Welcome to the Root of All
You open your eyes. Still dark. You raise your wrist and click the indiglo switch. Twenty minutes past midnight. Damn. Only ten minutes to go, not enough time to fall asleep again. Hate it when that happens.
At thirty past, its revelie. The Marine on watch turns on the lights and the entire platoon begins waking from their slumber, packing their gear, and making ready for the move out of Kuwait and into Iraq.
Main packs are neatly lined up outside the hootch you've been staying in for the past week. Yet another pleasantly cool, air conditioned home you're forced to leave behind. You've lost count of how many. A large semi truck arrives.
"Working party up!"
You join the chain of Marines, formed up to move several hundred packs into the huge cargo trailer. You feel the same excited tension that they do. Eager to finally get something done. But then... you wait.
Stand by to stand by. The grunt's specialty. Packs are stored, gear is in place, ammunition is passed out. Sixty rounds per Marine. Safety ammo, as your platoon sergeant calls it. Just in case something happens when we get in country. That "something" generally being not good. Until then, we still wait.
You raise your wrist, click the indiglo switch. How does it get that bright? You shake your head. Doesn't matter. After only an extra hour, the bus is finally here.
It drives through the desert. An airfield blooms in the distance. White lights beckoning out of the still empty darkness. Shuffle off the bus, cram into a cargo plane. Engines roar. Ears pop. Dawn is on the horizon. You hold your M-16 tightly. Fingerfuck the magazine clip. Heh, ammo is still there, but who was checking? You close your eyes.
Touchdown. Eyes open. Did you sleep? Raise your wrist. Click the indiglo switch. Three and a half hours are past. Probably for the best. Cargo doors open, you shuffle off the plane. The stiff heat of the Iraqi desert is there to greet you.
Barbed circles of constantina wire line the airstrip. Man made sand berms, nearly six feet high, mark the maze of dirt pebbled roads. You see mamoth concrete slabs, twenty five feet high, three feet wide, two feet thick. Hundreds of them are placed side by side, protective barriers for the stingy plywood buildings. Well, at least the ones not built straight out of the desert earth.
Seven ton cargo trucks with fifty caliber machine gun mounts, up armored humvees. They stream by on some unknown mission of questionable importance. Bulldozers, construction cranes. They tear into the rocky sands, creating a future for an America in wait. What the fuck are we doing here?
"It doesn't feel any different." You whisper, to no one in particular.
"Eh?" asks your friend Joe, "You expected to feel different?"
You look around at your surroundings. More constantina wire.
"Yea, guess I did."
But you don't. On a strange new shore, in some far distant land, you feel... the same.
"Maybe it'll hit me when we start getting blown up or bullets start whizzing past our heads."
You look to your friend, but he's lost in his own ever wandering thoughts.
"Hey Joe," you say, "hear about Kilo Company?"
"No, what?"
"Their C.O's left the wire to do their Leader's Recon, and less than an hour out, they got hit by an IED."
"No shit?"
"No shit."
Silence.
"I heard they weren't banged up that bad, but their convoy found forty more IED's before making their way back."
"...fuck... Thats a lot of IED's."
You nod. "Yea."
More humvees roll by. Dusty sand kicks into the air, making every breadth burn all the more. You raise your hand to protect your features, and through squinting eyes, you notice your watch. Still on your wrist. But you don't bother to click the indigo switch. No use in knowing the time. The sand will still blow through, regardless.
You open your eyes. Still dark. You raise your wrist and click the indiglo switch. Twenty minutes past midnight. Damn. Only ten minutes to go, not enough time to fall asleep again. Hate it when that happens.
At thirty past, its revelie. The Marine on watch turns on the lights and the entire platoon begins waking from their slumber, packing their gear, and making ready for the move out of Kuwait and into Iraq.
Main packs are neatly lined up outside the hootch you've been staying in for the past week. Yet another pleasantly cool, air conditioned home you're forced to leave behind. You've lost count of how many. A large semi truck arrives.
"Working party up!"
You join the chain of Marines, formed up to move several hundred packs into the huge cargo trailer. You feel the same excited tension that they do. Eager to finally get something done. But then... you wait.
Stand by to stand by. The grunt's specialty. Packs are stored, gear is in place, ammunition is passed out. Sixty rounds per Marine. Safety ammo, as your platoon sergeant calls it. Just in case something happens when we get in country. That "something" generally being not good. Until then, we still wait.
You raise your wrist, click the indiglo switch. How does it get that bright? You shake your head. Doesn't matter. After only an extra hour, the bus is finally here.
It drives through the desert. An airfield blooms in the distance. White lights beckoning out of the still empty darkness. Shuffle off the bus, cram into a cargo plane. Engines roar. Ears pop. Dawn is on the horizon. You hold your M-16 tightly. Fingerfuck the magazine clip. Heh, ammo is still there, but who was checking? You close your eyes.
Touchdown. Eyes open. Did you sleep? Raise your wrist. Click the indiglo switch. Three and a half hours are past. Probably for the best. Cargo doors open, you shuffle off the plane. The stiff heat of the Iraqi desert is there to greet you.
Barbed circles of constantina wire line the airstrip. Man made sand berms, nearly six feet high, mark the maze of dirt pebbled roads. You see mamoth concrete slabs, twenty five feet high, three feet wide, two feet thick. Hundreds of them are placed side by side, protective barriers for the stingy plywood buildings. Well, at least the ones not built straight out of the desert earth.
Seven ton cargo trucks with fifty caliber machine gun mounts, up armored humvees. They stream by on some unknown mission of questionable importance. Bulldozers, construction cranes. They tear into the rocky sands, creating a future for an America in wait. What the fuck are we doing here?
"It doesn't feel any different." You whisper, to no one in particular.
"Eh?" asks your friend Joe, "You expected to feel different?"
You look around at your surroundings. More constantina wire.
"Yea, guess I did."
But you don't. On a strange new shore, in some far distant land, you feel... the same.
"Maybe it'll hit me when we start getting blown up or bullets start whizzing past our heads."
You look to your friend, but he's lost in his own ever wandering thoughts.
"Hey Joe," you say, "hear about Kilo Company?"
"No, what?"
"Their C.O's left the wire to do their Leader's Recon, and less than an hour out, they got hit by an IED."
"No shit?"
"No shit."
Silence.
"I heard they weren't banged up that bad, but their convoy found forty more IED's before making their way back."
"...fuck... Thats a lot of IED's."
You nod. "Yea."
More humvees roll by. Dusty sand kicks into the air, making every breadth burn all the more. You raise your hand to protect your features, and through squinting eyes, you notice your watch. Still on your wrist. But you don't bother to click the indigo switch. No use in knowing the time. The sand will still blow through, regardless.