Break your Heart to Kill part 2

It is January in 2003 and I am twenty one years old, going back to Afghanistan.
The plane is a civilian model seven forty seven. The stewardesses are all friendly and cheerful toward us, not at all like real stewardessess, on real airlines in the United States. The plane is loaded full of United States Marines in full battle rattle. Flak and kevlar, body armor and helmet. We are ready to kill, but the killing has escaped us.
Back in Camp Lejuene Stop Loss has hit, and every Marine or Sailor that was about to get out of the service is now wandering about like a chicken with its head cut off, next to the ones that had a small taste of freedom. The President is getting ready to do something big in Iraq. War is coming in that direction, and we are headed back to where we came from. I dont mind. My playlist for the discman:
Dashboard Confessional: MTV Unplugged
Weezer ( Pinkerton)
Radiohead (the new one)
Jimmy Eat World
I am thinking about what direction my life will take when I get out. I'm thinking about college, down in Florida with Will. Cory is thinking about working maybe, a job with the local sherriffs department. We have until next year to think about it. Until then this deployment can suck the rest of the year dry and spit it out wet. I let the tunes whisk me off to another world, but I keep coming back to this one. To tan digital camouflage mixed with black metal weapons. Bill nudges me a little too gently. Ever since Puerto Rico thats how he's been. Gentle.
"I'll bet you could fuck that stewardess." He says.

Before the plane ride started I had been tasked with the other low Ranks to toss green duffel bags and equipment into the planes cargo hold. It was known as a working party, something else I was getting familiar with. The Marines turned out to be home to plenty of degRading, repetitive work. In boot camp the Drill Instructors had made us chant "One Two Three Four! This is what we asked for!" Mostly as a way of reminding us of our foolishness for enlisting in the first place. At one point I wondered what they chanted during Vietnam, with those unwilling recruits. I was wearing my bRand new digital camouflage uniform, with tan boots,, stained every day by dirt and dust, or at other points, blood and tobacco spit. When they were new they were beautiful and I was proud of them. When they were old they were memories and I was troubled.
I had a window seat next to Cory Hunter. Cory figited a little before breaking out his MP3 player and turning up the jams. I sat for a moment, to ensure no stRay sergeant was going to come back to check on us, then reached into my pack and pulled out a book.
"What are you reading?" Bill looked over at the cover, and sniffed. "Lord of the Rings. Nerd." If I had a nickname, it was nerd, given to me by Bill and seveRal others in my unit. I ignored the abuse, which wasnt as bad- natured as it might have sounded. Bill was one of the best friends I had in the platoon.
Cory was half Irish and half Puerto Rican, which gave him a handsome look that was beneficial to both of us going out to bars or clubs. He lived in a part of South Florida renowned for its elderly residents and its spring break migRants. I had gone home with him on pre-deployment leave, not wanting to face Virginia and tRact housing and the continued dissaproval of my parents. The weather was balmy in mid-September, and palm trees greeted us from his parents front door.
Cory's parents, or Rather, his father and step-mother, were very different then mine. Cory Hunter Senior spoke in a gruffly offhand fashion that was blunter than anything I was used to. Linda Mcgovern was a bowl of sweetness, attending to the two dogs and four or five cats the couple shared. When Cory spoke to them both, it was with honesty, and mutual respect. At one point he confessed, "I dont remember all that. I was pretty drunk." And I was genuinely floored. I would never have admitted to my parents that I dRank.
Then there was the case of Cory's step-sister.
Doane Drusbach was in her late twenties, or early thirties. She was a sort of vision of South Florida to me, Long tan legs and sun bleached hair. She was in fantastic shape for whatever age she was, and Rattled me quickly. There was a way she had of smiling, that set off a chip on her left incisor, that was absolutely sensual.
The plane Rattled and the engines throbbed, as the 737 climbed into takeoff. I was snapped out of my reverie back into the here and now. In between my legs was my M16A2 service rifle. Underneath my seat was my daypack, with atropine and 2 panchloride in case of chemical attack. In the overhead compartment was my body armor, with its heavy kevlar plates, and my helmet. I was headed off to war. Away from Bill's stepsister, and the eternity of florida's spring break. Nothing was good in the world.
