Kaboom: A Soldier’s War Journal

I’d brushed aside the informal inquiries for months now. No, not me. Not interested. Keep me on the line. I want nothing to do with a lateral promotion to XO (Executive Officer) that involves becoming a logistical whipping boy and terminal scapegoat for all things NOTGOODENOUGH. I’ve been out here in the wilds too long, dealing with matters of life and death, to go back to Little America for PowerPoint pissing matches. Not me. I’m that too skinny, crazy-eyed mustang who drives a hippie van with a McGovern bumper sticker and keeps his hair long and actually read the counterinsurgency manual rather than pretending he did, even quoting it during meetings and out in sector in this era of recentralized warfare, remember? You aren’t gonna break me, no matter how enticing the fires of the FOB are.

Semper Gumby.

I guess they forgot, and instead focused on matters of competency. Cue outright offer.

Cue LT G “thanks but no thanks” response.

Cue illogical backlash from higher, acting like a spurned teenage blonde whose dreamboat crush tells her point-blank that he prefers brunettes.

Q finding myself on the literal and metaphorical carpet of multiple field-grades, sometimes explaining, sometimes listening.

Mostly listening.

Yes, Sir. I’m getting out. No, I’m sure. Definitely sure. Surer than sure. What am I going to do? Don’t tell him Option A, he’ll scoff at Option A. He believes dreams are only for children. Option B will suffice. Well Sir, I’m going to go back to school, somewhere on the East Coast. Haven’t decided if I’ll focus on the Spanish Civil War or Irish History yet, though. I think I’d be a pretty good wacky professor. I already like to ramble and I look good in banana yellow clip-on ties. Sir.

No, Sir. I’m not saying that at all. I would absolutely bust my ass as an XO, and perform the job to the best of my ability. I’m just saying I’d be screwing a peer of mine, who is staying in, and could use this professional development, benefiting both him and the big Army in the long run. Uncle Sam agrees with me.

No Sir, I don’t think I’m selling myself short. Recognizing one’s own weaknesses isn’t a weakness in and of itself. Crushing balls is only my thing with people who aren’t wearing an American uniform.

If I throw enough clutter in the way, something will stick.

This is the Army, son. Your opinion doesn’t matter.

Roger. Acknowledged. I’d figure I’d proffer it, just in case.

You need to start thinking big picture, Lieutenant. That’s what officers do.

I roll out of the wire everyday to bask in a third-world cesspool craving my attention for nothing more than the most basic human need - hope. Is there a bigger picture than that, or just different vantage points from safer distances?

Yes Sir, I will remember to think things out more rationally next time. (Pause long enough to make the point that this was already a well-thought out decision.) Of course. Sir.

No Sir, this isn’t just because I want to stay with my platoon. (Maintain eye contact so he doesn’t think you’re lying, for the love of God, maintain eye contact!) I won’t lie though, Sir – it was a factor. Just not my motivation.

Nice work, liar.

Another reason? Well, Sir, two of my best friends in the world are LT Virginia Slim and LT Demolition. If I were to become their XO, I would be extremely uncomfortable with possibly having to order them and their men to their deaths. As their peer, I should be right there next to them. Hell, I probably would insist on it.

Yes, I know that was a good point. Don’t say that out loud. Don’t say that out loud. Phew. That was a close one. I almost out-louded rather than in-loaded.

Yes Sir, I have full confidence in my platoon to be able to succeed without me. SFC Big Country would be more than capable of performing the job of a platoon leader. But he’s an NCO. He shouldn’t have to deal with lieutenant bullshit. That’s my bullshit to deal with. I’m the soldier’s buffer. (Cough. From you. Cough.) If a butterbar were here, I’d understand. That’s the natural order of things. But since an opening occurred without a backlog, I really strongly really definitely really definitively believe that it should go to a LT who wants it. Hell, there are some of them out there who NEED it. Aren’t I being a team player here?

The ballad of a thin man walking a thin rope. Moonwalking a thinly-veiled rejection of his superiors’ life decisions. Wondering why they are taking it personally. People are different. They want different things out of existence. Let’s not act like I’m a ring of Saturn stating the case that Pluto’s planethood should be reconfirmed.

