The staff sergeant was slumped forward as if he were set to ease Rasa to sleep. However, he did not rock back and forth. Instead, his limp body jiggled and vibrated with the helicopter’s propellers. His lifeless form encompassed Rasa, ever protective of her safety even in death.
The helicopter’s engines wound down. The propellers slowly circled the top of the aircraft and made no noise. McKenzee could finally hear Ingle with clarity. “He loved her, sir.” Ingle remained on the bench seat across from Iman and Rasa. The sergeant took the helmet off his head and rubbed at a deep red line etched into his scalp. The Marine seemed to search for some phrase of wisdom. He prayed for something inspirational to say. Ingle invoked his emotions and begged for some deeply rooted relief. He simply could not gather the words.
McKenzee’s eyes were fixed to Iman. He could not see the man’s face, only the top of a black and dusty helmet. Iman remained wrapped around Rasa as McKenzee considered what to do with the bodies. Then the special agent considered the missing number in his body count. McKenzee asked, “Where’s Hasim?”
Ingle gave very little detail in his report. “He didn’t make it out, sir.” The CIA agent looked to the wounded sergeant. McKenzee hoped to make the young Marine realize that some pertinent information was needed about the mission. “What do you mean he didn’t make it, Sergeant?” McKenzee asked matter-of-factly.
The agent was clearly upset at the loss of two well-trained operatives. Iman and Hasim were the only men truly capable of conducting a Battle Damage Assessment about the enemies in place. The brothers had knowledge of the enemy’s inner workings around camp. They knew who led and who followed. They knew what weapons were used in the fight and what might remain in the field. They knew the names and faces of the dead. They knew the intimate details of the village. Left living, the brothers could have told McKenzee of mission success personally.
McKenzee considered the bomber pilots’ accounts and the Force Recon teams’ ability to confirm the dead. Once the notion set in, McKenzee realized the business end of Jericho was handled. He had nothing left in the mission other than paperwork and mindless reporting to his higher echelon. McKenzee knew that he had nothing left to deal with but the emotional aspect of losing his friends.
“Where’s Hasim’s body?” McKenzee asked as he walked up the helicopter’s ramp. He reached the open top of the cargo bay and sat heavily next to Ingle. Both men continued to stare at the entangled lovers. Iman and Rasa were statues sculpted in two pieces but obviously meant to exist as one.
Ingle sighed. Then he explained, “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, sir. Iman decided to go into the village for her.” The Marine pointed to the dead woman, not knowing her name. “Hasim went with him…because you back your brother’s move. I get that. I just don’t get…” He caught himself before he continued. He did get it. He understood completely. Iman so clearly loved the woman in his arms that he was willing to trade his life for hers.
McKenzee patted Ingle on the knee and explained, “Iman and Hasim spent a long time in that camp…the very place you guys just tore apart.” A long and suffocating pause filled the air between the men. “They might have been Marines, but above all they were human…great men. It is not hard to believe that Iman would have found affection among the trouble.” McKenzee swallowed hard.
Ingle interrupted. “It was a hell of a lot more than affection, sir. I’ve never seen anything like it. The look on his face…I mean, I offered to help carry her. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Both of them were shot in the chest…dead.” Ingle kept his eyes on Rasa as tears rolled down his cheeks. “She died quick, sir. I think she checked out as soon as she was hit. Doc couldn’t do anything for her… We should have left her, but the staff sergeant… We just knew that she was coming with us…and he made it happen.”
Sergeant Ingle reset his line of sight on Iman. He pointed, exhausted and broken. He continued, “He should have been dead just as quick. Doc told me that the good staff sergeant was hit square in the back and through his lung. There’s just no way he could have.” Ingle choked back a sob. The Marine was touched deeply once again by Iman’s warrior spirit as he recounted the events. “He couldn’t breathe, but he stayed in the fight. It was like watching a man try to breathe underwater. He was in charge and giving one-word commands until he couldn’t stand up anymore. Then we were pulling out and he carried her down that hill and into the LZ. I can’t imagine how much inner strength that took to fight off dying just long enough to get her out of that place.” Ingle’s eyes were flooded.
