Calliope: Voice of the Writers
The Great Novel Race 2008:
Untitled
by Joshua Bumgardner
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Chapter 1: The Something
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A miserable Private First Class Francis P. Underwood tries to remember why he left the warm gulf breezes of his home on the Florida coast.
Today, tonight, this morning, at the moment, what ever the fuck part of day 0300 is, in the pouring frigid rain, bordering on ice, pitch black or green fuzz are his choices. Pitch black without the night vision goggles over his eyes and green fuzz with them on. His entire being rebels against wearing them. They pull at the ingrown hairs on the back of his scalp while creating an unbalanced feel to his head, depress the bridge of his nose to the point just short of breaking skin, and leave no room for his glasses.
He knows he can’t see without the boxy device that looks like the mask a super hero would wear to shoot laser beams at bad guys, but with them he has his doubts also.
The possibility exists that it is in fact just the sweeping vastness of the flat dark desert playing with him. He tries to remember what the surrounding area is like during the day. He searches his memory for a landmark.
Something stationary.
Something he can count on.
Something he can look for through the NVG’s to be certain he is in fact seeing the desert and not inert technology.
It wouldn’t be the first time a set of NVG’s malfunctioned, they run on simple double A batteries which seem to last less and less each time they are replaced. In fact he doesn’t remember when the last time he changed the ones in his was.
Some ground troops preferred not to use them at all, instead going for instinct or some other primal force to get them through night maneuvers.
One guy he over heard talking about NVG’s in the chow line stated simply that his night vision was so superb that when the sun did slink into the horizon it made no difference to him.
But he had a ranger tab.
And airborne wings.
Making him an exception because everyone knows Airborne Rangers could eat Superman’s spleen for breakfast.
Thinking hard about what is in fact out there in the desert nothing, the olive colored uniform clad Iraqi soldier comes to mind, but they would serve poorly as a landmark, deadly in fact.
He recalls sage brush also, or tumble weeds, or what ever the natives call them, they remind him of old western movie relics, suitably less dangerous then an enemy combatant, but unfortunately almost invisible in outline to the brown dirt around them in the sunlit hours and now could be no more then just part of the green fuzz.
He lays prone propped up on his elbows two hundred yards away from the nearest firing hole. What a comfort the five feet of depth in that firing position would be at this moment to him.
Want to talk about fear; the LPOP is out in the open making any soldier a dangerous silhouette during the day, but invisible at night, or so he assumes being that he can’t see shit, how could anyone else.
He is connected to support though by a simple wire, stretching from his platoons command tent and attached on either side to a box with a handset on top. Most just consider it a medieval version of a phone with a crank instead of numbers. It worked if the wires stayed in place. But that wasn’t saying much given that this long stretch of wire was spliced together at various points along way. Any break and he was screwed.
In reality this was not his only mode of communication. In case something did go horribly wrong he did have a back up.
His voice.
Which might travel the half mile back to the bivouac area.
Or even better.
His weapon.
A simple three round burst would draw some necessary attention, but by then he would be fighting what ever invasion force massed against him.
There is no winning out here and he knows that.
To him this was the biggest bullshit job he could ever lose sleep over, and boring, with an annoying tingle of anticipation that is never satisfied. Three long hours of scanning the horizon for the slightest hint an attack has escaped the thousands of planes in the sky or satellite imagery technology employed.
Just fucking Bullshit.
He is not unaware that the current weather conditions make that difficult. Low cloud cover was natures own antiaircraft weaponry which may enable whole divisions to move undetected.
He is the last defense his Battery has before they are over run by the Iraqi Republican Guard.
He could save lives.
Be a hero.
Be promoted even.
If able to determine whether he can see or not. He closes his eyes to know that he is seeing nothing for a moment, but the green fuzz attacks his imagination floating up from where ever his brain had stored it.
With the observation aspect of his duty compromised, and the loud wet sucking snores of the soldier on duty with him he wonders if he is even going to survive till morning.
Goldenplaith, laying beside him wrapped like a burrito in his camo poncho sleeps as soundless as a 5ton truck stuck in the mud. It almost seems that with every wheezy breath in and grating one out he is rocking a big truck back and forth trying to break it free.
