Kaboom Read online

  Goddamn it. They were supposed to come no closer to the mosque than the building directly east of it. If one golden rule existed in our modern counter insurgency, it was that Americans did not enter anything Muslims considered holy. To do so constituted a public relations disaster and always seemed to have second- and third-order effects that crippled the greater COIN effort. All of the Iraqi police were across the road from me, gazing into the darkness with confused expressions.

  “These guys say they’re security guards for the mosque,” the assault force reported. “Both have AK-47s. One of them matches the target’s description, but the name on his ID card doesn’t match.”

  Steve’s voice responded. “Roger. Clear the building and continue tactical questioning.”

  This, I thought again, is definitely not good. I stood up, turned around, and found Sergeant Spade. “I’m going up there,” I said. “Watch the guys and the MPs. I’m taking the IP squad with me.”

  I jogged across the road and told the MP NCO he and the IPs were coming with me, after which we strode up Route Gold toward the mosque.

  Task Force Cobra’s support force kneeled on both sides of the road in a staggered column. As we neared the front gate of the mosque, a Task Force Cobra soldier materialized out of the night and put his hand up. Like seemingly every member of his unit, this soldier was as tall as SFC Big Country and as muscled as Staff Sergeant Bulldog. He towered over me, the MP NCO, and the Iraqis.

  “Whoa, Lieutenant, no one goes past here except TF Cobra,” he said.

  “Bullshit,” I responded. “That’s a fucking mosque. You guys aren’t supposed to be in there, and you know it. You need the Iraqi police in there now.”

  The giant tilted his head and smirked down at me. This bastard is amused, I thought, fuming. Nevertheless, he turned around and whispered into his radio. Ten seconds later, presumably after receiving a response, he turned back around and nodded.

  “Alright. Go ahead. The APL [assistant patrol leader] will meet you at the back entrance.”

  I nodded back and started walking. The back entrance? Good Christ, that meant they were already in the building. I prayed they weren’t executing their normal clearing procedures.

  When we walked around the side of the mosque, the APL stood at the back entrance. Unlike Steve, the APL wasn’t special operations but rather a new member of the Ranger Regiment. He had served in a standard army unit on his first deployment. Only a year older than me and a junior captain in rank, he and I had discussed mutual friends and traded junior-officer gripes back at the combat outpost before the mission ensued.

  I pointed at the door, and the IPs and the MP NCO understood, moving inside. I saw Task Force Cobra soldiers already inside. “Dude,” I said to the APL, “what the fuck?”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “We’re not supposed to be in here. But they found a second ID card in the guy’s shoes that matches the name we have, and he said he’s a guard here. He killed soldiers and marines in Fallujah as a sniper, you know? Steve said to go ahead and clear it. . . . You know how it is. The IPs live here. They won’t be looking too hard for fear of actually finding something.”

  He had a point. The Iraqi police weren’t exactly known for their trustworthiness or their dedication to duty. And I hadn’t known exactly what the target had been wanted for before the APL told me; learning certainly sparked the vengeful part of my being. Still, though, this all felt wrong.

  “Shouldn’t we call the imam?” I asked, referring to the clerical head of the mosque.

  “I think it’s too late for that,” he replied. “We’re almost done.”

  I followed his steps into the main room of the mosque. My infidel boots met a hallowed floor made of solid grey concrete. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with holy texts. Scattered pages and a few books lay on the floor beneath the shelves, left there by hasty Task Force Cobra soldiers. Rugs, mats, and blankets were heaped together all around the room, and I somehow doubted that was how the imam kept them organized.

  I arched an eyebrow the APL’s way, and he blustered out a response. “We’re trying to be as respectful as possible,” he said. “Really.”

  The APL’s radio buzzed. It was Steve requesting his presence in an adjacent room. As I started to follow, however, I heard the oh-so-distinctive sound of glass shattering outside. Please, tell me that is a drunk Iraqi dropping a bottle, I thought. I knew it wasn’t.

