Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

“Quick halt here, guys. Need to update the commander.”

I went to grab the hand mic on Batule’s back, and when I got there, the world turned to mud.

•  •  •

I couldn’t see anything or hear anything, but I knew I was still alive because my mouth tasted like sewer. I lifted my head, heavy with helmet and sludge, and wiped my eyes clean, and then my ears, which filled with the staccato humming of machine gun fire. It was Dominguez, unloading the machine gun into the second floor of a sandstone house fifty meters west. I pulled myself to my knees.

“Sir! You okay!” It was Batule, leaning on one knee, firing into the same house as Dominguez. Over cloth, I grabbed my dick, my balls, my face, and my calves.

“I–I—th-think so!” I spat out runny mud. “The fuck happened?”

The words came back in fragments.

“Sniper!”—RAT-A-TAT-TAT. “Sergeant Chambers”—RAT-A-TAT-TAT. “Tackled you”—RAT-A-TAT-TAT.

I followed Batule’s finger to the square hole where a dark round had lodged into a concrete block — head level, right behind where I’d been standing.

I exposed myself, I thought. Made myself a target.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” The voice came from the front side of the Stryker. It was assured and singed, like the desert itself.

“Washington, take the two fireteams and clear that building. I doubt anything’s alive in there, but make fucking sure,” Chambers continued.

The gunfire had tapered off to scattered shots in the far distance, and two tanks rolled back south like a pair of cantering steeds. One of their gunners stood out of his hatch and waved at us. I moved around the back side of the Stryker and stood next to Chambers. His breaths were deep, but nothing else suggested unease. His back was straight, his shoulders cocked, his bearing pleased. He tapped my helmet.

“All right, Lieutenant? Gotta be smarter about grabbing the radio. Marks you as an officer. They know our procedures better than we do.”

“Sergeant, I…” I took off my right glove and put out my hand. “Thank you.”

I thought for sure he was going to say, I got you, youngblood. But he didn’t, and I was thankful for that. He just smiled, all tobacco-stained overbite, and took my hand. Then he winked.

After the guys cleared the building, I walked upstairs to look at the enemy. There were four of them, teenage scarecrows made of dirt, all torn to bloody straw. The one we decided was my sniper had brain matter spilling out of his skull, a white, slick jelly. Another cradled an AK-47 in his arms.

Hog came up, too, and vomited in a corner. Leaders have to deal with things like this later, I told myself. So I put those thoughts into a compartment of the mind and shut it tight and tapped at the floor and asked how long it would take the owners to mop up the jelly. Not long, came the reply. It’s not very sticky.

The next hour was spent piecing together why and how. The Iraqi Army said a group of Sahwa started firing at them while they were responding to the mortars. A tribal dispute, they claimed. The Sahwa said the Iraqi Army started firing at them while they were responding to the same mortars. A Shi’a-Sunni dispute, they claimed. Both groups said men dressed in black who appeared in the middle of the firefight were the ones who shot at us. “Jaish al-Rashideen,” the IA said. “Jaish al-Mahdi,” the Sahwa said.

“You know how they are.”

“You know how they are.”

I knew how they were. But still, I thought. None of the dead boys had been wearing black.

Washington got a medal for valor under enemy fire. Dominguez got a medal for valor under enemy fire. I got a medal for valor under enemy fire that was really for being an officer under enemy fire. Chambers got a medal for saving the life of an officer under enemy fire.

We drove to Camp Independence for the ceremony. It was held in a quad of yellow grass behind headquarters. Old Glory and the battalion flag hung from a pole in the quad center, flapping indolently under light clouds. Battalion staff walked through the ranks, shaking the men’s hands. The soldiers saluted their faces and laughed at their backs, calling them fobbits and rear-echelon motherfuckers, holding the ethical high ground of the grunt because it was all they had.

Meanwhile, I watched Sergeant Chambers and his intel girlfriend, Sergeant Griffin, talk in excited whispers. They’d snuck behind a storage trailer where they thought no one could see them. She smiled and squeezed his hand, and while he didn’t smile, he did squeeze her hand back.

The ceremony was short and mundane. The Big Man called us to attention and told us we’d lived up to the scorpion name. “This is what Clear-Hold-Build is all about,” he said. Then he gave a speech about honor and freedom and wished us a happy Fourth of July. He concluded by reading a passage from the Bible, Numbers 31:

Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water.

And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.

Being a Gospels man, I wasn’t sure what to make of that. The Yahweh of the Old Testament always seemed like a petulant maniac to me, though the selected passage didn’t sound so bad. It sure fired up the Big Man, who finished the reading by pounding a fist into his palm and saying, “Now you’re in camp! And you’re staying here, for the night at least.”

He expected the soldiers to cheer, and when they didn’t, he stopped talking and started pinning on medals. He should’ve known the last thing my men wanted was to stay at Camp Independence. We’d gone feral. It was no place for us.

When the Big Man got to me, he said he’d always known I had it in me and that I’d lived up to my brother’s name. He thanked me for my service to country, and I saluted. I’d never hated another man more.

Afterward, soldiers milled around in groups. I spotted Sergeant Griffin standing underneath a building ledge, and walked over to her. “We’re all really excited for you guys,” she said, beads of clear sweat rolling down her face. “Everyone thinks you’re one of the best platoon leaders in the whole battalion, even the brigade now. You did great out there.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Couldn’t have done it without my platoon sergeant. Wouldn’t even be here without him.”

She nodded knowingly. We spent the next five minutes talking about her son, who’d just graduated kindergarten back in Hawaii. She was very proud of him.

In the middle of the yellow grass, the Big Man yelled at Captain Vrettos for not making the violence go away in Ashuriyah. It was fucking things up all over, from Baghdad to DC. It was awkward, considering everyone in the quad could hear, so I dismissed the platoon and told them to behave themselves and not get used to the luxuries of base life.

The confusion on their faces said I didn’t need to worry about that.

We’d been assigned to the temporary living quarters on the other side of the base, a large tent with cots. I began walking that way, not sure what I wanted to do with my freedom, but certain I wanted to be somewhere else while doing it.

Ibrahim caught me at the edge of the yellow grass and said the intel officer wanted to see me. I asked what he had planned for the day.

“They got Skype here, so I’ll call my parents,” he said. “And tonight is Salsa Night at the club — all the fobbits go, it’s supposed to be crazy. Me and the guys are gonna give the females some scorpion dick!”

I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but wished him luck.