Weighing in at about two fifty pounds with bad knees and a perma excuse set for no PT, a two pack a day smoking habit, and ten years of Army experience all in the Artillery corp., he is by far the worst soldier in Charlie battery. Goldenplaith’s main contribution to the military is malingering. He treats this occupation with reverence even going far out of his way not to do what is demanded of him.
Goldenplaith has also been labeled the platoon fuck up. He can do nothing right except find ways to remain a soldier in the US Army. And he does this by having the military bureaucracy channel’s down pat. He knows what almost every single piece of military paper work does and does not. But with all his knowledge he makes any soldier he comes into contact with worthless.
As an example, three months ago:
“I don’t want to do PT.” a new Private had made the mistake of whining near Goldenplaith on a cold December morning where the entire company had fallen into PT formation in sweats and sneakers.
“Go to sick call, tell them you have back pain.”
“How would that help.” the new private asked, sounding interested and leery all at once.
“No way to tell what’s wrong with it, all guess work when the backs concerned.” Goldenplaith replied brushing the toe of one of his unpolished combat boots on the back of the opposite leg.
With the NVG difficulties and the pitch black night and the snoring Goldenplaith Underwood wonders why it was he was stuck out here in the first place. He is sure this is a punishment, for some fuck up he cant remember, maybe naivety.
To Underwood this was once the land of silk and white stallions, opium and hookahs, white deserts and heat. In reality he has not seen one hookah, nor any opium, he imagines opium as red for some reason, this is not the place of his imagination though, so he doubts he would be right.
If the adage had been correct it would have included hard packed brown desert sand, fleas, a certain kind of snake that buries itself in the dirt and leaps out to attack almost waist high, or so he has been told, and a disquieting smell of decay and vomit that seems to be emitting directly from his nose. If all that had been mentioned before boarding the plane then maybe he wouldn’t be surprised.
But he has been surprised from the moment he stepped from the tarmac in Germany. January fifteenth in the desert was not supposed to be this uncomfortable.
He is cold
The sand is cold
Everything is cold.
Not one thing looks dry.
He feels soaked with the frigid Saudi Arabian winter rain and air slipping through what ever crack in his fluffy Gortex armor it can find. The Icy cold rain has made his fingers thick, unresponsive and ultra sensitive even under his thick leather gloves and the olive green wool inserts. In his tan desert combat boots, supposedly built for desert conditions, his feet have stop responding to stimuli, he would stand and stomp them on the ground, but he feels that would be a stupid way to get shot. His abused nose feels as if it is slipping from his face like the slow calculated movements of a glacier, every time he looks in the small shaving mirror hung above the sink in the open air latrine he expects it to be slightly off centered.
Hot coffee under these circumstances sounds so appealing.
If he drank coffee.
He considers starting tomorrow.
Taking the NVG’s from his head he listens to the whistling wind blowing unobstructed over the flat land and tries to block out Goldenplaith’s adenoid problems. In the breast pocket under his Gortex jacket is a pack of Marlboro reds, he ignores those also, though he would gladly give up what ever light sensitivity he has gathered to light one.
Looking over at his companion as he rolls over snorting he wonders if unprofessionality is contagious, or whether he is just weary of all the bullshit, double standards, and righteousness.
But he has it easy.
The pitch black blur without the NVG’s envelops him. He pats his pockets in search of his glasses.
Nothing.
He pats the rubber wet exterior of the poncho that he lays on.
Nothing.
He rolls over and gets to his knees repatting every pocket twice.
Nothing.
Laying back down and half expecting to hear the crack of a rifle out in the dark he tries to calm himself down.
No glasses.
He picks up the NVG’s and puts them back onto his face and sees nothing through them.
He flips the switch.
Nothing.
He flips the switch the opposite way.
Nothing.
It’s a feeling deep inside his chest that helps him first realize he is fucked.
“Goldenplaith?” he tries to whisper, but it comes out more as a high pitch squeak.
The Specialist doesn’t move, but the snoring ends in a grunt.
“Goldenplaith?”
“What, Private.” The specialists irritated sleep laden voice requests.
“Umm, my NVG’s died.” Underwood responds holding back a grimace at being called private by a soldier just one rank above him. To Underwood the term should be reserved for NCOs or higher, not Specialists without a track record of greatness.
“So?”
“And I don’t seem to have my glasses.”
“So?”
“So what should I do?”
“Nothing.”
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