Flexing The Writing Muscles... Again.

I had trouble getting to sleep last last night.

I was thinking about my team (pictured at right) and what they're all up to now that I'm out of the Army. My shoulder was being a regular bitch, and I couldn't get comfortable no matter how hard I tried. Even the pain pills weren't doing anything, so after tossing and turning from midnight to three AM, I got up and decided to tackle a story that's been on my mind for awhile.

A couple of my readers from the old blog liked the series of entries I did there about my past relationships, and told me I should write romance novels.

Now I'm never going to be that guy that writes cheesy Harlequin novels with Fabio on the cover... I think I'd have to shoot myself if I was. Mainly because those of you who know me well know that from my experiences, love just doesn't happen like it does in romance novels in the real world... my world anyway.

I can probably pull off a short story or two if I draw from my own past experiences, but Harlequin material it ain't. Over the years, "love" has always seemed to leave an acrid, bitter taste in my mouth.

This one is a first draft, so feel free to let me know what you think. Be gentle though, I'm not at my best at 3AM.

Two Weeks In August - by Jonathan K. Lee

August 10th.

She told him she loved him.

He had somehow missed it, partly because of one of those little glitches in communication that all relationships have, and partly because he was preoccupied with trying to figure out how to tell her that he loved her.

He stumbled, and stuttered, hemmed and hawed, and finally, when he felt as though he would explode, he finally just blurted it out, and waited for the stunned silence and rejection that he was sure would follow.

He closed his eyes and waited.

There was a moment of silence that felt like three years passing as opposed to the three seconds it really was, and she told him that she loved him.

His heart sang with joy. He thought of all the things his future would hold, a new world of possibilities to experience, and someone by his side to experience them with. Home, family, a sense of togetherness and belonging that filled the immense hole in his heart that he had longed to fill for twenty years. It was like a dream.

August 12th

They didn't waste any time planning their life together. They found that they were able to agree on almost everything, which was surprising, considering that their backgrounds were so different. In a surprisingly short time they agreed on where they should get married, where they should live, how many children they should have, and even agreed on names for them.

"I've been waiting for you all my life" they told each other.

August 15th

In the blink of an eye, they had moved in together, and started living together as husband and wife. They had met each others families, which were as different as the two of them were.

He came from a hardscrabble, urban bunch that was fiercely loyal to one another, and quick to play judge, jury, and if necessary executioner to anyone that would harm one of their own. Where he came from, his family was respected by those that mattered, and feared by outsiders who would try to bring darkness and sorrow into their community.

She came from a place far from the city that on it's surface was more quiet and sedate, free from the threats that were accepted as a matter of course in his world. Her family reflected this in their quiet, yet spiritual and authoritative way.

After the initial expected trepidation from the people who cared about them on both sides, his people gave their approval, and hers did the same. Some referred to their relationship as two nations coming together for the greater good, not unlike a contemporary Romeo and Juliet. The two of them decided that they would live and raise their family amongst her people, and from time to time, he would return to where he came from to handle his affairs when problems arose.

August 18th

"I'm not happy." She said. He was stunned.

"What can I do to make it better?" He asked.

She didn't have an answer.

August 21st

"I'm leaving" she said.

He didn't reply, just sat there in silence. He felt a sharp pain, but in his head, not his heart, which he thought was somewhat strange. He got up and left the house. When he returned a few hours later, she was gone, along with all evidence that she had ever been there. The pain in his head was still there, and sharper now. He sat alone in the dark, a single tear rolled slowly down his cheek. He closed his eyes and slept.

August 24th

He awoke, but didn't open his eyes. He instantly became aware of the sharp pain still resident in his head, but now it was accompanied by a rhythmic beeping sound from his left. He heard fleeting, murmured voices, and wondered who was in his house. He opened his eyes with some difficulty, and became aware of an antiseptic smell, and the fact that he was in an unfamiliar bed.

There was someone sitting in a chair to his right.

He turned his head to look at the person, and as his eyes struggled to focus, he saw the person in the chair was wearing a camouflage combat uniform... a U.S. Army ACU if he remembered correctly. The man wearing the uniform was Hispanic, and his right arm was in a sling. The nametape above his pocket said FERNANDEZ.