Don’t fall on your sword, Lieutenant. No one likes a martyr.

Can’t help it, I’m Irish. And. Yes. They do.

Fine, I’m not going to make you do it. (Even though I spent three days trying to do so.) But you are now on my shit-list, and I want to fuck you over for daring to defy and defying to dare. A bullshit tasking will eventually come down the pipeline, and I got a rubber stamp with your name on it. And yes, I know your performance has been outstanding, and we have consistently rated you above your peers, at the top echelon. Doesn’t matter now.

You’re right. It doesn’t. Doesn’t matter at all. Even if I’ve only haggled a few more months with the Gravediggers, it was worth it; I came here to fight a war, not to build a resume. My men need me. And. I need them. It would have been worth it for a few more days.

Victory.

Mustangs don’t blink.

You know where we learned how not to?

It wasn’t behind a desk.

Every day of free-roaming makes it worth it.

O Dark Thirty. Memorial Day weekend, not that any of us were really aware of that at the time. Patrolling up and down Route Daytona, the highway stretch that serves as the logistical spinal column for the massive American body draped across this part of Iraq.

“Gravedigger 1, this is X-Ray.” My entire vehicle groaned along with me. Radio calls at this time of night rarely bring good news.

I responded and waited for the details for the latest goat symphony we needed to conduct. “Roger … move south, to Checkpoint AL5. There’s a convoy that has come to a halt on the far side of that checkpoint … claims they see a box with some wires coming out of it. They need someone to check it out.”

The obvious question followed on my end. “They can’t check it out themselves? If it’s bad enough for them to totally stop, why haven’t they called EOD?”

The TOC-roach on the other end of the radio just snickered. “It’s a super convoy of fobbits, making their once-a-year run between FOBs. So no, no they can’t check it out themselves.”

I just shook my head and relayed the Frago to my platoon. SSG Boondock began chuckling from the back of the Stryker. “Good Christ, it has gotta be bad when the dude in the TOC is busting their chops.”

Prophetic words. The Gravediggers rolled up to the checkpoint, and SSG Bulldog slurred in disgust. “’Dose mutha fuckas, they on the other side of the checkpoint. They keep beaming us and shit, but none of ‘em are on the ground. How the fuck can they even see anything from where they at? They too far away!”

“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “See you on the ground. We’ll check it out for them.”

Now, we don’t make it a habit of clearing possible IEDs on foot, but as we moved up dismounted to the location in question, we couldn’t help ourselves. We’ve seen IEDs of various sorts, up-close-and-personal. They don’t usually resemble broken banana crates.

While SFC Big Country took a fire team to go inform the super convoy that all was clear, SSG Boondock picked up the pieces of the crate and started pelting SPC Tunnel Rat, while using every colorful epithet for “pogue” imaginable. We still hadn’t found the reported wires though, and I knew that question would inevitably be asked, whether anyone blew up or not. I retraced our steps to the north, bent over, and picked up a long, dangling chord connected to a small squarish piece of plastic.

Cassette tape spool. Spool connected to a cassette tape. A cassette tape that contained the immortal, profound words of … Bon Jovi?

Things that make you go. What. The. Fuck.

Why won’t the Eighties die?

Kaboom.

After asking the soldiers if any of them wanted a vintage copy of Slippery When Wet, I tossed New Jersey’s finest to the side of the road. I told everyone to mount back up, and found my platoon sergeant returning from the south side of the checkpoint.

“They have anything to say?” I asked.

SFC Big Country laughed. “Yeah. They said ‘thanks.’”

“What, those mutha fuckas’ don’t own no flashlights?” SSG Bulldog was talking to himself again. “What the fuck?”

“It could be worse,” SSG Boondock offered, as we traipsed back to our vehicles. “We could’ve called EOD for a banana crate and a cassette tape.”

PV2 Hot Wheels started busting out the chorus to Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” something that the rest of the soldiers either joined in on or started booing. We got back on our respective Strykers, and I called for Redcon statuses.

“This, uhh, Gravedigger 2,” SSG Bulldog drawled. “We Redcon 1.”

“Gravedigger 1, this is Gravedigger 3, we’re Redcon 1!” SSG Boondock burst.

