Brian Haig - The Capitol Game

Then Willy took over the story again. A furious sandstorm hit and left them all blinded as they moved in for the attack. Selma heard again how Jack made them all lash one another together with a piece of rope, how Jack led the team like a staggering mule train through the driving sand straight to the objective, and how the sand obscured what an intelligence catastrophe they were walking into.

It was a headquarters for sure, but left out of their briefing was that it was guarded and protected by nearly three hundred Iraqi soldiers, outnumbering Jack’s ten-man team by thirty to one.

Evan Johnson, the heavy weapons man, picked it up at that point. A simple southern country boy with a flair for homespun phrases, after describing what a big, nasty surprise it was, he said it was like sticking your fist in an “uptight hornet’s nest.” Four years before, Evan had used the metaphor of sticking your fist in a “big pool of bone-starved piranhas”; the reunion before that, like landing in a pit of “seriously annoyed snapping turtles.”

Selma vaguely wondered what it would be in another four years.

But before they knew it, the attackers were the defenders, surrounded and, as a result of the blinding sandstorm, unable to receive air support, or helicopters, or artillery, or even reinforcements. The battle raged for six hairy hours. Both sides pounded away with enthusiasm. Had Jack not ordered every man to carry triple the normal ammunition load, they would’ve been slaughtered after only an hour or two.

Like Selma, Jack sat quietly and allowed the men to recount the horrors of a day when by all reason they all should’ve been killed.

There was a reason for the prolonged story, though, and at the appropriate point the others fell silent and allowed Floyd to pick up the thread. He and Tom had been boyhood friends, after all; it was by now part of the tradition that he got to narrate the sad ending.

The battle had raged over five hours by the time Floyd weighed in with considerable drama. The team now was desperately huddled inside two small buildings on the far edge of the village. They were little more than huts, but the walls were thick mud that swallowed whatever the Iraqis shot. The noise of bullets and explosions had long since grown monotonous. Evan and Willy were wounded, barely conscious; the tourniquets Jack had tied were all that kept them alive. A few others had been nicked and bruised, but nothing too severe. Ammunition was now precariously low, a few rounds, then they’d be throwing rocks and spitting at the Iraqis; Jack had long since given the order to fire only at the sure targets. Iraqi bodies littered the ground around the two buildings, including two large piles of corpses where the enemy had twice tried to outflank Jack’s position and rushed straight into lethal blasts from the claymore mines he had added to their packing list.

The only hope was to collect some of the Iraqi weapons from the dead in the large stacks. After telling the others to give him cover, Jack made a mad dash out the door, dodging a hailstorm of bullets and rushing to the piles of bodies, using the corpses for cover as he stripped their weapons and whatever ammunition he could grab.

Tom made a decision to join him. He dove out a side window, rolled a few times, then stood and sprinted for the second pile, where Jack was hunkered down, gripping a stack of weapons and ammunition. About ten yards from Jack, he went tumbling through the air and landed just short of the pile of bodies.

From Jack’s face, Floyd said, they knew Tom was hurt, and that it was real bad. Jack threw Tom over one shoulder, hauled the weapons and ammunition with his free arm, and sprinted for the building.

He laid Tom on the ground, distributed the Iraqi guns and bullets, then returned to kneel beside the fallen man. Tom hollered at him to ignore his wounds and get back to fighting. Jack instead yelled for Floyd to come over and didn’t need to explain why. There was nothing to be done; Tom only had minutes left.

He began talking about Selma and the kids. He said Selma had given his life meaning and happiness, and he swore he wouldn’t change a minute of it. He was sad he was dying, but happy he and Selma had created two lives, Jeremy and Lisa.

By the time Floyd finished, all the men were sniffling and acknowledging how Tom’s sacrifice had saved them all. He was a certified hero, they all agreed.

And it was all a big lie. The truth was that after five hours of unrelenting fire, Tom had snapped. Whatever it was-the direness of the situation, the ammunition dilemma, the hopelessness of Jack’s desperate effort to collect guns and ammunition-he just seemed to outrun his mental tether. When Jack made the dash out the front and drew all the Iraqi fire, Tom made a foolhardy sprint out the back, hoping to use the distraction and the cover of the sandstorm to make his escape.

He was cut in half by an angry hail of bullets before he got twenty feet. There had been no final words. No dramatic farewell, no last thoughts about Selma and the kids. They collected Tom’s bullet-riddled corpse after the fight ended.

At the time, the mood of the team was fury at Tom for trying to run out on them that way. But Jack gathered them all together and made them swear a solemn vow; Tom had a wife and kids, after all. Sure, in a moment of weakness he might’ve tried to escape, but they wouldn’t run out on him. They’d been through lots of tough fights and scrapes together. They wouldn’t let one moment of cowardice be his shameful legacy.

Now, after all these years, a number of the men had actually convinced themselves that Tom’s final act of heroism was a stone-cold fact, absolutely the way it happened. Selma thanked them for coming and for honoring the memory of her husband, then slowly the group began to break up and go their separate ways.

Finally, it was Selma’s turn and she asked Jack to walk her to the parking lot and see her off.

Outside, she took his arm and said, “Strange how that tale changes every four years.”

“Memory is a funny thing.”

“Yep. Last time, they all swore Tom went out the door for the weapons first. They said you followed him.” She was looking at Jack’s face with her eyes narrowed.

“They’re getting older, Selma. Another four years and Tom will be wearing a blue cape, rushing the main Iraqi position, and pulling the weapons out of their living hands. How are the kids?” Jack asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Fine. Jeremy made the basketball team at Lafayette College.”

“I heard. He called me after the cut. And Lisa?”

“Got all her applications in. Straight A’s, that girl.”

“Gets it from her mother.”

“Who you kiddin’?” They both chuckled and continued walking in silence to the car. Selma had barely made it out of high school; her children would be the first of her family to graduate from college, much less such fine colleges. Lisa was hoping desperately for Princeton, Jack’s alma mater. She was smart, athletically gifted, popular, and best of all, a minority. The admissions people were making promising noises. Jack opened Selma’s door, but before she got in, she gave him a strong hug. “The kids and I thank you. Without that fund, I don’t know if they’d of got this chance at college. It means more than anything, Jack.”

“They all threw in some money to get the fund started.”

“Uh-huh.” Maybe it was true, maybe everybody threw a little cash into the Gaither kids’ college kettle, but Selma was not the gullible sort. At best the team might’ve been able to pinch together a few thousand dollars. They were all soldiers back then, living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to afford their car payments. And maybe, as Jack always swore up and down, his investment of that hoard might’ve fallen into a gold mine and multiplied a few times-but no way did he grow a few thousand dollars into half a million, enough for both kids to go to any college in the country, without a second thought to the cost.