During the height of the Global War on Terrorism, Lieutenant Eddie Fitzgerald is sent straight from school to Iraq as a casualty replacement. Immediately thrown into combat, he must quickly overcome his naivety and earn the trust of his unit in order to survive. However, if hunting Al Qaeda wasn’t enough, he’s quickly pulled into Arab tribal politics and Army officer rivalries that threaten to spoil any work that he accomplishes.
A silver Toyota pickup truck pulled up on a hill overlooking the American Forward Operating Base and three Arabs in traditional, white, man-dresses got out. They hastily assembled a rocket launcher, nothing more than four rickety, hollowed-out cylinders, each loaded with a 100-pound firecracker, and lit the fuse. They leapt back into the truck, racing away as the boosters ignited and careened their fiery warheads at the base. The rockets, glimmering like shooting stars, arced up jaggedly across the sky. Three overshot their target but one flew on, straight and true. It angled low above the FOB, floated, and then nosedived straight down onto a porta-shitter, exploding plastic, feces, and a man everywhere.
* * * * *
ACT I
(FOB Talon, Iraq)
It was the heat and the smell. They were inescapable. People would look at pictures of this backward, foreign land and go, “That’s not so bad,” as if it were a vacation getaway, an exotic dry wine country. But it was bad. This place was the reeking armpit of the world. Here, the environment dripped with hostility. The leeching temperatures and dirty atmosphere saturated a person and clung to his very being. Was that smoke or diesel fumes in the air? Burning garbage or choking dust? To a new arrival this foul place flashed foreboding, like reliving a bad dream, and it made him question why he’d volunteered to come here in the first place.
That was Iraq in 2008. Somewhere close to Baghdad during The Surge in the war. Here he was. Forward Operating Base Talon. 2nd Lieutenant Eddie Fitzgerald, U.S. Cavalry, U.S. Army, had been dropped here last night by a Chinook helicopter after flying across the world in a Boeing 747; Georgia, Germany, Kuwait, and now here. And he still wasn’t there yet.
All he knew of the FOB and this country so far consisted of a blacked out two-story brick barracks with sandbags over the windows. He remembered being herded in the pitch-dark across a field of crunching gravel to his room, pulling out his sleeping bag on a metal bunk bed and soiled mattress, and trying to crash for a few hours. Oddly enough, the single noteworthy thing in his room was an old, Soviet vehicle part discarded in the corner. He deliberately remembered turning off the lights and crawling into his bag, but that serene, restful moment ended as soon as it began.
Fitz was roused from his dark unconscious by a shrill electronic voice bleating, "INCOMING! INCOMING! INCOMING! --- GET TO YOUR SHELTER!" Its cry seemed to emanate from the hallways and penetrate his skull. He spilled out of his bed and threw on his boots, no time to tie them properly. He grabbed his uniform shirt top and helmet and fell into the hall.
The pain-in-the-ass robotic voice insisted, "INCOMING! INCOMING! --- Get to YOUR shelter!" He ran down the hall to the only room open and alight and stood in the entryway. Inside was a desk, radios, and three soldiers sitting on a couch, playing XBOX on a flat screen TV, their backs to him.
"What the hell are you doing, guys!?" He twitchingly squeaked, "We've got to get to the bunker!"
A protracted, awkward pause occurred as the three men turned around to gawk at the interruption. They were two specialists and one staff sergeant and in that agonizing moment he could see their faces comprehend who he was and what he was saying. Another millisecond went by and their faces twisted into side-splitting laughter.
"Get to the bunker!" they mimicked in a squeaky voice similar to his own. They'd all now forgotten the game and were rolling over themselves giggling.
A child's hatred of being ignored and belittled welled up in him, and Fitz stood up straight, addressing the SSG in a more commanding voice: "Sergeant - you guys do as I say, grab your gear, and take me out to the nearest indirect bunker."
The sergeant remained unfazed but had an older man's gleam in his eyes of playing by the proper rules. He stood up from the couch and walked smoothly over to the lieutenant. He reassuringly touched him on the arm and guided him back down the hall to Fitz's room. "Sir," he spoke softly, deferentially now, "We get rocketed all the time. The worst thing you can do when you get indirect is to run all over the place trying to find ‘proper’ shelter. You hunker down where you're at and if your number’s up then it's up. And besides, you're in a brick barracks right now."
The logic of that and the sergeant’s calming demeanor sapped Fitz's panic level. The SSG guided him back to his room as if he were a child raving of monsters under his bed. "Get some sleep, sir," he reassuringly cooed and Fitz closed his door and sat down on his bunk. The adrenaline still throbbed in his veins, but he was flushed red from his ridiculous antic. It hurt that they hadn’t taken him more seriously. He was a lieutenant, dammit! He sat there for the longest time feeling helpless, angry, scared, but mostly stupid. The “incoming" klaxon had ceased and he strained his ears to hear anything outside the barracks. Any whistles and detonations. Any monsters. He finally took his boots off and turned out the lights.
* * * * *
He awoke at 0600, hearing someone else’s alarm clock echoing from the hall. Fitzgerald repacked his bags, shaved, and wandered upstairs to get some instructions. The Headquarters and Headquarters Troop Commander, a distracted looking captain, told him he’d be convoyed out immediately to a COP or patrol base. Those were the Army terms for temporary fortified outpost. It sounded like a stockade surrounded by Indians.
