then heâd gone off to fight in the First Gulf War. That much he knew. âDonât tell me you found out in Kuwait that heâd been right all along.â
âFar from it. In my unit, we had black soldiers, and Jewish soldiers, a Âcouple of Asian kids. It was like the United fucking Nations over there, and we all had to live in the same tents, eat the same food, put up with the same goddamned heat and bugs and nothing at all to do. And we fought together, and not a single one of them wasnât as brave and as willing to sacrifice himself for his buddies as anybody else. They were good Âpeople. Real Âpeople, who didnât live for high, abstract ideals. They just wanted to do their jobs and go home. You know all thisâÂyou were a soldier.â
Chapel nodded. He had no idea where this was going.
âI loved those guys. Black, white, whatever. And I knew Iâd made the right decision. I would have stayed over there in the desert for the rest of my life if I could, away from American bullshit. Well, the war didnât last that long. We got the news the Iraqi army had surrendered, and we were going home soon. But then one day my CO, who was a real prick, came along and told us we needed to clear out this oil refinery where they suspected some holdouts were hiding, some idiots who wanted to keep fighting for Saddam Hussein or die trying. Our job was to go in there and roust them out. We did. Oh, boy, did we.
âWe walked in there with Mâ16s and grenade launchers, and we met resistance right away, just suppressing fire, but it seemed to come from everywhere. We could have fallen back, let them keep shooting until they ran out of ammunitionâÂwe had only taken minor casualties, nobody was dead. But that idiot CO of mine, he decided we needed to scrub that place clean. So he called in some mobile artillery, and they lit that refinery up like Christmas. Of course, he didnât stop to think that an oil refinery might be flammable. He killed every one of those holdouts, definitely. But the fire he started left six of my buddies in the infirmary, and two more dead. Some of those guys walked through the whole official war without a scratch on themâÂand suddenly they were going home with third-Âdegree burns, they needed skin grafts and antibiotics and none of them were going to be movie stars. I was lucky, I was behind a Humvee when the torch went up, so I wasnât hurt. But I bet you know how I felt afterward.â
âLike if you could have taken the place of one of the injured, or the dead, and they could be okay again, you would have done it in a second,â Chapel said. Survivor guilt was one of the toughest things about being a soldier.
âYeah,â Belcher said, and he lowered his head as if he couldnât help thinking back to that moment. âAnd I thought one other thing, too. That my prick CO was going to pay. I went and found him and told him exactly what I thought of him. Maybe I was going to leave it at that. But you know what he said to me? He said he was going to ignore my comments but not because of what had happened to my buddies. Because he knew who my father was. And even though he couldnât say so in public, he was a fan.â
Belcher chuckled.
âA fan. You get that? My bastard of a father had fans. I didnât even know. I didnât know just how . . . inspirational his words had been. How many Âpeople had read his unreadable books and taken them to heart. But this CO of mine, he thought white Âpeople were the best kind of Âpeople because my father told him so.
âI beat him so hard I was sure he was going to die. I wanted him to. Some MPs came and pulled me off him before I could choke him to death. They had to tase me. They took me to the brig, then they put me on trial. They asked me if I had any kind of defense. I told them everything. I gave them the most impassioned, truthful speech I
âFar from it. In my unit, we had black soldiers, and Jewish soldiers, a Âcouple of Asian kids. It was like the United fucking Nations over there, and we all had to live in the same tents, eat the same food, put up with the same goddamned heat and bugs and nothing at all to do. And we fought together, and not a single one of them wasnât as brave and as willing to sacrifice himself for his buddies as anybody else. They were good Âpeople. Real Âpeople, who didnât live for high, abstract ideals. They just wanted to do their jobs and go home. You know all thisâÂyou were a soldier.â
Chapel nodded. He had no idea where this was going.
âI loved those guys. Black, white, whatever. And I knew Iâd made the right decision. I would have stayed over there in the desert for the rest of my life if I could, away from American bullshit. Well, the war didnât last that long. We got the news the Iraqi army had surrendered, and we were going home soon. But then one day my CO, who was a real prick, came along and told us we needed to clear out this oil refinery where they suspected some holdouts were hiding, some idiots who wanted to keep fighting for Saddam Hussein or die trying. Our job was to go in there and roust them out. We did. Oh, boy, did we.
âWe walked in there with Mâ16s and grenade launchers, and we met resistance right away, just suppressing fire, but it seemed to come from everywhere. We could have fallen back, let them keep shooting until they ran out of ammunitionâÂwe had only taken minor casualties, nobody was dead. But that idiot CO of mine, he decided we needed to scrub that place clean. So he called in some mobile artillery, and they lit that refinery up like Christmas. Of course, he didnât stop to think that an oil refinery might be flammable. He killed every one of those holdouts, definitely. But the fire he started left six of my buddies in the infirmary, and two more dead. Some of those guys walked through the whole official war without a scratch on themâÂand suddenly they were going home with third-Âdegree burns, they needed skin grafts and antibiotics and none of them were going to be movie stars. I was lucky, I was behind a Humvee when the torch went up, so I wasnât hurt. But I bet you know how I felt afterward.â
âLike if you could have taken the place of one of the injured, or the dead, and they could be okay again, you would have done it in a second,â Chapel said. Survivor guilt was one of the toughest things about being a soldier.
âYeah,â Belcher said, and he lowered his head as if he couldnât help thinking back to that moment. âAnd I thought one other thing, too. That my prick CO was going to pay. I went and found him and told him exactly what I thought of him. Maybe I was going to leave it at that. But you know what he said to me? He said he was going to ignore my comments but not because of what had happened to my buddies. Because he knew who my father was. And even though he couldnât say so in public, he was a fan.â
Belcher chuckled.
âA fan. You get that? My bastard of a father had fans. I didnât even know. I didnât know just how . . . inspirational his words had been. How many Âpeople had read his unreadable books and taken them to heart. But this CO of mine, he thought white Âpeople were the best kind of Âpeople because my father told him so.
âI beat him so hard I was sure he was going to die. I wanted him to. Some MPs came and pulled me off him before I could choke him to death. They had to tase me. They took me to the brig, then they put me on trial. They asked me if I had any kind of defense. I told them everything. I gave them the most impassioned, truthful speech I
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