Fake It If You Don't Belong

She pushed the "Try Me!" button on the box, and the heads of Ernie and Cookie Monster started bobbing and vibrating violently. She looked at me and giggled.

I rolled my eyes, playfully, "Do you really have to push all the buttons?"

Cardigan ran her hand down the shelf and tapped all the "Try Me!" buttons. An army of Ernie and Cookie Monster heads started bobbing and singing.

She did a slight in-place hop and bob motion and laughed, hand-over-mouth.

Cardigan was accompanying me to a local Toys'R'Us. I was getting some early Christmas gift shopping for my nieces and nephews out of the way.

There's something about being in a toy store or the toy section of a store with a girl. They can be some weird strong, confident, West Coast, grad school law student variety, and yet at the sight of some toys and "Try Me!" buttons, they still get giddy and childish, wide-eyed and giggling at every cute, singing doll.

As the shelf full of Sesame Street heads bobbed and sang, I couldn't help but smile, watching Cardigan cheer childishly.

-

About two months ago, Titty got a hefty promotion for his performance at his company. He'd been there a year and a half, and after considering his contributions to the organization, they offered a huge chunk of money to make sure he never leaves.

About a month ago, Wall took a job in India. He felt that the experience and money was worth leaving home, and besides, he had no baggage holding him down. The salary difference was jaw-dropping, and the company would be taking care of all his living expenses. He flew out Wednesday.

Two weeks ago, I sat in on a meeting with the Client and their architects. As a front-end developer, I sit in these meetings only to know what to expect of the back-end model; I never care or contribute to the design. In this particular meeting, though, the Client had wrapped themselves into a problem they couldn't get their heads around. One of the analysts turned to me and asked if I had any opinions on the design. I took it upon myself to step up to the whiteboard and propose an alternative model.

Apparently impressed, The Company has since hired a new grad to take the front-end legwork from me. A principle had been sent out to oversee the business processes, and I was given responsibility in the design phase.

-

Last week, I was having a drink with Plucker, and he seemed reluctant to go out on the town. Titty, Wall, Plucker, and I had all gone to school together and taken classes together. We graduated from the same field and from the same school, taking a lot of the same professors.

When we graduated, it was Plucker who did not have the grades to represent his brilliance.

And as the rest of us took positions in big-named international corporations, Plucker took a position at a local office, working with backward technology. And while it's apparent that the rest of us are getting valuable experience and progressing quickly with our respective organizations, it seemed Plucker was being staff-auged in a dead end.

Plucker had decided that it was his time to stop moseying around and get his head straight. He'd decided he'd cut back on the weekends at the bottom of a bottle.

-

And so it came to be, this weekend, I had none of my usual drinking partners to accompany me to the usual bars. Instead, Cardigan and I attended a football game of my alma mater -- and her current school.

We won 35-28.

She also, then, agreed to make a Toys'R'Us run with me for some early Christmas shopping.

And I followed up by taking her to dinner at a family-oriented Italian restaurant, topping the night off at a mom-and-pop beignet coffee shop that my Third Brother used to take me to when we were younger.

-

I never realized how dehumanized I had become until I watched Cardigan childishly play with all the toys on the shelves. She would clasp her hands together in amazement as little fuzzy things did the silliest things.

For years, the people I hang out with were in bars, the girls I meet were in bars. The last time I took a girl out and neither of us ended the night shitfaced, it was 2003.

Good God, You're Dragging It Out

Ms. X called me out of the blue midday Saturday. She asked me what I'd be doing for the Halloween weekend. I told her of a club I'd be for a costume party and Seelo's birthday. She told me she'd try to get some friends to go and that we might see each other there.

I finished the conversation with an unenthusiastic, "Awesome. Hope to see you there."

I never actually expected to see her there.

-

I picked Cardigan up early in the evening and stopped at Don's apartment for some pre-drinking. Cardigan was dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood. I took shots of Goose in quick succession, and Don, Plucker, Wall, Cardigan, and I headed out to the party.

Ms. X called me on the ride out, "I don't think my friends are gonna make it, but I really wanna go. Do you think you can scoop me up?"

I had Cardigan in the passenger seat, and Ms. X was my high school girl. She's that one girl that guys always bring up when they talk about their history. The only smart and logical thing to do was to not pick her up.

"Yea," I replied, "Sure, no problem."

I don't know if it was the vodka talking, or if I really wanted to see her that bad.

-

As soon as I saw Ms. X, I wish I hadn't. She was wearing a strapless black dress, short on her thighs. Her hair had been done up all fancy the way I used to love when we were still in high school. Absolutely gorgeous.

And I honestly found myself wishing that Cardigan was not in the car.

Needless to say, the car ride was silent and awkward. I hadn't even bothered to introduce the two girls to each other. And to make matters worse, I actually missed an exit, which consequently made the ride about twenty minutes longer than it needed to be.

-

Then, I ditched her.

I didn't know what else to do, but the ride had just been too awkward. As soon as we set foot in the club, I took Cardigan and bolted into the crowd, leaving Ms. X by herself.

I found Seelo's party, and Cardigan and I spent the rest of the night around my old boys from the Wood. We never saw Ms. X for the remainder of the night. She called, assumingly to find me, but I never answered.

Ultimately, she bumped into her friends -- or so she told me -- and insisted that it would be more convenient if they take her home instead.

-

I called Ms. X the next morning to apologize. I'd been an asshole.

"I just..." she said in a soft, whiney voice on the phone, "I dunno, I just never saw you at all the whole night..."

"I know, I know," I said apologetically, "It's just that it got really hectic. You know how it is." I was lying. I did it on purpose, and I had left her stranded at the club. "Maybe next time. Next time, I'll be more ... accomodating."

"Maybe," she said.

I truly don't want things to be awkward when I'm with her. I tell myself that it was bad timing -- that I was with a girl, that I was partying with all the old boys we knew back in high school, the same guys that know what we were and what we had done. But I don't know if things can ever not be awkward.

And I find myself wondering to myself, if things had been different -- if it weren't for Cardigan in the passenger seat, if it weren't for the boys from the Wood, if it were any other night, under any other circumstances, would it have been different? Would I have manned up? Would I have been more ... accomodating?

Stabbs's Battle Update Brief

yo whats up, (if this text is fucked up, i blame the drugs)

yah i'm in germany atm. dis shit sucks, 2 months in and i'm already back here. the care here is a little too much, everyday i get 10-20 random people come in and say hi, and ask me if i need anything or blah blah. i did get to meet General Casey, and General Wallace. anyways the blast....

[identifying information removed]that shit was crazy. one minute we're all sitting in the stryker half asleep, i remember looking up at the DVE and taking note that we were moving really slow. a few weeks ago an IED blew up and put a 5 foot crater in the middle of the street. we were the lead vehicle so the driver rolled onto the sidewalk to bypass the hole, the remember feeling the small bump going over the curb, then BOOM shit kinda goes hazy, i know i was out for like a minute or two, something hit my face and knocked me out, my life WAS NOT flashing before my eyes or none of that shit, i honestly can't remember what i was thinking about, i opened my eyes and my head is spinning, my hearing's shot, everything is blurry as shit, and i have no fucking clue whats going on.

my senses start coming back to me and everyone's screaming, im in total agony for a few seconds till i calm down and realize i'm still alive. i look around me and the door is open(not the hatch but the door) i see a SFC telling me to get out, and i try and stand but i fall on my face, i crawl out. they took all of us to a house a few meters away, and i start laughing, and i couldn't stop. i was laughing and saying mother fuckers blew us up, they blew us up those fucking haji mother fuckers. a few hours later i was on a plan heading to germany.

i have a broken ankle, two other guys have broken ankles but not as bad as mine, one other guy has a broken femar and now he's slipped into a coma or someshit, his body is healing but something fucked up with his head. the other 2 guys have already gotten surgery but im still waiting. my ankle is so fucking swollen the docs won't even touch me. i gotta wait until monday for the doc to look at my ankle. i dunno how long it's gonna take to heal but i know ill be back in Baghdad b4 you guys leave.

let me know how you're doing. seriously, i'm gonna be fine, so let me know what you guys are up to.

btw the IED was command wire, they ran a wire about 1/2 a kilometer through a dirt field and into a house where they waited for us.

You're Only Making This Harder on Yourself

::::::

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for... is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-J.S. Mill

::::::

I get frustrated that this country is so broke sometimes, and I'm not talking about only the things we've broken--the rubble and crumbling infrastructure--I'm talking about the broken Iraqi people. We're here to help them... but a lot of days, I'm just like, "Fuck. Iraqis." I could live the rest of my life without ever dealing with another Iraqi.

They're unprofessional, suffer an epic sense of entitlement, and they're complete cowards.

For example, we've hired a local contractor to fix the plumbing of a school. He agreed on a generous payment, took the initial payment, and then never did any fucking work on it. He said that he did only the work agreed to, that the rest of it doesn't concern him. And he demands the rest of the money. Another guy we tried to hire, he said that he'd e-mail us the scope of labor in 24 hours, but 72 hours later, we're calling him again for the e-mail. Another guy, Abu Ali, the one who runs the little convenience shop on the COP, he'll promise to order us 7 t-shirts of very specific colors that we wrote down in Arabic for him, and a week later, he'll give us 7 black t-shirts. It's like the idea of honoring agreements is completely mystical and foreign to them.

Part of that problem might be their sense of entitlement. They expect hand-outs from us, and if we give them nothing, we are evil and selfish and greedy for it. Seems like every time I patrol the streets, Iraqi children would swarm me and demand money, chocolate, and pens from me. I tell them I don't have anything, and they harass and crowd me. They'll even try to jack my pen when I take it out to write down notes, like, say the name of shopkeeper we're talking to. It makes me nervous because it takes an incredible amount of self-control to keep myself from smacking some street rat with the butt of my rifle.

Even detainees make unreasonable demands: few weeks ago, some detainees in our holding area rejected the food we gave them. They said they wanted better food. It was the same fucking food that we eat (no pork that day), but it wasn't good enough for them. Few days ago, a detainee refused medical treatment for his diabetes unless we gave him a cigarette. YOU'RE A FUCKING DETAINEE--YOU HAVE NO BARGAINING POWER WITH ME, ASSHOLE.

