Spinning #3

Brent Dunkleburger was my bunkmate during my first deployment. We called him DK because long names in the Army are never used. DK was the father of three beautiful girls and the husband of an ugly wife. He loved his family with every ounce of his 130 pound body. We shared his laptop. I was sitting next to him the day that his youngest daughter was born. We both watched the screen with tears in our eyes. His tears were from seeing his child for the first time. My tears were from watching my friend view his newborn child from 3000 miles away and still having the glow that a dad has when he looks at his daughter for the first time.

            DK was riding in the front seat of a Humvee the day that he died. I remember the explosion that rocked the side of his truck as a rocket propelled grenade impacted above the door frame. The gunner slumped over the .50 caliber gun mounted on top. Shrapnel killed him instantly. We opened fire on the area where the RPG had been fired from. We slung countless taxpayers dollars’ worth of ammunition into the block that housed the insurgent. As I reloaded my rifle I looked up to see DK moving the dead gunner off the silent weapon. I stopped and watched him set the body inside the truck and open fire on a mud-clay building. DK had a small smile on his face that combat brings to some people. He never stopped firing the gun. A second RPG exploded on his Humvee and killed him. He fell into the gun as his corpse fired off the rest of the 100 rounds attached to the .50 cal.

            I do not remember the name of DK’s gunner that was killed that day. He was a new replacement that had recently arrived to our platoon. I have avoided learning his name in the years since then. He was not my friend, he was not DK. His death, while equally permanent, was never as sad to me as DK’s.

Spinning #2

More fun from my Capstone project.

War works magic in the minds of its combatants in different ways. It causes some people to break down. They freeze up in a firefight and get killed or wounded. Sometimes they break after an event and just have to be removed from the environment all together. I spent several years being jealous of these types of people. I wanted to go home and know that war was too much for me. It wasn’t. Instead I was part of the group that became mean and angry. I did not become a mindless killer. I became someone that enjoyed the violence. I loved the smell, the taste, and the excitement that the violence brought to my life. I was not in Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. I was not in Iraq because they harbored terrorists. I was in Iraq to inflict pain on the enemy while trying to keep as many of my guys alive as possible. I loved it. I still love it.

            We were guarding Checkpoint 133. I was on the ground with our medic, Thompson. Locals would walk up to the checkpoint, get searched, and move down the road. Two men walked up. One was bracing the other. When they were closer we could see that the man being helped had his eyes sewn shut and had a very strong limp. They explained that his eyes had been injured during a firefight between the Americans and insurgents that he had no part in. He was just an innocent bystander who happened to get wounded. He pulled down his pants and exposed the horribly infected wound on his ass. I called Thompson over and asked him to take a look.

            The medic poked the infection with a large Q-tip and gave me a look that was a mixture of amazement and disgust. We asked the men to wait as we went to the Humvee and got some medical supplies.

“You know he was wounded in a fight against us, right?”

“Yeah,” I said with a smirk, “but he said he was not involved.”

Thompson laughed, “Sure, that mother fucker was just watching a battle and had nothing to do with it.”

            Thompson grabbed some pills from his med-kit and we went to talk to the two men. Through broken English and Arabic Thompson explained that he needed to take three pills a day for a month. Once the infection cleared up he should be able to walk without pain, but that the eyes could not be fixed with what we had. The men thanked us several times and returned in the direction they came from.

“Did you give him antibiotics?” I asked.

Thompson laughed as he walked back to the Humvee, “Fuck no! I gave that bastard a bag of vitamin C pills. Hopefully by the time he realizes they’re not working he will be dead from the infection.”

I just laughed at that, “You’re my fucking hero, man.”

            

Spinning

I have been working on my Capstone writing project. It includes taking a paper from another class and improving it. I have decided on working on a piece from my Vietnam Literature class. It is a weird combination of non-fiction and fiction. The idea comes from reading Tim O'Brien. This was also my first attempt and writing about things that happened during my time in Iraq. The other things I have written so far have been post war stuff. I find this much more difficult and more enjoyable. The paper was a collection of several quick burst of stories. A flash fiction collection really. Here is one.

I was sitting on the steps outside my trailer. We had recently relocated from a series of bombed-out houses to a camp that had two-man rooms. Every night concluded with a cigarette on the steps. Shockley walked up to our trailer and asked if he could bum a pack of smokes for his mission tonight. I liked to keep a drawer stocked full of cigarettes, and the word had spread that my room functioned as an after-hours convenience store. I reached past the Newports and grabbed a pack of Royals for Shockley. Royals are the cheap Iraqi menthols. I tossed the pack to him and said I would be expecting my $2 tomorrow.

Someone was beating on my door. I had been asleep for a few hours, but had no idea what time it was. My roommate got up and answered. Shockley's truck had been hit by an IED. Everyone was alive, but Shockley had to be medevac'd out. I sat up in bed and lit a Newport, and thought, "That fucker owes me $2 or a pack of smokes. Now he is getting to go home."