When I came back from Luang Prabang
I didn't have a thing where my balls used to hang
But I had a wooden medal and a fine harangue
Now I'm a fucking hero
August 29th, 2015. Another Yankee went down over the Su Tinh Lang Valley. Third one to go down since I rotated back in, if I kept my count right. Air Force kept expanding the no fly zone and the rebels kept blowing up helicopters. Rebels. That's a funny word for the guys that hold ninety percent of the country. Thoat Nihn is the only major city the republic still held uncontested. Probably had something to do with the fifty thousand American guns still in country.
I'm riding into the valley in the back of a covered truck. Local civilian model. There were five marine raiders shoved in the back along with enough crates and farm supplies to fool observers. First element. Slow insert, recon the crash site with minimal enemy contact. Second element waited in the wings for rapid extraction if we found anyone alive.
Diesel sits across from me, a cheap cigarette in his teeth. He only took it out long enough to pop a pair of pills. Dexedrine. They were meant to keep a marine awake and alert during extended engagements, but Diesel swallowed pep like it was candy. A stench followed Diesel everywhere he went. His breath stunk of snakes melting in napalm. His sweat reminded me of a gasoline can lost in the back of the hot garage for half a decade.
"Damn it, D." Curtis Hoyle sighed. He reached across the truck and grabbed the fanny pack on Diesel's belt. Diesel tried to shove Hoyle back only to find an elbow planted into his throat, shoving his face up into the canvas covering of the truck. Hoyle snapped open the med pouch and rummaged around until he found the contraband.
Hoyle fell back into his seat, stashing the three extra bottles of pep in his own kit. "I swear to God when we get back to base I'm going to shoot the dumbass selling you these."
"Don't be an asshole, doc," Diesel whined. "I ain't dyin' sober."
"You're not living sober, either."
I did my best not to smile. SARC Hoyle kept our band of delinquents alive through thick and thin. On matters of my unit's health, Curt was king. He could've told me we needed to throw away our bullets because the metal was toxic and I would've listened. If he wanted to replace our morphine with grape juice I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I wasn't worried about D. Drug-addled junkie he may be, but he was a functional junkie. Could fight like hell even if he was half blind on so much speed it'd kill a rhinoceros.
Stephen Goodwin held onto his M39 EMR like drowning man clinging to a life preserver. His hands were shaking something fierce. That caught my eye. I'd never seen him so much as flinch before.
Stevie had been in the Corps for eight years, and Force Recon for two of those. I served with him in recon for several months in Afghanistan. The guy was a hell of a shot. I was happy to recommend him to the Det One pilot program that turned us all into raiders.
"You got that letter from home yet, Stevie?" I asked. Kept my voice at an even keel, trying to keep it casual.
He blinked six times too many and shook his head, like he was waking from a bad dream. Then he looked at me. I recognized that misty glint in his eyes. Can't remember how many times I'd seen it before; more than anyone should.
"Y-yes sir, yeah. I did."
"Your wife doin' okay?"
Stevie nodded. He looked down at his boots.
I tried on a smile. It looked as fake as it felt. "Boy? Girl?"
He looked back up at me, and the mist turned to fog.
"Ah." I sat back. "Boy." Everyone in the unit knew he wanted a boy. All he'd talked about for months was turning the kid into a real cowboy. Take over his dad's ranch, raise a head of cattle all his own, everything.
"Yeah," the kid choked on a sob. "I didn't think this shit was gonna bother me, but-"
"Hey." I leaned across the truck to slap Stevie's shoulder. "I get it. When junior was born it scared the hell outta me. All'a the sudden I wasn't just watching my own ass out here. Now there's a kid in the world who'd be missin' his dad if I got shot. It changes you. You know what I mean?"
Stevie buried his snotty nose and bleary eyes into his sleeve. "How do you deal with it, man?"
"Use it. You don't wanna die? Good. Do your job. Kill every motherfucker that comes at you. 'S the only way to get home."
Once I knew Goodwin got the message, I shifted in my seat to face the last member of the tactical element: their bald-headed giant shoved into the back of the truck bed. Belts of ammunition wrapped around his thick shoulders and ran down his chest. His SAW leaned against his shoulder. A small cross on a beaded necklace sat in his catcher's mitt of a palm as he muttered a prayer in Latin. Honest to God Latin.
"Hey, Monk. Watch the kid for me, okay?"
Monk didn't stop his prayers. He didn't even nod his head. It was like talking to a statue. I shook it off and prepared myself for the work ahead.
My radio buzzed to life with the voice of our driver,Vân, a soldier in the SNRA. "Road block ahead. They're uniformed PRA."
The People's Republic Army had uniformed soldiers this far south? That didn't bode well. The rest of the team turned to stare at me. Their eyes were hard set, but it was impossible to hide the cold terror behind them. This valley was contested territory. There should've been at least two battalions of national republic troops between this road and the reds.
"Those motherfuckers ran." Diesel spat a chunk of yellow bile and spit onto the floor. "Country's fucking doomed. Damn cowards."
"We don't know that." Hoyle contested, but doubt laced his words.
"W-what're we going to do, captain?" Stevie asked, staring up at me.
