned around and stuck his tongue out at us, pissing off LCpl. White. He yelled at the child to get into the house, then turned and met the rest of us down by the street. When all the women and children were inside, we got back to our patrol, laughing about the little run in.

  “How do you guys laugh about this, Sergeant?” Avery asked, wiping sweat from his face.

  “Because if you don’t the constant fear will kill you before anything else.”

  He didn’t respond, but continued on his way, nervous as fuck. If we could have alcohol in theater, I would get his ass plastered. He needed to relax, or we were all in for some shit when the time for him to combust finally came around.

  The confrontation from earlier was an after-thought as we trudged along, heading back to base to complete our patrol shift. It wasn’t until we were about a block and a half away from base that we saw something puzzling. There were two little boys, probably no more than seven or eight in age, sitting on the rock, crying their eyes out. I motioned for Vega to head to the front with me, cautiously making our way over to where the boys sat. We had no idea what was wrong with them, but whatever it was, in a place like this, everyone was your friend and your enemy.

  We approached with rifles in hand, down by our sides, but ready to pull the trigger if this were simply a diversion. It wasn’t beneath these fucking cowards out here to use kids to draw in American forces, then attack once the kids had successfully done their jobs.

  White, Avery, and a couple of guys moving with us brought up the rear, covering our sides and asses in case we were being lured into an ambush. I could feel Avery’s heartbeat damn near banging its way out of his chest. His nerves were at an all-time high, sweat dripping from his face as his Kevlar vest heaved up and down, matching the erratic nature of his uncontrollable breathing. I motioned for him to get himself under control, which he acknowledged, but failed miserably at actually accomplishing.

  The kids looked up and saw us, but turned their backs to us as we approached. We stopped with a good enough distance between us when I asked, “ma al-khatb?” What’s wrong, in Arabic. The boys turned to us but continued crying, one of them finally showing a bloody, broken arm. Petty Officer Christen, our Corpsman, approached us, eyeing the boy’s injury with deep concern mixed with worrisome caution.

  “I need to go and take a look at it, Sergeant,” Christen said. I knew he was right, but I was still worried about what the boys were doing here, on a mildly busy street, just sitting and crying their eyes out.

  “We’re right behind you,” I whispered as we treaded softly over to where the boys sat.

  I couldn’t recall hearing a single thing, just floating in a sea of silence. My eyes were trained on the boys, young and vulnerable, but filled with suspicious motives. No one, not even the very young who are our most precious citizens in America, could be trusted. Sometimes they were in genuine need of help, other times, they were not, and these boys couldn’t be read one way or another. The fact that one of them had a legitimate injury helped to sell their cause, but I wasn’t letting my guard down, not here. That was when they struck. You had to keep focused on the fact that while they may be young, they are brainwashed and trained by killers who want nothing more than to see our demise. I knew better than most the deception these young faces held.

  “Ma al-khatb?” Christen yelled, approaching the boys.

  They continued crying, the injured boy holding out his broken arm. Vega and I moved behind Christen, with the rest of the guys trailing us. Christen finally made his way to the boys, taking the little one’s arm in his hand and examining it.

  “I can splint this. That’s all,” Christen whispered back to us.

  I nodded. I didn’t really care what he did. I just wanted him to do it and get it done quickly.

  We stood on high alert, waiting for anything out of the ordinary to catch our eye. Christen was just finishing when I noticed an older boy, maybe about twelve years old, spot the crying boys and shake his head in disapproval. He began to yell at them in Arabic, causing the uninjured boy to yell back at him. I raised my gun, unsure of what was taking place between them, but aware that Christen was in their proximity.

  Christen finished wrapping the young boy’s arm, then patted him on the head.

  “Thank you, Mister,” the boy said, wrapping his good arm around Christen’s neck.

  The older boy grew irritated with the show, and stormed over. He was angry and red-faced, spitting mad and yelling out his frustrations as he gruffly chided the other boys, inciting their tears once again. They shook their heads fervently, speaking quickly in what I assumed to be a pleading manner. Christen tried hard to diffuse the situation, but it on
ly made the older boy angrier. He lost his fucking marbles when he grabbed Christen, prompting the other boys to flee.

  With rifles raised, I ordered, “Let him go!”

