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.”