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we rounded the corner and as soon i exited the humvee, the .50 cal let loose.
then 16s, and SAWs, a 240.
THUMP!
THUMP!
THUMP!
rounds hit the wall. i could see tracers overhead and this was IT.
combat.
screams, yells. "die mother fucker die!"
it was loud. damn loud. so damn loud that all the movies and books and scenarios you played out in your head in the comfort of sunny southern california were shoved back into your balls where they belonged.
i was with a friend. and we hid. or took cover. which ever you like. asked each other if we should round the corner.
to round the wall of reality.
and we were hesitant. scared. confused.
i carried a shotgun. bennilli, semi-automatic. meant for room clearing.
but how efficient would that be against an enemy at distance?
not very, i thought.
and who was firing?
i thought the War was pretty much over?
rounds continued to pop all around.
ZING!
ZING!
so fast and mean. different when you're at the other end. it'll keep your head down that's for sure.
and it doesn't care that you went to catholic school. or had girlfriend back home who's getting blitzed in some seedy bar. didn't even give a damn that you're an American. that your GI Bill is waiting and you miss Monet and had a dog that just died from cancer.
despite the thousands of dollars the US government has invested in you, you're simply a lump of mushy fat and gristle.
warm. 98.6 degrees of human warmth.
blood; alot more bloody than you thought.
and it's red. but you know that.
so we waited. maybe a minute. maybe thirty seconds. i don't remember. but it was the scariest moment of my (our?) life.
it died down and we snuck out. took cover behind some concrete pillars and they screamed "Cease Fire!"
"Cease Fire!"
it dribbled down.
POP!
POP!
and no more pops.
just silence as the smoke rose, leaving sulfur hanging heavy in the air.
a few days later i found out a civilian had accidentally drove his car into our convoy.
and we trigger happy Marines laid him out.
wasted half a family, in fact.
combat.
a Corpsman went to help, but it was dark. he couldn't see. so he reached in and groped.
his hand slid into a man's head.
right into the brains.
warm.
98.6.
supposedly the Corpsman was never the same.
he wanted out.
of everything.
we stayed at that police station for some months. couple days after the firefight my buddy and i wandered the sprawling compound with sledge hammers.
nobody questioned us. they just let us walk--sledge's over our shoulders. when we came across certain things, we destroyed them.
i don't think we really talked about it.
we just destroyed.
no reason.
no anger.
no laughs.
nothing.
but that was 2003.
and it was a police station in the heart of baghdad.