  “Drop guns, infidel!” the boy yelled back in plain English. He had his eyes trained on me, going toe to toe in a stare down, daring me to blink. In the next second, he raised his shirt, showing a suicide vest strapped to his chest.

  My heart began to race, beating quickly and erratically as sweat filled my brow and my breathing labored. Had those kids set us up, or was this asshole acting out on his own accord? Either way, we were in a shit storm with no way of getting out.

  “Let him go, and no one gets hurt. Do you understand?”

  Silence filled the area as Vega crept closer to me. My hands filled with sweat, causing me to hold stronger to my rifle as this kid stood, pulling a small detonator out of his pocket. One false move by Christen and he was gone, but if we didn’t do something, this kid would make no qualms about blowing the both of them up.

  Dust began to swirl as the warm Iraqi wind picked up. It penetrated my throat, making it hard to breathe as I took long and hard deep breaths. My eyes scanned the area, finding no traces of the crying boys who had been so appreciative only minutes before.

  The boy gripped Christen tighter before yelling, “Allahu Akba!” and raising the tiny detonator.

  I pulled the trigger of my weapon, sending a bullet flying and barreling into the forehead of the young boy. My breathing stalled. I heard the pop of the weapon going off, and a voice behind me yelling, “Noooooo….”

  Christen stepped away as the boy fell to the ground, blood oozing out of two holes in his forehead. I looked to the left of me and found that Vega had fired his weapon as well. Christen dropped to the ground next to the boy, looking himself over before realizing that the both bullets had hit his would-be killer and not him.

  “Get on the radio and call for help!” I yelled to White.

  Avery stood behind me, eyes barren, looking like shock had taken hold of him. Tears fell as he stood there, never once looking any of us in the eye.

  Droves of locals filled the streets, yelling as we secured the spot where the boy lay. We kept our weapons trained on them, fearing that a retaliatory action was coming, or that they were coming to finish off the job. Within a minute, the back-up crew was there, clearing out the angry crowd and looking over all of us. EOD disassembled the bomb strapped to the young boy and disposed of it before the ambulance came and removed him, leaving a pool of blood to fill the area where his young body once lay.

  A piece of me died with that boy. It was kill or be killed, but that didn’t mean my human emotions were lost in the process. This young boy was someone’s son, and now he was gone.

  Our investigative team stayed behind to comb the scene, take any loose weapons lying around, and make damn sure that the locals couldn’t take them and use them against any of us. We were escorted back to base and met by First Sergeant Keating who asked a million and one questions, but applauded our acts of bravery, and our ability to bring all of our men back in one piece.

  I thanked the guys out there with me, wanting to move on from what had just taken place. It felt like a piece of my soul had been sucked into a black hole and left to rot, a piece of me that I would never get back. I went to the shower tent and removed my uniform, jumping in and scrubbing my body until I could feel the burn from skin irritation.

  Looking down at my hands played tricks on my mind. While there was no blood on them, I couldn’t escape the feeling of having “blood on my hands” and proceeded to scrub them, examine them, scrub them and examine them again. I went through this ritual at least four or five times before I lost all feeling in my hands and sat down on the floor and allowed the water to pummel me. I was a fucking child killer, and regardless of the circumstances, the reality of what I had just done began to rip away at me, to cloud my existence and drive me into a place that I knew I would never recover from.

  Food was the furthest thing from my mind. I felt physically sick with the visual of two bullet holes piercing that boy’s head, smoke emanating from them as blood oozed onto the ground below. As badly as I hurt, I was pissed off just the same. That fucking kid put himself in our way, and while I would have preferred that he blew himself to hell, he would have taken one of our own with him if we hadn’t put an end to his devious plans. My mind played a game of tug-o-war, grappling with guilt and satisfaction.

  I laid down that night with my mind completely fucked, wanting to speak to Cassie but feeling too guilty to do so. I hated myself and Vega for what we had done, and applauded us at the same time. It was a twisted motherfucking place to be in, and I couldn’t find a way out of it.

  When I finally reconciled my mind with attempting sleep, I could hear nothing but garish sobs coming from the tent next to me. I stood, irritated, pissed off, and ready to break someone’s face. Avery was lying on his cot, tears streaming down his face.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He looked up at me, then to Vega who had come in just as I asked the question. Avery hid his face behind two large hands, hands that looked as if they had taken a serious beating.