The Marine’s chin wrinkled with sadness. Adrenaline from the fight was wearing off. Exhaustion was setting in. Muscle fatigue and hunger were beating him into a corner. All of which were things he had to deal with over and over in various combat zones. Yet nothing got to him like the sight of Iman wrapped around Rasa.
McKenzee had not seen what Iman accomplished on the battlefield. He had nothing more than a secondhand account from the information being passed. He was affected, but less moved than Ingle. The special agent then stepped back into his role. He asserted his need for information beyond his desire for compassion. McKenzee asked, “And what happened to Hasim exactly?”
Ingle broke his stare from Iman and Rasa to look at the civilian. The lapse in Ingle’s hatred was short-lived. He wanted to remove McKenzee’s tongue in payment for the question that removed Ingle’s emotions from the scene. Instead, the Marine answered, “Both of the staff sergeants went after her in the village. They were out of our line of sight for a while. Iman told us just to keep the target area painted no matter what happened next. Then they took off. The next we saw of them, they were being chased out of the village under heavy fire. They were pulling back, one after the other, just like we are supposed to. They would set and fire, then run and do it again. Except Hasim got shot in the back and knocked out of the race for a bit. Iman sent her”—Ingle pointed to Rasa again—“up the trail and went back for Hasim. He got Hasim to his feet, and they took off toward us again. We still couldn’t see the enemy, but I saw Hasim’s head come apart. He was dead on the spot, sir.”
Ingle choked the memory down with a lump in his throat. “Then the zoomies showed up and dropped a fat one on his lap.” Ingle’s rhetorical jargon removed reality from a bomb landing directly on Hasim’s lifeless body. Such language helped the Marine remove the stain of humanity from his beautiful war.
McKenzee nodded. “Do you think there is anything to recover?”
Ingle looked at the agent quizzically. He tried to gauge if the CIA commander was raising a serious question. He answered, “There’s nothing to recover from that entire area, sir. You’re looking at what remains of that place.” Ingle pointed to Rasa once again.
“A pilot, copilot, crew chief, Gibson, Jackson, Hasim, and Iman.” McKenzee held out all the fingers on his left hand and two on his right. “Seven people lost,” he announced as he counted the casualties in the mission to destroy Jericho.
“Eight,” Ingle corrected. He wagged his finger sadly to Rasa’s body. “No doubt that she was one of us, sir. The staff sergeant didn’t tell us why he went back for her…and I wouldn’t expect you to understand without having seen it…sir.” Ingle remembered to maintain respect among the disdain. “I mean, they told us there were no friendlies in that camp. We had a green light to end them all. To top it off, the radios were lost in the crash and all we had was that stupid laser. Even still, he went after her. He died for her…and I can’t bring myself to believe that he went without a reason. No man would have gone into a firefight and opened the gates of hell without a good reason…sir.”
McKenzee, less moved by the sentiment of the battle, was just happy to hear that Jericho was destroyed. He had his confirmation of a successfully completed mission. Seven lost Marines and one extracted civilian were more than he would have liked to explain. However, he was most thrilled to give the Secretary a report that his primary objective was complete. The self-proclaimed grand imam,
Farhad, was gone. The village was left in a series of bloody, ash-filled craters. Through the resilience and perseverance of a few Marines, the enemy suffered a major blow. Then he hoped that all the other target sites were hit just as hard. He hoped that the loss of several was not in vain.
The agent had nothing left to offer Ingle. He patted the Marine on the knee once again and stood to disembark from the helicopter. McKenzee leaned over and softly patted his condolences to Iman and Rasa. He looked to the floor, whispered a quick word of praise, and left the back of the bird.
Ingle continued to sit in place. He stared. He was shaken, but not by the battle. Ingle had been through so many fights and killed so many people that he stopped counting bodies sometime prior to finding Jericho. He lived through firefights where he killed two or three men at a time with a single grenade. He cared nothing about the enemy, or the fight, or the ensuing atrocities that no man should ever see. He cared only for the humanity that Iman had shown.