The man spoke softly: "Welcome back Sarge."

He realized that he was in a hospital.

He didn't know why he was there.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the Army medical center in the Green Zone in beautiful downtown Baghdad." Ferdandez answered.

Baghdad? the Sergeant thought. I'm in fucking Baghdad?

Fernandez sighed. "You got your bell rung pretty good Sarge. The docs said you might suffer some temporary memory loss even though your head is harder than a bowling ball. In case you don't remember, you're a Senior NCO in a 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment. They call us Lucifer's Nightmare" he said proudly.

Suddenly a picture filled his mind, a smoke trail coming from his left, an explosion, the humvee in front of him lifting into the air and the feeling that he was being thrown backwards into something hard and unyielding.

"I saw a smoke trail..." he said.

"Yeah," Fernandez replied. "We were clearing a street building by building, and a fucking Haji materialized in a doorway and fired one of those RPG's on steroids they've been using on us. Somehow I got thrown out of the turret, and didn't land too hard. You were shielded from most of the blast, but still caught enough of it to get tossed into the wall behind you. The ISF officer, two of his guys, and one of ours weren't so lucky." He looked at the floor briefly, then back at his Sergeant, a steel-hard glint in his eye. "I was able to pull my backup SAW out of what was left of our ride and got the son of a bitch that got us... he won't have an open casket." He added grimly.

Fernandez gestured to his injured arm with his good hand.

"Tore up my wrist and shoulder in the process, but it was worth the expression on Haji's face when he saw me step around the wreckage and I lit his ass up. Raghead motherfucker thought he took us all out."

It all came flooding back to him then, the last-minute orders, the eleven-hour flight in the belly of a C-5, the strange feeling that something wasn't right this time...

He snapped back to reality.

"What's our status?" he asked.

"They're pulling us out. A five man team with four injured members is pretty useless. Bradshaw doesn't have a scratch, Bachman and Kellogg were evacuated to Landstuhl this morning, and now that you're awake, you'll be heading there too. I'll ride that far with you, then it's back to Bragg for me. Once the docs at Landstuhl clear you, you're Stateside bound. Probably for the rest of this one."

The Sergeant interrupted him, "What's today's date?"

Fernandez looked at him. "You've been out cold for three days. It's August 24th. We've only been here for two weeks. This trip was supposed to be a quick in and out... didn't think we'd be out this quickly."

He stood up.

"I'll go tell the doc you're awake." Fernandez started to walk through the door, then paused and turned.

"Sarge, the last couple of hours before you woke up you said a woman's name three or four times... you got a new girl back home you haven't told us about?"

The Sergeant laid back, sighed, and closed his eyes.

"No," he replied. "I must have been dreaming."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Remember, this is just a first draft, and I know that it needs to be fleshed out here and there. Your input and opinions are most welcome.

See you tomorrow.

Wednesday... blah.

Wednesday started as a day without much promise. Cold, raining, and just... blah.

This morning's walk with the dogs wasn't much better, as the two of them made it quite clear that they didn't want to be outside either. The fact that it's still dark here at seven A.M. until we turn the clocks back (November 1st this year) made this morning even more gloomy.

We did a quick five blocks, and returned to the relative warmth of home, where I made a pot of coffee, and suddenly realized that I was out of sugar.

Damn.

I was getting ready to slog down to Cub Foods when the phone rang. It was Jessica, telling me that Stephen had seen me walk by their house a few minutes earlier, and did I want to go downtown and have coffee with them. I quickly agreed, figuring that I would ask them to stop on the way back so I could get a bag of sugar from one of the multitude of bodegas between our neighborhood and downtown.

Sugar emergency averted.

A few minutes later a car horn sounded outside, I grabbed the beat-up government-issue A-2 black leather jacket that I wore during my days as a member of the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service in Europe after the 1st Gulf War, and in the mid-'90's during my days as a U.S. Marshal assigned to a Fugitive Apprehension and Warrant Service Team in Chicago and headed out the door.

It dawned on me that I've been wearing that jacket a lot lately. While I've kept it around for "sentimental" reasons, I haven't worn it regularly since 1997 or so... mainly because I always considered it "battle gear" as it's intentionally cut to be roomy enough to wear body armor underneath. What I thought was interesting is the fact that I was unconsciously bypassing my other leather jackets, that are in MUCH better condition in favor of the old warhorse.