I'd heard that the Abu Ghraib scandal destroyed our credibility and moral high ground, but I think if anything, it's only given this nation of career victims an excuse to beg for more handouts and make more demands from us. It's only given them an excuse to pawn the work of rebuilding this country on us.

The worst thing of all that they're fucking cowards. There are no brave Iraqis willing to fight for themselves; there are only opportunistic bullies who are ready to rob others of their possessions, opportunities, and lives. In the dark of night, they kill each other for their houses, for blood, for U.S. contracts. They are a nation of bystanders willing to watch their homeland burn instead of sacrificing to improve their own lives.

And.... that's just how the people are. I didn't come here to fix the people. I came here to fix our mistakes, not Allah's.

::::::

I know I don't really mean all the things I just wrote, at least, not all of the time. Sometimes, I almost believe that they deserve our sacrifices. But God damn, man, fucking help me help you. Stop blowing up my friends and maybe your country will get somewhere....

Closer

Have you heard about what happened to [Stabbs]? The vehicle he was in got hit by a VBIED. All the bones in one of his feet were broken. They already have him back in Germany. It is believed that he may lose his foot. Not sure exactly, but this is coming from [Regiment]. Do you know how to get in contact with him on the civilian side?

-Cowboy, Friends, 22:35 24 Oct 2007

::::::

Stabbs is a cocky son of a bitch. Got his nickname when he came to the unit last Christmas. Drunk on German brew, he got into a bar fight at the bahnhof with some grunts from another squadron. By the time he walked away, some chump was bleeding on the pavement. The other guy claimed he was stabbed, and despite beating down both the bloody schmuck and the criminal charge, Stabbs was branded with a new name.

He would've been in my unit, but my team leader at the time, SGT Daredevil, didn't want to deal with Stabb's attitude, so he traded him away for someone easier to lead.

I've known the guy pretty much my entire Army career, and while a lotta people hate his blunt arrogance, he cracks me up. People who don't know dismiss him as an immature narcissist, but he only seems that way because he's more concerned about being right than he is about being liked. Consequences-be-damned, he calls out bullshit even on those who've got rank on him, and that makes him unpopular.

Obviously, I see a bit of myself in him. He's a bit rougher around the edges--different, but still the same--in other words, a brother in arms.

I can not will not accept that he might be crippled only two months into the deployment. That this is it for him, that he might be discharged from the Army, that when I got back to Europe, I would have one less travel mate to blow paychecks with. Who the fuck am I supposed to celebrate surviving deployment with? I'm grateful that he got out of that Stryker alive, but God damn, I am angry and frustrated because there's no immediate way to reach him. I shot him an e-mail but who knows when he'll respond...

This is fucking bullshit. This is bullshit.

The Gods Must be Crazy

::::::

Word was that the target house possibly had 20 armed JAM fighters and maybe 5 Iranians. The target himself was a mid-level terrorist, and maybe his capture would help us cuff the HVT (high value target) running JAM operations in our sector.

It must've been only 0145 hours when the platoon rolled onto the target street. Our PL, Pile-Driver, would paint the target house's gate with a green laser. My Stryker, the platoon sergeant's truck, would then breach the gate, and the dismounted squad on the ground would swarm into the courtyard, shotgun breach the door, and clear the house. That was the plan.

So as we pulled onto the street, the PL's truck drove past the target house and stopped at the next intersection to seal the cordon. 1LT Pile-Driver's truck faced away from the target house. He couldn't see the target house, so he had to lean out of the hatch, and half-hanging off of the Stryker, he flashed the lazer at the target fence. He was in full body armor and tethered to the truck by only his right arm and the radio cord, so he couldn't keep a steady beam on the fence. The green dot danced back and forth, a few feet to the left of the actual gate.

"Warhog 7, I'm lazing the breach site. Do you see it?"

"Warhog 6, copy that. Breach in 3!" the platoon sergeant said over the comms. He ducked down into the truck. "Everyone hold on, we're breaching!"

Warhog 7 braced himself against the opening of the hatch. The Stryker lurched forward, crashed through the brick wall, and backed out over the debris. My ass had 2 seconds of hang time before I slammed violently back onto the bench. Almost lost control of my weapon, too. Warhog 7 ducked back down into the vehicle and told us, "OK, we're doing it again!"

Again, the Stryker shot forward, but this time, it crashed through the iron gate. Moments later, shotgun blasts rang through the air.

We got the wrong house. We scared the shit out of the FPS guards sleeping in the courtyard and raided what turned out to be an office for the Dawa Party. FPS (Facility Protection Service) guards operate under the Ministry of Interior, and the Dawa Party is Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's party.

When we asked the FPS guards if they knew our target, they said, "Mister, he lives down the street. I show you."

They walked us a few houses down the street and pointed at another house. The lights inside were out. Again, we breached the gate with my Stryker. This time, one of the corner pieces of the slat armor fell off. We dropped ramp and retrieved it. The gnarled steel still had single bricks wedged into it.

We didn't know that the SCO was watching us through the Eye in the Sky when my Stryker crashed through the first house's brick wall. Reportedly, he'd radioed our company commander and yelled, "I thought this was supposed to be a soft knock! What the fuck was that!?!" Our rationale: with potentially 25 enemies, we needed to strike quickly to avoid a costly fire fight. But of course the "20 armed JAM fighters" were nowhere to be found. In the second house, we found the target and 4 generations of his family, sleeping the dreams of villians and madmen.

It came down over the net that we were to detain every male in the house and also the three FPS guards who'd helped us out. Among the 10 men we detained, one of them was missing a foot and two others also had to be brought into the detention facility on stretchers. The interrogators didn't even talk to them because they were so old, the interrogators were afraid they'd die under questioning. My platoon left a squad to guard the detainees and then popped smoke. They returned to Taji for refit while we sat around with the Al-Janabi tribe.

But it doesn't matter because we got the target.

On his wedding night, too.

He cried and cried and cried. Through his tears, he begged me to let him go. He pointed at my feet and made a kissing motion. I'd have felt bad for the guy if he wasn't a known weapons smuggler.

At one point, I went up to the bars, and said to him in English, "I know you don't understand me. You're probably thinking about your new bride. Don't worry, your buddy Ali will take care of her. He says you don't deserve her anyways."

::::::

Identity

::::::

The price for my head is $10,0000 USD. I'm just an enlisted soldier. The price for an officer is $20,000. And the price for an interpreter is $30,000.

The 'terps at my COP always roll on mission with sunglasses and bandanas on. Some wear black ski masks in the 120° heat. Those things won't protect them from getting shot by a sniper, but it will protect their families. Without their masks, someone might recognize the 'terp on the street and then the 'terp's family disappears. It's such a paranoid world they work in, they don't even use their own names. They use codenames like Star, Roma, Fly, and Fox. Who knows when a dirty 'terp will blow a good 'terp's cover?

Today, one of the lieutenants, a West Pointer, blew Fox's cover. The West Point LT brought in NPs to our COP unanounced. The NP are National Police, which are like regular police, except they wear blue digital camouflage. (I'm sure they're different in other ways, but I don't see any.) The NP might as well all be JAM members with badges and AKs.

Because the West Point LT brought the NPs unanounced, Fox was walking around with his face exposed. He saw them and did an about-face for his room. He hid in there until they left. He thought about his wife and daughter. They live across Baghdad from here, and there are 7 million people living in Baghdad. But the NP saw his face and this is the second time the West Point LT has blown Fox's cover. And now he wants to quit.

The Parent Trap

Today I didn't even have to use my AK,
I gotta say it was a good day
-Ice Cube, Today was a Good Day

::::::

My first mission outside the wire, we drove around our AO and did snap TCPs (traffic control points). The idea is that you stop a handful of random cars in traffic, pull them out, search their vehicles, search their bodies, check their ID cards, and maybe you'll end up catching a white Open shit-packed with AK-47's. It's a fucking random and haphazard way of trying to nab the bad guys, but our commanders wanted to show presence in the area.

Anyway, as I was pulling security on a crossroad, a lady in a burqa, one them all-black Arabian ninja costumes, walks right through our operation with her 2 little boys. I looked around at the other soldier across the intersection and there was no reaction.

"What the fuck!?!" I said.

My buddy 5 meters away asks, "What?"

"Dude, this bitch just walked through our AO with her two kids like we didn't exist. What the fuck kind of irresponsible-assed parents are these Iraqis? I know I wouldn't walk my kids through a military operation with Strykers and soldiers and guns. Out in Sadr City like this, we're fucking RPG magnets, man!"

"I guess that's how you know we're safe. When they'll walk right through our operation like that."

That day, again and again parents would walk their kids right through our operations while we pulled people outta their cars and frisked them for contraband. Even if they weren't lying to me, even if their neighborhood is the safest place in all of Iraq, I was stunned that they acted like we don't all have loaded weapons with at least 210 rounds of ammo each.

Today, our PL (platoon leader) briefed us that now that Ramadan was winding down, we have something new to think about: this year, Airsoft replicas of AK-47s and MP5s have been an extremely popular gift for young boys. Already, some unit was on patrol when some jackasses popped off some fireworks, and when the soldiers turned around, there was a 12-year-old boy pointing an AK-47 at the soldiers. Of course the kid got shot. He was pointing what looked like a real weapon at infantrymen. The unit medevac'ed the kid outta there to a hospital, and I think he'll be OK. Better than OK, he'll be smarter--he'll know not to point anything that looks like a weapon at U.S. soldiers. And... I guess we gotta be a little more hesitant to squeeze the trigger. Maybe, but probably not.

But what the fuck kind of irresponsible-assed parents are gonna give their kids realistic toy guns to point at American soldiers?

Iraqi parents, that's who.

Fear and Loathing

Snipers can terrorize and shut down forces much larger and better armed than them. The only real way of dealing with a sniper is to kill the sniper, but in the city, it is almost impossible to catch or kill the sniper. We think there's a sniper or sniper team that's been rolling around in a van, following U.S. patrols and taking potshots at us. The guys want to torture the sniper when we find him, but I wonder if we ever will. It took the FBI a lot of coordination, a lot of time, and a lot of victims to catch the Beltway Sniper back in 2001.

We've just started with operations, and this sniper has completely changed the way we operate. Everything is speed, violence of action, and limiting exposure time. This is not how I want to roll for the next 14 months. This is not how we get the locals to like and trust us.

I don't know. I just don't know. We need to kill the snipers.