I checked my DAGR- a blocky, Nokia-looking GPS receiver. A dull green glow flickered over my face as I examined the map. Two and a half klicks to the crash site. Wasn't a long walk on foot under normal conditions.
Enemy held bush wasn't exactly premium hiking in my book. I grabbed my radio and got back into contact with our driver. "Alright, Vân. Approach as normal. See if they'll let us through."
The line buzzed for several seconds before Vân radioed back: "You don't pay me enough for this. Bah, fine, fine. Driving up now."
The team's chatter died out. I turned, facing out. The soft cover on the back of the truck obscured all but a tiny slit of the road. I listened. Past the rumbling of the engine, I could make out voices growing closer. My Siancongese was limited to 'surrender,' 'stop' and 'beer.' I heard a couple stops before the truck came to a halt. Vân started up in a friendly tone, and he mentioned something about beer.
I slung my rifle down around my chest and unholstered my sidearm. Curtis motioned for me to listen, and signaled a count for how many voices he could hear. I did the same. We both came back to three on the left, four to the right, and indeterminate front.
The conversation outside took a turn. Vân argued with someone through the driver side window. I could hear a pair of people walk up to the side of the truck. Boots appeared in the gap between the tarp and the wall of the truck bed.
I motioned for readiness, and the team took up firing positions with practiced efficiency. My blood turned hot as the moment of contact grew closer. When Stevie and I talked earlier, I told him Frank Junior's birth terrified me. It did. Just not for the reasons I talked about.
Diesel took a long drag from his terrible cigarette. He lifted his gun, tracking someone's movement just on the other side of the tarp.
I watched my duo make their way around the side of the truck. They were moving slowly. Not carefully, though. I could hear them talking. One of them laughed at something the other guy said. I lifted my pistol to where I figured their heads were.
Dying never scared me.
My hands were steady as a surgeon's. The two soldiers wrapped around to the back of the truck. I saw the tops of their helmets peaking through the piles of boxes meant to hide our presence from prying eyes. It wouldn't hold up to a search. My finger brushed the trigger. Gentle as could be, I started to squeeze as I kept the barrel lined up with the lead man's head.
The moment I saw his face was brief. He smiled. His head was turned slightly toward his partner. The other man saw me first, his expression twisting from joy to confusion, and then terror. I finished squeezing the trigger. The first man's face exploded in a spray of blood.
A quiet voice in the back of my mind celebrated it as an act of mercy.
'At least he didn't die afraid.'The second wasn't so lucky. He started up a strangled cry of alarm just before Diesel put shots into his throat, cheek and forehead.
A storm of gunfire filled the air as I dove out of the truck. My boots barely kissed dirt before I dropped, turning mid-fall to put my back to the ground so I could get a line of sight under our vehicle. My rifle came up in the same motion, smooth as butter. It was like I'd done it a thousand times.
Two shots went into my targets: the first took out one of their knees and made them drop. The second went into heads if I could find them and chests if I couldn't. Sin-Cong regulars had shitty plate carriers. They couldn't stop anything over pistol caliber. 55.6 popped straight through. I couldn't imagine sending my team into combat with gear like that.
The rest of my team flooded out of the truck moments after me. Monk took the right, the machine gun in his fists playing the devil's song as he sent the enemy to hell. Stevie went after him, nakedly using Monk as a human shield as he kept his head low and tried to get a bead with his EMR.
Hoyle and Diesel went left. Diesel covered the corner with his M4 screaming at full auto while Hoyle crouched beside me, leaving my line of fire clear while he grabbing at my vest to check for entry wounds.
As soon as I saw the last of the upright hostiles sprinting back to their vehicles, I let my hand off the trigger to slap Hoyle's aside with a snort. "I'm good, doc."
I got up, stacking behind Diesel with Curt behind me. I tapped D's shoulder, and he started forward. We shot five men in the back before they could get back to the road block. A handful of troops had taken up hard points behind the engine blocks of their cars, but they weren't shooting back. Their heads stayed down as Monk sent bursts of fire down the line.
An officer stood with his hands up, pleading the word for surrender twice before Monk's SAW tore him to shreds.
"Wait."
Hoyle pushed me to the left, off line, so he could approach the driver side door. I was pissed at him for knocking me away from cover before I realized what he was doing. Doc pulled open the bullet ridden door, freezing. Vân lay limp in the seat. His shirt was sticky with brownish red blood. His gun lay in the footwall, jammed up behind the brake. The magazine sat a few inches away, empty.
"Shit," Hoyle cursed, grabbing at Vân's wrist to check for a pulse. It seemed silly to me. "He's dead."
"I could'a told you that." I mumbled, distant.
"He was your friend, Frank." Hoyle breathed. He was staring at me like I was a space alien.
On an intellectual level, I understand that I should be afraid. I was in a gunfight, after all. And I understood that most people grieved when men they drank and gambled with were lying in a pool of their own blood.
Feeling fear or grief is different, though. Its physical. Runs through the body like a lightning strike, or an avalanche. Those were the words Maria used to try and explain it to me when I got back from my last tour. She was trying to get me to understand why she didn't want me to rotate back in again.
I didn't get it.
"Oh." I told Hoyle. "Yeah."
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