[hider=Musical Selection:][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRGd0gD0QNE][/hider]

[b]Iran-Iraq Border[/b]

"You know the last time we were here we were trying to kill everyone, right?"

It was an incredibly sunny day: rays of light shone down on the massive convoy of military vehicles that were sputtering along at a comfortable speed of thirty kilometers per hour. Convoys generally couldn't move any faster without vehicles crashing: the armed forces was never going to be devoid of teenaged drivers slamming their trucks into each other. So the massive lines of armored cars and trucks stretched far across the horizon, carrying thousands of soldiers bound for Baghdad. They were expected to rebuild the country that was struggling against an insurgency and dozens of combating rebel groups seeking control of the different regions. But for now, combat was a far off prospect for these troops, only coming in the form of fighter jets screaming overhead to launch missiles at emplaced positions far beyond the horizon. It was an especially exhilarating time for the men of 4th squad, 3rd platoon in bravo company belonging to the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Brigade. Some, like Specialist Mohammad Tayebi, had never actually been out of the country. He manned the 12.7mm gun of his team's sleek armored utility vehicle, laughing at his own jokes while he tanned his pale arms.

"Shitty way to spend your summer!" catcalled Private First Class Mahmoud Abbas from the backseat as he fiddled with his grenade launcher.

"The babes here aren't even hot, man," sulked the driver: the fashionable PFC Raza Ali who was the butt of most of the gay jokes in the platoon.

"What do you know about babes, Raza?" Tayebi asked with a grin. Ali delivered a swift punch to the bottom of the knee, collapsing the leg and nearly sending Tayebi faceplanting into his gun.

"Plenty, thanks. I've had more pussy than you've ever seen on the Internet," was the rebuttal.

"Impossible!" cried Abbas. "Tayebi watches porn every night, the filthy swine!"

"Maybe our man Raza is actually a playa, underneath all the gay-ass clothes he wears. Did I catch you with perfume before deployment?"

"Don't judge a brother for smelling nice," unashamedly replied Ali, turning his head back with a goofy smile. "And it was cologne, dammit."

The windows of the truck rattled as a helicopter swept in low from the left, its crew chief waving at the convoy while a cardboard sign hung from the skids: "Baghdad or Bust!" The dust trail spiraled outwards and floated lazily towards the convoy, all while Tayebi violently gestured a thumbs up to the long-gone pilot. Go fuck yourself. This came to the amusement of Sergeant Taha Aziz as he watched the men under his command - all of them around nineteen - bicker amongst themselves. "I never imagined that war could be a party until I met you sorry shitbags," he observed.

"What's that, Sergeant?" asked Ali, batting his eyes facetiously. "Everywhere's a party with me around!"

"I was kind of picturing less people with both legs, if you know what I'm saying," Tayebi chimed in with a chuckle. "Like those peacekeepers in the twenties. Man, they got fucking wrecked!"

"We're peacekeepers, dummy!" reminded Abbas, flicking Tayebi in the leg. "Maybe you'll have to walk home on a robot leg."

"Dude, that'd be fucking sweet. I wish I lose both my legs, so I can be like Robocop or some shit. We have the technology."

"You're quoting the wrong thing, dumbass." Abbas shook his head. "That's the [i]Six Million Dollar Man[/i], a seventy-year-old TV show from fucking America of all places."

"Hey! I'm American!" Ali defended, giving a thumbs up gesture to Abbas in the back.

"Yeah, you've said," muttered Aziz. "Still have that Southern California charm, [i]dude[/i]."

"Oh, make fun of my accent will you? Well, I'm afraid you don't understand the sociolinguistic effects of massive influxes of ethnically-Iranian-but-foreign-born-citizens, Sergeant. In fact, I'd say Operation Hundred - the fuckin' invasion, mind you - and the following demographic shift brought some much needed diversity to the Farsi vernacular," shot back Ali rapidly. He turned his eyes back to the road - or, more accurately, the rear bumper of an identical vehicle with an identical team of men shouting at each other inside - and adjusted his helmet before dropping an imaginary mic.

"Oh, so you're an academic douchebag, too. That's nice. Another thing I've learned today," was Tayebi's response.

"Didn't learn too much in school?"

"Nah, I was too busy blowing dudes for drug money in the back alleys of Tehran," the gunner remarked sarcastically.

"I'm so sorry. Please don't offer me any sexual favors for like, boot socks or something."

"I did that [i]once[/i] on a field exercise," Tayebi proclaimed. "Can you believe this shit?" he asked Abbas and Aziz. "He must think I'm a fag."

"You and Raza. Both are fags," determined Abbas before smacking an imaginary gavel. "Death by stoning, and not the fun kind."

"I'm going to escape from jail and bang your girlfriend," proclaimed Tayebi, still not slowing down on his rampage against everything good society held dear. 
I mean, she's not hot but she's doable."

"You're into Armenians, Tayebi. You like Christian girls because they're way nastier than Muslims," Aziz pointed out.

"Not true! I had one Armenian girlfriend who wouldn't do sex with me. Her parents were also crazy as fuck."

"'Do sex'? Are we in primary school?"

"The Army is daycare for man-children. Did they not teach you this in basic?" frowned Ali. "They make fun of me because I'm beautiful."

Before Aziz could intervene to stop the bickering, Tayebi's eyes spotted something. "It's the border!" he shouted. "See that sign?"

A large blue sign appeared a few meters forward, approaching slowly. In faded, strictly authoritative letters, it announced that you were leaving Iran. No fanfare. This, coincidentally, was when the convoy ground to a halt. Ali held up his hand to stop the talking as the radio began to squawk: "Attention all units, two units have attempted to merge at the highway. We are experiencing some minor traffic delays."

"Minor my fucking ass!" shouted Tayebi as he jumped to the roof of the vehicle to look over the trucks in front of him. "We're fucking jammed to the horizon. Who the fuck plans this shit? My fuckin' six-month-old? I can drive her stroller better than these academy graduates can drive an army!"

"Simmer down," ordered Aziz. "Hop back in before someone important sees."

Tayebi reluctantly agreed, hopping back down into the vehicle as his boots made a metallic thump against the floor. With that accomplished, he ducked down into the truck and sat next to Abbas in the rear, basking in the cool breeze of the air conditioning. Flipping his goggles up to his helmet, he sighed and rubbed his eyes. Somehow, dust had gotten through the liner - an indication that he would need to replace his two-year-old goggles soon. They weren't of the highest quality, but they were still advertised to protect his eyes from shrapnel. They liked to fog up despite the anti-fogging agent and self-healing glass panels, making Tayebi think that maybe he should just go with the better brands next time: pricier, but they wouldn't get him killed when he couldn't see anything. Abbas continued to flip his grenade launcher's sight up and down, on and off, while the radio was turned back onto the Iranian Military Network. Ali began monotonously singing along to some pop song with a vaguely shoehorned message about being the best that you could be, while Aziz played around on his phone. After a few minutes of this, Abbas told Ali to shut his fucking mouth and stop singing, and then only the radio filled the cabin. The engine hummed along with thousands of others on this sunny day, punctuated only by screaming missiles thundering by a kilometer away. This was war, alright. A massive traffic jam.