Author's Note: Here is the last installment into this part of the story, this one took a little long to come out as I had to make some corrections and take some details out to better accommodate the publishing standards of the website. Like I stated in the previous chapters, a lot of what I write about did in fact happen, save for a few name changes and a few details to protect the innocent.
I plan to keep a long series of stories going, literally the life of the main character as he experiences it, and I break it up into these types of chunks to better separate the stages of life. I would appreciate some feedback on this particular story, I am not sure how much detail the editors here will let me get away with, but the planned next phase might take long to put out if I need to make a ton of corrections.
Hope you enjoy reading this last part, keep the rubber side down and the wheels aligned. Life comes at us fast, all we can do it push the throttle and try to keep up.
Much love,
aka_Mike
...
The dream was always the same: I am walking toward my flight talking to an unseen individual. All I know is that in the dream I am getting ready for another flight back into theatre as overhead the voice in the terminal notifies us that a flight got cancelled. Not my flight, but someone's flight, and as we walk by the long line of planes there is one that is nothing more than a smoldering wreckage. "Well," I'll tell my unseen companion, "it looks like we just found out why the flight got cancelled." We laugh, we board our own flight and head east to the sounds of artillery and machine gun fire, almost like a well scripted rendition of a historical World War 2 battle.
The combined smell of gun powder and jet fuel burning fill my nostrils, and every time just before I am going to hear my companion speak, another sound wakes me. It's the same dream every night. A few details change, the color of the clothing I am wearing, the surrounding airport details, but other than that everything is the same. Even the moment when my sleep is interrupted is the same, this time it was the sounds of a large explosion. We had gotten used to the constant barrage of indirect fire from the Insurgent forces, the mortars seldom hit anything important but sometimes they get lucky.
"That's not mortar fire," Werkman said as he too was shaken from his own sleep. If anyone is more of an expert in mortar fire, it's him. A few days ago he had moved into the small shack, it made sense after all we were in the same squad, and we had spent many an hour talking about the various close calls we have had throughout our lives. His came in a previous deployment in Afghanistan as he was attached to a group of snipers overlooking a known terrorist training cell. Another group had been spotted and the all too familiar Taliban response was to clear their sectors using highly inaccurate mortar rounds. As the mortar team readjusted their fire and literally walked the shells toward his position, Werkman and his team remained stoic and resolute.
"I could feel the rocks from the shell impacts hitting my legs," he told me once, "each one pegging me like tiny ant bites. Then their fire shifted and missed us completely, or so I thought. Between the sniper and myself was a small crater, big mortar round sitting right smack in the middle of it. A fucking dud, I nearly shit myself."
Truth be told I more than likely would have shit myself, and as we moved toward the sounds of explosions and the wails of pain and misery I realized that he was horribly right. This was not a mortar round that got lucky, this was far worse and far more personal. The investigations later revealed that this was a suicide bomber that had strapped a grenade in his chest as he walked into the chow hall that busy morning. Whatever his reasons or logic would remain his, all that the investigators could do is make some well-informed guesses. I couldn't tell you what he was thinking at that moment when he walked through the doors and entered a building where up until a few hours before he had worked at himself.
All I can tell you is about the smell of copper and burnt skin that filled the air, and I can tell you about the screams and the chaos that quickly became well organized. I can tell you about how much gauze and kerlix I used that morning, how long my voice was gone from all the shouting I had to do in order to organize what little help I received. I can tell you how quickly we went from face to face making immediate assessments as to which person received immediate care and which ones probably would not make it. I can tell you the look in their eyes when you moved on from them onto the next person, their fate sealed within seconds by your experience and the amount of equipment on hand. Triage.
Hours passed as if they were seconds, more and more blood was cleaned, less screaming and more body bags were piled. Our security force quickly covered the grounds looking for a possible second attack or an incoming force, but they found nothing. Unspent tears just pilled in the eyes of the soldiers that were seeing their friends and brothers and sisters being solemnly carried away. A few soldiers yelled at me, blamed me for not being fast enough with my interventions, not having more medical knowledge than I did, for letting their friend die. I agreed with each and every one of them. When the last of the injured was treated and evacuated, Werkman and I made our way back to my shack and made our usual post mission tradition: smoke and breathe.
"We got a mission coming up," Werkman broke the silence after our second cigarette, "it was supposed to be intel gathering but I think that might change."
"It might," I replied, "when were we supposed to head out?"
"Tonight," a sarcastic laugh, a shake of the head, eyes drawn to the ground, I knew exactly how he felt at that moment. "But I don't think it's happening, our interpreter was the first one I triaged. Piece of wood through the chest, doubt he even saw it coming."
"When are we meeting the platoon daddy?" I knew this was going to be happening soon with the recent events, but it was not something I was looking forward to doing.
"Waiting for them to come get us, really" he replied, "at least for more serious accountability other than 'oh yeah I saw them two working the site.' But it wouldn't surprise me if that takes a while."
"Nope," I replied, "think it's happening now." The runner was driving the little rhino ATV like a man possessed, honking his tiny horn with a sense of urgency and eyes that reflected the terror we all felt.
"Holy shit, heard you guys were in the middle of it, we thought the worse" always with the sense of dread, the Fobbit, a man that never saw life outside the wire.
"You here to get us?" Werkman was needless to say not a fan.
"Yeah, hop on," he replied, "Sarge is going to be happy to see you guys. Word is we're headed out for a big counter offensive, and you guys might be headed out with the snipers."
"All of us?" Werkman always held a grudge, "or just the same names."
"You guys are on high demand," he continued, missing the obvious jab, "you got people asking for you left and right. Sarge will fill you guys in on the details, but as far as I know you guys are headed out in a few hours."
As we approached the main tent that was used as a makeshift headquarters, our driver made a showing of coming to a dramatic halt. You would think that the medics would have better accommodations, but the reason for these was simple: we could easily turn the tent into a facility to handle any overflow of patients. Also as medics our mantra was to always be mobile, this was the best way to achieve that standard, was it shitty? Yeah. Was it convenient for our needs? Yeah, at least our needs when it came to supporting our respective units.
