Michael Robinson: Incorrigible Veteran

          Michael Robinson arrived home from Afghanistan to a city that he believed would be born again unto him. After his combat tour, he assumed every civilian would see him in his desert fatigues, his purple heart pinned to his breast, and the populace would grant him the respect any veteran has earned and deserves. In Michael's mind, Indianapolis should have metamorphized into a shining metropolis of reverence and awe towards him.

          The entirety of his three month deployment was spent in the mess hall of a base largely regarded as one of the safest places to be in Afghanistan. It wasn't until Michael's unit was to be moved several kilometers closer to where the fighting took place that Private Robinson felt pangs of fear rising within him. He never wanted to put himself in harm's way, the only reason he had joined the military was for a fifteen percent discount at most restaurants and easy sex when he got back home. Michael was largely thought of as a generally unlikable prick back home, but the army would surely force people to ignore these character flaws in order to see the hero dishwasher who scrubbed plates for their freedom.

          When the time came for his unit to head out, Michael was unable to properly zip his pack his fingers fingers were shaking so violently. As the heavily armed caravan lurched onward at a blistering fifteen miles per hour pace, towards what Michael knew to be his death, the three designated spotters had grown so tired of doing their job they had decided to begin playing a game of I Spy. Only the most seasoned scouts would even attempt such a daunting challenge. In a country almost exclusively awash in broken, I Spy: Afghan Edition is not for the faint of heart.

          One thing these scouts chose to leave out of their have was a medium-sized, cardboard box. If one of the men had picked this box up, they would have noted it took up about half of their wingspan and was heavy as hell. That's the problem with artillery shells though, their weight makes them difficult to be easily transported in a modestly sized container. But when you have every make empire throughout history try to invade your country at some point in history the rule of thumb is to use what the last invader left behind in order to thwart the current aggressor. Afghanistan is currently heavily populated with artillery shells and Kalashnikovs from the Soviet's failed attempt at lordship. The Afghanis were only hoping the Americans would leave plastic explosives and surface to air missiles behind as they retreated, moping, from Afghanistan.

          As this artillery laden box, that would contain C4 twenty years from now, pulled alongside the humvee containing Michael, a man viewing the scene from afar decided that he had waited long enough. His three wives would kill him if his terrorism made him late for dinner again. So this undersexed and 'happily' married man decided he might as well make the phone call to detonate the box.

          Michael's vehicle flew through the air, rotating counter-clockwise with a spin that out one sideview mirror over the other at an alarmingly fast rate. As Michael urinated all over himself, he had one thought before everything went black and the car hit the ground, "Michael Bay lied to me. That explosion wasn't cool at all."

...

          Private Robinson came to at a hospital in Germany. Those Taliban bastards had taken his right pinkie toe from him and he was going home a self-sacrificing war hero. Technically it was the seat in the humvee that crushed his pinkie toe, but that expertly hidden cardboard box did cause the car to topple so the transitive property shifts blame to the Taliban. All this made Michael a veteran and hero who had to be showered with praise upon his arrival home. Nothing in this world was more certain to Michael.

          The airstrip was teeming with what Michael considered to be the human manifestation of cancer, solely designed to bleed a man dry of anything earned or desired. Most petite refer to the crowd on the tarmac as family, however. Seeing as Michael spoken to his in years, his escape from the throng was quick and painless. Private Robinson had no friends to bid farewell either. There was one man from his deployment who was sent home on the plane with him. The guy was in the same car with Michael when the cardboard box exploded. Michael hated had for always getting to ride shotgun in Afghanistan. Just one time, Michael wanted to be the man up front, but it always had to be that dick. He lost both his arms in the explosion, largely due to where he was positioned in the car when the explosion occurred.

          During Private Robinson's respond departure from from the tarmac, he saw the now armless man he had served with and something inside of him changed. Watching that crippled man sobbing uncontrollably and forever unable to reciprocate the loving embrace of his wife and children, made Michael realise how much more revered that man will be for his sacrifice. All Michael lost was a fucking pinkie toe. That wasn't going to make anyone cry or embrace him. Private Robinson now had an even deeper reservoir for hate of that man as he headed towards the bus stop. He knew that no matter where he went from now on, he would be the one sitting shotgun wherever he went.