I was startled out of my jacket introspection by Stephen telling me to grab my camera and bring it along. (He and Jessica are both amateur photographers like myself) Apparently, they were in an artsy kind of mood this morning and planned on doing some shooting as we traveled to and from downtown. I didn't feel much like shooting myself, as is evidenced by the lone photo I took through the rain-streaked window above. I put absolutely no effort whatsoever into it, I used the "automatic" setting on my camera, pointed it at the window, pressed the button activating the shutter, and turned the camera off.

"What did you just shoot?" Jessica asked.

"That building."

"Through the glass?" Stephen said.

"Yeah."

They both looked at me, waiting for some "artistic" explanation of why I had taken a single exposure, through a raindrop-flecked window of a rather ragged looking building.

I said: "It's a blah day, so I wanted a blah photo... if I see something that really catches my attention, rest assured, I'll become my normal psycho self, and take 200 exposures of it from every angle and with every manual setting I can, but for now. I'm just going to let that be it, and use it on my blog later regardless of what comes out."

"You know," Jessica said, "I really don't feel like shooting today either. We talked about it last night, but I'm just not feeling it today."

"That's funny," Stephen added, "I really didn't even want to leave the house today, but I felt obligated to for some reason..."

We sat there in silence for a moment, and I started laughing.

"So what the fuck are we doing out here then?" I asked.

The two of them started laughing as well and Jessica said, "Well as long as we're out here, we might as well go someplace and eat."

We ended up at Hell's Kitchen, where we downed three bowls of my old standby, Manohmin Porridge, and the three of us split two orders of bacon. We stopped at a Caribou Coffee to get another caffeine jolt for the ride home, and returned to our neighborhood. The only photograph that was taken between the three of us is the one at the top of this entry.

A blah photograph for a blah day.

But a blah day isn't necessarily a bad day.

I even forgot to ask them to stop so I could get sugar.

Motivation to get my butt out of the house first thing tomorrow morning is how I'm going to look at it.

Still not sure why I keep unconsciously wearing the old government-issue jacket, but I'll figure it out.

See you tomorrow.

Literary Tuesday

I got wrapped up in printing some of my HDR photos today, and time just sort of got away from me. It's getting late, so as opposed to just throwing something at you that's half-assed, and not clearly thought out, I'll give you a repeat of one of the true Iraq stories from the old blog.

I promise something better tomorrow!

Before now poetry has taken notice

Of wars, and what are wars but politics

Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody?

From Build Soil by Robert Frost

The Village - a true story

We cleared up a tough road to bring a resupply convoy up to a series of isolated Observation Posts (OP). We've done the mission multiple times before, and this time, things were going according to plan. We cleared the first part of the route in record time. As we turned on to one of the side roads that would eventually bring us to the first OP, the side of the road was lined with children waving and asking for candy. Even some of the adults with them waved and smiled- a rare sight this close to Ramadi. At the last turn before the OP, there was a young boy and an man in his mid-twenties. The boy waved, then pointed to a roadblock barring our path and said "Mister!... No!" and then his english failed him, and he switched to rapid Arabic. I asked him to slow down, which he did (slightly), but he was using a dialect I wasn't familiar with. What I was able to understand was that there was something up that road that he didn't want us to run into.

We finished clearing to the first OP, and parked the vehicles by the side of the narrow road to allow the supply convoy room to pass by into the OP. This OP, like many others, is a large house that was converted to its present use. It sits between two palm groves near a small farming village. It has perhaps a quarter acre of grounds surrounded by a high wall, and the roof is dotted with sandbagged watchtowers. Today, we sat for a few minutes, and watched the supply trucks pull into the OP. The guys relaxed- someone stayed alert on the guns, while the rest of the truck crews broke out sandwiches or cigarettes. We'd been in place for less than ten minutes when the mortars started landing. It was only three or four rounds, and they were off behind one of the buildings in the village. The men unloading the supply trucks took little notice of the explosions, and the locals that I could see simply started moving inside the buildings. War quickly numbs you to frightening things - explosions still make us jump, but if they don't directly affect us, we virtually ignore them. This time, they affected us.