Telescope Eyes

Today my platoon suffered our first KIA this deployment. Sniper hit him through the side of the head as he was giving some Iraqi kid a soccer ball. Some of those children even cheered as the platoon loaded him into the PL's truck, his blood spilling everywhere. One his best friends, the RTO (radio-telecoms operator), had to hold parts of his brain in while he was escorted back to the COP to be stabilized and then airlifted to surgery. He died on that flight out of the COP, but everyone knew he was dead as soon as he got hit. You don't survive that kind of a shot.

The guys cleaned themselves of blood as much as possible, and then four hours later had to go on another patrol. The 21-year-old RTO had to sit in the back of the same bload-soaked Stryker that he had hours before just held his dying friend.

Tales of a Scorched Earth

Stress is an ignorant state. it believes that everything is an emergency.

-Natalie Goldberg

::::::

An IED (improvised explosive device), possibly an EFP (explosively formed penetrator), tore through a Stryker in my platoon today on Route Tampa West, Baghdad. Some 100 pounds of explosives burned the fucker to the ground, but nobody got hurt.

Stryker soldiers will tell you that they'd rather ride in a Stryker than a humvee. Strykers are faster and have more armor. Outside of EFPs and deep-buried IEDs, nothing can touch Stryker passengers. But everyone else talks about how Strykers get torn up left and right, how Strykers piss off the locals because they're so huge that they demolish the streets and rip up the power lines and phone lines they roll through. Non-Stryker soldiers criticize that Strykers are nothing more than big rolling targets.

Yesterday an IED blew up a block away from one of my buddies on patrol, hitting another Stryker. No casualties--in fact, the Stryker just rolled through the kill zone. The 82nd Airbone cats I'm with right now, they laugh at my unit because when the 82nd gets hit with an IED, they dismount, cordon off the area, question bystanders on the streets, and dare the bad guys to come fuck with them some more. Maybe that kind of courage comes with experience, because I can only imagine 3rd platoon's green PL shitting his pants when an IED goes off and screaming at the driver to de-ass the kill zone.

We've been in sector for a minute, and we've already been blown up 4 times. And now I hear rumblings of a massive, squadron-wide 3-day-long mission that will almost certainly become a 2-week-long mission.

The cats from Arrowhead Brigade that trained us up in Taji weren't kidding. Once operations begin, things get heavy quick.

Welcome to the Jungle

::::::

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

::::::

Mixon desperately screamed, "Stop! Stop!! STOP! STOP!! STOP!!!"

The PL (platoon leader) and the driver couldn't hear Mixon over the Stryker's internal comms (communications system), so our Stryker kept backing until we all felt metal slamming against the Stryker's birdcage slat armor. Mixon is a rear air guard--he stands in one of the rear hatches and he watches the backside of the Stryker with his 240 Bravo machine gun.

The PL ripped off his CVC (combat vehicle communications) helmet and furiously demanded, "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING?"

"He did!" the senior sergeant said. "You just weren't paying attention."

The PL was already in a panic. He'd ordered the driver down a few wrong turns and had gotten all four vehicles of 3rd platoon lost. At 1124 hours, we'd hit a dead-end and were backing out of the street when our truck knocked over a light pole.

The PL just couldn't catch a break: an hour later, I heard him screaming over the comms, "Remount! Remount! I say again, you just stopped a funeral!"

Our presence patrol was just two hours of doing snap TCPs (traffic control points): roll out in our Strykers, stop at random locations in our sector, dismount, pull random civilians out of their vehicles, and search them for guns, explosives or any other contraband. It's our commander's way of announcing the arrival of Strykers in Sadr City and showing the population that we're taking every possible step to keep the neighborhood safe for Ramadan, the holy month of Islam where Muslims worldwide abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours. (Supposedly, it's also the month where holy warriors will go straight to heaven for dying in battle against the American infidels, so we've braced ourselves for a month-long festival of carnage and car-bombs.)

Rolling up a funeral convoy, of course, will not win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

::::::

Sadr City is a 16-square-mile district in Northeastern Baghdad home to some 2 million Shi'a Iraqis. It is the safe haven of the JAM (Jaysh al Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army), a militia numbering in the thousands loyal to the warlord Muqtada al-Sadr. JAM has used Sadr City as a portal to distribute weapons--like the EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that will rip through the toughest of tank armor--and money from Shi'a Iran. JAM operates with near-impunity in Sadr City, running its own laws, courts, and executions, since it enjoys popular support and because no one outside of SOCOM (Special Operations Command, e.g. Special Forces, Delta, SEALs) would dare run a mission into the heart of Sadr City. It is an inner dungeon of hell that would make Jesus's pussy tremble.

When I say that my Stryker unit goes into Sadr City, I mean, it stays within a few blocks of the district borders because my commanders are shit-scared of us starring in Black Hawk Down, Baghdad Edition.

::::::

After the presence patrol, the unit dropped me and the rest of the torch party off at the COP. The torch party is the group that goes in advance to set up for the unit's movement into an area. In our case, we're moving into our COP, which is right outside of Sadr City. A COP is a combat outpost. Unlike the sprawling FOBs and camps littered across Iraq, COPs are small stations embedded within the neighborhoods they overwatch. COPs can usually hold no more than a few companies--Camp Taji could and does support several brigades.p>This COP used to be an abandoned YMCA or something and has one working shower. There is no dedicated chow hall, only a microwave, a cooler of frozen pizzas, and stacks of MREs. The building itself is surrounded by an inner and outer ring of 12-foot-tall concrete blast barriers to protect from mortar attacks. Despite the blast barriers, several neighboring apartments and houses tower over the walls, providing easy access for snipers to cherry-pick American soldiers. Just yesterday, the COP came under mortar fire, and last week, an infantryman took a sniper round through the throat at a fuel point a few blocks away from the COP.

I expected as much, but I was still disappointed that life would be so rough for at least the next one-and-a-half months, when we'll return to Camp Taji for a refit of supplies and equipment. Who knows how many months of my 15 I'll be spending here....

::::::

Once situated at the COP, we didn't waste any time holding our dicks in our hands. At 2217 hours, I was hoisting myself over a seven-foot-high gate. First squad had just gone over, and no doubt, second squad had already climbed over the secondary gate to the target's house. I nearly dropped my weapon as I landed on the inside of the metal gate. I flipped my NODs (night optic device) off of my eyes back on my helmet, and rushed towards the newly-opened doorway that first squad had breached. These guys work fast--they'd already separated the males and females into different rooms and were now clearing the second floor. The PL was pounding the man of the house with questions about the whereabouts of his son, our target. Me, I was just there to observe and make sure that no one points a muzzle at the PL or his interpreter.

We are RIPing (relief in place) with these cats from the 82nd Airborne. We're their replacements, and they were showing us how they've been holding their sector down. Left seat, right seat, ride, baby.

By the end of the night, we'd hit 5 houses, but no target, only a neighborhood of spooked Iraqis and one fucking lucky bastard who got away for the time being.

What Man is a Man...

About four in the morning, Cardigan and I were walking back to my car in an empty Midtown parking lot. I noticed a figure moving toward us from the far side of the lot -- a beggar.

I quickly let Cardigan into the passenger side, and rounded over to the driver side, but the old man had made the distance by the time I had my door open.

"Say, man," he said, "Say, can you spare a brotha' some change."

"Nah, man," I replied without even looking at the man.

"C'mon, man, help a poor man out. Can I just get a buck, man?"

"I ain't got shit for you, chief," I looked up at him. Old, black, balding, shaggy grey beard, tattered clothes -- exactly what you'd probably imagine a beggar to look like.

The beggar backed off, "Why you gotta say somethin' like that, man? Why you gotta curse at me, man, I'm human too."

"Well, 'cause I ain't got shit for you."

"Why you gotta curse at me! Treat me like I'm human, man, please!"

"Quit badgerin' me, chief," I stood behind my open car door, "This is how I talk. I talk like this to every human being out there. Truth of the fuckin' matter is, I still ain't got shit for you. Now, back the fuck on off my car, dog, I swear I'll fuckin hurt ya."

He held his palms up and backed agreeably aside. I got in the car and drove off.

-

On the drive home, after having dropped Cardigan off, I replayed the encounter over and over in my head.

It could've happened differently, I suppose. The words that spew from my mouth regularly are pretty offensive. I didn't want the beggar to bother me, but he's a beggar; that's what beggars do: they beg.

"Sorry, man, I can't help you." I could've said that, instead. Why swear at a stranger just because he's homeless? Why shun a man for being poor?

I'd convinced myself that I was in the wrong.

When I got home, there was a pot of barbequed chicken, a plate of spring rolls, egg rolls, some Vietnamese seafood salad plate. It was my nephew's birthday, and my brother had thrown a get-together earlier in the day. My parents brought home leftovers.

My brothers throw get-togethers all the time -- at least once or twice a month. Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, visiting guests -- you name it, they dole out the food.

Everytime it happens, my parents bring the leftovers home. Nobody enjoys eating that shit days after the fact, but we choke it down because it's there.

-

Six in the morning, I found the old man asleep in the corner of the parking lot. He woke up from the sound of my approaching car.

I gave him a paper plate with a drumstick, a wing, and a handful of spring rolls. He doesn't have a microwave so the food will taste like shit, but for tonight, at least he'll have a meal.

And tomorrow, he'll probably have nothing. And it'll have never mattered.

But tonight I'll sleep with a clean conscience.

Keepin' it real in the Gelato

::::::

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
-Dante Aligheri

::::::

Camp Taji, Iraq is a huge, dusty, fortified slum. Currently, we live out of a warehouse shit-full of cots, bunk-beds, and soldiers--about two companies worth. We have huge AC ducts that blow gloriously cold air all over my cot, so when I sleep at night, I have to wrap up in my sleeping bag. The warehouse is surrounded by 12-foot-tall concrete blast barriers to protect us from the mortars that the bad guys love to fire but never learned how to aim. A direct hit on the warehouse in the middle of the night would punch through the tin roof and probably wipe out 100 soldiers, easily.

::::::

::::::

We have an early-warning siren that lets us know when a mortar will land in our sector. The third morning in Taji, someone woke me up and told me to get kitted up in my armor real fast, quick, and in a hurry because the siren was wailing. I didn't hear shit, so I scratched myself and went to the port-a-potty outside.