“This is 4,” SFC Big Country thundered. “Let’s roll.”

“On your move 2,” I said, watching the wheels of my senior scout’s vehicle begin to churn forward.

The patrol continued.

There was a boy who went to war, like many other boys before him. Maybe it made him a man, maybe it didn’t. Maybe he already was a man, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe none of it does, maybe it all does. Maybe. Maybe amongst many other sentimentalist pseudo-intellectual theories, this boy had a theory that the only emotions that matter are anger, sadness, and hope, and that everything else branches off from those in convoluted absurdity. He liked oversimplifications. The Green was first. Now the Orange.

Well before LT G was IrishSlim, and before he devolved into Awkward the Red, lived Kid Wonder – a child whose existence vacillated between idyllic and galvanizing, a truth that would eventually survive for far too many years than any child, of any country or station or class, has a right to. That might be why his transition to Awkward to Red, and successive devolutions after that, were so difficult: I was always joining a group of whYkids that suffered far longer and far more than I had. Much of Kid Wonder’s development hinged on his search for identity. In suburbia, where everyone has been designed to be exactly the same, a child seizes upon any kind of asymmetrical variance in an attempt to establish himself/herself as an individual. And so, as was to become a recurring theme in my youth, I went east.

Two years after the G brothers discovered America’s Midwestern backbone in Cleveland, we tapped into the country’s soul with a cross-country voyage to Boston. Momma G made it happen, despite financial realities which suggested otherwise; ever the Virginian, she was hellbent on showing her sons that a broader – and much more elegant – world existed beyond the suburbs of the West Coast. And ever brimming with Scottish resolve, she was to ensure that this glimpse wasn’t going to be an isolated snapshot.

Certainly, the seeds of seeking out history rather than waiting around for it idly were planted over the duration of this trip. We tossed tea bricks into Boston Harbor. We retraced the path of Paul Revere’s ride. We made the trek to Bunker’s Hill – and then to Breed’s Hill, for historical accuracy’s sake. Two constants pervaded our experience: One, Luke G the Rascal King never grew tired of terrorizing the flocks of pigeons found throughout the city (certainly a fascinating discovery for an eight-year old boy from the desert), and two, our nation became alive for us. And not in that corny, Fourth of July parade kind of way, either – although, coincidentally, we were there over that exact holiday. I instead refer to that transcendental jump a country’s resident can make to become a citizen. Just like Momma G planned, Luke G and I learned to care – both with our minds and with our hearts. The Revolutionary patriotism that seized the Bostonian people some two-hundred years prior instilled itself into two young brothers in 1994, although we were barely aware of such at the time.

There never was the mystery to my mother that there has been with my father. Obviously, a lot of that stemmed from growing up in her house with her rules, but in retrospect, their respective personalities also played a role in that. In contrast to Poppa G, who wards off the world with a perpetual poker-face and that famous Celtic fatalism, my mother chooses to fight reality more fashionably, somehow blending a hippie’s ideals with classic Southern charm. The result is an American caveman’s worst nightmare: a thought-provoking and educated woman who can out-smart him and then out-cook and out-class said caveman’s wife, all the while maintaining an air of refined femininity. Just like her parents - from whom she inherited an iron will, a clear sense of right and wrong, and unashamed self-sufficiency – Momma G was as stable as gravity itself. When you’re 11, stability isn’t too exciting. You think it’s stifling.

So in Boston, being 11, I didn’t appreciate Momma G’s grace and subtleties; all too often, they embarrassed me because they were different than everything else I had ever seen or experienced. I was more interested in comic books, basketball, and discovering what it took to be cool. I didn’t know why she insisted on smiling at strangers, or worse yet, talking to them and hearing their story. I didn’t know why she shook her head in sadness at men who didn’t hold doors open for women, and insisted that the Rascal King and I always do so. And I didn’t know why, even while we were on vacation, we watched the world news together every evening and then discussed these current events over dinner.

I certainly know why now.