  “He asked you a fucking question, Avery,” Vega growled, looking just as pissed off as I was.

  “Us. What are we doing out here?”

  “We’re doing what our country has asked of us. That’s what we’re fucking doing out here,” Vega replied.

  “Our country sucks. They sent us here to kill a kid. You two shot a kid. You killed a kid in cold blood.”

  My mind exploded with his words, his explanation…his tears. I charged him and tackled him to the ground, punching him in the face before holding him down with my forearm to his throat.

  “Who the fucks side are you on, Avery?” I yelled. Vega pulled me off of him, holding me back as Avery worked his way off of the ground. “You can kiss my fucking ass with the sympathy for some fucking child soldier who was ready and willing to blow up one of our own. You siding with the fucking terrorists now? Say the word and I’ll put a motherfucking bullet in your head too. I’m not watching another brother of mine get killed out here, and your stupid ass better wake up and see it. They will fucking kill you in a heartbeat, and they won’t think twice about it.”

  Vega continued to hold me as I felt the urge to charge Avery again. He couldn’t…wouldn’t stop the tears, instead intensifying them and allowing them to fall faster from his eyes.

  “You better wake the fuck up and see that this place is kill or be killed. You think I fucking liked shooting a kid? You think I take pleasure in that shit?”

  “You didn’t seem too shaken—”

  “I don’t need to be a crybaby bitch to show that shit affected me. I’m not a heartless asshole, Avery, but I love my boys and I want to see every single one of us go home safe and sound. I’ve had too many of my brothers go home in a fucking body bag, and if you don’t toughen up and lose the sympathy for kids who are willing to take you out, you’ll end up being one of them.”

  Tears continued to pour from his eyes. I had seen this before. The kid was wrought with emotion and guilt, and while I shared in the guilt, it wasn’t enough to consume me and leave me worthless. Yes, a child had died, at our hands, but I wouldn’t apologize for saving the life of a dedicated Corpsman with a wife and kids at home. That boy could have bypassed us, but he chose differently, and with that he’d met his maker, the very one he was yelling to just before he was to detonate his bomb and take our brother with him. Thinking about it that way eased my guilt a little, allowing me to relish in the fact that Vega and I had saved a life that, in our eyes, was more valuable than the one we had taken away.

  Avery sat down on his cot, still crying his eyes out, but finally doing it in silence. I motioned for Vega to meet me at the edge of the tent lining, never once taking my eyes off of Avery.

  “I’m sending White over here. You are both watching over him tonight. Consider it duty, and take shi
fts if you have to, but remove his weapon and keep eyes on him at all times. I’ll be letting First Sergeant know that I think he needs to be placed on watch.”

  “Roger that, Sergeant.”

  I grabbed Avery’s weapon, then strolled off towards First Sergeant’s tent. Avery was a cause for concern, and even if I thought his initial reaction to our environment was just a severe case of nerves, I thought there was much more to it now. His emotional state was highly questionable and worrisome. Worrying about the guy covering my ass should have been the last of my concern, but alas, it was on the forefront of my mind. I didn’t want another mission with him, and I wasn’t going to hold back from making that happen.

  “First Sergeant, may I have a word with you?” I asked, stone faced and serious.

  “What do you need, Sergeant?”

  I strolled into his tent, staring into the eyes of a man who looked worn down. “Well, it’s about Lance Corporal. Avery.”

  “What about him?”

  I swallowed, knowing good and well that this was not what he wanted to hear at this moment, but not giving a shit. My livelihood was on the line where that little shit was concerned.

  “First Sergeant, Lance Corporal. Avery is a loose cannon. He is much too emotional and not built for combat. He’s going to get himself killed. Or worse, someone else killed.”

  He took a sip of his drink from his coffee mug, then sat it down on the table he was sitting on and eyed me. “I know what happened out there today. The kid was shaken up. It’s his first deployment, cut him some slack.”

  “No, it’s more than that, First Sergeant. I have Vega and White watching over him tonight, making sure he doesn’t harm himself.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he stood, staring deeply into my soul as if I had triggered something for him. “What do you mean, harm himself?”