What I do hear, through the day and night, is outgoing artillery. At first, we thought it was incoming, but our MI (military intelligence) guys assured us that in the first 3 days, there's been only 1 mortar to land remotely close to Taji, and it landed outside the wire on Route Tampa. The outgoing artillery makes the walls shudder and my cot rattle even though the nearest artillery range is something like 5 klicks away. Whole grid-squares of Iraq must be getting pulverized every day.

::::::

::::::

Every building on post is fortified with sandbags in the window-frames and surrounded by yard-thick HESCO barriers or concrete blast-barriers. Everything is a dead, sandy color. Random sections of walls show mortar damage: Taji looks like a bombed-out version of Tuscon with sandbags. Some of the Army vehicles rolling around look straight out of Mad Max.

::::::

::::::

On the second morning in Taji, my section went on a 3-mile run on the hard-ball road next to the warehouse. About a half mile out, we encountered the Boneyard--both sides of the road lined with the skeletons of dead tanks for a half-mile stretch. If not for the random graphitti tagged up all over the tanks, it'd be creepy.

::::::

::::::

Taji has a large PX that houses an ADIDAS and an Oakley store inside. The PX has a large stock of pink iPod arm holsters and three-month old issues of Maxim and Stuff Magazine. The food court next to the PX has Subway, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Burger King. The main chow hall can seat an entire battalion at once and offers midnight chow for the night shift. The food selection is so deep, they serve kimchi, freshly-cut fruit, and lobster tail.

We have shuttle buses that run every 5-10 minutes. We have a pool and a coffee shop next door to it. We have one-day-turnaround laundry service. We have an MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) center that provides us with AT&T phones and free 28.8K internet for half-an-hour at a time. The wait is only an hour long, and only once a week do we have a communications blackout because someone from the camp dies.

We have everything we need to live in a war zone but still pretend that we're just slumming it in the States.

In the Aeroplane over the Sea

::::::

Ill winds mark its fearsome flight,
and autumn branches creak with fright.
The landscape turns to ashen crumbs,
When something wicked this way comes.
-Lexus, 1997

::::::

By the time we mustered for movement into Iraq yesterday morning, word had raced through the squadron that our regiment had already been hit: the supply convoy for FIRES squadron got ripped by an IED (improvised explosive device) and 4 of their connexes (shipping containers) burned to the ground right outside the gates of Camp Taji, their new home in Iraq. Taji is maybe 10 miles north of Baghdad proper and also happens to be our new home in Iraq, too.

::::::

At 0034 hours local time this morning, we were lifting off out of BIAP (Baghdad International AirPort) in a Chinook. The bird's gunner scanned the ground with his NODs (night optic devices) from a chair bolted to the back ramp, which was open--you could walk off the damn thing and fall 300 meters to the ground like it was a fucking plank. His machine gun swiveled menacingly at the empty streets of Baghdad.

The WHUP-WHUP of the Chinook's twin rotar blades vibrated through my body. I was shaking--we were all vibrating--from the bird's path through Baghdad's night sky. There was a fucking loud electric screech, like constant feedback from a microphone next to an amp, that lasted the entire flight, but no one cared. We were all soaking in our sweat and amazed we had survived getting onto the bird. A Chinook looks something like a blimp held aloft by twin spinning rotar blades. Entry is through the back ramp, but that's also directly in the path of the bird's turbine wash--the stream of hot air blowing from the Chinook's dual turbines.

My chalk of 12 had lined up at the edge of the helipad, each of us in full battle rattle (weapons, body armor, magazines, helmet) and carrying a full duffel bag and assault pack. When the Chinook touched down and dropped it's ramp, we dashed for the red glow of the bird's open belly. The rotar blades blasted hot, summer air in our faces, and our bags slowed us to a hopping run. One of the flight crew stopped us 10 meters short of the ramp and motioned for us to wait. The roar of the rotar blades deafened us, and the turbine wash roasted us.

I dropped my bags and brought my arms up to shield my face and any exposed flesh from what felt like an invisible stream of fire gushing from the open ramp. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I wasn't wearing gloves, and pretty soon my hands hurt, like I'd been holding them over a bonfire. I backed off to the end of the chalk to put as much space between me and firestream as possible. I'd spent the past two weeks acclimatizing to the Arabian sun, so I was fine with the 100°F night air. But the turbine wash easily hit 150°F. I turned away from the Chinook and tried to fixate on the rhythmic thump of the rotar blades slicing through the hot, thick air. When I realized that'd been angrily yelling, "FUCK!" I tried to think of the turbine wash as just a breeze. A withering breeze that gave my flesh the smell of bacon! I've never wanted to quit so badly in my life as I did right then and there. I was ready to throw my weapon, abandon my bags, and run away, man, I don't know why I didn't. Probably because someone might call me pussy.

Over two minutes! One-hundred-twenty-seconds! we cowered and burned behind the Chinook. They made us pass our baggage forward onto pallets, and finally we were allowed to board. By red light, we crowded into the seats along the sides of the bird and strapped ourselves down. The crewman that had stopped us dragged an iron chair onto the middle of the ramp and locked it down onto the ramp. He went over to a panel, flipped a switch and ramp began to raise. The ramp stopped when it was parallel to the ground. Then the crewman brought out his machine gun and strapped himself to the bird. The Chinook lifted steadily into the air, and as we bobbed and floated across the night sky, I gazed down at Baghdad and wondered if I was staring at the same streets I would be patrolling.

Wronger than two boys kissing in church

SPC Dallas and I were at the gym, loading plates onto the bar for the bench-press. "I haven't done this since last deployment!" he declared.

"Yeah, it's been awhile since I lifted anything," I admitted.

"Fuck, that looks like a lot of weight to start," he said. Then, as he began lifting, he grunted and said, "Tell my Mom if this kills me that I died in a firefight! And that I saved someone's life! Your life!"

"Haha, all right. And if I die... tell my Mom that I died because she didn't love me enough!"

He let the weights slam onto the bar, laughed, and asked, "What the fuck was that? Oh my God, you must hate your Mom, man!"

"Hahaha. Nah, I love Mom. I always joke with her like that. I'm just kidding, don't say that to her."

They Don't Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max

We landed in Kuwait at 2236 hours local time on 13 August 2007. Though it was night, temperature on the ground was 105° F.

Here are some things you might not know about the heat in Kuwait:

• The wind blows, but it's feels as good as having a full-body blow-dryer on you when you're already standing inside an oven.


• The heat is dry, so that I just wither. Most of the time, I don't even feel like I'm sweating--the air just sucks the moisture right out of me. It's only when I step inside an air-conditioned area that I become covered in sweat.


• I can't open my mouth or speak for more than a few sentences without coating the back of my throat with a layer of dust.


• There is sand everywhere, and it is very hottt sand.


• I sleep during the worst of the midday heat (120° F+!!) inside of a tent with A/C. I lie 5 feet from the vent and I'm still sleeping in my own sweat.

Other than the weather, things are fine here. We have the option of four meals a day here if we want (midnight chow!).

I got very depressed on the plane ride over here because I wanted a Vodka tonic very badly and it really hit me that I won't be able to drink for the next 15 months.

I am the Girl's Best Friend

Ice Cream is a sweet girl.

I met her early on in my high school days, back when I used to give a fuck about the people I met. Back when I was young enough to meet girls and care about what they said or thought or felt.

Tonight was Ice Cream's friend's birthday. She was also out, uninhibited, because she just recently got out of a serious relationship.

Dill, Seelo, and I arrived at the club after midnight; none of us had seen Ice Cream for several years. The greeting was joyous, though obviously severely impaired by booze. Ice Cream gave us our hugs and kisses and we chatted before going our separate ways on the dancefloor.

A few hours into the night, Dill, Seelo and I reconvened and we noticed a sight out of the corner of our eyes. Ice Cream was making out with a strange fellow in a dark corner. His hands were creeping up her dress, which was awfully long and far from something someone could accidentally reach under without effort.

"Who's the lucky fella?" I inquired.

"Never seen the fucker before," Dill retorted.

Later in the night, as the club was closing up, we found Ice Cream and asked her, "Who's the new guy?"

"I don't know... I think his name is ... Joe?" she answered, lost and confused. "Hey!" she suddenly changed subjects, "We're gonna go eat! Are you coming with us?"

We agreed.

On the drive over to the diner, the three of us guys were stopped at a red light, and a Corolla pulled up to my left.

"Where do I know that guy?" I asked, pointing over at the Corolla.

"Hey!" Seelo exclaimed, "That's that Joe guy that Ice Cream was making out with! Guess he's coming too!"

I shifted into 'park' and stepped out of the car. Stepped over and pulled on Joe's door lever -- it was unlocked. I sat down and smiled calmly at him.

He shuffled over to his side, as if to reach for something, but I jabbed him a quick one in the side of the head.

"Hands on the steering wheel," I commanded.

He quietly obeyed.

The light turned green, and he moved along with traffic. Seelo jumped over to the driver side in my car and tailed.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked him.

He shook his head silently.

"So, that girl that you were making out with in the club -- that's my baby sister," I exaggerated maybe a little. He looked over at me startled. I grinned. "Me -- I'm an overprotective brother. And you ..." I placed a hand on his shoulder, "You sir -- you are the one that made out with my baby sister in the club."

We slowly drove past the diner that Ice Cream and her friends were planning to eat at.

"Pull into the parking lot," I yelled at him, "I know where we're going, you stupid motherfuck!" He slowly backtracked and turned in. "So, you were feeling all up on her pretty good back there. Did you get her number? You know her name at least?"

He shook his head, keeping his eyes away from me.

"Gimme your phone," I commanded.

He reached into his pocket and handed a cell phone to me. I punched Ice Cream's number in, and the number on the display switched into her name, misspelled.

"Oh!" I groaned disappointedly, "You do have her number! And you misspelled her name." I turned to him with a dead stare, "And you lied to me."

He kept looking straight ahead, avoiding my glare.

I slapped him across the face with his own phone, "Don't fucking lie to me!" I slapped him to emphasize each syllable, "Liars make me angry!"

I stopped and deleted Ice Cream's number from his phonebook.

"Listen," I calmed down, "We're civilized men here. Here's what we'll do. If you walk into this diner, I'll kill you. If you ever call this number, I'll break your kneecaps." I placed the phone down on his seat, "And then, I'll fuckin' kill you. Got me?"