The centerpiece of our family excursion through history was the Boston Pops’ Fourth of July Concert at the Esplanade, a pleasant public park set along the Charles River. As the concert began, we took our seats on the rolling green of the park along with thousands of others – with the exception of one very large man directly to our front, who refused to sit down for fear of dirtying his recently pressed khakis, thus blocking everyone else’s view of the Pops like a lunar eclipse. While the families around us all grumbled in discontent, no one dared to raise their objections too loudly, due to the man’s size and obvious combativeness. No one, of course, except my mother. Although horrified that she was participating in such a public display, and directly disobeying her order to stay put, I followed her as she stalked up to the lunar eclipse. I felt it was the least I could do, being the man of the house, and all.

Momma G’s ability to logic and debate, though cultivated in law school, were born during late-night discussions in the Sixties with her parents. As you might guess, joining the Vietnam antiwar movement while being an Admiral’s daughter was not an easy thing to explain at home, but that never stopped her from trying. (My grandfather is now chuckling in tired accord as he reads these words.) The same relentlessness that allowed him as an immigrant to become the walking American Dream poured through the veins of his daughter, and continues to do so. I certainly was viewing such in 1994, as she chipped away first at the large man’s logic, then questioned his sense of decorum, before polishing him off with a verbal stab only a Southern woman could unleash successfully.

“Well Sir, thank you for your time. I’m sure your masculinity will remain intact, as you block the view of women and children so you don’t get your pants dirty. Enjoy your evening. And Happy Fourth of July!”

Steeled sweetness, at its finest. Most women would’ve come across as bitchy, or even worse, shrewish, with such a statement – thus pushing the large man into the caveman corner of having to remain standing to salvage his pride. Not a Virginian, though. As we returned to our seats, the eclipse set itself down on the ground with the rest of us mortals, and a loud cheer and a round of applause rang out for my mother. My brother and I grinned at each other for the rest of the night, even as the fireworks exploded over our heads. Then we wished America a Happy Birthday with that specific sense of sincerity only children are capable of achieving.

It was my first lesson that being different was rarely cool, yet there were far more important matters in this world to be dealt with. And in the end, ironically, not giving a damn about what cool is can be the coolest thing.

We returned home, eager to save money and plan for another trip to discover the grander American nation. Reno fucking Nevada never deserved a woman of the caliber of my mother, yet she eventually grew to appreciate its’ rustic authenticity and rugged landscape – even if it still doesn’t understand why she insists on having supper ready ever night at six o’clock on the minute. And over the years, such a reverse manifest destiny played itself out for me and my brother over and over again – after all, you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from in the first place. Momma G always advised us to put out into deep waters, for great abundance would reward those brave enough to do so. I know I haven’t always felt rewarded, but both of her sons still seek out deeper and deeper waters. That’s something. That’s definitely something.

With both the Orange and the Green in my blood, I was born to be different.

There was a boy who went to war, like many other boys before him. He doesn’t think who he was would recognize who he is anymore. He doesn’t feel things the way he used to, so he’s wondering if that makes him a man now. Maybe it’s always like that. He doesn’t know.

As spring limps into summer, a new contender with an old face ascends to challenge the concept of war for peace for complete dominance of Iraq’s ever-malleable now. It reigns with small flares of absolute tyranny, doling out punishment to the masses and the elite equally in spells of burning subjugation. What this aspirant lacks in constant staying power, it makes up for in the promise of consistent rebirth every dawn, rising like a digital Jesus stuck on repeat.

I speak, of course, of the big ball of orange suck the Tibetan monks and icebergs commonly refer to as the sun. And yes, this will be a very elaborate, very obnoxious, and very imagery-laced, vocabulacious way to say that it is fucking hot now. Here’s to the wordgasm.

Baroque birdman badness, even. In blue bursts like banana-bombs, brimming beyond Baghdad burning.

?(Here’s to writing for nobody but yourself !)

Down goes the ramp. In comes the light. Out goes the soldier.

97…98…99…

It starts with a dry mouth. Thirst. The body is more clever than the brain, no matter what the haters say. Speaking of which … Hater-Ade is far more prevalent than water and Rip-Its over here, with flavors ranging from that old vanilla staple “Bored Colonels Make Grown Men Cry” to the newest rage “Passionless PowerPoint Punch.” No liquid is going to help you though, when you realize the source of the thirst in question. There’s that big ball of orange suck again, climbing up the horizon like a stoned sloth lost in a tree.

