 |
SOLDIER TALES The 'Oh Shit' Moment
By Mike Harris
|
|
| WE WERE TRAVELING NORTHWEST all night. The ship was swaying back and forth; we’d just crossed the equator. The day before I was in some jungle shitpile called Pointe Noire waiting for a chopper to take my ass up to Brazzaville. I was told that I would remain in Brazzaville until the rebel army got 100 clicks outside of Kinshasa. Then another helo would come and drop us on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa via a rope, where we would defend the Embassy against an entire army. Yet all I could think about was getting stuck in the “hell-hole.” A hell-hole is the tiny hole in the bottom of a helicopter we jumped out of. It never failed: whoever was behind me in line would always call me a fat-ass, stomp me on the helmet to push me through, and I would shoot down the “fast rope” and land in a heap. I hated that shit. Yet the Kinshasha mission was scrapped at the last minute. Instead, a fleet of choppers came in around noon and carried us back out to the small aircraft carrier (LHD 3). I didn’t mind. The Navy chow aboard the carriers was always better than the MRE’s we ate in the field any day. Marines are concerned with one thing really and that is CHOW! And hell, I’m nothing but blood and guts. We landed on the deck and went down below. Right away we were instructed to turn in all our ammo. I took off my helmet and started stripping bullets from my banana clips. As my bullets clinked into my helmet, I asked Gunny about chow. “You’ll eat when we eat!” he said. Gunny was hungry. He needed to lose a few pounds and was always thinking about the next meal. He hated talking about food when he was hungry. I handed 179 bullets (I lost one) to some tech-looking geek and strutted off to the galley. Chow was cold and we stunk like the rotting jungle. “Hey Mullins,” I asked my buddy, “Why you think they pulled us out so quick?” “I dunno Harris, I heard from Jones that we are going in ‘hot’ somewhere.” “Bullshit Mullins. We ain’t going in ‘hot’ nowhere.” “We’ll see, shitbird.” I tried to convince myself he was lying. But Mullins always had information about what was happening next—he was a psychic redneck. Maybe he saw a UFO once from his bass boat, I don’t know. I just didn’t want to go in ‘hot’ anywhere, especially Africa. None of us were willing to die for a bunch of HIV-infected, third-world, rat-eating animal-worshipers, as I knew for a fact constituted the entire population of Africa. (My preacher told me that before I went overseas. He would never lie to me.) When chow ended Gunny came by to pass the word that we were to go back down and draw 180 rounds apiece. “Goddamn it Gunny,” I bitched, “I just turned in 179 rounds of five-five-six.” “What the fuck Harris, you lose a fucking bullet or something? You would lose your fucking dick in a whore house!” “Uh Gunny, ain’t that the point of going to a whore house?” “Shut the fuck up and go get your ammo. We have a briefing in half an hour up in the forecastle.” I did as the fat man said and got some bullets back from the nerdy kid, then I met up with Mullins on our way to the forecastle. I hated the forecastle. We would get a lot of briefings up there, and every ten minutes a jet engine would blast about ten feet above our heads, full-throttle. Usually the jet would go just as a Doc was giving the STD statistics of our next destination. It pissed me off. But this time there were no jets. They were all undergoing intense, last-minute maintenance due to the fact that they stayed broken down most of the time, and they were would be needed for our mission. An officer barked from his diaphragm. “THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY IN FREETOWN IS CURRENTLY HOUSING AROUND 3000 REFUGES. WE ARE GOING TO GO AND GET THEM. SOME OF YOU WILL FLY AND SOME OF YOU WILL RIDE HOVERCRAFTS. THESE REFUGES ARE GETTING BLOWN TO SHIT BY ARTILLERY AS WE SPEAK. GO GET SOME SLEEP. REVEILLE IS ZERO 3.” I was sitting next to Mullins. I told him to shut his redneck face. An hour later we crossed the equator. The ship was swaying back and forth, and I couldn’t stop thinking. What the fuck is going on? Why did I sign up to do this shit for the world? Why do we have to get up at 3 AM? I remembered what I was taught in boot camp: “If the Marine Corps wanted you to think, they would have issued you a brain.” That past-tense “would have issued” told the whole story: there would be no brains issued out in the future either. It was hopeless… Along came Gunny with a big-ass sack. “Harris, I need you to take this satchel of C-4 in the morning.” “Gunny, it weighs 20 pounds. I don’t want to carry that fucker.” “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK, HARRIS. You are going to carry this fucking bag or have my boot up your ASS!” That’s when I realized that Gunny had received a different briefing than the one I got—he knew something I didn’t. “I-I Gunnery Sergeant!” I barked. Somehow, even with all the talk of helpless refuges getting blown to bits, I got to sleep. Zero dark 3 came. We crossed a time zone and lost an hour of sleep. I slid out of my rack and joined the groaning masses. We ate some fake eggs and went down to the cargo hold. I put on all my gear. I picked up my rifle and checked the sights. Then I took it apart and made sure she is ready for action. Gunny came over and told me that we were supposed to be taking a beach. I swallowed hard and thought of all the D-Day movies I’d seen where men got cut down like weeds. I was then ordered to go and get my squad in the hovercraft. I decided to tell them what Gunny told me. “We’re taking a beach.” “What the fuck?” they echoed back. “I don’t give a fuck. We are taking this fucking beach. That’s all Gunny told me. Lets get in the boat. We leave soon.” We climbed in the troop compartment. It was an aluminum death trap. I closed the door behind me. The airbag inflated, and we were in the water. I was scared. My rifle was inverted between my legs. I rested my helmet on it, looked down at the deck, and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I was having an existential crisis on my way to the killing fields. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done—” I got stuck on “thy will be done.” I can die in about 5 minutes and “thy will be done”? What the fuck is “thy will?” What is God’s will for me? Am I going to die? Am I going to be wounded? Am I going to live? What the fuck is God’s will? Who is God anyway to be pushing me around? Yet it became a little clearer, for whatever was about to happen next wasn’t up to me. I was experiencing a moment of peace. Fierce determination arose out of that empty space. “Two minutes,” declared the intercom. I lifted my head and pulled out a 30-round magazine. It clicked into place. (To be continued…) |
||
| Mike Harris was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps in the late nineties. He currently attends Naropa University and practices zen, and wouldn’t think twice about killing mice at a meditation retreat. Or even once. |
©2003-2004 The Manifest E-Zine