He nodded his head. I got out of the car.

I walked back to my car and got into the driver seat. Seelo jumped back into the passenger.

"You guys hungry?" I asked.

"Fuckin' starving," Dill answered.

We ate.

Emotions Come From Ovaries

Gotti stopped by the bench today to have a few words with me. I've been benched for a week now, and Gotti thought it a good opportunity to finally catch me during the free time.

We discussed potential assignments that I've been approached about and talked about how to utilize my time on the bench. As Gotti and I were making plans to convene again at a later time and date, Gotti's face scrunched up, mouth open, as he stared past me.

"Dude," he uttered, "What the fuck is up with your chick?"

I turned back to my desk. I had turned away from my workstation with Instant Messaging still open. This chick had been lighting up my screen with messages and Gotti noticed them over my shoulders.

"I think you're a good guy," she had written to me, continuing an unmemorable conversation we were having before Gotti approached me, "What do you think about me? Do you think I'm just some troubled, drama queen, psycho bitch? What do you say to other people about me?"

Then, it got weirder.

"What do you think about me? I think I love you."

She said the L word.

Then, she started spazzing out because I wasn't replying. "Luck? Luck! What do you think about me? Be honest! It's okay if you don't love me as much as I love you!"

Gotti and I stared, dumbfoundedly, at the barrage of messages.

"I was busy," I finally typed back to her, "I am at work."

"Okay," she replied, "So..."

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt," I sent to her, "And assume that you really thought this through before saying all this stuff to me. But whatever you had planned -- all of this probably played out a lot better in your head than what's going to actually take place. And let's just leave it at that. Because this conversation just cannot end well for you."

I tapped Ctrl+Alt+Del to lock the computer and slapped the notebook screen closed. Turned my attention back to Gotti, "Sorry about that. Where were we?"

"Dude," he gasped, "You are fucking ice cold."

The MRX*

They deftly maneuver and muscle for rank,
Fuel burning fast on an empty tank.
Reckless and wild, they pour through the turns.
-Cake, The Distance

::::::

It had been too long since the main gate had first requested an interpreter from us that day. Ajjusshi, my team leader, sent me to escort our 'terp, Bashir, to the main gate of FOB Brassfield--the forward operating base for U.S. forces operating in Samarra, Iraq. Bashir is a class 1 interpreter--he is not a U.S. citizen and has no security clearance. He cannot be trusted to wander the FOB freely.

I had dropped Bashir off at the gate with the boys from Nemesis troop and returned to my section, expecting him back in 15 minutes. Three Iraqi locals had come up to the gate, demanding something in Arabic, but since FOB security does not have its own dedicated interpreter, they'd called us to lend them ours.

When Nemesis had not returned him after almost an hour, I grabbed my weapon and went to investigate.

When I got there, I saw that Bashir was entangled in a new problem. The three other visitors had gone, but now there was a humvee parked at the gate. It had Iraqi flags on its side panels, and the driver's door was open. Next to the vehicle, Bashir and an American soldier were standing out there, smokin' and jokin' with a guy wearing the Iraqi Army uniform. I yelled to the sergeant in charge of the gate, "What's going on here?"

"This guy at the gate says he's here to link up with one of the companies for a mission this afternoon. Says he's Iraqi Army, but he wasn't on the access roster."

"What are we waiting for now, then?"

"We called the S2 to send someone to clear this up." The S2 is a field-grade shop that handles securities and intel for the entire squadron.

Just then, I saw a lone soldier trotting up to the gate from the direction of the Tactical Operations Center. He jogged by me and outside the gate and exchanged a few words with the Iraqi soldier before turning around and walking back inside the gate.

The Iraqi got inside his humvee and turned it around. We watched the vehicle kick up dust as it rolled away, and just as it disappeared around a bend in the road, AK fire broke out from the wood line, not 20 meters southwest from one of the gate guards and my 'terp. They were still outside the wire.

Immediately the 240B machine gunner in the guard tower returned bursts after bursts of rounds into to woods. Even if the shots hadn't killed the attackers, the machine-gun fire would keep the enemy's head down and allow our men to run back inside. The lone gate guard rushed back inside and fell into his fighting position in the guard shack. Bashir ran back inside, one hand atop his helmet and the other swinging madly. Over the staccato crackle of small arms fire, I heard a whistle and someone yelling, "INCOMING!"

I reached Bashir just as the first mortar landed. I have no idea where it hit, but no doubt the attackers would walk their fire towards the gate, right where we were. I grabbed Bashir's hand, pulled him from the gate, and we both took off towards the nearest break in the berm, 50 meters away. More mortars fell, getting closer and closer to our position. Even if behind proper cover, when a mortar lands close enough it causes a concussive blast that often disorients soldiers and makes them dizzy enough to vomit.

We hopped ditches, cut diagonally towards the opening, and I shouted, "There!" as we crossed through the berm and sighted the buildings of our own mortar teams. It was another 50-meter sprint before we crashed through their door, seeking refuge from the incoming bombardment.

There was some private inside hastily strapping on his body armor. He looked up at us, puzzled about who the fuck we were.

"We were at the gate. Took small arms fire and when we returned fire, they mortared us. You got a radio or a phone in here?"

"Yeah," he replied, motioning towards the desk at the back of the room full of cots.

Without asking, I walked past all of the empty cots, picked up the phone and dialed my team. When our FOB comes under attack, we bunker up inside of a hard shelter and take accountability of all of forces. No doubt my team leader was worried that I'd been caught up in the attack.

"Hey, Ajjusshi, I went to pick Bashir up, and we took small arms and mortar fire just as a local at the gate left. We're inside the mortars' building now. Gimme a call back when they announce the all clear."

"All right, man. That might be awhile. It just came over the net that there was a breach in the perimeter and there might be enemy inside the FOB right now."

"Roger that. Out."

I looked up at Bashir, who was breathing hard. Bashir is an older man, mid-40's, balding with a son almost 20 years old. I was surprised that he was able to keep pace with me as we sprinted from the gate to the mortars' building. We smiled at each other, and I told him, "You lucky son of a bitch. That was almost you dead out there!"

::::::

*MRX = Mission Rehearsal Exercise, the scenario-based prolonged field exercise that units go through as a final training before deployment.

Shinin' Like I Supposed To

Closing out the first week of training, The Company treated us trainees out to a Friday night happy hour and dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Rice Village. There, I met for the first time a couple of the more veteran employees. It was the first chance I'd gotten to meet any of the employees outside of my own training class.

The Company organizes new hires like a fraternity; we each get assigned to a Big Brother type of mentor, with whom we're supposedly going to develop a bonding relationship and receive guidance from.

My mentor, Gotti, is a dude with bleached, spiked hair and a very defined goatee. He says "dude" and "fuck" between every other word, so I assume we're going to get along just fine. That, and he called me a bitch for originally declining his offer to hop to another bar to drink.

I ain't a bitch, though, so I took up on it.

I met another guy, Lean -- a brawny Asian fellow that didn't work for The Company, but apparently knew enough of the employees to join their nights out. Lean was a cool cat with a level of confidence that just made him likeable. He had the whole shoulders back, chin up posture going on. He was an alpha male if I'd ever met one.

From the Village, I bummed a ride with Lean to a bar in Midtown with a Western theme. The bar was wooden brown from floor to ceiling, and there were saddles and longhorn skulls as decors plastered all over the walls. Stepping in, I half-expected to find a mechanical riding bull.

The crowd, however, was nothing like the place. It was a college crowd and young professional hangout, with diverse groups occupying every corner.

As soon as we stepped through the doors, everyone completely separated ways. This is uncommon to me because when I go to places with my usual friends, we swarm the bar together and pretty much stick together the whole night as a single group. Lean and Gotti took a part-ways-and-do-your-own-thing approach.

I kind of like it.

-

I caught sight of Lean a little later in the night; he was running game on a married woman. As I stood off to the side, finishing up a drink, I saw her in the corner of my eyes lean over and give him a peck on the lips.

She pulled back abruptly and gasped, "Oh God! I'm married!"

Lean replied in a suave, nonchalant manner -- almost reflexively, like the way someone responds "you're welcome" to a "thank you." He responded, "It's okay, I'm wearing chapstick. That one didn't count."

The married woman calmed almost instantaneously, "Oh, okay." Then she proceeded to lean in for another kiss.

I couldn't believe it! I had pretty much witnessed the entire thought process of this lady at work. She was spazzing out, thinking, Oh God! Oh God! I'm married! I shouldn't be doing this! And all it took was some cool, suave response -- even with the stupidest justification ever -- and it shut her mind the fuck off. Lean was motherfucking pimp!

I made a mental note to start carrying around chapsticks. Because if chapsticks don't count, I can get away with anything.

-

I was wandering around with Liger, a fellow trainee, when we found a booth in a corner occupied by four girls. And no dudes.

As I walked by, three of the girls were posing together in the seat while one aimed her camera.

"Why don't you jump in the picture?" I said to her, "Here, I'll take it."

"Really?" she handed me the camera, "Hey, thanks!" The four got together and made their crazy poses and stupid faces that girls love to do when they see a camera.

One of the girls, a sexy blonde in a smoking red shirt, made an O-face at the camera.

"That face," I said to her, as I showed her the screen, "That is an awesome face!"

She laughed and mocked up another O-face in response.

"Hey, chill out," I stopped her, "We just met; don't start fakin' it just yet."

She laughed again and thanked me for the photo.

"So, what's the occasion?" I asked, purposefully in an inaudible tone.

"What?" she leaned over the gap.

I closed the gap, placed a hand on the small of her back and held her to the side of my face, "What's the occasion? You guys are pullin' out all the stops, girls night out, with the camera flashin' and all!"

"I just graduated!" she exclaimed, doing a jittery hand dance.

"No shit? Me too!"

"Where from?" she inquired.

"Houston."

"Oh my God, me too!"

And just like that, instant rapport. If only all pick-ups were that easy.

As we spoke, though, I noticed Liger had dropped himself into limbo, lingering nearby silently, not quite part of the group, but not quite apart from it either. Fucking IT people -- I'd forgotten how socially inept they can be.

"Let me introduce you to my friend," I said to the girl and waved Liger over, "This is Liger, a friend of mine. We're co-workers." They shook hands, and Liger looked relieved to finally be moved into the foreground.