Diggity.

Suddenly the personal tragedy becomes less of a bitch and more of the Bitch. You remember that your 140 pounds of raw American fury carries 70 additional pounds of raw American gear. The lightest glide becomes the heaviest step. Anu al-Verona’s shoebox diorama walls fall down, revealing a destitution that exists beyond e-journal entries made every two or three or oops I got lazy four days. Stay vigilant, you’re here to kill. Remember? And then you feel the sweat – and it’s not coolly bracing anymore. It’s the physical manifestation of everyone’s internal What the Fuck monologues. It might as well be another layer of skin, lacquered up underneath cloth. What the Fuck monologues? As in. What the Fuck. Over. As in. Pour and pour and pour.

Say again? You’re coming in broken and retarded.

100! 101…102…

Would you rather be refrigerated or air-conditioned? Be careful how you answer that. It’s a much weirder question than it appears to be at first glance.

I’m a desert child. I understand the arid, the dry, the barren beauty only the gila monsters and man-monsters appreciate. This is something else, though. Over-baked, like any Western Europe megalopolis, and baked over, like the little blue pills for America’s Greatest Generation. This place literally sizzles with a heat that links every living creature to a chain-gang slaving away in Loki’s very own boiler-room. This … this was the Holy Land? We’re sure about that? I’m at the point where I truly believe the first Hawaiians and Caribbeans straight punked out the other founding members of humanity. Or they were really good at Go Fish.

Either or.

105…110…115…

The sun’s rays beat on. Maybe another sandstorm will happen today, you think. That’d be nice. Cool everything down with dust and clutter and maybe even a flying goat if we’re lucky. Even if it provides cover for Ali Baba to plant another IED. I mean, whatever. There are ways to negate all that.

Don’t be giving the Good Idea Faerie any more Absinthe. She’s already got the bored Colonels addicted to the sauce. Which, you know, is alright with me. Not that they need my support with these matters.

Drink water, for the hydration nation.

116 … 118… 119…

Ramp goes up. Lock-and-load. Black shades go on. The soldier moves forward.

How’d we skip 117? Crafty, that 117.

That damned stoned sloth. So pretentious. So demanding. So fleeting.

119…120…alright, that’s enough. It can go higher, just don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know if the thermometer is playing me. No mas, mistah.

Diggity.

So yeah. It’s fucking hot.

Recently, our parent unit opened up another combat outpost in the hub of the outlying villages, earning the all too obvious nickname of Little Anu al-Verona. While one of our sister platoons operates out of here now, the Gravediggers recently covered down on their security operations for a day so they could get back to the FOB for a maintenance refit. It was here, surrounded by palm trees and an irrigation system that actually functions, that we discovered the happiest dog in Iraq.

Most dogs over here bear no resemblance to their domesticated cousins in the western world; instead, they are as feral as coyotes, as scrawny as hyenas, and as ugly as the Duke University student population. (”And I always remember that whatever I have done in the past, or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible one way or the other.” - Richard Milhous Nixon.) It’s not a true dismounted night patrol unless there’s a close encounter of the canine kind with a frothing, demented, “rabies is the most benign thing my bite brings” beast-mutant. (We’re back to Iraq now, in case you were confused.) Luckily, these third-world abominations usually recognize what getting too close is and what ignoring the green laser of God means – a bullet through the skull. Still though, it’s all too evident that my too sweet and too stupid golden retriever from back home would last seven minutes - tops - in the back-alleys and alley-backs of Anu al-Verona. There’s not much to wag your tail about in Iraq, and there is no retrieving that occurs when playing fetch with exploding ordinance instead of tennis balls.

And yes America, while I care about said golden retriever far too much, she’s as good an analogy as any for the current state of the nation.

Anyhow, while settling into our security rotations at the combat outpost in Little Anu al-Verona, we heard PFC Van Wilder yelling from inside the center-most building in the billets area. SFC Big Country and I exchanged shrugs, and wandered over to see what the ruckus was all about.

“There’s a fucking giant rat in there!” PFC Van Wilder said as he came back outside. “It lives underneath a bed, and scared the shit out of me.”