“Sir!” Ingle called out to McKenzee. The agent turned around to face the new team leader before stepping away from the ramp. “What are we supposed to do with their bodies?” Ingle asked, genuinely concerned for the well-being and care of the dead.
McKenzee shrugged. He looked disappointed and lost. The agent simply answered, “They are without record.” Then he turned away again and sadly stepped off the back of the helicopter.
Ingle watched from behind McKenzee. The agent cleared the rear of the bird, and Ingle could see the rest of his team standing at the back of the aircraft. Exhausted and wounded, they stood ready for orders, ready to prepare Iman and Rasa for passing from one world to the next. Ingle squeezed his lips together, trying hard not to cry at the sight of the bloodied and bruised men. They should have been seeking medical attention. They should have been looking for food and shelter. They should have been relieving their bodies from pain. Rather, they were seeking to help take care of Iman and Rasa.
Ingle looked out at his team with resounding pride. He was happy to have lost so few in such a devastating impact against the enemy. The sergeant knew they had won the day, but he still felt the depth of their loss.
HOME
Sergeant Ingle stood from the bench in the back of the helicopter. He placed his hand on top of Iman’s helmet. Ingle prayed, “God, keep them.” Then he nodded. He bent down and gently slid his arms under Rasa’s knees and shoulders. He took the lifeless woman’s body from Iman’s arms. Ingle tried to keep Iman from falling over. Iman’s weight distributed unevenly beneath them and struggled to remain in place without toppling from the bench.
Suddenly, Corporal Perez was at Ingle’s side. Perez reached out and held Iman by the shoulders. Then he nodded to the sergeant and tried to smile. Ingle returned the silent gesture and walked off the helicopter ramp. Rasa’s body lay out in front of the broad Marine, her body limp over his tired arms.
Perez, exhausted and still bloodied from the crash in the open desert, did his best to pull Iman over his shoulder. He struggled with Iman’s weight and unresponsive muscles. Hoisting the dead over wounded shoulders began to show its burden through Perez’s fumbled movements. Then another Marine intervened to help the pain-filled corporal. The team worked together in escorting the deceased Marine and his love from the rear of the stationary aircraft. They exercised as much respect as possible, drawing grace from the cold wasteland.
The Marines were greeted by a series of corpsmen and officers at the bottom of the loading ramp. Medical attention, previously denied by returning warriors, was shoved aside once again. The war-torn and weary ignored the clean and well-fed. The Force Recon Marines pushed beyond the crowd, through the aching burn in their muscles, and past their shattered hearts.
Without record? Ingle quietly questioned McKenzee’s notion of dismissal. The special agent seemed to wipe his hands of Hasim, Iman, and Rasa. He seemed to disavow them, as if to do so posthumously was a preferred method for the spook. Ingle gritted his teeth with bitter frustration and boiling discontent. They were too great to have been pushed off for nothing, to be denied the recognition they so deserved. Ingle stewed in his thoughts. His arms ached under Rasa’s dead weight, but he carried her with care and concern. He tried to be as gentle as Iman had been. He tried to love her with the same depth as Iman, though he knew he never could. He carried her to the edge of base camp, to the edge of his strength, until he found the foot of a large Morus plant.
Ingle finally stopped and fell to his knees in the deep sand. He lay Rasa down on her back. Her eyes were still closed, but they were starting to sink into her skull. Her jaw involuntarily rested partly open and slightly to the side. Death consumed her, but even in death she was beautiful.
The sergeant brushed strands of hair out of her face as if the notion would bring her some form of comfort. He smiled at her beauty. He offered her respect that he knew Iman would have wanted for the slain woman.
The senior Marine was followed by Perez in the makeshift funeral precession. The corporal was as exhausted as any other man on the team, but he carried Iman with a sense of valor and purpose. He stomped through thick sand until he reached Ingle’s side. Perez knelt next to the sergeant and placed Iman’s body on the ground alongside Rasa’s.