I saw a crowd of villagers thronging up to the gate of the OP. Somewhere near the front, there was a man struggling towards the sentries at the gate. I'll never remember what he looked like or the clothes he wore, but I'll never forget his burden.

He carried a little girl. She looked six or seven. Her head lolled back, her dark, curly hair dusty on his arm, and her legs dangled limply by his side. The only pattern on her dirty white dress was streaks of blood.

A second man followed the first- the little boy he carried was even younger than the girl. Both the children looked dead, or close to it. Behind the men are more villagers, and some of them have burdens of their own. Too many. At least one of the mindless, undiscerning shells had landed in a school.

There was silence in the humvee for an eternity, and then Morrissey whispered the thoughts of us all. In that moment, in the stillness, the profanity sounded strangely like a prayer:

"Fuck, man... just fuckin' kids"

No one else says anything - we all know what he means. People who weren't involved in this war died today, and more may die yet. Kids paid the price for their parent's fight. Children dying hits you in a way that other death doesn't. You don't feel the sharp sting of losing a friend. You don't view their death with the casual indifference you might feel for adults. You feel the dull ache of lost innocence, of a lost future.

The stillness is shattered a second later by the radio. Someone is on the net calling for the medic. Andrews was a nurse back in the world - he stops to help a man who comes out of the trees behind us with a bleeding hole in his leg, and then he takes off to the OP to help the medic with the others.

The Lieutenant Colonel is back on the radio, giving us our FRAGO - our change of mission. We're headed out to the regional medical facility at Camp Taqaddum with the wounded. Hopefully, we get there in time.

Weekend Wanderings - Part III

It was a pretty good weekend by my standards. I reconnected with quite a few old friends from my time in Iran just before the fall of the Shah, and subsequent evacuation of most of the American community living there in late 1978.

Late Friday night, I stumbled across a facebook group called "Tehran American School", and was stunned to find a couple of my good friends and classmates from there, who remember me, and some of the classes we were in together, reconnected with someone whose family had lived less than a block away, AND the American DJ who did the morning show on the English language station owned and operated by NIRT (National Iranian Radio and Television)

I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent most of Saturday on this facebook group looking at pictures posted by other group members who had been there at the same time my family was, and had a few emotional moments when I saw pictures that had been taken during the last days of the American community, and our subsequent evacuation. I corresponded with the two classmates I found (Will and Paul), and we all agreed from our photos that we were recognizable to each other, but we had all most certainly aged. (I guess that's to be expected, since we were only twelve years old the last time we were all together) It was good to chat with the two of them again, as none of us who were students at the Tehran American School (TAS) ever got the chance to properly say goodbye to one another. With the level of unrest in Iran in October - December of 1978, TAS was closed frequently for the safety of the students, culminating in the Elementary, Middle, and High schools closing for good on December 5th, 1978... never to reopen again.

My last day at TAS was December 4th, and I didn't attend any of my classes, I had been sent to school solely to collect my belongings and gym clothes, and get my grades because we knew we would be evacuating sometime in the next few days. We were evacuated from Tehran on December 7, 1978. The only one of my friends that I was able to say goodbye to was my buddy Paul Racey, who I unexpectedly ran into in the chaos of Mehrabad Airport. His parents were there, but only to put him on the plane. They were unable to get a seat on a flight out for a few more weeks. Our goodbye was brief, we only got to talk for a few seconds before my mother dragged me away. She was overly paranoid about living in Iran from the beginning, and had even managed to convince herself during the last days that if I heard gunfire on our street I would run outside.

My mother is really kind of an idiot. I could write an entire book on how NOT to raise children because of her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now that we're into fall, I think about Manhattan quite frequently. Autumn has always been my favorite time in New York City, and sitting in Washington Square Park (pictured above) with a coffee and people-watching was a favorite pastime of mine when I lived there.

It dawned on me Sunday morning that I haven't been back to visit the greatest city on earth in nearly three years.

I really miss New York City. That's probably why I've held on to my old Manhattan Sunday Morning ritual for so many years, and went back to it when I relocated to this neighborhood.

