5 March 2008

  Basra, Iraq

  The wind blew the sand across the ground, carrying a hint of moisture in it. Daris Zillanger looked down at the three stripes on his jacket and sighed, he was a newly minted Sergeant in the Marine Corps starting his third rotation into a war zone. It was the quiet moments like this, when no one was trying to kill you, and when there was no one to kill that Daris loved. He knew that the extra moisture in the air meant that there was going to be storms in the afternoon, which meant haboobs. With an idle wipe at the lens of his goggles, cleaning them while reflecting on the seeming whirlwind of events that Daris’ Marine Career has been from the beginning; he has felt like he has been at a dead sprint since he stepped on those yellow boot prints at Parris Island. His four months there passed in the longest blink of an eye one can experience, followed immediately by infantry school at Lejeune, which was followed almost as immediately by his deployment to Iraq in December of 2004, barely six months in, and having spent less than a month at his home base and Daris was sent to Iraq for 18 months on a 12 month ticket. With only three months to recover from the extended tour in Iraq, Daris took his single stripe to Afghanistan and started to understand the stuck feeling of being a “terminal lance”, he just hoped it didn’t sound as fatal as most other things that get called terminal; terminal cancer, terminal heart disease, terminal cafe, etc.. Thinking back to his first two tours, the events more or less blend together, as the days were mostly all the same routines, wake up, brief personal time, chow, hygiene, mount up, don’t get shot, RTB or on the rare occasion set up camp, which would always mean extra steps in the morning, but all in all it was the same shit, just depends if the mountains were toward the east and full of bad guys, or if the mountains surrounded you and were full of bad guys. He just shook his head and laughed, “Just because the desert is home, doesn’t fucking mean I wanted to spend the rest of my life in it, there is a reason I was in Syracuse when I joined and not the Southwest”.

  “I’ll take that into advisement, Sergeant.” the voice said from behind Daris, jarring him from his own mind. Daris spins around to find a Major that he has never seen before standing behind him. By the squared off shoulders, the crisp pressing of his combat uniform and the forward cant of the seven point cover on his head; Daris knew that this was not a social visit and this Major did not want, no, could not be kept waiting. “Sir, apologizes, I did not notice your approach, cup of joe? And what can I do for you, sir?” Daris said, as his body sprang out of his chair, his body locking into a ridgid position with Daris’ heels together, his hands straight down at his sides and his eyes and head facing directly forward.

  “At ease, son.” The Major said, his voice softening into a fatherly tone as he spoke to Daris, “I’ll take you up on the coffee, especially if you can fortify it, otherwise, I would like to hear about the combat action from One March”

  “Sir, I don’t know what I can tell you, but that action is code black, ref OPSEC, I literally couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to.” Daris said, relaxing his posture as he turned to pour a cup of coffee from the small pot in his tent. “It’s better than the instant stuff we get in the chow tent, but sometimes it gets hard to get the beans. Unfortunately, nothing to fortify it with, the climate isn’t the only dry thing about this place.” he remarked filling a small metal mug.

  “True, and I am going to hear about the combat action regardless, you may as well tell me now, that way I can get a jump on the investigation, by the way, stay close, we will be calling you in some time today.” The Major said as he took the cup of coffee, taking a long sip of it while waiting for a reply.

  “Sir, I can’t, get me in a SCIF with the proper paperwork, and I will tell you everything that I know, which isn’t much. But until then, I need to get my gear together, convoy rolls out at nine hundred, which leaves me about thirty more minutes to get packed, get down to the ASP and maybe acquire an extra MRE, storms later today, and f…” Daris caught himself before swearing to a senior officer, “Forgive me, I don’t want to end up like we did in Kabul. I’m sure you are familiar with what happened with that, you intel guys are always well read”.

  “No, Sergeant, I actually don’t know what happened in Kabul, and you have me all wrong, I am not an intel guy. Oh, and consider yourself notified, you are to stand down and standby to standby” the Major said, finishing his cup of coffee and handing it back to Daris before turning and walking off.

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  Daris turned back to his bunk and muttered to himself as he started to sort the things he was required to have on him, from the things he had packed for the convoy escort. Really it ended up reducing what he had to lug around the encampment to basically a small bag.

