Shadow Wrought's Journal: [Serial Writing] Everywhere, Is the War (Part III)

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Whether he saw the night again in waking dreams or in his nightmares, each time he still couldn't shoot. Sometimes the target would turn into a woman, sometimes into Osama himself, yet no matter how much will he applied, his finger would not apply pressure on the trigger. When the small slice of the embankment visable to him in the cave began swimming in the dawns ruddy glow he snapped out of his mental inertia enough to realize just how negigent he had been. Even with the village obviously neutralized he had not secured the bodies of his fallen comrades.

Shamed even deeper than he was before, he left the sniper rifle with the packs in the cave and gathered the bodies of his fallen comrades just outside the ruins of the village. Once, perhaps even twice, he fingered the flap on the Beretta he wore on his hip. Hell, if you can't shoot the enemy to save your kids, I doubt you'd have the balls to shoot their father. He walked around the blackened edge of the village, just to make sure no life inside yet lingered, but he could never quite get himself to go inside or even look longer than a glimpse into the heart of its destruction. The smell was bad enough.

Losing himself in training he tried to occupy as much time as he could, dreading what was going to happen next almost as he did his memories. That, too, had been forgotten with the night's disgrace. Maybe it was that memory at first light that had shamed him back to his job, but that thought held too much darkness for him to plumb its depths. He had just hauled the last pack from the cave to within a few yards of his fallen comrades when he heard the faint thumping of the chopper. Three quick clicks on his radio told him that their approach was imminent. Two clicks would send them away, one told them it was clear.

*CLICK* His finger betrayed him again, calling in the world to revel in his shame.

The Blackhawk swept through the canyon at a disturbingly fast rate for something so low and so big. He shielded his eyes as it nose pitched up to arrest almost all of its forward momentum. Fifty yards away it came to rest while disgorging a handful of men. Through the choking sand he and the crew chief carried his stiff companions into the chopper. He saluted several Intel types as they passed him on their way to the village. He couldn't tell and didn't much care what their rank was, but you could always tell the Intel weenies by their ratty faces and the fact that they almost always outranked you. Not that you're in much of a position to refer to anyone as a 'weenie' anymore...

He stared at his companions as the idling blades blurred overhead. He was only just aware that the crew chief was going about the grisly task of securing the bodies to the choppers grated floor when a voice intruded upon his thoughts. It took a moment to clear the fog and tears enough to realize that the chief had hooked up the intercom in his helmet.

"You here me OK, lieutenant?"

"Um, yeah, I'm here. I... a... I'm here."

"What in the Hell happened? You guys toasted that place!"

"Wasn't us."

"Whaddya mean it wasn't you? It fragged itself?"

"No it was one of the flyboys' AC's."

"Jesus."

As the silence lingered he focused again on Smitty. Now that he forced himself to look he could see that his wounds wouldn't have killed the kid straight away. Even so he died without uttering a sound- even though it must have been a slow and painful way to go. And I was questioning him! The tears soon began welling anew, only this time he couldn't not stop them. Through blurred eyes he saw the ground shift and lurch away from them. Through his body's wretching sobs he could feel one of the Intel guys sit down next to him.

"You're going to have some explaining to do, Lieutenant," the- Colonel he saw- next to him said, with a voice like freshly tempered steel.

"I let them down. I couldn't pull the trigger," he replied half sobbingly as he tried to regain himself.

"I don't know what in the Hell your problem is, Lieutenant, but pulling triggers ain't one of 'em."

"Fuck off!" He knew he shouldn't have said it even as it left his lips. He waited for the chewing out, but it never came. Maybe this guy knew that that's what he wanted?

"Well you got half of it right. Three men dead, a village of women and children wiped of the Earth and except for a couple AK's and a Webley, the only guns in that valley were the ones you packed in there. You are one fucked L.T., Walker." Walker looked the Colonel in the eye, and flinched almost immediately. He wasn't making things up, even if the world had just gone upside down, "I won't start 'officially' debriefing you until we get back to base, but you might want to spend that time making sure you have your answers straight."

Continue to Part IV
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