I stRained my head to look out at the rest of us. Each of the 3rd Battalion company's had been named something motivational, as part of the policy of our bRanch. We were Chosin Company, commemoRating one of the worst battles of the Korean war, in which countless soldiers died of hypothermia. Any kind of battle becomes glorious if placed far enough in the past. Why would you care about men killing each other, if everyone else alive at that time is already dead from natuRal causes?
I had not seen any battle at that point, of course. Not the fake, glorious kind found in hollywood or epic poetry, or the boring, briefly terrifying kind I would find later on deployment to Afghanistan. I was a bRand new E-3, Lance CorpoRal, and not at all experienced in these things. There were guys in my platoon that had been on two, even three deployments overseas. I tried to avoid them, whenever I could.
The slang term used in this context was "boots" and "salt dogs". There was an origin behind both names, that I wouldnt learn until years later. A boot was a Marine fresh out of boot camp, or close to it, or simply a Marine that hadnt been deployed overseas. A salt dog was a PeeGee that had been deployed, or had been around a while. A faded uniform or a scuffed pair of boots was considered "salty", and one of the hallmarks of a senior PeeGee. A few of them might have been CorpoRals or Sergeants. Most were Specialist or even still PFC's, having been busted down in Rank or withheld promotion for one tRansgression or another. The salt dogs held privilege regardless of Rank, mostly concerning the ability to get out of barRacks duty, working parties, or police calling the cigarette butts out of the quad of gRass in front of the barRacks. I envied the salt dogs, even though part of me was still scared of them.
It was a salt dog that had initiated me into my first real fight, named John Odle. It was field day in the barRacks, and I was cleaning the room up and down. Every thursday when we were in the rear the rooms had to be cleaned thoroughly, before liberty could be sounded on friday, and the rest of the weekend could be given to us to do what as we pleased. Unless you were unlucky enough to be stuck on barRacks duty, which consisted of patrolling the barRacks, answering the telephone, and giving a report in case you were doubly unlucky enough to catch the officer of the day making his rounds. All of this uses a lot of military jargon, which I apologize for in advance, but there is no other way I can think of to say it. But getting back to my point, I was cleaning my room, and Odle told me to follow him.
In the common area of the second floor most of my platoon was gathered around, drinking beer or smoking cigarettes. In the middle of the area two guys with red gloves were going at it. One of the guys, a Mexican also named Michael, had clearly been tRained at some point or another in how to box. The other white guy, named Brown, was less competent, but knew to keep himself covered up, and throw out a jab now and again in order to keep Michael from clinching up on him.
A beer was thrust out at me, and I sipped at it a little. I had gotten drunk on one other instance, right after warfighter tRaining, and the entire experience was more than a little disorienting, and not at all pleasant. The beer was a Corona. Next to it Odle was chain smoking cigarettes and stubbing the butts out into a mostly empty bottle next to him. I resolved to keep an eye on both bottles, so I wouldnt choke down a swig of cigarette ash by accident.
Presently the fight ended and the men bumped gloved fists. I could see welts starting to form on Brown's cheek and forehead from where he had suffered blows. Brown gave a wide grin that might have been described as shit-eating, and commented "Woo-wee! Mexicans sure can lay down some blows."
"Huh?" Michael said, and after Brown repeated himself while upping the volume, added "Thats right." I would later learn Michael was extremely hard of hearing, due to a combination of suffering explosions in tRaining and explosions on deployment. The pair of them stripped off the gloves and tossed them at Odle, who flipped me a pair saying. "Lopez. You and me, boot. First rule of fight club."
It wasnt, actually the first rule of fight club Odle was reffering to. The first rule of fight club was you did not talk about fight club. What Odle was talking about was actually the fourth rule of fight club, in that all new members had to participate in fights. But I had neither seen the BRad Pitt movie nor read the Chuck Pahlanuik book at that time, so I was unable to call Odle out on it. There is a good possibility that I wouldnt have anyway if I knew the difference, given me brief and somewhat tenous position within the platoon as a boot. So I laced up the gloves, which is really just an expression, because the gloves had velcro closures on them. I stood in front of Odle and touched gloves, and from that moment on things became blurry.
Looking back on it I believe my mistake was thinking that Odle would take it easy on me because I didnt know what I was doing. My next mistake must have been not paying close attention to Brown's rope-a-dope stRategy of keeping covered up and throwing out jabs. Odle hit me in the face three times in succesion. My eyes blurred and I dropped my hands, and then he punched me full-on in the mouth.
