American Metal

My American Metal (Blog Entry): December 13
I never read much before, but here it kills time. Band of Brothers. Catch-22. The Thin Red Line. Most everybody watches movies. I can't take the violence on TV, but I’m excited to fire at something other than paper targets. Maybe everybody is, but no one’s saying much. Guess I'm looking for insight into somebody else's experience. Just being away from home, I guess, is like every other deployment. So I lie in wait, and I read until the shooting starts.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): December 28
In our Combat Lifesaver course, I had to start a line on a guy named Dover, but he did me first. He was all shaky and massacred my arm, a lot of holes and blood. He probably thought I'd take revenge and stab him a hundred times, but I liked him okay so I got his vein the first try. We learned how to treat gunshot wounds: check the airway, breathing, circulation, disability; then apply pressure to the wound and use pressure points to control the bleeding. The instructor stood at the front of the room. He said, “There’s an eighty-goddamn-five-percent chance you will need to apply what you’ve learned here in the next 6 months.” Most everybody laughed, but he was dead serious.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): January 2
It's a land of extremes. Streets piled with trash, and you see an old man like your grandfather yakking away on a cell phone while he’s steering a cart being pulled by a donkey then moving out of the way for a Lexus SUV with gold rims. You could drive by mud huts and then see a palace that looks like it came off the Vegas strip.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): January 10
The bars are in houses, like old time speakeasies. They’re set behind this 20-foot wall that goes on forever, protected by a perimeter of security guards. I met a girl named Lee Marie in the bathroom, and we made out next to some dudes pissing.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): February 12
At the range we shot every kind of specialty weapon we could carry without having a tank or an aircraft. We found this little tin shack about 100 yards away, big enough to hit with most handhelds. I fired all kinds of things: AK47, M16A2, MK47, minigun, LAW, Carl Gustav, PKM, .50 Cal, 240B, SCAR heavy, Barrett sniper rifle, M4 shorty/conventional, M203, 9mm pistols, a 6-shooter semi-auto grenade launcher. Before we left we had to clean up the area, which meant we blew a giant hole in the ground with some explosives, threw in all the garbage and shells, etc., and blew it all up with C4. On the ride back there were the same locals watching us cruise by, some kids waving, some staring like we were from Mars.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): February 26
Rumor was Rainwater and Dover got caught by the MPs. On the roof of our barracks. The official report said they were engaged in a "voluntary wrestling exercise." You can't talk about that shit.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): March 13
Finally. Got Lee Marie alone. But in bed you can hear Apache helicopters passing overhead. No matter how hard your dick is you never forget there's a war going on.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): April 21
Opium is cheaper than water. You see it on the streets: men, women, grandmas, everybody. I asked Sabir, the interpreter, why. He said the Taliban kill their families every day. “What would you do?” he asked me.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): May 10
A dozen light explosions at 0400. Harassment fire. Maybe RPGs. None hit inside the fence. Sometimes I think we're untouchable.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): May 30
In mess hall, Rainwater started up about Thailand again. He said a man-killing bull elephant killed every single mercenary group that's tried to bring it down. “I'll be a fucking legend down there,” he said. “I’ll kill the son-of-bitch.” We were all getting itchy.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): June 15
Woke to an explosion. Scared the holy shit out of me. Dover said it was some kind of weapon sent our way but not to worry. He said if I was still scared, I could sleep with him and pretend he was Lee Marie. But Rainwater walked in. I thought he'd rip us in half, but he went for something in his lockbox and left.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): June 23
Another mission outside the wire. Rode in an open hummer with a 240B pointing out the backend. I was like an action hero. We cruised through a tiny village and the kids chased us, smiling, waving. Half of them didn’t have teeth. But they all had beautiful eyes.

“Sand nigger, sand nigger, sand nigger,” Rainwater yelled, pointing at them, his hand like a pistol. “Bang, bang, bang.”

Then he holstered his invisible sidearm and threw them a handful of breath mints.