I turned away and let the two talk -- there were four girls, after all. Almost immediately, one of the other girls took hold of me. "Oh my God!" she blurted to her friends, "This one is so cute!"

I gave her a weirded out look; she was obviously inebriated beyond inhibition, but she was pretty cute. I went from the sexy one to the drunk one -- fuck it, I'm not picky.

"You are so cute yourself," I said and threw an arm around her, "What's your name?"

Her name was Elizabeth. She asked for mine. "Lucky," I responded.

"Lucky?" she repeated.

"Yeah, Lucky. Like the dalmation, only cuter."

Her eyes lit up, "Oh my God! Yes! You are so cute!" She wrung both arms around me, "Oh my God! I am keeping you!" It was kind of like Elmyra from Tiny Toons, except I was bigger than her. And not furry.

-

I isolated Elizabeth, and we went to the bar. We talked a bit, but conversation was pretty hopeless because she was just too drunk to carry on very long without mentioning how cute she thought I was. So, we just settled into a make-out session.

Not too long into our session, a few of my co-workers interrupted us. Lean was taking off and had been looking for me.

"Lemme take you back to your friends," I told Elizabeth.

We walked back to the booth, and found her recently-graduated friend sitting by herself in the corner, bored. Liger had abandoned her.

Obviously, the night out had been in celebration of her graduation, and so upon seeing her friend alone and bored, Elizabeth immediately went to her side. And just like that, I'd been shut out.

When I said my goodbye's, they waved me off without a second thought. No close.

-

I reconvened with Lean, and he gave me a gesture of approval for the make-out session. I applauded his work with the married woman. But I didn't let him know I hadn't closed.

On the way out, I found Liger.

"What happened to you?" I asked, "You left that chick all alone, man! She was sa-mokin'!"

"I dunno, man," he shrugged, "Where'd you go? You left me all alone with her, I didn't know what to do!"

Fucking IT folks. So fucking antisocial.

Mentoring Program

Though I'd only worked one day this week and didn't do anything anyone would actually consider work, Big Ben, Hyphy, and I docked ourselves on the strip afterward for Friday happy hour.

Our waitress was a cute Hispanic chick with a curvacious trunk. As she set down our drinks, Big Ben nonchalantly responded, "Thanks." He paused briefly and followed up, "You're the best."

She smiled ear-to-ear and made a shoulder-squeeze-dipping curtsy kind of move, "Thanks!"

So easy.

Happy hour stretched late into the night, and we were joined by the rest of the boys. Our party grew to fifteen in size, and we dominated the entire lounge area of the bar. The waitresses sat and drank with us. We ordered two liters of vodka.

A second waitress came in to help service our crowd, and she and the curtsy waitress hung out all night in our corner. The new waitress was slender and beautiful, a pair of red devil wings tattooed above her ass. Devil Wings delivered a bottle of vodka to our table and nudged Scarface, "Let me know if you guys need anything, all right?"

He said, "I will, I will. What's your name?" They exchanged some words, inaudible to me, and then he pulled her closer and they continued a conversation.

So easy.

As much as I pride myself in my ability to be social, approachable, and likeable, watching the guys at work will always humble me. Even when one of them has a newborn kid at home.

-

I spent Saturday night at another club with Tam and Bingo. Bingo, for as long as I can remember, has always been caught up in long-term relationships -- the kind that leaves a man without his balls.

He's without shackles, now, and I've taken it upon myself to help him regain his balls. He's receptive because, I assume, he's fed up with the bullshit he's been through for the past few years.

"It's about image," I told him over our first drink, "Think about a photo of some friends having a good time over dinner. You don't know anyone in the photo, you're making up your own stories about the photo. But, just by looking at that photo, you can tell some things about those people -- there's always one guy that everybody is looking at, smiling at, talking to; he's the life of the party. There's always that one guy that's part of the background, probably looking in some off-direction or texting on his phone."

Bingo was replying to a text message; I stopped him.

"Imagine your life in a series of photos," I continued, "Every moment you are out, you are living a photo. Be the guy that's the life of the party in every photo. Every girl that looks in our direction sees me as the guy that's talking, that's making hand motions. You're the guy listening, looking up at me. I'm the leader up in this motherfucker. You're the bitch right now. You don't want to be the bitch."

The waitress tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear, "Do you guys need anything while I'm here?" I politely declined and with a smile. She responded with her own smile and left.

"That waitress didn't even bother to look at you, did you see that? Quit being a bitch."

Bingo straightened his posture to look more alive.

"It's about confidence," I declared, "It's about keeping your shoulders back and your chin up and saying, 'I am the shit.' And believing it." I looked Bingo dead in the eyes, "Never. Break. Eye. Contact. That's a sign of confidence. Some guys like to blitz -- they approach the girl as soon as they see them or they lose their balls. That works, too. But I don't -- I'll break her down from here. You look a girl dead in the eyes, until she smiles or until she shies away -- either way, you win."

My eyes trailed off to a pair of girls walking toward the bar. One had whorish bleached hair and a tight, sand-colored dress.

"It's about confidence," I repeated, "It's about walking into a room and truly believing that every girl wants you more than you want her. And I mean, you have to really believe it, 'cause it can't be faked. Girls can smell that shit. You see that girl over there?" I pointed at the whore in the sand dress. She looked up to catch me staring and pointing at her. "That bitch wants me. Watch." I maintained eye contact, and the words I said were inaudible to her. Her eyes shied away, and she broke into a coy smile.

Tam got out of his seat and pulled Bingo up with him. He gestured toward the dance floor, at two girls dancing together. "I'm working the one in pink," he declared, "You get her friend; let's put the lecture to work."

Tam and Bingo went to the floor, and Tam blitzed the girl in pink. Bingo hung back bashfully and watched -- he hesitated too long and never gathered himself to talk to the friend. Tam worked his girl, and after a few minutes, she began to dance close to him. He looked over to see if Bingo had seen, and after being acknowledged, they walked away from the girl.

-

We went to a diner afterward.

I started up again, "What I'm trying to show you -- I want you to understand this clearly -- is not how to meet girls or sleep with them. This is not how to get a girlfriend, and Lord knows, this is not how to keep one. What I'm showing you is how to be likeable, not just to girls, not just to Tam or myself, but to everyone.

"And this is not just going to help you with girls. This is valuable shit in your social life and your professional life. Everywhere you want to go, you'll get there easier if people like you.

"With that in mind, I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you. We are not malicious people. We are not doing this to get what we want and leave rubbles in our tracks. We are men.

"So listen carefully: no man is truly a man unless he leaves this world a better place than it was before he came. Some people do this by building hospitals in Africa, some adopt skinny babies from Asia. I am not those people. I believe that the quality of this world is measured in large by the quality of its people. It is therefore my job -- and yours -- to make sure that every man walks away from you a better man than he was before he met you.

"Apply this to every aspect of your life, and you will be likeable, you will be approachable, you will get girls, girls, girls. But above all, you will be a man. Let no girl walk away from you less than what she was before she met you. If nothing else, teach her a new song.

"It's the little things that make differences you could never imagine. Little things like holding the door open or saying 'thank you' or 'bless you' that could make or break someone's day.

Make someone's day."

The waitress, an aging black lady, came out and delivered our food. As she took a step away from the table, I said to her, "Thanks. You're the best." I ripped a page straight from Big Ben's book. But not for flirting.

She turned back with a pause and placed a hand over her chest, completely dumbfounded by the words of encouragement in the given environment. "Thank you!" she finally spewed after a moment of speechlessness.

"Little things," I repeated to Bingo after the waitress disappeared in the back, "Make someone's day."

Memorial Day Weekend

Spit your game
Talk your shit
Grab your gat
Call your cliques
Squeeze your clip
Hit the right one
-Notorious B.I.G., Notorious Thugs

::::::

In Berlin, when I told one of my aunts that my unit is deploying, she pushed a silver-dollar-sized, gold coin into my hands.

"I got this in Lourdes, when I went in 2003," she explained.

I'm not sure I believe in God I thought to myself, then I said, "I can't take this."

"No, no. Take it. It will protect you so that you can come back and visit us again!" she insisted.

The look on my face said it all, so she continued, "I'm not kidding. Take it. It's helped me in the past--cured sickness!--and I want you to have it. It's dangerous, the work you do."

"It's not that dangerous," I protested. "And I can't take this. I have my own good luck charms."

"I don't need it anymore. I'm going again this August, anyway," she said, pushing the coin back into my hands again. I looked her in the eyes, looked down at the coin, and put it in the tiny watch pocket of my jeans. She smiled warmly and sipped on some tea.

::::::

People like to ask me if I'll be doing this for career, as if someone who hasn't deployed yet can really make any long-term decisions about military service. I'm not enough of a dick to say that to people, though. Mostly, I tell them that it probably won't happen, so then they follow up, "Well, then, what are you planning on doing after the Army?"

Lately, I've been responding, "Probably work as an assassin for the CIA." And then I laugh heartily, and then they laugh. Sometimes uneasily because I can see in their eyes that though I may be laughing, they're afraid that I'm serious.

::::::

I remember a week before we got our actual dep(loyment) orders, our First Sergeant pulled the troop aside and said, "Look, guys, it's coming. I know we all thought the SCO (squadron commanding officer) was going to announce it today, and it didn't happen. But don't fool yourselves. It's coming. I don't need a degree to tell you that. Just pay attention to the news.... Be prepared. Do what you need to do to prepare yourselves.

"Listen, I know that some of you don't want to go. Some of you are afraid of going, but it doesn't matter. You signed the contract willingly. This ain't Vietnam where everyone got drafted. You volunteered for this. Be a man, and do what you promised you would do. I know some of you don't agree with this war, but hell, man, that's not our decision to make. Our politicians sent us to war, and this is our job.

"It's not about them; it's about us. It's about the guy to your left and to your right--you want him to come home to his kids, too. And it's also about your families back home. Listen, they attacked us, and whether or not you agree Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, the terrorists are there now. Because of us, they are concentrating on fighting us in Iraq. We are fighting over there because we don't want to be fighting them on our streets back home....

"Like I said, be a man, protect your home, 'cause lords knows, no one else is brave enough to do it."

Hollywood

If I've learned anything in life, it is to expect more of myself and less of others.
-Annette Amadin

::::::

"If you want an Iraqi to back off, if you wanna scare 'em, put an M9 in their face," SGT Tantrum declared. "They're not scared of the M4, but they'll shit themselves at the sight of an M9." The M9 is the Army's standard issue handgun.