Limping and panting, the rest of the team joined around the bodies. Each of the men needed food and water. They needed medical attention and rest. However, their mission was not yet complete.
Ingle looked at the surrounding camp. He found no joy or solace in the city of brown canvas and strategically staged tactical vehicles. He felt ill at ease. All eyes seemed to be fixed on the Force Recon team. Every person at Command was watching with ripening curiosity. Warriors among many stood out as a compassionate few. They suddenly existed in contrast to the nature of their work, standing against the wind of their purpose to deal death. Instead, they showed a heightened reverence for their fallen brother and the woman he loved.
Sergeant Ingle looked back and watched McKenzee disappear into the communications tent. McKenzee finally had details to report and had a job to do. Ingle respected the need to get information to higher command, but he could not understand how the spook was able to dismiss the death of his men so easily.
The Force Recon team had only known Iman and Hasim for a few days, and they held more respect for the dead than the man that sent them to die. To hell with him. Ingle did not curse McKenzee aloud. He figured that the agent wasn’t worth the extra effort. He simply went about his business of tending to the bloody and broken bodies. They became his distraction from turmoil, the center of his new mission in seeing Iman and Rasa to the very end.
“I saw this once,” Ingle said over Iman and Rasa to no one in particular, “in a village outside of Kabul. They were preparing this old man to be buried.” Ingle took a long pause, hoping not to offend the Islamic traditions of any tribe or people. He contemplated halting the effort so as not to falter in something meant to be sacred.
“I don’t really know what to do here, but I know in my heart that these two belong together…here…at this tree. I can’t tell you why, I just…” Ingle swallowed hard. He searched for the right thing to say. He begged God for wisdom, for a sudden ability to draw proper phrases and solid messages laden with the merits of heart and mind. Despite his prayers, nothing came to him. He swallowed hard again. He was lost.
Ingle’s words of remembrance, thoughts thereafter, were interrupted by the sound of a field shovel being crammed into the loose and deep sand. One of the Force Recon Marines, Lance Corporal Williams, started chipping away at the top of the earth. The Marine’s hands were crusted brown, bloodied and torn from the crash. His mind was tired from the fight. Yet Williams was filled with Esprit de Corps, and all he wanted to do was take care of his own.
The Marine’s shovel was quickly followed by several others. They pierced the ground and sent heaps of dirt into a nearby pile. A large hole began to form around them. Little by little, the earth opened to their demanding shovels until the hole reminded t
hem of the southern defensive position at Jericho.
“Doc,” Ingle spoke to Troy. “Go see if you can get two white sheets from the Battalion Aid Station. You might not want to let them know that they won’t be getting them back.” Ingle grinned with a brokenhearted but friendly smile to the corpsman.
Doc Troy nodded. He sprinted from his team and went to carry out the orders. He was gone only for a few minutes before he returned with his hands full. Doc carried two sheets, one fitted and the other loose at the edges. The sheets were all that he was able to tactically acquire from the medical aid station, so they would have to serve whatever purpose Ingle had in mind.
The team continued to dig deep into the soft ground until the soil became hard against the points of their collapsible spades. They dug with even more fervor just to get beyond the packed ground. Hours dragged on before the Marines were finally successful in their blister-ripping endeavor.
Ingle did his best to remember the proper procedures and facets of Islamic interment. He knew that he would not likely execute all the details properly, but he would give his greatest efforts to show the appropriate respects earned by the dead. God, a just and loving deity, would surely understand the well-intended burial. Ingle accepted that the process would be clumsy. He expected to unintentionally mishandle the final burial niceties, which were foreign to him. He worried about his ability to conduct the ceremony, but he felt he should at least make an attempt to care for Iman and the woman rescued from hell.
Determined, the sergeant started with the woman. Ingle never had the opportunity to shake her hand, to see her smile, or to hear her voice. She was long gone from the world by the time Iman withdrew her from Jericho. However, Ingle was so moved by Iman’s dedication to her that he felt a residual connection between Rasa and her Marine.
Operation Jericho Page 20