  I walked out of the mosque to a side street located on the far end of the building, next to the initial target house. I found four Task Force Cobra soldiers standing around a white car underneath a streetlight. The driver’s side window was smashed in, the glass scattered in the car and on the ground below it. One of the soldiers was sizing up the butt of his rifle against the rear window on the driver’s side, while another one of the soldiers showed him the best place to strike the glass. I guessed this was a Ranger NCO conducting an impromptu window-breaking session with a Ranger Joe.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  Four massive, thick shapes turned toward me simultaneously. I suddenly felt very alone, very small, and very cognizant of being an officer. I realized it would be far too easy for these giants to stuff a strange, lecturing, 140-pound lieutenant into the car through the broken window.

  “Just conducting a class,” the Ranger NCO said matter-of-factly.

  “Right. I’m not trying to be gay or anything, but we’ll have to deal with this tomorrow; you won’t. So don’t break anymore locals’ car windows just because you’re bored, okay?”

  Five seconds passed, and three of the soldiers turned toward the Ranger NCO who originally spoke.

  “Roger,” he said.

  “Roger what?” I responded sharply. I’d never been one to abide rigidly by proper military decorum, but these guys were out of control.

  “Roger, sir.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” I turned around, started walking, and took a deep breath. What did they feed these guys, I thought, horse tranquilizers? I was glad they were on my side.

  I walked back to the mosque and met Steve and the APL on the front steps. I told them about the car incident, and while the APL was contrite, Steve just barked a laugh and said, “They did? Those fuckers!” Having found nothing of significance in the mosque, we walked back to the combat outpost, two detainees in tow. Ten minutes later, the detainees and Task Force Cobra flew away to Baghdad in their helicopters.

  Captain Whiteback called the imam that night and apologized profusely. Nevertheless, there was a protest at the front gates of the combat outpost the next morning by local Sunnis outraged that infidels had violated their mosque. It threatened to turn into a full-blown riot until Captain Whiteback called in the Sunni sheiks and threatened to take away their Sahwa pay if they didn’t disperse their people. The protest ended shortly thereafter.

  III:

  iWAR

  (OR THE LOST SUMMER)

  SUMMER 2008

  Rumble, young man, rumble.

  —MUHAMMAD ALI

  IN A LITTLE PLASTIC BIN

  I sat alone in a Porta-John mumbling to myself. I held a flashlight in one hand, and my rifle stood upright in the corner, muzzle down. I had locked the door already, something I kept checking repeatedly.

  It had been a long day. A really long fucking day. So I fled to my sanity box and decided to work through things:ShootMoveAndCommunicateBOOMBOOM.

  Scouts Out.

  ShootMoveAndCommunicateBOOMBOOM.

  Scouts Out.

  ShootMoveAndCommunicateBOOMBOOM.

  Scouts Out.

  The days bleed into nights, and the nights bleed into days, and there’s really no point in acknowledging the difference anymore. The sun just means we drink more water; the night just means we live in the green world of night vision rather than the grey world of day vision. Patrol. Eat. Sleep. Patrol. Go to meeting. Patrol. Eat. Make phone calls home and ignore the strain in their voices since they’re doing the same. Patrol. Sleep.
Get woken up in a panic; it’s time for a new and fragolicious patrol.

  Emotional burnouts. All of us. Life is nothing more than a Frogger game with IEDs. Mesopotamian sand rests at the bottom of my lungs like spare change in a swimming pool. I’m still removing bits of Boss Johnson flesh grunge from my memory with a spatula.

  Chew tobacco.

  Chew tobacco.

  Chew tobacco.

  Spit.

  If you ain’t cav,

  you ain’t shit.

  Born after the ’Nam. No illusions about what war is and what war does to the human condition exist or ever existed. Sure, it still shocks the senses into nothingness, but I can’t claim ignorance to this inevitability. Going here was almost like finding a validation for being so disillusioned in the first place. Yeah, I did it backward, but at least I did it. At least my children and grandchildren might be tricked into thinking that the iWar destroyed my generation’s wits and yielded our indulgences, not knowing the real culprit had been cartoon overdose some twenty years previous. How embarrassing would that revelation be? Ruined before puberty; truly, a historic achievement worthy of posterity. iWar?