SGT Tantrum elaborated, "That's the crazy thing about the Iraqis. You put your M4 in their face and it don't scare them. You could be at a checkpoint, you'd have one of them barreling at you in his car, yell at him, point your M4 at him, point the 240 Bravo at him--"

"Fuck the 240. Shoot at them with the 50 cal and they'll drive right into it," SSG Maverick cut in. "But point a pistol at them, and they'll get out of their vehicle with their hands up yelling Please! No shoot!"

"What the fuck?" I said. "That doesn't make any sense. Why?"

"A pistol's a symbol of power. Only officers carried them, and back in Saddam's regime, when they executed people, they'd drag 'em out into the middle of the streets, put the gun up against their head and shoot 'em. That's what the people see. That shit's burned into their memories, man. They lived in fear of being executed in the dark of night for decades."

I laughed in marvel.

"You know what else works, though?" SSG Maverick asked.

"What?"

"Green lasers. We'll sometimes come through and the kids'll all crowd up on you, and what're you gonna do? You can't use lethal force unless they're threatening you. They just want something, anything from you. Man, my boys tried everything on them. But green lasers work. You flash the green laser at them and they back off," SSG Maverick explained, his palms up. He continued, "It's all Hollywood, man. That's all they know about our culture. They see a green laser beam and they think some bad shit's going to happen. And it ain't just the kids. Everyone's fucking terrified of green lasers over there."

SGT Tantrum added, "Man, one of my favorite things is--especially when you get out in the fucking boonies, outside the cities--they refuse to talk to you when you have your sunglasses on."

"Why, because it's rude?"

"Well, yeah, that," SGT Tantrum said. "But it's actually more like they think we have lie detectors and computers built into our sunglasses, like in Terminator or something. I'm not even talking about the big goggles we got. My guys would be wearing Oakley's and they get all nervous around you. They think you can see into their soul or something. They'll ask you to take your sunglasses off before they'll answer your questions."

SSG Maverick added, "You know what we used to do when we did block parties*? If we got intel that there was a weapons cache in some guy's house, we'd capture him, and ask him where the weapons are hidden. Mr., I don't know what you talking about they'd lie. And then we'd put the night vision goggles on them, make them look at their house, and tell them, Now tell us again where the weapons are hidden. This can tell if you're lying. If you see purple, it means you're telling us the truth. If it's green, it means you're lying. Now, what color did you see? and then they'd look down at the ground and say, I saw green. and we'd ask, So are you lying to us? and of course, he'd say, Yes."

We all laughed, and then SGT Tantrum said, "Those backwards assed motherfuckers. It'll be a fucking miracle if they ever get a democracy going."

---

*Block Party, AKA Cordon and Search: It's what we call it when we get intel that there is a target (e.g., safe-house, weapons cache, High Value Target) in an area and we section off the area, raid all the homes on that block, and pick up every male of military age.

Miles Away From Ordinary

Saturday evening, I was in a hot tub staring out at the beachfront.

The boys and I had pooled together for a weekend trip down to South Padre Island, renting a townhouse on the beach. We'd be spending a third of our weekend driving, and two thirds drunk.

The beachhouse was decked with a patio pool and hot tub.

I held a Cape Codder in one hand hanging over the ledge of the tub. It's funny how the view of a beach can make it okay to hold a bitch drink. I'd been drunk since 8:00 a.m. and was about halfway through what would eventually be a twenty-four hour maintained buzz.

"Whaddya think a place like this costs you," Tinman sighed. He was hanging on the edge of the pool, sipping on a Pina Colada.

"Bet it's about half a mil," Weaver replied. His drink was a Corona.

"On the beach!" Tinman scoffed, "You're shittin' me, I bet this place is at least a mil."

"Probably not down here in Padre," I chimed in, "But I'll meet you halfway. I'd say this'll set you back seven hundred commas."

The house was two-storeyed with four bedrooms, two kings, a sixty-inch in the living room and a thirty-seven in each bedroom. A balcony and a patio overviewing the island beachfront. Needless to say, much nicer than the homes any of us were living in.

The guy who owned the place was a cat named Gary from Oregon. He bought the place as a vacation home to windsurf in the late Spring and early Autumn, and rents out to guests the rest of the year. I learned all this from the letter he leaves out on the dining table.

"Must be nice..." Weaver commented.

"Hey, it's not like we couldn't have a place like this," I threw it out there.

"Yeah, bullshit," Tinman scoffed again, "You think you're gonna get a place like this."

"I didn't say I will. I said we could. We threw together money for this place for a weekend. Save up a few years, we could throw together money for a place like this to own."

"Right, like I'm gonna save up to live with you guys."

"Hey, we're doing all right, it's a good weekend. Why not? You know what they say: if it ain't broke..."

I was talking out of my ass, of course. They say the quickest way to hate someone is to live with them. I'd probably hate these guys to high hell if I had to live another day with them. Besides, there were eight dudes spending the weekend together in the house. Reminded me of Project Hollywood.

Big Ben and Tinman had set up a volleyball net early in the morning in front of our patio where we played a couple of matches earlier in the day. After everyone had dove around and swallowed their share of sand, we resigned to the pool and hot tub and watched girls wander up from the beach to play.

We shooed the dudes and little kids away, but acceded to chicks playing on our net. One of the groups of girls approached our patio to thank us for the net and complimented the house. We could've so easily invited them in.

But we were on vacation. And all the best things in life are temporary, be it a beach house or skimpily-clad chicks jumping around after a ball.

I swirled my Cape Codder and took a sip. Through the bottom of the glass, I could see a Corona bottle in the front of a sandy beach backdrop.

When I was Still Your Golden Boy

As of Friday, I've officially made the transition from student to alumnus.

Today, I overheard my parents discussing it downstairs. My father commented, <All the boy does is sleep all day. He doesn't go to class, he doesn't study, how the hell is he going to work?>

<He's your son,> my mother sneered.

<And what is he thinking? Why didn't he take the ___ job offer?>

<That's the old way of thinking, old man. You can't define his success by numbers anymore. He has succeeded in that he gets to choose and decide. You and I didn't get that luxury growing up.>

It was odd hearing my mother defend me. Growing up, she was always the harsher of parents, grilling me for every mistake.

I never saw, however, that I stood in such a seemingly negative light in the eyes of my father. I never thought that he might have perceived me as the lazy slob son. Or maybe it was just that that was my father's way of accepting that I had exceeded his expectations and, perhaps, done him proud. My parents never were the type of people to express endearing words.

When my mother saw me later, she made an off-remark about how I don't look as much like my second brother as I used to.

My brother and I shared a lot in common. We share names, in fact. Conveniently, I grew up to be -- according to friends and relatives -- his spitting image, twelve years younger. As a child, I even picked up a lot of the same mannerisms as my brother; the silent composure, the head cocked back and to the left, the low, sharp tone we take when upset.

My brother got in trouble constantly in his teenage years; escorted home by the cops twice, kicked out of the house on occasions, and eventually packed his things and left home in the middle of night.

In high school, I fought a kid in a park because he said I looked at him funny. I stared at him just to provoke it. A year later, the cops phoned home to let my parents know that I had jumped a few fences to elude them. And some time later, I was caught sneaking out and back into the house at freakishly late hours of the night.

It seemed, after some point, that my parents had written me off as just another black sheep. They had five other children, after all, who could hold it against them for one bad apple?

Today, as my mother remarked about my appearance, I wondered if that were her way of telling me I'd finally come out onto my own.

The Girl's Friend is Your Enemy

Eyore rented out a lounge Saturday night for a graduation party for her boyfriend. When I arrived, a couple of girls were leaving and exchanging parting words with Warren.

"Hey," I greeted Warren at the door with a brown bag under my left arm. A liter of vodka and a liter of rum.

My eyes trailed from Warren and landed squarely on one of the departing girls; a girl of seemingly mixed heritage, pale skin, curly hair, but a dab of slant in her eyes. I'd have guessed Korean and white, the Korean of which was probably either passive or absent in her upbringing, because she donned a white-washed ensemble -- a summer dress under grandma sweaters and ribbony decor in her hair.

Following my eyes, Warren took cue and introduced me to the girls, asserting cadent emphasis on the halfie.

I shook hands with the other girl first, the halfie second and last and held her hand for a second after, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch it. What was your name again?"

She answered, and I released her hand.

I repeated her name slowly at first and then followed up by quickly chanting it three or four times as if to commit it to memory. "Okay, got it," I clasped my hands together, "I will be asking Warren for your number later tonight."

"What?" her head bobbed backward.

"Yea," Warren chimed in, "What? She's right here, man, why don't you just ask her right now?"

"Well she's gonna say no," I explained, "And you know me -- I'm terrified of rejection."

The girl laughed, her face starting to flush a little, "Well, I think you should just try. You'll never know!"

"Oh, I already know. We just met -- I mean, a guy can't just walk up to a girl and be like, 'hey, can I have your number?' You're leaving; I've missed my chance for the pick-up. I'll take my chances with him, thank you." I pointed in Warren's direction.

"What are you afraid of?" she crossed her arms, as if I really needed to be persuaded into asking her for a number, "Let's be honest, this right here--this isn't exactly a strong first impression." She motioned her finger in a circle around the area we were standing.

"Well," I fabricated a sigh, "If you really insist."

She placed a hand on my shoulder and gave a soft squeeze, "Try me."

Why the hell wouldn't I ask her for her number? She wanted me to do it. It was her idea -- or at least, she thought it was. "All right," I began pseudo-hesitantly, "Can I have your number?"

The girl giggled and nervously broke eye contact with me. She took a deep breath. There it was, the moment of hesitation. I was so in. The girl looked around, as if looking for support or assurance. Instead, she found eye contact with her friend. Shit. I forgot about the friend -- her two windows back into a mind of sensibility.

She stopped giggling almost instantly and cleared her throat. "You know what," she looked back at me and tried to feign a smile, "I just--I don't think that's a good idea."

I feigned a reciprocating smile, "Well, that's okay. Nice to meet you, anyway." As she turned her back, "I'm...uh...I'm still going to get it from Warren, just so you know."

After they left, Warren pined, "Damn, man, I really thought you had it."

"Shut up and give me her number."