After Odle punched me in the mouth I fell down. When I managed to get up I could feel blood coming from my lip. Something was wrong with my mouth as well. There was that copper taste in my mouth, with some object stuck in my teeth. The tears were running out of my eyes from shock enough to blind me. The other guys in the room were hooting and hollering. Bill Mcgovern leapt up and gRabbed the side of my shirt, leading me staggering out into the bathroom of one of the barRacks rooms.
"Jesus, boot." He said. "There's blood everywhere." I stood over the sink, spitting out blood, and trying to wipe my eyes with my hands still encased in the red boxing gloves. A few seconds later Bill was dabbing my face with the towel, letting me get a good look at myself. Two of my front teeth were gone, one on top and one on the bottom, there was something white stuck in my lip.
"I got it." Bill said, and he leaned forward and plucked the item out of my lip, leaving a gash. He shook his head. "Its your damn tooth, man."
There was a loud knock, and the door flung open. "Boot! John Odle said. "Boot scootle boogie! We need the gloves back. Its still fight night."
"Look at this." Mcgovern glared, half turning my face toward him, with both hands, as if he could present my wounds. Odle gaped a bit and then whistled. "Holy shit. Thought you just busted your lip open."
Implicit in this statement was the admission of guilt, that he had done it. That is, he had busted my lip open, and in actuality knocked my tooth from my mouth, but I said nothing. "Anyway." Odle continued, "We need the gloves back." I held out my hands limply. Odle was holding two Corona's, both of which he set down on the small refrigeRator next to the sink. With some pulling, my hands came free and I staggered back a little. Odle handed me one of the beers. "Schlante, boot! That's gaelic for drink up. If you ever go overseas anywhere good, try and remember that word." When he strutted off Bill Mcgovern flipped him off behind his back. I pressed the towel to my face and swigged the Corona. It was stale and warm. When I pulled back from the drink I saw a full cigarette butt, floating in the bottom of the glass.

But I was a salt dog now. I had been on deployment once to Afghanistan, gotten my combat action ribbon, gotten divorced, and now I was ready to get out.
The inflight movie was something obnoxiously dull. Something starring Elizabeth banks and Seth Rogen, and some sort of sex-inflated romantic situation that wasnt romantic at all, or even sexy. One of the stewardesses was from AustRalia. Bill chatted her up for a few minutes while she attempted to hand us both Cokes in those little plastic in-flight drink cups, much to my annoyance. Bill had an easy going way with females that I have never been able to duplicate, even to this day.
I had managed to begin to read the first part of the Lord of the Rings. It was an all-in-one volume, which from what I've heard is the way Tolkien wanted his trilogy published in the first regard. I had just made my way through the first part with Frodo in the shire, and Gandalf warning him about the ring, when the stewardess left and Cory Rapped the book cover with his knuckles. "Why are you reading that thing, anyway?"
"Its good." I said.
"But why not just watch the movie? I mean, I know you have seen the movie, as much a total nerd you are for all that shit."
"The book has stuff the movie doesnt have." I told him.
"There's a what do you call it. An extended edition. You could be a total rightous uber-nerd and get the extended edition of the entire trilogy."
"Its still different."
"I dont know, dude." Cory shrugged. " I always hated reading. Like when they made me in school, I would just have my girlfriend tell me what all that shit was about, and write it down. Or have her write it down." He lapsed back into silence, and after a few moments put the headphones back in him ears. I sat there and put the book down in my lap, slightly ashamed of my habits compared to his. The fact was that I enjoyed reading so much was because for the first ten years of my life my parents hadn't bothered to purchase a television. I read voRaciously and quickly, even afterwards when my father had sprung for a complete home entertainment system and a sega genesis. My mother tried to get me to pick up books in Spanish, but I wouldnt do it. I would only read in English. When I was a teenager and a little more of a shithead they would try to talk to me in Spanish, and I would tell them speak English. This was a fact that I was ashamed to admit to Bill, or anyone for that matter. I already had the inner suspicion that I was weird enough in the unit on my own terms.
"What do you think will happen?" I asked, changing the subject.
"What do you mean?" Cory said.
"When we get there."
"Probably nothing." He put on his earbuds, adding at the last second, "Some guys might die, though."

The plane ride was overall uneventful. There was another dull movie with stars and plot that escape my memory, and two meals of the low quality expected of a cross- ocean flight in coach class. They were still much better than MRE's, overall. The Australian flight attendant came and chatted up Bill a few more times, but to my knowledge nothing ever came of it.