  Yeah. iWar. iWar. Fitting, in that succinct, catchy pop-culture kind of way. Perfect for this era of irony and commercialization and technology. Just like iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iRack. They can learn all about the iWar on the e-world, just by sitting down at a computer. They just choose not to.

  I War. Subject. Verb. Where’s the object? We’re still looking for it, some five years later. How’s that for iRony?

  A generation has to be involved and interested for a generational calling to occur. Something beyond stretching the limits of the small warrior caste has to transpire in that wet dream of slogan speak and Orwellian doublethink.

  I’d never do it for real, of course.

  Still, though. It’s there. And enticing during those select moments when I honestly don’t care anymore. I don’t care about you, I don’t care about me, and I certainly don’t give a fuck about things. Anythings. Everythings. Things.

  I just want all the hurt to go away.

  My officer basic course class just sent our second member to Fiddler’s Green, the cavalry equivalent of the afterlife. Well, we didn’t send him. A mortar attack did, just as a catastrophic IED blast sent the first. Did any of us think we could actually die back then? Like really die? For real die? They almost got Lieutenant Demolition with an EFP last week. His Stryker engine ate it. Would my Stryker engine do that for me?

  Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

  And in atomic bombs.

  Life makes sense in this little plastic bin.

  The black dogs of self-doubt can turn into ravenous monsters, especially late at night. Especially here. Especially when I’m alone. Especially when I can’t sleep. Especially happens too much.

  Talk to the people.

  Okay.

  I know people care about the iWar. But not enough, given the circumstances. Not even close. Agree or disagree with the war, I don’t care—just give a fuck. Be able to find Basra on a map, know that the Tigris isn’t some sort of unholy crossbreed found at the San Diego Zoo, try to figure out the difference between a Sunni and a Shia even if it conplexes and perfuses the mind beyond repair. I wish I could issue some loud, righteous proclamation here about the repercussions of such continued resounding American apathy, but who are we kidding? The warrior caste is simply too small nowadays and too proud. There will be no reckoning for all of this. We’ll fight the fights not because we necessarily want to but because no one else will. We were bred to protect. Even if we’re protecting nothing more than an isolationistic yawn prefacing the continental slumber history demands occur after protracted warfare.

  Stop talking to the people. They aren’t listening.

  Okay.

  They never were.

  I used to dream of a life without consequences. Like that defiant sand castle though, it got swallowed up by a crashing surf of memories, washed away, lost in the swirl of bleeding blue. iWar. Mine, not yours. This war. My War. Our War. We War. I War.

  You peace. Out.

  Savage wars of peace. Kipling’s phrase about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. Savage phrase, that war of peace.

  Lord, give me the strength not to attack with a baseball bat every fool and every chickenhawk and every child of apathy and every soft elitist and every intellectual hack and every Jody scumbag and every yuppie and every thirty-something fraud still finding himself when I get home. It’s not worth my time. Do give me the strength to convince them to stop breeding and to kill themselves, in the name of bettering humanity. It’s the only chance we have.

  And, yes, I am that self-righteous. And kidding.

  One of the above statements is true.

  Nothing is when it is still today and I already don’t remember tomorrow.

  There are many horrors found in Iraq, but I doubt any are as deliberate as monotony, sucking away at inner Hooah-beats like a parasitical terrorist bug.

  Long stretches of boredom interrupted by brief moments of sheer terror. Does this moment count? I am terrified. And it doesn’t feel so brief. I’ve been in here for more than a few minutes. I’d check my watch, but clocks stopped corresponding to time a few months ago.

  I’d never do it for real, of course.

  Things. Hurt. War. People. Pain. Hunger. Hopeless. Pointless. All of it. We are born crying, maybe live long enough to really cry again, and then die unable to cry anymore. Does it matter what happens in between?

  Yes.

  It’s white in here. As white as the future, blank as an albino. Like the foam of the ocean. Like mom’s pristine carpet. Like what the stars look like winking behind illumination rounds.