We got to the range and fired off all the big guns, making sure everything was sighted, operating properly. We took Sabir. It was endless blue skies. Reminded me of the Palouse. I told Sabir it would've been great if we had some hard cider, but he had no idea. He just asked about New York City, and if I watched David Lettermen every night.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): July 2
We weren’t trained for what happened. Somebody “found” opium and a Koran in Rainwater’s lockbox. I figured Rainwater didn't believe in anything.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): July 27
Our first trip off base since the shooting. The convoy drove high into the mountains. There was nothing but rocks and the single paved road cutting through the creases of the world. All the locals squatted along the road and the kids ran toward us waving like lunatics. We drove to a big open area into what used to be a Russian military camp. The building looked 50 years old. Abandoned, falling apart. There were radio towers and watchtowers. We stopped the trucks, looked around. We couldn’t see another living thing for 10 miles. Looked like something out of an old movie set at the edge of the world. Everybody knew we were nowhere.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): August 2
The camp psychiatrist said there was no understanding people like Rainwater, that we can only understand ourselves. I told her I couldn’t sleep, that I was having dreams of people without eyes. She said I should write about what happened, and I told her I didn't know how to start. She said it's easier in steps, like a cooking recipe. I told her that was a fucked up thing to say except I didn’t say fucked up. She said it helps to think about it differently to move past it.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): August 3
Total Time: 30 minutes

• 4 Privates
• 1 Specialist
• 3 Corporals
• 2 Staff Sergeants
• 2 Second Lieutenants
• 1 Captain
• 1 Translator
• Sand
• 1 Professional Size Volleyball
• 1 Volleyball Net

1. Set daytime temperature to 120 degrees. Place Privates, Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captain in a 60' by 30' sand court. Play volleyball until sweating.

2. Simmer Specialist with pinch of psychosis, jealousy, or opiate. Set aside.

3. Add Translator. Simmer 25 minutes with non-stop New York City talk. Remove Translator. Set aside.

4. Add Specialist with loaded handgun. Whisk Specialist, Translator, and players in a large court. Keep whipping into frenzy for two minutes as others react with their firearms until the Specialist is no longer alive.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): October 18
We got the names and emails of our replacements. It wasn't soon enough.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): December 25
We spent our last night at the bar toasting cable television, in-door plumbing, and real hamburgers. A few soldiers mentioned the names of the ghosts we left. Somebody said, "Goddamn Rainwater," and everybody fell dead quiet.

I could almost stand by the end of the night. I think I asked Lee Marie to marry me. She said she thought so if I quit trying to drown myself.

“There ain’t enough water in the desert,” I joked.

She said if anyone could drown himself in a glass of whiskey it would be me.

My American Metal (Blog Entry): June 5
I remember it was 120 degrees. The sand whipped like flecks of red-hot metal off a grinding wheel. We had a few hours so we raked a volleyball court. Dover played in high school. Captain Vega too. Nobody wanted Sabir, the interpreter, on their team. He was good at his translating. Had no idea when it came to sports. He paced the sidelines, smoking cigarettes, talking, talking, talking. Mostly about New York City. Just named things: Sarah Jessica Parker, Empire State Building, Bob Dylan.

"You know Bob Dylan?" Sabir asked.

I said, “Bob Dylan’s a robot.”

He laughed, and asked, “It’s like Disney Land?”

“New York?” I said, but I'd never been. “Yeah. Exactly.”

I remember this part real good because it was like he started dancing, spinning on his heels. But when he faced me he wasn't grinning. It happened too fast. The gunshot, the blood. Shot in the neck. Still talking, talking, talking.

"Coney Island. Ellis Island," Sabir said. “Miley Cyrus.”

He fell, and I fell with him. Grabbed his neck, pushing his wound hard, like I could snap his spinal cord. “Shut the fuck up!”

He said, "I love New York," until he couldn't speak.

Dover and Vega sprinted for the jeep. More gunshots. More yelling. It was Rainwater, pistol drawn, firing like a lunatic. But it didn’t make any sense in my head.

Dover, ten feet from the jeep, dropped, a punch of blood on his chest. His head bobbed like he had fallen asleep, his legs giving.

I remember this about Specialist Rainwater:

• He was a middle child.
• Said he had a girlfriend in Knoxville.
• Was afraid of swimming in the ocean.
• Owned a hunting dog, Buck.
• That he didn't hunt.
• He was on medication for anxiety.
• And he was also in love with Private Brian Dover.

And I remember never saying goodbye to him.