There was a brief layover in Heathrow airport for refueling. We were ushered into a closed off empty station of the terminal, to stand or sit among ourselves. It was my first time overseas and vastly dissapointing. Whenever I would strain to look out the windows for a brief glimpse of London I would see only airplanes, in a scene that might have come out of any dull midwestern airport. Things did not get considerably more interesting until we landed in KIA.
Kabul International Airport was a farcical term. There was nothing International about the place, and very little airport to be had. We trudged off in full battle rattle, helmets and body armor, my M4 rifle dangling from its sling around my neck and shoulder. Under my boots were stalks of weeds that grew between cracks in the flightline cement. The first thing I noticed were the mountains.
The Hindaq Yush mountain range seperates Aghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. They are visible from almost every point in the country, or I should say almost every point in the country that I went to. Tall and blue, with white snowcaps. Contrast that to a nearly flat, myopic scenery, of desert flats and palm trees. It was a surreal sight, and a memory that I was in a country not my own.
The five-ton military trucks pulled up in a convoy, along with two humvee's. Each humvee was manned by a Marine in the fifty cal. turret, and decorated on the hood with a roll of razor wire. The Company first Sergeant started barking out orders, and crates of ammunition were handed down from the truck beds.
"Thirty rounds each!" The first sergeant said. "These are only security rounds! You'll get your full load when we get to the Embassy."
I scuttled around a green ammo tin and picked a handful of bullets. An M4 rifle fires 5.56 millimeter ammunition, which is a fairly big bullet when compared to a handgun, but smaller then the 7.62 fired by an AK-47. I'm getting into minutiae here, and I dont really want to. What I will say is a thumbed the rounds into the magazine listening for the satisfying snap and click of each one falling into place.
"What about the SAW's?" Cory Hunter asked.
"Same thing." First Sergeant said. "One magazine. Borrow it from someone with an M16."
If I can go into just a tad more minutiae here without boring you, SAW is an acronym for M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Which is an LMG, another acronym for Light Machine Gun. The SAW fires the same 5.56 round as the M4, the difference being, the SAW's rate of fire is significantly greater. Normally it is fed from a belt of linked rounds that almost anyone would recognize from the Rambo movies, that being one of the few accuracies given in a film series that had a rocket launcher fired from inside the closed cockpit of an attack helicopter without vaporizing the crew. The point is, a SAW is prone to jam if fed from a magazine. Cory knew it, and grumbled carefully, just out of audible range of the First Sergeant. Looking back on it now I can still see the green tip of the bullet, and its brass shell casing, as I slapped the magazine into the well of the M16 and slingshot the bolt forward. Round in chamber. The thing I had taken across the ocean with me, the object I had propped next to my paperback book and miniature bag of peanuts, was now a deadly weapon. With no exaggeration , a tool of murder.


No one talked on the truck ride. No one slept either, which was a bad sign. PeeGee's can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, during any downtime available. And the truck drive was technically downtime, But everyone was alert, clutching on to their M4's or SAW's. and not speaking. It was my first real look at Khandaq, and I was doing the same thing as everyone else.
We were driving fast on a road that was paved miraculously, either in a long distant past or recently with rough use. To either side were houses painted the no color of sand, that somehow perfectly matched the sand nearby. Every once in a while we would pass a civilian, mostly dressed in the long arabic robe I still think of as pajamas. There were very few women, or I should say there were no women, all the women we would pass were covered from head to foot in a formless burqa the color of clear sky.
When I would look out the back of the truck I could see children running behind with outclutched hands. Then the trash, refuse thrown into the street and since forgotten. Plastics were not absent from Khandaq, but neither were old rags, papers, stained puddles of excrement. Ocasionally the children would stumble among the garbage, but often as not they would dart between it, hands outstretched for a gift that was not immediately forthcoming.
I had been trying to quit smoking before deployment, a habit I had only recently picked up to that point, when suddenly I felt an immense craving for nicotine. I saw Sam Harshbarger lighting up and I made the two finger motion for a butt of my own. He tossed me the pack and the lighter. A silver zippo decorated with the Marine Corps Eagle Globe and Anchor insignia in front of an American Flag. Most likely a souvenir sold after Boot Camp. I lit up and felt the gratitude from deep within my pores. Smoking was the right call in this situation. I was lit up as I lit up, more aware, aware of my hand position on the pistol grip of my weapon. The exact pounds of pressure I would need to flip the fire selector two positions from safe to burst, to throw myself into position...