Victims of Fate

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are prepared, and victims.
-A Drill Sergeant

::::::

Very early Friday morning, I awoke on the streets of Milan with a start. I'd been asleep for 20 minutes but my neck was killing me. Stabbs was asleep beside me, Operator slumbered in the front passenger seat, and in the driver seat, Enanita was losing control of herself.

"Operator!" she cried out.

He roused and slurred, "what. What?"

Enanita took another right turn. Last I remembered, we had just gotten into Milan, and a catnap later, we were still circling the city blocks, looking very lost.

"Help!" she demanded.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Just--Just--I need to find a place to pull over so I can stop driving around in circles!" she cried. Her voice was shrill. There was a natural pause in the air, as she'd just arrived at a red light. Ours was the only car moving for blocks.

"You just want a place to stop?" he confirmed. She nodded, her eyes glistening. Wordlessly, Operator jerked the emergency brake on, unfastened his seatbelt, opened his door and went around to the driver's side. Enanita put the car in park, climbed over to the passenger seat, and dutifully put on her seatbelt. Operator released the brake, put the car in drive, took a right turn, took a left, and pulled us into a parallel parking space on a dead-end street.

Operator turned off the car, and Enanita got out and stomped off into the night.

"What the fuck was that," I asked.

"I dunno," Operator said.

"Did she get lost again? She can't find the hotel?"

"I dunno. There is no hotel."

"What are you talking about? I thought we were going to a hotel here. You said you'd made reservations. We're in Milan, right?"

"Yeah, I think we're in Milan. We didn't make any reservations for Milan. We made them for Nice. We were just gonna find a place to stay the night once we got here." I had thought Milan was a destination, but it dawned on me that it was merely a stop along the journey.

"What, is that what she's doing now?" I asked, gesturing towards Enanito, who was now 50 meters down the block, behind us.

He replied, "I dunno." Then he stepped out of the car.

Moments later, I could hear them arguing, but I didn't care. After they stopped arguing, they got back in the car and we rode for another 10 minutes searching for hotels. We stopped at 3 places and yielded nothing vacant or even in our price range. Operator drove us back to that same parking spot, killed the engine, and we went to sleep. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I remembered another night, 5 months ago, in Paris that made this feel like deja vu.

::::::

Operator insisted that we spend that three-day weekend in Paris. He needed to see Sasha, a girl he'd twice proposed to. Sasha had just arrived in Paris for a semester of study abroad. She had declined marriage because they are young, but he is certain that he could never love another girl.

And me? I came along, hoping to meet up with Southie, a girl from Boston that I'd met my super-senior year of college. Southie was also in Paris for a semester abroad.

We hit the road right after work let out on Friday and arrived in Paris at 0200 hours, Saturday. Operator had said that we could find any old hotel--after all, it was Paris. We got into town, he called Sasha, we GPSed her address, picked her up, and drove around Paris, looking for a suitable hotel. We couldn't stay at Sasha's apartment because her landlord was an old-fashioned lady who clucked disapprovingly whenever Sasha had male friends visit, and besides, even if Operator didn't need a place, I needed a place to stay. (My hook-up would be out of town until Sunday.) That night, we criss-crossed Paris to no avail. One of the possible places, Hôtel de Ville, turned out to be a city hall. We ran out of gas, and all of the gas stations were closed until 0600.

That night in January, we pulled to the side of a road, in front of some stranger's house to keep the gendarmes off our back, turned the engine off, and shivered under our individual winter coats.

::::::

In Milan, we dozed for another half hour before Operator decided, fuck it, we're not staying the night in Milan. He'd been sleeping since we got out of Austria, and slept the entire drive through Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy into Milan. He made it another half hour before he pulled to a rest station along Italy's autostrada.

We were parked under a street light, and I had to cover my eyes with one of my socks to get any rest.

Like the Paris trip, I was grossly under-prepared for this trip. Thursday after lunch, I'd idly asked Operator what he had in store for the weekend. He mentioned Milan and Nice, and asked if I wanted to come. Of course I jumped at it.

Once we got to our hotel, Le Meridien, I had to buy swim trunks and flip flops because I didn't know that Nice was on France's Mediterranean coast. That Nice was in fact, a part of France's famed Riviera. I'd just wanted to get out of the barracks and see more of Europe before I'd be breathing in Iraq's wasteland of moondust.

::::::

Germany had been storming the past week, and we'd been putting in longer days in preparation for our deployment. There was a new energy on post, as everything we did was drenched in the grim urgency and importance of war.

France was a welcome change of pace.

I mostly lounged on the beach, with a novel and mojito in hand. The Mediterranean sun blazed late into the evenings there. The sea brought in balmy winds that cooled my brow. I drifted into and out of consciousness under the warm skies. When I couldn't focus anymore on the novel at hand, I took off into the brisk, clear waters and swam. I haven't been to the beach in years, it seems--at least the 19 months that I've been in the Army, anyway. I went out to where I could no longer stand and treaded water.

There were young couples out. The girls were scandalously sexy, and I deeply envied the French with their warm sun, cool waters, and supple, beautiful girls. In the evenings, the youth were out in force. Legions of lovely French ladies swarming the streets and cafes, bodies banging, eyes expectant, and boyfriends hand in hand.

For two whole days, I tasted this glimmering, slightly bitter wine. I think of it as a recon mission. A lifetime later, after Iraq, I'll be ready and in force.

I Bleach the Sky Every Night

Plucker, Wall, and I seated ourselves in a dingy, hole-in-the-wall type of bar. Just the type we like. A cute waitress attended to us, a baby-doll face with a shy, nerdy kind of smile.

"Hi fellas, what do I--" she stuttered, "I'm sorry, I mean--what can I getcha?"

I stared wordlessly and grinned at her slurred speech.

She noticed me and repeated herself, "I'm sorry, I'm just--I--"

"Hey," I cut her off, "I know we are cute as hell, dear, but you don't have to be nervous around us."

She laughed an awkward, geeky laugh. She was obviously drunk as hell.

"Jeezus," I said, "What have you been drinking tonight?"

"I've been--I've--" she was still stuttering, "I've been drinking with that table--that table over there. With my co-worker, she's--she's off tonight. I think I had a couple gin and tonics, a bull-blaster, I think--I think the last one was an Amaretto sour."

"Of those, which one did you like most?"

"I liked the Amaretto sour," she said, nodding. That was her first confident statement of the night.

"Well, then," I leaned back in my seat, "I will have a... gin and tonic, please."

She gave me a what-the-fuck look, but giggled, brushing me lightly on the shoulder. Wall and Plucker ordered their drinks, and the girl disappeared.

The cocktail waitress -- her name, Bick -- returned moments later with our drinks. I remarked, as if surprised, "Wait, where's yours?"

"Nooo!" she playfully whined, "I--I can't!"

She turned her back to me to empty her tray of drinks to the occupants of an adjacent table, then returned and sat at our table, to my immediate right.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I clamored, "What the hell is this? You can sit at my table, but you can't drink with us?"

"I really can't take another drink," she pleaded.

"This table is a drinking table," I declared, "We are celebrating."

"What are you celebrating?" she sat erect, hands on her hips, skeptical-eyed, drunk-nerd-baby-doll look on her face.

"We are celebrating..." I trailed off to think. Then, I pulled her seat closer and I threw an arm around her, "We are celebrating you and me."

She pushed off, "Honey, I'm not sure there's a lot to celebrate there."

She called me honey. She had been slowly gaining confidence throughout our flirtatious exchange, and all of a sudden, she was pushing me off and calling me honey.

I use words like dear and sweety because they are borderline-condescending terms of endearment. The girl will want me more as I climb higher up on the disparity ladder. And one of the methods of demonstrating value is by debasing her's without directly insulting.

I couldn't let her take the reins by using condescending terms on me. That shit simply will not fly. I had to dethrone her.

I turned to Wall and spoke to him instead. We had a brief conversation that did not involve Bick.

A moment later, Bick tapped me on the arm and leaned in as if to whisper, her chin almost resting on my shoulder. I did a double-look, as if I had just remembered that she were still around.

"Is that your friend?" she indicated at Plucker.

"Yeah," I answered. My eyes narrowed, suddenly insulted. Was this girl sitting next to me and checking out my friend? What was I -- some sort of middle-man stepping stone between her and another dude?

"I think I remember him coming in here before," she whispered, "He was in here with some other guys, and he was trying to ask me to hang out. He asked me if I would like to have lunch with him the next day, and he said that he was going to have lunch with his friend, Luck, and that I would like him."

I chuckled. I didn't understand Plucker's thought process behind trying to use my name to pick up a girl, especially when she had never met me before. I was, however, flattered nonetheless.

"You are that Luck, aren't you," she said.

"I am likeable."

She smiled a shying-away smile.

"Well, now that you've met me," I continued, "And now that you know I'm likeable ... how does lunch sound?"

She hesitated for a moment. As she did, I turned away to continue my talk with Wall, as if to let her know I really couldn't care less about having lunch with her.

She acquiesced, "I will call and let you know. What's your number?"

"Oh, you are in some shit now," I snapped, "You wouldn't have lunch when my homeboy asked, but here you are, playing a whole 'nother tune?"

Her facial expression turned to confusion.

"I'm telling him! I'm telling him!" I playfully cocked my nose toward the air and away, like a child taunting another.

She wrestled me back to attention, "What! Just because I won't have lunch with a guy, you won't have lunch with me?"

"You know the bros befo' rule, sweety, you are asking me to tread it! What makes you think you're that special!" I grinned, my eyes playful. I made sure she knew she still had a great chance if she'd pursue it.

"Oh, what's so great about bros," she sighed, exasperated, "Maybe I'm not different from any other girl that fucks you, but how can another guy be so special!"

"There's a helluva difference," I explained, "What guarantees do I have, that after you fuck me, that you'd still be around later on down the road when I need somebody."

"What makes you think I'd even fuck you," she rolled her eyes, pulled back, crossed her arms, and pouted a geeky pout.

I laughed, "You did! You're the one grouping yourself with girls that fuck me!"

Her facial expression turned to realization, her pout turned up a coy smile, her arms uncrossed and softened to her sides. "You..." she started slowly, "You're good at this."

"Sweety, you have no idea. I am fuckin' great at this." I leaned across our seats, threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, "So, about that lunch..."

This time, she didn't push off.