But instead, this Sunday morning, I donned my Urban Superhero persona, and met up with my neighbor Wonder Woman for coffee at Anodyne on Nicollet, which I hadn't been to yet, and then we walked across the street to the Kingfield Farmer's Market. I liked the vibe at Anodyne, because it was Sunday morning, it was buzzing with activity, so I will definitely go back. Cafe Tempo however will remain my main neighborhood coffee stop, because it's more relaxed and has a more laid-back vibe.

After what had been a generally gloomy, rainy, snowy couple of weeks, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature actually got up into the 60's.

It was actually a Manhattan-like fall day weather-wise. I ended up hanging out with Wonder Woman most of the day, (another dog person in a dog-friendly neighborhood) and got my first close-up look at Martin Luther King Park, which dominates the entrance to the Kingfield neighborhood. We were informed by someone at the Farmer's Market that they have a dog park area planned for MLK Park, and there is an informational meeting this week that I was invited to attend.

I guess it's safe to say that I am now officially an involved member of this community. It looks like I'm 100% back to my old self.

I'm misplaced in the midwest.

But life is good.

See you tomorrow.

Literary Week - Day Five

To close out my "Literary Week" indulgence, I've always wondered how the Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton's of the world would react to the news that life on this planet as we know it was about to come to an end.

The Star - a short story

When the world started to end, you were ashamed of yourself for weeping bitterly in your bedroom for an entire day. You saw the president crying and begging on TV and it sent you into a panic. You lay in bed with the blankets pulled up to your nose, crying, refusing to answer the door when the maid, your manager, your assistant, and finally your parents begged you to come out.

After twenty-four hours, your father took the door off its hinges and dragged you down the stairs into your sunken living room with the white carpet and leather couches. You kicked and screamed until he had to pick you up and carry you over his shoulder. You called him a motherfucker and threatened to take back the Mercedes you'd purchased for him last Christmas.

Your mother sat solemnly on the couch, her hands clenched into fists on top of the newspaper in her lap. She said it was all over.

You glowered and glared; you asked what the hell is happening, and will you still be on the talk show circuit next month?

The television stations are all color bars and static. Your father says that the talk shows are all gone, and not to worry. He tells you that there are far more important things happening right now. How can you not worry? You were supposed to debut your new fragrance next month to coincide with the release of your latest album.

Your mother tells you that the album isn't going to happen, and she clenches her fists even tighter than before. You can't believe what she's saying. How can she say that? There will always be an album, and there will always be television. You tell your parents they're idiots, and that this will all blow over in a few days, as soon as they replace that pussy of a president.

Your mother says that the world is ending. They dropped bombs, she says darkly.

There are diseases and radiation poisoning spreading all over the country, your father says.

Not in L.A., you shout defiantly.

Your mother holds up the newspapers one at a time. WAR is on the cover of each one, along with speculations on the doomed fate of the country, including L.A. You feel sick, you're dizzy. You want to know what you did to deserve this, and how anyone could possibly do such a thing before you had a chance to accomplish the things that mean so much to you.

Two days later, your mother and father are discussing survival, and filling jugs with water from the tap just in case. Your father is worried about the electricity holding out. You sit in the living room wondering why all the servants quit the day before, and if your assistant is ever going to call you back. The only connection to the outside world is the radio, and it's hard to get real information between the crying and praying on almost every channel. On the pop station, the dj says over and over that it's only a matter of time. Your father tells you to switch to the AM band because they have more sense on AM, goddammit.

You hear reports of death and destruction all over the country, and all you can think is that you hope L.A. is okay. Even after reports of people dead in their cars, you imagine Rodeo Drive the same as it ever was, untouched by nasty things like war, sickness and death. How could a place a beautiful as Hollywood ever be destroyed? No one messes with L.A., you say, and your father won't look you in the eye.

When the electricity goes out that night, your eyes fill with frustrated tears, and you light the scented candles you'd been saving for a special occasion. The radio runs on batteries, but they won't last long. Your father tells you to conserve them, and stop leaving the radio on so much. You tell him to shut up, and that you can afford thousands of batteries. The man on the radio says that much of the east coast is destroyed, along with New York and Chicago. He says that the radiation is coming west at an alarming rate, and you wish you had a map so you'd know what that meant. Instead of worrying, you get out that limited edition pink nail polish and give yourself a pedicure. It isn't until you spill the bottle, and nail polish gets all over the carpet that you realize you can't stop crying.