  Like escape.

  I’d never do it for real, of course.

  Hurt. There’s just so much of it. Especially here. It’s an abyss. I can’t help these people. No one can. They can’t help themselves, and neither can the great American sympathy.

  There it is again. The siren’s song of gone. A freedom bird that doesn’t land anywhere at all. It just hovers there, waiting. The ultimate escape. Enticingly empty and hollow and spotless and smooth. Oh, so smooth.

  The eternal scream versus the fleeting smile.

  My men need me. They have real problems. Real concerns. Real issues. This life is temporary for me; I’ll be able to get out. They don’t have that luxury. This mad Celtic depression brought on by self-aggrandizement and shattered hopes and broken ideals is beyond cliché. I don’t see them cowering in a Porta-John, rocking themselves through a mental crisis in a deluded trance, do I?

  Well, no. But that’s kind of the point of doing it here. To be alone, away from prying eyes and judgmental minds.

  Good point.

  Shut up and drive on.

  Worry about the things I can control. Just do that and I’ll be fine.

  I want to control it all. Then I’d be fine.

  Just don’t be soft. Just don’t be soft.

  That has always been man’s greatest tragedy, hasn’t it? It’s not the doubting of God’s intentions, or even of His existence, that really tears apart our souls. It’s that we honestly believe we’d do a better job than Him if granted the opportunity.

  I may not be as hard as I want to be, but I ain’t fucking soft.

  Red splashed across white makes pink. I learned that in art class, during summer camp. We had art class after lunch and before tennis lessons, which was before swimming lessons. I didn’t like art class or tennis lessons because I hated waiting for swimming lessons.

  It’d be pink. A pink mist.

  Too messy. Too banal. Too cowardly.

  That one dead Sahwa’s jawbone still had falafel in it, even after the flashlight bomb blew his face off. Finding that was a bad day. Worse than today. And that day ended. Falafels taste like hajji and hell heat and body armor and alone.

  I don’t eat falafels anymore, even when Suge buys them for me.
>
  Exhale and tug on the lip. It feels. Funny. It feels funny. Nothing to see here. Move along. Just a wolf crying boy. Still, though. I can hear my heart. Something, anything, to get the brainberry juices flowing again. There it is. Nice. I’m good.

  There are some poor-ass Iraqis out there who need this platoon leader to attempt to actually give a fuck and to pretend like he knows what the fuck he is doing in the first place. They need me. And they aren’t the only ones. The men need me, and they need my smirk. So pull up my pants, grab my rifle, and smirk. Like spitting in the devil’s eye, that smirk. Especially here.

  I’m back. To the Anythings. The Everythings. Things.

  My men need me.

  I opened up the only door from the sanity box to Iraq. I took a deep breath and smirked to myself. I needed to write a patrol debrief upstairs. I started walking that way.

  “I’m good,” I remembered out loud. “I’m good.”

  THE BON JOVI IED

  As part of our recurring duties as night watchmen at Sheik Nour’s compound, we patrolled Route Tampa, the highway stretch that served as the logistical spinal column for the massive American body draped across Iraq. During this mission set, I always put out the same radio call every four hours to the gunners pulling security:

  “White, this is White 1. Wake your vehicle up and get redcon-1. It’s Tampa time.”

  On Memorial Day weekend, Specialist Cold-Cuts (recently promoted) sat perched in the gunner’s cupola of my vehicle. After my radio call, I realized I hadn’t heard him speak over the internal net recently. Given his proclivity for talking, I found this odd.

  “Hey, Cold-Cuts, you ready, dude?”

  Silence followed.

  “Yo, Cold-Cuts?”

  “I think he’s asleep, sir,” PFC Smitty said matter-of-factly from the driver’s hole.

  I leaned across my seat and tugged at Specialist Cold-Cuts leg and yelled into my headset. “Hey, Cold-Cuts, you redcon-1?”

  The platoon walks through northwestern Saba al-Bor on a dismounted patrol near a mosque. Groups of Iraqi children routinely joined the patrols, eager for conversation and candy.