From what I understand, this was originally written as part of a Halloween story contest, but given that the election is just days away, I think it is particularly relevant considering the context and tone.
Oftentimes, what authors of fiction choose to write about is a decision fitting into the broadest definition of "political," or what is important to them. In this case, I think that is clear and further punctuated with a punch line.
Its certainly harder to write introductions to fiction than it is non-fiction, as I don't want to skew any interpretations so I may be better off saying...
The author is a law student and general expert on everything you overlook. In all the time I have known him I would never surely say I could knew where exactly he stands on politics, and that is probably a good thing. I wouldn't even pretend to know after reading this story, where he puts his knowledge to use in crafting a fine piece about some of the unforseen challenges of combat in Iraq.
Other submissions in this series:
-Reid Bellon on the symbolism of Obama
-The Nahsville Minx doesn't buy the hype.
-Mom explains her political philosophy
-Teddy Kahn on Dog Sh-t and Competitive Obama-Mania
-S. Thompson on "The Business Party"
-Grandmom's thoughts on how politics play in her world
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We were the ready squad when the call came in. Just sitting there playing Madden in our Dragonskin, no clue what was about to go down. No clue. Garcia had just scored on Boyle - he was all up in his face giving him double birds when Sgt. Chilton came in and told us to cut out the bromance and move out and he meant move.
We loaded up and gunned it out of the Green Zone with the sunset at our backs, rolling out as fast as an uparmored Hummer loaded down with guys in battle rattle can roll, which honestly isn't as much as you'd like when you're RPG bait heading towards Sadr City. We were crammed in there, though, six of us in the back and one up top on the fifty-cal. Chilton was turned around over the front seat screaming the situation at us over Chamillionaire. Another squad and some contractors had run into trouble babysitting a National Police company on a sweep through these warehouses and we were going to bail them out. Heavies were on the way, but those guys in there needed help pronto.
This is my second tour. I've been over here a while, and Baghdad ain't Disneyland, that's for damn sure. Not all that many smiling faces. They say violence is down; we get pep talks every day, the surge and everything, but it was different that night. I mean, you roar down the streets in a Hummer like an armor-plated pitbull with Ma Deuce or Mk19 staring everybody in the face, hell yeah, people get scared. I've never seen fear like I did then, though. The locals were freaking out, and I mean freaking out, running all over the place or just standing around doing that weird Arab throat thing. Spooky.
About a klick from the target we started to see dudes in NP uniforms booking it, bugging out of there. A couple still had AKs, most looked like they had just dropped everything and started running. Chilton yelled at a few, but everybody was just screaming something Muslim, some Arabic word over and over again. If those guys knew any English they were too scared to remember it.
We were all flipping out at this point. You always get nervous outside the wire, but we'd never seen anything like this before. Garcia was just sitting there chilling. In the sandbox since '03. Maybe he was crazy before, I don't know. He was certified now. He always said he looked like a Latino Tom Cruise and tried to get us to call him Maverick. He slid his Oakleys down his nose and winked at us. We told him to go to hell.
There was nothing at the warehouse. Simmons punched the door down with an M100 and we went in ready to blaze. Nothing. Not even a sound, just darkness. We flipped down our NVGs and started to clear the place, room by room.
Bergbauer, Helprin and I found the bodies, or what was left of them. Four with Ranger tabs and two guys in unmarked non-issue BDUs. Guns - shotguns - and spent shells all over the place. Dead tangos all over the place too, maybe dead for weeks. They were in rough shape. Guts are guts, even when you're looking at them in night vision green. It doesn't hit you as hard, but it still hits you.
We were checking them out when someone starts rock and rolling down the hall. We run towards the shots and see about 20 terrorists or insurgents or whatever on top of Chilton and Garcia. Chilton's already down, angeled. Garcia's trying to drag him out and blasting them point-blank but they're not stopping. No sign of Simmons or Roy. Garcia goes dry - he's slapping a fresh mag into his M-4 when one of them takes a swipe at him and his head goes flying clean off. Still in the helmet. Helprin starts puking.
Then they turn towards us. Bergbauer and I unload on them and it's like they don't care. Whatever their deal is, 5.56 isn't going to stop them. They're not even flinching when they're hit.
Over all this we hear the big gun go off outside. Berg and I decide it's time to bounce fast, so we grab Helprin and pull him out into the street. Boyle's on top of the Hummer spraying a crowd of corpsed-up-looking mujs with the 50. They're falling to pieces or exploding for the most part, but they're still coming, dragging themselves towards the Hummer even when they get their legs blown off. Miller sees us and sticks his head out the window yelling that a Bone's incoming and it's going to smoke the place whether we're there or not.
I don't know how we made it into the Hummer, but we did, and it took off, Boyle still hosing down everything in sight. Then the world came apart. I've seen a JDAM hit before, and what they do to places, but they must have given this warehouse about 10 of them. We were maybe 500 meters away when it went up, and a chunk of concrete flew out and put a dent in the Hummer's armor. That's when I started puking too.
So what happened out there? I'll get back to ya on that. Helprin says the CIA was working on some secret chemical to interrogate dead hajis with, tag 'em, bag 'em and ask 'em, buried the funding in earmarks for some snowmobile track to nowhere out in Alaska, and that it got into the water supply somehow. Says he saw it on Wikileaks. Berg says they get so fired up with jihad spirit over here that they probably don't even notice when they get zapped by a Predator or something. I don't know, don't wanna know. Hope I never find out.
All I know is that I want to go home. Another hundred years of this? No thanks.
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