In the morning, your dad tells you that your mother is very sick, and he doesn't feel so well himself. You roll your eyes and tell them to take some Pepto, but on the inside, you can't deal with the possibility of them dying and leaving you alone, so you go back to your room and sit in front of the window. Your yard looks the same. There is no death and destruction on your property, but you wonder what's changed outside of your front gates.

In the afternoon, you bring your gold records and Grammy awards up to your room so you can look at them. Your finger traces your name on the awards over and over, and you can't comprehend how someone who has accomplished so much in such a short time should be allowed to go through something as horrible as this. You're a star, for God's sake, you deserve better than this.

Your father is calling your name in the hall. He sounds sick. His voice breaks repeatedly, and he's gagging between words. You don't want him to throw up on the carpet in the hall, but you keep your mouth shut. If he does, the cleaning woman will take care of it tomorrow. You pull the blankets up to your chin and close your eyes. Your father's voice sounds farther and farther away now as you clutch the Grammy close to your chest and squeeze your eyes shut.

Tomorrow you'll wake up and things will be better. Tomorrow you'll be on the Tonight Show, and be as charming as ever. Tomorrow your agent will apologize for not calling. Tomorrow you'll still be a star.

Literary Week - Day Four

This past June, I spent a weekend up in Duluth, the location of the Aerial Lift Bridge in the photo above. It was chilly, and rainy which was somewhat surprising for Duluth in June... a harbinger of things to come I now realize.

Before my return to Minneapolis that Sunday, I had the opportunity to eat lunch at Grandma's Saloon & Grill in Canal Park. While I was eating what may have been one of the best hamburgers I have ever had in my life, a family came in and was seated not too far away from where I and my companion were eating. There was an elderly man with them (I assume he was the grandfather) who reminded me of someone I hadn't thought of in nearly twenty years.

I never knew the man's real name, but a few days later, I wrote the following in his memory:

CHARLIE - A short story

We were a mixed crowd of people who took the bus every day that summer 20 years ago. During the early morning ride from the suburbs, we sat drowsily with our newspapers and coffee, a cheerless and solemn bunch.

One of the passengers was a small gray-haired man who took the bus to a senior citizens center every morning. He walked with a stoop and a sad look on his face when he, with some difficulty, boarded the bus and sat down alone behind the driver. No one ever paid very much attention to him.

Then one July morning he said good morning to the driver and smiled short-sightedly down through the bus before he sat down. The driver nodded guardedly. The rest of us were silent.

The next day, the old man boarded the bus energetically, smiled and said in a loud voice: "Good morning to you all!" Some of us looked up, amazed, and murmured "Good morning," in reply.

The following weeks we were more alert. Our friend was now dressed in a nice old suit and a wide out-of-date tie. The thin hair had been carefully combed. He said good morning to us every day and we gradually began to nod and talk to each other.

One morning he had a bunch of wild flowers in his hand. They were already dangling a little because of the heat. The driver turned around and asked: "Have you got yourself a girlfriend, Charlie?" We never got to know if his name really was "Charlie", but he nodded shyly and said yes.

The other passengers whistled and clapped at him. Charlie bowed and waved the flowers before he sat down on his seat.

Every morning after that Charlie always brought a flower. Some of the regular passengers began bringing him flowers for his bouquet, gently nudged him and said shyly: "Here." Everyone smiled. The men started to joke about it, talk to each other, and share their newspapers.

The summer went by, and autumn was closing in, when one morning Charlie wasn't waiting at his usual stop. When he wasn't there the next day and the day after that, we started wondering if he was sick or -- hopefully -- on holiday somewhere.

When we came nearer to the senior citizens center, one of the passengers asked the driver to wait. We all held our breaths when she went to the door.

Yes, the staff said, they knew who we were talking about. The elderly gentleman was fine, but he hadn't been coming to the center that week. One of his very close friends had died at the weekend. They expected him back on Monday. How silent we were the rest of the way to work.