Fitzgerald somehow consolidated his duffel, rucksack, assault pack, body armor, and helmet together and heaved them all outside the front door of the barracks. He squinted and looked around in the daylight for the first time. The sun was a blinding, omnipresent amber blaze. He donned his issued ballistic eye protection, otherwise known as military sunglasses, and peered around. All he could see were more clay brick barracks, numerous tall wheeled vehicles, squat fat water towers, and copper antennae everywhere. Everything appeared a drab, monochromatic tan, as if the heat had cooked off the other colors. Either the fierce sun or the dust limited his visibility, but he couldn’t tell which. He had to crane his neck up to see a pale blue sky above the bronzed landscape. Crisscrossing away from the barracks were numerous roads with fire engine red stop signs marking their intersections. The signs were lettered with the comforting English STOP alongside an Arabic squiggle that curiously looked like three men rowing a boat.
The first drops of sweat formed on his forehead as he half carried half dragged his bags to the vehicles parked by the barracks. He noticed several soldiers readying the vehicles, every one with a Third Infantry Division patch velcroed on each sleeve. The square patch’s diagonal black and gray rows resembled a scrambled television screen. Fitz looked at his empty right sleeve and frowned.
“C’mere, slick sleeve!”
Fitz turned to see a neatly kitted out staff sergeant, scowling at him behind dark eyepro.
“What’d you say, sergeant?” he shot back.
“I said, LT, come with me.”
The surly sergeant ushered him to the back of one of the five MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles in the patrol, and he threw his bags in and sat down inside. This was Fitz’s first time in one of these new bombproof vehicles. They were the stubborn solution to increasingly high casualties in Humvees from roadside bomb blasts. However, their “increased survivability” meant soldiers might only be terribly wounded instead of dying, which to Army standards was significant progress.
He peered out at the soldiers from the back of the truck. They were crowded around their patrol leader as he gave his mission brief. The men’s ash-gray, pixelated uniforms clashed against their rust hued surroundings. Peering closer, Fitz could see that their clothes were slightly stained. It was apparent that the more the soldiers deliberately washed their uniforms in the muddy water the earthier they looked. Despite this adaptation, Fitz still couldn’t fathom why they’d been given gray uniforms in the first place.
As he quietly observed the men, Fitz pondered why he’d been told that truck drivers and transporters were the bottom rung of the Army. Despite the boasting of the Rangers or whoever, he could tell that these dusty, tired men with sad, solemn faces had been hit a few times before.
2nd Lieutenant Fitzgerald should have been included in the patrol brief, but no one cared enough to grab him. He was baggage. The patrol leader, a 1st lieutenant with dirty glasses, briefed the men on the route and actions on different forms of enemy contact. Then, as an act of consecration, the men all huddled together and said a prayer.
And with that, the men all scrambled to their vehicles and closed their hatches and doors. Fitz was seated in one of the four inward facing seats in the back for passengers and the driver and TC jumped in up front in the cab. The gunner came up the ramp and hooked himself into his harness, his turret open to the sky. His legs dangled just in front of Fitz and he watched him fidget with his M240 machine gun. He scanned the inside of the MRAP, noting the radios and the back of the driver and vehicle commander’s heads. With an electric whine, the rear ramp lifted and locked into position while Fitz buckled himself in. He heard the crews’ muffled chatter and looked for a headset. He put one on and played with the knobs until he could hear the intercom.
“Sergeant Stannifer – are we taking Chicken Run out to Dolby?”
“Yep.”
“Why are we taking that route? Didn’t Angry Troop get hit there the other day?”
“Because it’s the only cleared route to Dolby, the rest are black right now.”
“Fuck me.”
Fitz bubbled with anticipation and he savored it. His mind wrote off last night’s indiscretion. He was finally here after West Point, Armor Officer Basic Course, and the obligatory “Don’t Die Within 24 Hours of Getting to Iraq” one week course that Fort Stewart had required. All he knew was that he had orders to join 8th Squadron 6th Cavalry, 4th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, a cavalry squadron that had already been downrange for months, taking the fight to the jihadists. He felt so excited to be part of the avenging American wave of bombs, tanks, and men that would crush these thugs. Finally, something that mattered. Something worth dying for.
An ignorant anger welled within him and he embraced it. He’d often seen bigotry in others, but he’d been raised by parents who didn’t believe they’d been persecuted by any race or creed. A decade ago he’d been indifferent to Arabs. Yet now, after the Towers fell and Americans had been killed, he wanted to hate them all.
The swaying vehicle jostled him back to reality. It reminded him of being tossed about in a small boat out at sea. The sun, streaming in through the window slits, shifted from one side of the compartment to another as the MRAP maneuvered. The driver generously braked and accelerated at each intersection, forcing Fitz to cling to his seatbelt. He hoped it wouldn’t be like this the whole trip. Finally, after a few more rough stop-and-go’s, the patrol halted at the main gate for a last check. The gunner charged his machine gun and Fitz fumbled to do the same with his M4. He was going outside the wire!
The MRAP lurched forward and Fitz re-checked his gear. He was ready for anything and he craned his neck to look out his porthole at this alien Arab world. It looked like unimpressive brown earth with garbage strewn about.
It didn’t matter, Fitz knew at some point in the patrol they’d get hit. Maybe the vehicle ahead would get blown off the road or an ambush of small arms fire would start pinging off their vehicle’s armor. He imagined himself sliding out of a stricken vehicle and popping off shots into a swirling dervish of hooded Al Qaeda’s. How many medals would that be worth?
He lived out these fantasies to many glorious conclusions and sat in his seat, like a toddler strapped in for safety. The gunner’s legs still dangled a foot away from his face. The radio occasionally squawked some landmark or route ahead. He looked forward and saw the helmeted backs of the driver and TC’s head. Earphones on, intent on the road ahead. His mind drifted, and he started to feel the heat again. No one noticed when he fell asleep.