  “Hey, yo, Sarge you good?” The voice of Gonzales called from the entrance to the tent, while Daris didn’t have this tent to himself, the three other sergeants, and the staff sergeant that he shared the tent with, as well the platoon’s lieutenant were all just outside the tent, getting ready to mount up. The sister platoon to Daris’ unit was going to stay encamped and run the roadblock on Highway One. Gonzales, or Speedy, as Daris loved to call him, is a lanky young man of nineteen and Mexican heritage that had served with Daris for two years at this point.

  “Yeah Speedy, I’m good” Daris said, sighing a little bit as he answered.

  “Oh, okay, but like that sounded really intense yo, and we heard that you got sidelined, so we got stood down and are picking up some guard rounds here while Claremont and his squad take our place.” Gonzales says, his head just poked into the tent.

  “I’m sure Claremont is just going to love that shit, I’m sure he’ll find a way to blame me again” Daris says with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

  “Well, you know, why don’t you go set him straight boss, we have a ring, go a couple rounds with him. Maybe you two can work it out of your system” Gonzales offers.

  “Speedy, the only way the bad blood between Claremont and I gets fixed, is if one of us blue falcons the other, or one of us invents a time machine and I unfuck Claremont’s sister… nah fuck that, one of us will have to kill the other” Daris says with a grin to Gonzales.

  “Ay! That’s cold blooded! How did he find out?” Gonzales asks, stepping into the tent.

  “I had just arrived at Lejeune to become a part of the Twenty-fourth MEU, so naturally, I hit up the local bar because I have nothing assigned until like nine thirty the next day. Find this drop dead gorgeous dime standing at the bar, long black hair, hourglass figure, just a little extra meat on her bones, looked like Amy Lee, to be honest. Chatted her up, and with a mix of conversation and Hennessy, got her to take me to her hotel. Didn’t know that she had given a spare key to her brother, who wasn’t supposed to be off duty until sometime in the morning, but apparently he had swapped with someone and went to see his sister, it was fairly early, like twenty-one or twenty-two, and well, we should have used the chain lock, because he learned the only thing keeping her upright was my almight rod” Daris said motioning to his lower body.

  “?Híjole, pendejo!” Gonzales exclaimed and playfully swatted Daris’ knee, “Did you say anything?”

  “I wish! I thought of a million clever things to say, should that chance happen again. But sadly, in the moment, I just bolted, doing the three-legged sprint down the hallway as I tried to get my pants back on.” Daris admits with a laugh.

  “Great story, Zillanger, command wants you back at HQ, we’re ready for dustoff, let’s move Sergeant”, the voice interrupted from the otherside of the tent.

  “And who the fu…” Daris started to say as a pilot walked into the tent, the silver oak leaf rank insignia prompted a Pavolian snap to attention followed by a call of “Officer on….” but the Lt. Colonel interrupted the call with a flat, “As you were”.

  “Sir, I didn’t realize they had sent you to give me a ride, must be some hot sh….. Stuff…. That command needs to discuss, I am ready to go when you are, unless I need to get my stuff.” Daris said, motioning to his footlocker and a couple of bags.

  “Negative Sergeant, if you end up needing it, we will send someone to collect it for you” the Lt. Colonel says, “Come on, let’s get going”.

  Daris, giving Gonzales’ shoulder a firm clap, says “I’ll see you soon, stay frosty Marine”.

  Gonzales gave a firm, if slightly over enthusiastic, “Yut!” before Daris followed the Lt. Colonel off to the helicopter.

  The flight back to HQ was unsettling quiet, just the sound of the blades beating the air into submission as Daris sat in the back of the Huey helicopter alone. He let his mind wander trying to figure out what could be so important as to not only pull a Marine off of his regular duties, but send a Huey out to get only him, with a bonafide hero as the pilot. Something was off, and as he thought back to it, the random Major popping up to ask him about the First of March. This wasn’t something normal, and Daris was having a hard time getting the puzzle pieces to find together in his head, until the moment the Huey set down and as Daris went to exit from the Huey and saw the men in suits walking toward him. “Great, fucking spooks” Daris muttered under his breath.