I go check on my men. EOD comes pretty quick, and I see it’s Staff Sergeant Cody’s team. Cody’s a down-home Tennessee boy, and he points to my bare legs and gives me a big old country grin.
When you’re done fucking these hajjis, he says, you’re supposed to put your pants back on.
While his team is dealing with the UXO, I deal with Dyer’s flight suit. Moore gets me some gasoline from the basement, and we douse it and set it on fire. These things are supposed to be flame resistant, it’s why we wear them, but it goes up fine.
Looking at the flames, I ask Moore, Were you gonna stomp that hajji downstairs?
Would’ve deserved it, he says.
Not the point, I say. Your Marines see you fucked up over this, then they start thinking about how fucked up it all is. And we don’t have time to deal with that. We’ve got another patrol tomorrow.
LT walks over with a spare flight suit. Change, he says. We’re going straight to TQ. Sweet’s stabilized, but they’re gonna fly him to Germany soon. IP and jundi are stabilized, too. Hajji didn’t make it.
I take the flight suit and tell Moore, Pass to the squad that Sweet’s okay, and don’t mention hajji dying.
I go back to the kitchen and change over, and by that time EOD’s done, so we all roll.
As we’re driving to TQ, McKeown says, Hey, at least we saved those guys’ lives.
I say, Yeah, Second Squad to the motherfucking rescue.
Except I’ve got their eyes in my head. I don’t think they wanted to be saved. After al-Qaeda sets you up in front of the video camera? And you’ve been beaten and tortured and drilled through and you think, Finally. Just let the head come off in one slice. That’s what I’d be thinking. But then, guess what? Ha-ha, motherfucker. No film. So you’re sitting, in pain, waiting to die, for who knows how long. There isn’t exactly a Walmart nearby.
I didn’t see any tears of joy when we burst in, M4s at the ready. They were dead men. Then we doped them up, CASEVAC’d them out, and they had to live again.
I think, for a second, maybe we should all breathe out tonight as a squad. Get drunk off Listerine and deal with this shit. But I don’t want to pull that trigger unless I have to, and Sweet’s still alive. Today’s a good day. Save that shit for a bad day.
We roll into TQ, which is a huge FOB, all U.S. and Coalition Forces. We all clear our weapons, bring them to Condition 4 at the gate. FOBs are basically safe. And crawling with contractors.
The road signs to the hospital are just like you’d see in the U.S., a blue square with a white H in the middle. And there’s Marines driving civilian-type vehicles in their cammies, without body armor, just like you’d see in any base in the U.S. TQ Surgical’s in the middle of the FOB, next to the Dark Tower, which is what the logistics guys call their command post. The road circles us around the tower, slowly edging closer. I’ve been here before.
We’re quiet as we get close, and then McKeown says, Sergeant, that was really fucked up.
But now’s not the time to have that conversation, so I say, Yeah, that’s the most blood I’ve seen since I fucked your mom on her period. And then the guys laugh and bullshit a bit, and it breaks the mood that was settling. We get out of the Humvees and walk to TQ Surgical in the right head space.
Inside TQ Surgical, Sweet’s awake but on an IV drip of the good stuff.
I feel good, he says, I’ve got my leg.
Another Marine had come in while Sweet was in surgery and things didn’t go so well for him. Still, it was a good day for us.
Except while we’re joking with Sweet, Dyer grabs a doc walking past and asks him how the hajji he shot in the face is doing. I try to catch Doc’s eye so I can signal, Don’t tell him hajji’s dead, but it’s not a problem. Doc’s like, I have no idea which one you shot. Besides, al-Qaeda gets flown out to a high-security hospital after we stabilize ’em. Right now you won’t find any here.
Then Dyer’s standing there, off to the side. He’s still in my flight suit, and he’s swimming in it. I put a hand on his shoulder and say, You did good today, PFC. You took out the guy that shot Sweet.
Next ward over from Sweet, they’ve got the IP and the jundi we saved. I step out into the hall and peek in and there they are, fucked up, drugged up, and knocked out. It’s nice in the hospital, not the blood and dust over everything like in the basement, but those two, even cleaned up, their bodies don’t look like bodies should. Seeing them stops me for a second. I don’t call the squad over because they don’t need to see this.
After that, there’s not much left to do but hit the DFAC. We’re on a FOB, might as well get that good chow while we can. My guys deserve it. Maybe they need it. Besides, everyone says TQ’s got the best chow hall in Anbar, and soon we’ll be back in the COP.
The DFAC’s about a klik away. It’s a huge white barn of a building, two hundred meters long at least, a hundred wide, surrounded by a ten-foot fence topped with barbed wire. We show the Ugandan guards our IDs and walk through the gate. Inside, there’s sinks you wash your hands at first, no eating with dirty fingers, and then there’s a huge cafeteria line with KBR workers serving all kinds of shit. I’m not hungry, but I get some prime rib with horseradish sauce.
We sit down at a big table. The DFAC is pretty full, there’s probably a thousand people eating there, and we’re sitting between some Ugandans and some Marines and sailors from the TQ BOS.
I’m across from PFC Dyer, and he’s not eating much. I’m next to some Navy O4 from the BOS, and he’s chowing down. When he sees we aren’t exactly FOBbits, he starts talking. I don’t tell him what we’re here for, I just say a little about our COP and how it’s good to eat something that’s not an MRE or the Iraqis’ red shit and rice. He says, Y’all are lucky. You came here on a good day. It’s Sunday. Sunday is cobbler day. And he points to a serving table in the rear of the DFAC where they’re serving cobbler with ice cream.
So fuck it, when we finish we all get up to get some cobbler, except for Dyer. He says he’s not hungry, but I tell him, “Eric. Get your ass up and get some fucking cobbler.” So we go.
KBR’s laid out all kinds. Cherry cobbler. Apple cobbler. Peach.
The O4 says cherry’s the best. Roger that. I get the cherry. Dyer gets the cherry. We all get the fucking cherry.
Sit back down, I’m across from Dyer and he’s looking at his ice cream melting into the cobbler. No good. I put a spoon in his hand. You’ve got to do the basic things.