The next Monday Charlie was waiting at the stop, stooping a bit more, a little bit more grey, and without a tie. He seemed to have shrunk again. Inside the bus was a silence akin to that in a church. Even though no one had talked about it, all those of us, who he had made such an impression on that summer, sat with our eyes filled with tears and a bunch of wild flowers in our hands.

Literary Week - Day Three

The rather horrifying photo above is of two examples of a creature native to Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East known as the Giant Egyptian Solpugid, or Camel Spider. These wonderful critters are just another example of things they never told us about during desert combat training. What follows is loosely based on one of my experiences with them.

CIGARETTES AND SPIDERS

It was hot.

Not the kind of hot you’re thinking about, but the kind of hot that physically drained you, then wouldn’t let you sleep just when you needed it most.

The green shit didn’t help either.

No one was really sure what was in it, and the docs weren’t talking. It was some sort of stimulant that much was obvious. One needle and you were awake and alert for up to three days, not to mention the added benefit of a marked increase in your aggression.

It burned when it went in. You could feel it spreading through your bloodstream. Just when you thought you couldn’t get any hotter, along someone came with the green shit. Just to make your day a little brighter.

The crash was horrible. The headaches would put your average migraine to shame; sensitivity to light was increased nearly tenfold. For up to ninety-six hours after the dose "wore off" life was misery.

Every man in the unit accepted the green shit as necessary equipment for their situation. The problem was, after being used as often as they were at the start of this adventure half of the men were so banged up that they had the added bonus of the watery pink shit.

The watery pink shit didn’t hurt when they shot you up with it, in fact it made you feel nice and fuzzy and want to hug people you didn’t know.

Nice and fuzzy wasn’t going to cut it in Baghdad.

It sure as hell wasn’t going to cut it this far north of Baghdad.

In order to counter the watery pink shit, the dosage of the green shit was increased. Some of the men had heard some of the medics and nurses express concern at the amount of the increase.

Anderson opened a bottle of water and took a sip. He heard a voice behind him say something in Kurdish, then realized the voice was speaking to him. He turned, and there was a youngish looking kid of about nineteen or so wearing the familiar green woodland camouflage of the local PRK forces with a beat up AK-47 slung over his shoulder.

He held up a cigarette, and spoke in Kurdish again, Anderson listened, and realized the kid wanted a light. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Bic. He held it out and said in Kurdish: "Smoking is gonna kill you." The kid replied without smiling: "It won’t be smoking that kills me."

Anderson looked hard at the kid.

He was serious.

Anderson wondered what it must be like, to be so young, and have only known the kind of chaos that ravaged his home for his entire life.

And to be so young and carrying what was obviously a well-used weapon.

The kid lit his cigarette, handed the lighter back to Anderson, and strolled off to the other side of the compound.

It was hot.

Anderson took a step towards his tent, and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A camel spider had decided to use his shadow to get out of the sun. Big fucker too. It’s body, head and mandibles were at least the size of his palm.

God, they were creepy looking things, and not really spiders from what he understood, but closely related. Anderson realized that he was going to have to make the decision to either run for his tent, or kill it where it was because it would follow him to stay in his shadow, and a motivated camel spider could actually move at about ten miles an hour.

If I don’t take off at a sprint, he thought, my eight-legged friend here is going to follow me all the way into my tent.

It was hot.

He looked at the camel spider. It was large enough that he could make out its glittering reddish-black eyes regarding him as well. They only had two eyes, thank god, not the eight that their true spider cousins flaunted. These things were weird enough because they were so big. The last thing they needed was MORE eyes.

It was hot.

Not too hot to run for cover if something happened, but way too hot to run from a god-damned camel spider.

Unbelievable, he thought. I’m out here in the fucking desert, fighting a war for the fucking oil companies, I’ve earned my black tags, and I’m telling a kid who’s grown up under the gun that smoking is gonna kill him, and I’m actually debating making myself hotter than I already am so this funhouse abomination can live?

He lifted his boot and dispatched the camel spider, then walked to his tent.

Not gonna be able to sleep he thought, but maybe I’ll just lay down for a while.

His radio crackled: "HAMMER 1 you need to swing by and see the medic."

Time for the watery pink shit.

Not to mention the green shit.

It was hot.

Anderson dutifully headed to the med tent.

He thought about the kid.

He thought about the camel spider.

He thought about home.