Ceremony

The ceremony had been short and sweet, a necessity on a forward command base where any congregation of people could become a target. First Lieutenant Charles (Charley) Lewis stood at attention alongside four other soldiers as a light colonel walked down the row, pinned a medal and saluted each man and then quickly left the tent. Charley's CO then shook his has as they watched the colonel rush out to a helicopter and fly away.

"I guess that's it," Charley said, "I never really figured out what this was for."

"Yeah, hard to understand sometimes. According to the brass though, that air strike you called in when you were on forward fire control apparently got some Taliban big wig. It was someone they'd been targeting from the beginning, so you get a Bronze Star."

"Damn, who would have known? Hey, they hit that one with a smart bomb didn't they?"

"Yeah, according to the accommodation here."

"Did they keep any video? I'd like to see what I did."

"Well normally that stuff is confidential, but I know someone over at Intelligence and I'll see what I can do. Just watch your email. And hey, congratulations," he said, shaking Charley's hand.

A few days later Charley got an email from his CO with a video titled, Trout Fishing in America. "Ah Brautigan," Charley said remembering the CO's book collection. He had spotted an author he'd never heard of before, guy named Richard Brautigan.

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Oddly, when Charley first met Jackie she had heard of Richard Brautigan. Apparently her parents had some old hippy friends and back then Brautigan was the man. Charley met Jackie while both were in Afghanistan and fell for her almost immediately. Romance was a difficult thing that close to the action. He remembered the first time they had sex, he was on top of her and had just started coming when a siren sounded for incoming fire.

They jumped up, pulled on their fatigues and helmets and ran to the dugout next to her quarters. Diving in together, they remained there in the dust and dirt for about fifteen minutes. When the all clear sounded they stood up and saw the enormous dust crusted wet spot in the crotch of Jackie's fatigues. Fortunately, they were the only ones in the dugout. They spent the rest of the night washing her clothes and fucking.

Afraid the army would separate them, they pretty much kept their romance a secret, telling no one that during R&R back in the states they secretly got married. While their friends in the compound knew they were having sex, no one knew of the marriage.

It was only later that Charley learned more about Jackie. She had developed a reputation of pretty much bouncing from guy to guy wherever she was assigned. She'd cling to some guy for a few weeks and then simply choose another. A former buddy actually told him she was called the B-Hut slut, referring to what the soldiers called their quarters (B-Huts).

Days later, as he watched her slither into some other guy's quarters, he regretted punching out his former buddy. This time he would have walked in and caught Jackie fucking the soldier if he wasn't on guard duty at the time. Instead, he settled on a second hand account from a guy who heard the action from the other side of a plywood wall. His description of how she moaned when she came nearly drew another punch from Charley.

When Charley confronted Jackie about what he had heard, she first tried to deny it and then, realizing she was truly caught, explained how she just needed to play around. "Charley, it really doesn't have to affect us. I mean I still love fucking you, but I need more."

At that moment he came as close to hitting a woman as he had ever done, but he was able to walk away without any commotion. With the help of a few friends though, he was able to pass the word about the B-Hut slut, spreading the rumor of some nasty parasite she was sharing with the guys.

Although he thought he shut her down, it wasn't long before he discovered she had somehow found some young Afghani in the nearby town. He was hearing all kinds of rumors of how she was sneaking into town. A friend in forward fire control mentioned that he saw where she was going, in fact he could see into the house from the building they used for fire control observation in the town.

Charley immediately volunteered for the next several shifts and one night he was in position, watching through night vision goggles as his wife slipped from house to house, finally knocking on a door and slipping inside. Charley moved from room to room in his building until he found one window that let him look down into a bedroom. He watched a naked man crawl into bed. While on his back, the man watched Jackie undress and then crawl on top of him.

Peering though the night goggles, Charley could see everything as his wife pumped her hips back and forth, finally pausing as she apparently came. She then crawled down and squatted over the man's cock, where she fucked him good. Jackie then crawled into the bed next to her lover, toying with his cock, like she used to with Charley.

Realizing the position he was in now, he made plans to resolve the situation. Of course he could report her and she'd face Court Martial for adultery, but then he'd get in trouble for not reporting their secret marriage, as bogus as it was. No he'd have to handle the situation by himself.

He made sure he got assigned to the next few shifts on forward fire control and on the second night he spotted his wife slipping into the man's bedroom once again. This time, instead of watching her make a fool of him once again, he got on the radio and said he spotted some suspicious activity in the area. When he caught wind of a close air support mission that got scrubbed when forward observers realized the secret meeting they were about to hit was actually a wedding, he got his hands on a plane and a smart bomb.

Picking up his laser, he marked his target, watching the small red dot shining on the sill of the window through which he watched his wife fuck that young Afghani. Once the pilot confirmed he had a lock on the target Charley pulled out. Heading back to base he heard a loud thump that confirmed the target had been hit.

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Now, as he opened his email from the CO, he double clicked on the file titled Trout Fishing in America. The black and white video was very grainy and it was a few seconds before he could be sure it was then correct hit he watched. But then he spotted it. The bomb's camera pointed right to the building, right to the window of that building. Charley watched the window grow larger and larger and then, in the last instant he could see in the window, two naked people in a bed. Then the screen went blank.

Charley then read what the CO had written in the text of the email. Apparently the Taliban big wig was staying on the second floor of the building during his short visit to the town. The Afghani living downstairs reportedly had somehow infiltrated the local US Army compound and was passing information on to the Taliban big wig upstairs. Without realizing it, the B-Hut slut was feeding information to the enemy during her nightly sessions.

Charley turned on the video again freezing it at just the moment the two naked people appeared in the window. Amazed at the technology these days, he could actually see her hand down between the man's legs. He remembered how she'd do that to him. Feeling the tears forming in his eyes, the pushed play and watched as the screen went blank.

"So much for the B-Hut slut," he whispered, before glancing over to his medal.