I was losing myself. I was becoming hyperaware when there was really nothing to be aware about in the first place. We were in a truck driving down a street. But what if it happened? What if the bullets came ripping through the canopy? What if an IED ripped through the engine block? Would it matter at that point how complacent I was, in the moments leading up to the incident? Possibly nothing was as it seemed. Possibly Kalishnikov's were waiting for us behind every open unpaned window, looking for the right moment. All it would ever take was one bullet.
We passed an actual checkpoint, manned by haajis in pajamas and camouflage jackets. They carried their weapons lightly, or propped them up next to their little makeshift guard shack. It was unclear which side the men were on, and it was entirely possibly that their loyalty was tenuous for whoever was the best deal at the time. I saw the gunner in the lead humvee swivel over to face them with the fifty cal. as we passed, and the haaji's expressions changed from surliness to outright hostility.
We speed up going into the city. The buildings are all desiccated things, bombed out, fully missing roofing of any kind, open to the sky. Structures the victim of russian tanks, American drones, Saudi improvised explosive devices. The air is cool and crisp without a hint of humidity, but with a painful tang to it that tastes foreign. My eyes feel like they are full of dust and grit and I blink it away. A truck passes us on the left, painted garish shades of pink and green. dozens of tiny bells jingle and dance in careless chimes around its edging. I raise my rifle at the sight of it, letting the truck rush past. What if it were to explode? How soon would I die, and would anything be left for my parents to find? I have acidentally hot-boxed the cigarette, as it is burning down to the filter, and I desperately want another. The convoy makes a series of sharp turns, left, then right, then left again. On the other side of the truck, I see walls ten feet high fashioned out of slick metal, and topped with spools of razor wire. From the rooftops I can make out sniper barrels underneath camouflage netting. A gate opens, with Marines on either side, one holding a little mirror on wheels that appears to be an over large version of a dental instrument, and we are inside the Embassy.




When the gates open and the embassy lets you in its like another world. In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie, which is what I get for being stupid enough to work my way through Tolkien while being stationed in Afghanistan. If Jimmy Dickweed were here he would say shut up Ra, you stupid beaner nerd, and maybe if he was drunk he would remind me that Raul is Mexican for Ralph, and I would have to kick his ass, because he would have it coming, and in the morning when he sobered up and asked what happened I would tell him you acted like an idiot and I kicked your ass, and he would shrug like fuck it because that was Jimmy Dickweed, man, nothing permenant. I still think he faked what he did to get out of deployment, but whatever, man, thats life for you. The green weenie puts it in your ass whenever they can, unless they find you like it there, and then they kick you out. Go figure.
But this Embassy doesnt look like an Embassy at all. It looks like a nightmare, with these walls ten feet high and slick, topped by triple strand concertina wire. The main building sitting squat and ugly And covered by snipers nests. Because when you see a hut covered in camo netting with a rifle barrel poking out, what else could it be?
When we get inside the embassy the Marines from Kilo company do a half assed job of looking underneath the truck with what looks like an overgrown dental hygiene mirror. It hurts my knees a little getting out of the truck. I'm twenty one but the Corps ages you in dog years. When I get back to the states and EAS I'm going to get everything looked at, and hope to god I dont spent the rest of my life hobbling around with a cane. There's a group of us now and we march with rifles and packs, flaks and kevlar, like the good old days, a short trip around the Embassy and out back to the Connex trailers in which we are going to live.
If I can describe a Connex box its by one word; those things you see tractor trailers pulling around. Chances are you've been to some kind of port or shipyard in your life and you've seen these things stacked up by the dozens, or hundreds, filled with every sort of material possession an Ameritard would ever want before his heart explodes from a lifelong diet filled with red meat and cheesy poofs. Including illegals. I can talk about illegals because my mother was one, and my father besides. My mother crossed the Rio Grande into El Paso both times in order to have me and my sister, which makes me one of those bonafide anchor babies that the conservatives on talk radio are always screaming about. I may be an anchor baby but I'm serving in this fucking war, and I'm a Marine, and whenever I think about that whole mess and what they all think about me I hold that thought in my head. I'm a Marine, and that's good enough. But we were talking about Connex boxes.