It was my turn to endure the violation of personal space and the tirade of verbal abuse. I tried to keep my eyes forward, but I had to look the sergeant in the eyes. They were a piercing blue. I saw the eyebrows narrow, steeling for the fight that I had invited, and then, for a nanosecond, it saw it – recognition, followed by puzzlement. Then it was gone. The gargoyle face returned.
Maybe Stillman was right. Maybe all of us, including the CO, had been sent here as a punishment. Maybe it was going to be worse for me. You see, I knew the knew the Commanding Officer. It was Sergeant Coles.
11
Sergeant Coles and I looked at each other, each of us silently asking ourselves the same question: “What the fuck is he doing here?”
I wasn’t intimated by him anymore. He tried to give me his “I could kill you” stare, but I met it with equal force. I was mentally stronger now.
He was guilty and he knew it. I was in the power position now. He hadn’t participated in nighttime attack on me, but he had been held responsible for it anyway. It was his unit, after all. He hadn’t been able to control his troops. Turns out Command transferred Coles to the ass-end of nowhere too. Maybe Stillman was right. This was some sort of punishment.
Training over the next week consisted mostly of sweeping buildings to clear them of insurgents.
There was a small, fake “town” in the desert near the base. It was supposed to look like a typical village in the Middle East, so in other words, it looked like a jumbled collection of crap built in Biblical times. It reminded me of the similar drill site in Texas.
I admit it was fun kicking doors down and rushing into the rooms. I would get a big adrenaline rush entering the buildings, never knowing what we might face on the other side. It sure beat working at a computer.
Sometimes, the village and the buildings were rigged with “pop-ups.” Posters of people mounted on wooden targets would pop up when we tripped some sensor or motion detector or something. When one would pop up, we would have to instantly identify whether it was a bad guy or civilian. I usually did it by looking for weapons in their hands. We shot the targets or held our fire accordingly.
We got low scores if we shot civilians. A lot of times, it was really hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, which I guess was the point.
Overall, what I was doing here wasn’t that different from what I’d been doing in Texas, which made me wonder, Why fly me all the way out here to do the same thing? What do I have in common with the other guys? Why us, and why here?
I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answers.
–––––
Three weeks later, Sgt. Coles told us we were going to a new training site. We packed into three Jeeps. One of the “bosses” was in each one. Sgt. Coles was in the lead vehicle, Major Jones was in the middle, and Chandler was in the rear one. That’s right. The same Major Jones from the interview was out here. And this was the first time Chandler was coming out to a field exercise, so the day was already starting out strange. I had no idea how far that would go.
MPs drove the Jeeps and we headed toward the Rock. At the base of it, the road forked around the outer rim of it in either direction. We took the road on the right.
This is cool, I thought. I’ve never been this close to it. Now I’m going to get to see the back side.
We only got about halfway around the natural tower when the convoy took a hard left and headed towards the rocky wall. There was no road. As we drew closer to the face of the closest cliff, I saw a fissure. The crack in the cliff was so narrow it was nearly invisible. It was barely wider than the Jeeps. The caravan entered the chasm. It was freezing in there. I gazed up at the thin strip of blue sky high overhead, and then looked forward.
“It’s … It’s hollow!” Paco said excitedly. He was right. I could see the light of
Maybe Stillman was right. Maybe all of us, including the CO, had been sent here as a punishment. Maybe it was going to be worse for me. You see, I knew the knew the Commanding Officer. It was Sergeant Coles.
11
Sergeant Coles and I looked at each other, each of us silently asking ourselves the same question: “What the fuck is he doing here?”
I wasn’t intimated by him anymore. He tried to give me his “I could kill you” stare, but I met it with equal force. I was mentally stronger now.
He was guilty and he knew it. I was in the power position now. He hadn’t participated in nighttime attack on me, but he had been held responsible for it anyway. It was his unit, after all. He hadn’t been able to control his troops. Turns out Command transferred Coles to the ass-end of nowhere too. Maybe Stillman was right. This was some sort of punishment.
Training over the next week consisted mostly of sweeping buildings to clear them of insurgents.
There was a small, fake “town” in the desert near the base. It was supposed to look like a typical village in the Middle East, so in other words, it looked like a jumbled collection of crap built in Biblical times. It reminded me of the similar drill site in Texas.
I admit it was fun kicking doors down and rushing into the rooms. I would get a big adrenaline rush entering the buildings, never knowing what we might face on the other side. It sure beat working at a computer.
Sometimes, the village and the buildings were rigged with “pop-ups.” Posters of people mounted on wooden targets would pop up when we tripped some sensor or motion detector or something. When one would pop up, we would have to instantly identify whether it was a bad guy or civilian. I usually did it by looking for weapons in their hands. We shot the targets or held our fire accordingly.
We got low scores if we shot civilians. A lot of times, it was really hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, which I guess was the point.
Overall, what I was doing here wasn’t that different from what I’d been doing in Texas, which made me wonder, Why fly me all the way out here to do the same thing? What do I have in common with the other guys? Why us, and why here?
I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answers.
–––––
Three weeks later, Sgt. Coles told us we were going to a new training site. We packed into three Jeeps. One of the “bosses” was in each one. Sgt. Coles was in the lead vehicle, Major Jones was in the middle, and Chandler was in the rear one. That’s right. The same Major Jones from the interview was out here. And this was the first time Chandler was coming out to a field exercise, so the day was already starting out strange. I had no idea how far that would go.
MPs drove the Jeeps and we headed toward the Rock. At the base of it, the road forked around the outer rim of it in either direction. We took the road on the right.
This is cool, I thought. I’ve never been this close to it. Now I’m going to get to see the back side.
We only got about halfway around the natural tower when the convoy took a hard left and headed towards the rocky wall. There was no road. As we drew closer to the face of the closest cliff, I saw a fissure. The crack in the cliff was so narrow it was nearly invisible. It was barely wider than the Jeeps. The caravan entered the chasm. It was freezing in there. I gazed up at the thin strip of blue sky high overhead, and then looked forward.
“It’s … It’s hollow!” Paco said excitedly. He was right. I could see the light of
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