Phil Klay - Redeployment

We take Sweet out with the hajji and the IP and the jundi and load ’em all up and they’re off to TQ. I tell the squad Sweet’s got a good shot. You make it to Surgical with a pulse, you’ll probably leave with one.

Once the CASEVAC leaves, it’s mostly waiting. I give the LT my SITREP. He passes it on to Ops and they tell him that the CO said, Bravo Zulu, whatever the fuck that means.

I make sure security’s posted and that nobody’s in a postcombat slump. I’m definitely not. Normally after a raid the adrenaline taps out and I want to curl up in a ball and take a nap. Not with Sweet up in the air, though.

The guys are posted right. Malrosio’s team, God help us, in overwatch. Sweet’s team is not in a good way.

Dyer’s at one of the main room windows, but he’s not really there. Not tactical. First, he’s too close. Second, not even really scanning. An insurgent could probably walk up and grab his balls before he noticed. And Dyer’s covered in blood, Sweet’s and the hajji’s, probably. Packing a wound isn’t pretty. The sleeves of his flight suit are drenched.

I tell him, Come here. And since the main room’s got two bodies, I tell Moore he’s in charge for a second and walk Dyer to the kitchen and say, Strip.

He looks at me.

You can’t wear those, I say.

He strips and I do too. I see the huge Superman S he got tattooed on his chest before deployment. Everyone makes fun of him for that, but I don’t say anything now. I take off my flight suit and give it to him. I put my PPE back on, roll up Dyer’s suit under my arm, and walk back out into the main room wearing just my boots, my flak, my skivvy shorts, and my Kevlar. My legs and arms haven’t seen the sun in a while and are pale as pigeon shit. Moore sees me and starts smiling. McKeown sees Moore smiling and starts cracking up. I’m like, Fuck you, I look sexy.

LT’s in a corner with Doc. He takes in my legs sticking out of my flak and doesn’t smile, just says, Good thing you wore skivvies today.

I say, Hey, Doc, what the fuck? And I nod toward the door to the basement.

Doc shakes his head. Beat up pretty bad, he says. I think with hoses. A lot of lacerations all over their skin and the bottoms of their feet especially. And they took a power drill through their ankles, right at the joint, so they’re pretty much fucked for life. Not life-threatening, though.

LT says, They were gonna videotape them.

Doc says, They put them up in front of the camera, like, “Get ready to die, kuffar, ” and then realized they were out of film.

LT says, There’s two more out there. The ones they sent to get film. Probably never see them again, but keep an eye. One might get stupid and try something.

Sir, I hope so, I say.

I go to tell the Marines, but the LT puts a hand on my shoulder. He says quietly, Sergeant, you ever seen anything like this before?

Sometimes I forget it’s his first deployment. I shrug. Adrenaline’s gone now, and I’ve got that deep tired. Not this, exactly, I say, but there’s not much that’d surprise me. At least it’s not kids.

LT nods.

Sir, I say, don’t let yourself think about it until we’re back in the States.

Right, he says. He looks out to the road and adds, Well, EOD’s coming for the cache. They said don’t fuck with anything.

I say, I don’t play with bombs, sir.

He says, As soon as they’re done, we go check on Sweet. He’s at TQ.

He okay? I say.

He will be, he says.

I go check on my men. EOD comes pretty quick, and I see it’s Staff Sergeant Cody’s team. Cody’s a down-home Tennessee boy, and he points to my bare legs and gives me a big old country grin.

When you’re done fucking these hajjis, he says, you’re supposed to put your pants back on.

While his team is dealing with the UXO, I deal with Dyer’s flight suit. Moore gets me some gasoline from the basement, and we douse it and set it on fire. These things are supposed to be flame resistant, it’s why we wear them, but it goes up fine.

Looking at the flames, I ask Moore, Were you gonna stomp that hajji downstairs?

Would’ve deserved it, he says.

Not the point, I say. Your Marines see you fucked up over this, then they start thinking about how fucked up it all is. And we don’t have time to deal with that. We’ve got another patrol tomorrow.

LT walks over with a spare flight suit. Change, he says. We’re going straight to TQ. Sweet’s stabilized, but they’re gonna fly him to Germany soon. IP and jundi are stabilized, too. Hajji didn’t make it.

I take the flight suit and tell Moore, Pass to the squad that Sweet’s okay, and don’t mention hajji dying.

I go back to the kitchen and change over, and by that time EOD’s done, so we all roll.

As we’re driving to TQ, McKeown says, Hey, at least we saved those guys’ lives.

I say, Yeah, Second Squad to the motherfucking rescue.

Except I’ve got their eyes in my head. I don’t think they wanted to be saved. After al-Qaeda sets you up in front of the video camera? And you’ve been beaten and tortured and drilled through and you think, Finally. Just let the head come off in one slice. That’s what I’d be thinking. But then, guess what? Ha-ha, motherfucker. No film. So you’re sitting, in pain, waiting to die, for who knows how long. There isn’t exactly a Walmart nearby.

I didn’t see any tears of joy when we burst in, M4s at the ready. They were dead men. Then we doped them up, CASEVAC’d them out, and they had to live again.

I think, for a second, maybe we should all breathe out tonight as a squad. Get drunk off Listerine and deal with this shit. But I don’t want to pull that trigger unless I have to, and Sweet’s still alive. Today’s a good day. Save that shit for a bad day.

We roll into TQ, which is a huge FOB, all U.S. and Coalition Forces. We all clear our weapons, bring them to Condition 4 at the gate. FOBs are basically safe. And crawling with contractors.

The road signs to the hospital are just like you’d see in the U.S., a blue square with a white H in the middle. And there’s Marines driving civilian-type vehicles in their cammies, without body armor, just like you’d see in any base in the U.S. TQ Surgical’s in the middle of the FOB, next to the Dark Tower, which is what the logistics guys call their command post. The road circles us around the tower, slowly edging closer. I’ve been here before.

We’re quiet as we get close, and then McKeown says, Sergeant, that was really fucked up.

But now’s not the time to have that conversation, so I say, Yeah, that’s the most blood I’ve seen since I fucked your mom on her period. And then the guys laugh and bullshit a bit, and it breaks the mood that was settling. We get out of the Humvees and walk to TQ Surgical in the right head space.

Inside TQ Surgical, Sweet’s awake but on an IV drip of the good stuff.

I feel good, he says, I’ve got my leg.

Another Marine had come in while Sweet was in surgery and things didn’t go so well for him. Still, it was a good day for us.

Except while we’re joking with Sweet, Dyer grabs a doc walking past and asks him how the hajji he shot in the face is doing. I try to catch Doc’s eye so I can signal, Don’t tell him hajji’s dead, but it’s not a problem. Doc’s like, I have no idea which one you shot. Besides, al-Qaeda gets flown out to a high-security hospital after we stabilize ’em. Right now you won’t find any here.

Then Dyer’s standing there, off to the side. He’s still in my flight suit, and he’s swimming in it. I put a hand on his shoulder and say, You did good today, PFC. You took out the guy that shot Sweet.

Next ward over from Sweet, they’ve got the IP and the jundi we saved. I step out into the hall and peek in and there they are, fucked up, drugged up, and knocked out. It’s nice in the hospital, not the blood and dust over everything like in the basement, but those two, even cleaned up, their bodies don’t look like bodies should. Seeing them stops me for a second. I don’t call the squad over because they don’t need to see this.