John Ringo: Yellow Eyes

The sergeant major stopped and stared at what had once been a wall mural of an American soldier in an old fashioned Vietnam-era steel pot, weighed down under a shoulder-borne machine gun, symbolically crossing the Isthmus of Panama. The mural was a ruin, only the artist’s name, Cordoba, remaining clear enough to distinguish for anyone who had never seen the mural when it was fresh and new.

“Muddafuckas,” the sergeant major announced in a cold voice with a melodious Virgin Islands accent. “Dis post used to be a fucking paradise, and look what’s left.”

James Preiss, former commander of 4 thBattalion, 10 thInfantry and future commander of the entire, rebuilt, regiment, ignored the sergeant major’s ranting as the two of them turned left to head east along the old PX complex, just south of the overgrown parade field. Preiss looked to right and left — assessing damage, prioritizing work to be done. This was as it should be; he to set the task, the sergeant major to tongue-lash the workers until the task was completed to standard. Preiss knew that the sergeant major was just getting himself in the proper frame of mind for when the troops began to show up.

I almost feel bad for the poor shits after the sergeant major has had a couple of weeks to brood. This was his favorite place even after thirty-five years in the Regular Army. Preiss smiled a little smile — half mean, half sympathetic — in anticipation.

Ahead was the post gym; built by the troops of the 10 thInfantry Regiment early in the twentieth century, a bronze plaque to the left of the main entrance so proclaimed. “I wonder why nobody stole dat ?” wondered the sergeant major aloud.

“Be thankful for small favors, Sergeant Major McIntosh. Though I admit I’d have been disappointed if even that had been gone.”

Kobbe was composed of little more than thirteen red-tiled and white-stuccoed barracks and one smallish headquarters building, plus a half dozen old coastal artillery and ammunition bunkers and a couple of sold-off housing areas. Whereas Davis was a complete post, intended to be sufficient unto itself, Kobbe was a mere annex to what had once been Howard Air Force Base. It had no PX, no real chapel, no pool, no NCO club, no officers’ club. In short, it was just a place for troops to live; happiness they would have to find elsewhere.

Worse, if Fort Davis was a mess, Fort Kobbe was more nearly a ruin. Everything was missing. If Davis was missing toilets, Kobbe had seen its plumbing cannibalized. If Davis had had its wiring removed, on Kobbe the street lights had gone on an extended journey. If Davis was covered with graffiti, Kobbe’s buildings had seen the stucco rot in patches from its walls.

This was natural, since there were so many more people, hence so many more thieves on an equal per capita basis, in Panama Province than in Colon. About all that could be said for the place was that the thirteen barracks and one headquarters were still standing, though building #806 was plainly sagging in the middle.

“That fucking idiot, Reeder,” commented Colonel Carter, in memory of a born-again moron who, in 1983, had just had to knock out a central load-bearing wall to build an unneeded chapel for an ineffective chaplain. “Why, oh why , didn’t somebody poison that stupid son of a bitch for the good of the breed like Curl said we should?”

Short, squat and with an air of solid determination, Carter glared at the collapsing building with a disgust and loathing for its destroyer undimmed after nearly two decades.

The Panamanian contractor standing next to Carter and surveying the same damage had no clue what Carter was speaking of. He assumed it was simple anger at the damage. He could not know that Carter was reliving, in the form of the falling Building 806, all his experiences with one of the more stupidly destructive and useless officers he had ever met in a life where such were by no means uncommon.

Carter shook his head to clear soiled memories. “Never mind, señor , I was just remembering… old times.”

“You were here, with the battalion?”

“Yes, I was with B Company as a lieutenant. I was a ‘ Bandido .’ ”

“Was?” the Panamanian asked, with respect, then corrected, “ Un Bandido siempre es un Bandido.”

“So we were,” agreed Carter. “So we are. Señor, have you seen enough to make an estimate of the repairs?”

“I have, Coronel, and the bill will not be small.”

“The bill never is, señor .”

They came in old and fat and gray, or — some of them — old and skinny and cancerous and bald. Still others — the more recently retired — were fit but worn. One poor old duffer grabbed his chest and keeled over while standing in line. The slovenly looking medics merely dragged out a stretcher, put the heart attack victim on it, and carried him to the head of the line.

After passing through the white-painted, World War II era barracks building, they left young and fit and full of energy. Even the heart attack victim left as young and alive as any, albeit a bit more surprised than most.

They came from such diverse places as Tulsa, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, in the United States. Many came from outside the United States altogether.

Yet they had one thing in common: each one of them had at least one tour in the old 193 rdInfantry Brigade (Canal Zone), soon to be reformed as the 193 rdInfantry Division (Panama). Many other commonalities flowed from this.

Juan Rivera, Colonel (retired), looked up at his old comrades awaiting rejuvenation. He had to look up; Rivera was a scant five feet five inches in stature. He couldn’t help but notice their proud bearing. His own shoulders squared off, automatically. How different from the gutter scrapings of draftees I saw from the bus on the way in. Ah, well. I had thought to live out my life in peace and quiet. If I must go back to youth and turmoil I would rather do so with proven soldiers. Besides, it would be nice to have a hyper-functional pecker again. And better to die with a bang than a whimper.

As if he could read minds, a soon-to-be rejuvenee said aloud, “Man, I can hardly wait to get back to Panama with a working dick.”

Rivera wasn’t the only one to join in; the laughter was general. He also suspected he wasn’t the only one who had had the very same thought at the very same time. There was an awful lot to be said for a second man-, if not child-, hood. There was even more to be said for having that second manhood in Panama.

There were a surprising number of rejuvs for what was, Rivera suspected, an important but still secondary mission. He had no knowledge of the algorithm that had set aside such a large number of potential rejuvs — nearly three thousand — for a division that would be no more than fourteen or fifteen thousand at full strength. He suspected that Panama had so charmed that troops assigned there in bygone days that an unusually large number had reenlisted and gone career in the hope of someday returning. Thus, there had been a great many more than usual jungle-trained and experienced troops to rejuvenate.

Maybe that was it , he thought. Or maybe we are just plain screwed.

The Darhel would have fumed if fuming had not been inherently dangerous to its health and continued existence. He might still have fumed, despite the dangers, over the potential lost profit implicit in the barbarous American-humans going their own way. But the thing which threatened to push him over into lintatai was the sickening, unaccountable smile on the face of the human sitting opposite him.