“Hah hah hah.” PFC Das Boot’s hearty chuckle resonated from inside the building. “Hah hah hah.”

“What are you laughing about?” asked PFC Van Wilder. “You find that rat?”

PFC Das Boot, in all his gangly awkwardness, stepped outside with a grin to match his length. “There is no rat in there. It is a puppy-dog.” Sure enough, he was cradling a very tiny yellow dog, who was barking down at us playfully from its perch in our young soldier’s arms. It had a slim rodent-like tail, with no feathers, an undersized runt-frame and an outsized tongue flopping out of its mouth.

The platoon burst in laughter, mainly at the expense of PFC Van Wilder. Usually the instigator of the jokes rather than the culmination of them, he couldn’t help but shake his head at this dalliance with fair play. He wasn’t about to let the subject go so easily, though. “It must be a Russian dog. That’s why it likes Das Boot.”

PFC Das Boot set the dog back down on the ground. “I do not understand,” he said. “The dog is Iraqi and I am German. What does Russia have to do with this?”

“Shut up Ivan Drago!” PFC Van Wilder had resumed control of the situation all too easily. “Get your gear and get your KGB-ass up to the towers with me. We’re first on shift.”

While SSG Bulldog traipsed off with the first batch of soldiers on watch in his stead, the rest of the platoon took turns greeting our new friend and temporary housemate. “It must be Apache Platoon’s mascot,” SFC Big Country stated. “I guess it lives here with them.” We subsequently found the dog’s food and water dishes – Frisbees turned upside down.

The dog didn’t have a nametag, and we as visitors didn’t feel it was right to give it one, so “the dog” sufficed for the duration of our stay. It was unlike any other animal we had come in contact with thus far in our deployment. It barked, not out of fear, but because it demanded and craved attention from humans. Fascinated with everything we did, it followed around our most mundane movements like we were discovering the edge of the flat world. If ignored for even a few minutes, the consequences would usually be a string of military 550-cord wrapped around your ankles. Simply put, the dog enjoyed existing in a way most of us haven’t been around since we left home. Being fed regularly and being treated with kindness tends to have that effect on all of God’s creatures, I guess. It was happy with itself and happy with life, and wanted to share such with us.

Truth be told, it was a fucking weird experience at first. I hadn’t prepared myself adequately for such a return to the ordinary. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen to it if and when Apache Platoon departed this place. Five months and some change into this thing, and cynicism splatters every thought of mine like a Jackson Pollock work.

My Joes loved it, though, and by the end of the night, the dog was exhausted. SPC Doc passed out with it in bed, and finally, the canine-terrorist was down for the count. Most of us moving around that night still compulsively tested our ankles for freedom of movement, however, and kept any sudden movements to a minimum. The dog was definitely more familiar with this terrain, putting us two-leggers at a distinct disadvantage.

I woke up before the sun the next morning. It has been a few months since I’ve been able to sleep for more than three hours at a time, something that – for better or for worse - seems to match our daily schedule. I grabbed a book out of my assault pack, found a group of ammo cans and old sandbags that served as a makeshift chair in this bizarro paradise, and fled the land of action for the land of words. Dawn’s light soon replaced my flashlight, and shortly after that, the unmistakable sound of a pup’s growl interrupted me. I looked up. Across the way, trotting down an empty ditch, the dog had discovered that it was not alone this morning.

“What do you want?” I asked.

My rhetorical question was all too obvious, and received an all too obvious answer. The dog perked up its ears and tilted its head to the side, and barked at me as if to say, “you know exactly what I want, you clown. I’ve been sent from the golden retriever gods to make you stop thinking for a few minutes. Grab a stick and let’s make this happen.” I threw the dog a stick for some minutes, and then I returned to my book. When I did, it curled up at my feet for an early morning nap. The sum result of the experience refreshed me mentally the way clean water can refresh physically - for a few minutes, I escaped the madness, the deadlines, the wars within the war. I escaped it all. I didn’t have to embrace the Suck, or wait around for it to embrace me first. I embraced the normal. My normal. There was nothing more normal in my reality than a book and a dog, and that still seemed be the case.

It all ended, of course. But not before I remembered a few things.