With the return of war comes the return of fear.
I am afraid. I refuse to show it, but it is there.
Like a boy, fear makes me angry.
Then the unthinkable happens: I am on the way home from buying food when I see Hassan. He is with a group of rebels, rifle on his shoulder. He sees me. Then one of them in the front lurches to the side, drops to his knee, jerks his gun to his shoulder, and fires at something I cannot see. Shouts echo, gunfire rattles, deafens. I kneel beside a door, watching Hassan scramble for cover, firing. I peer out and see a file of American soldiers, a patrol, accompanied by an armored car of some kind. The Americans are outnumbered, although I do not think they realize it yet. There are about twenty Americans that I see, and Hassan's troop is at least fifty, spread out. I watch them find positions, waiting for the patrol of Americans.
The American soldiers advance, doorway by doorway. Each motion is precise, each man covered by several others. My brother's men, by contrast, operate more as a group of individuals, no cohesion, no teamwork, no real leader. They find their own cover, fire in wild, undisciplined bursts. The Americans fire three shots, pause, shoot three more. They pick targets and aim. Hassan and his men fire almost randomly. Some come close to their targets, but most miss by a large margin.
I watch as one American falls. Then another. Hassan's men—I think of them as his men, although he is but one of many rather than any kind of leader—are dropping, dropping, dropping.
I hear the harsh voice of an AK-47 near me, hackhackhackhachack—then the crisper sound of an American rifle, the name of which I do not know, answering, crackcrackcrack. Bullets patter and spatter in the dirt, and against the wall inches from my head. I suppress a scream, huddle closer to the ground.
I peer out, the need to watch winning over terror: Hassan is out there.
The AK speaks again, the sound moving closer, and then I see him, Hassan, crouching in the doorway, rifle kicking at his thin shoulder, one eye closed to aim. He glances at me, grins a lopsided, too-casual smile, then goes back to shooting.
Time slows. My stomach coils into a knot, my blood freezes, and I know what will happen. I want to scream, but cannot. A gasp is all that comes out. A tear trickles down, even though he is still firing, firing, and I cannot breathe. It happens. He jerks backward, twisting sideways, red blossoms blooming on his chest and a wide blotch on his back, shapeless and spreading. He is gasping, now, cursing.
I scramble to kneel over him, but he pushes me aside, struggles impossibly to his feet.
"Hassan!" His name finally escapes my lips, but it is too late.
My brother digs in his pocket, coughing, bleeding, wheezing, stumbles out, pulls a dark round thing from his pocket, jerks at it, throws, falls.
I watch the black dot, the grenade, float lazily through the air, fall at the feet of an American soldier kneeling beside the body of a wounded comrade. The unwounded soldier shouts, throws himself over his friend's body and rolls away, clutching his friend. The explosion is deafening, shakes the whole earth, cracks the sky. Dust billows, fire flickers.
There are screams.
The dust clears, and I see a mess of blood and bodies and bleeding limbs where the grenade had been, and I vomit. The limbs wriggle and rise, and a red-bathed American in tan camouflage lurches to his feet, sways, drags his friend away by the hand. He presses a palm to his side, drags his friend with other hand. Blood stains the mud.
Something tugs at my heart, watching the scene unfold. Hassan lies motionless in the road. Gunfire rips apart the silence, an AK, and puffs of dirt mark where the bullets walk toward the Americans, both wounded.
Somehow, I am out in the road. I step over Hassan. Someone shouts in Arabic, "Get away, woman!" I don't know what I am doing. Something hot buzzes past my ear. The American collapses to his knees, picks up his rifle, holds it at his hip, and fires. A curse, a shout, silence, something thumps wetly in the distance. More gunfire. The American jerks again, falls back and to his side.
I am in another doorway, watching it all. Two bodies, but only one breathes, I think. Sporadic bursts of gunfire, moving away. An American soldier inches toward his friends, firing. A grenade explodes, throwing him to the side. He gets up, seemingly unhurt but dazed, and backs away. He shouts, shouts, but the two on the ground do not answer. The pain in his eyes as he leaves his friends is visible and awful. Bullets ricochet, ding, zing, buzz. He turns and runs, and then there is no one. The fight has moved on.
I leave my hiding place. What am I doing? The thought floats through my mind, but I have no answer. The one who still breathes is collapsed on top of his friend. I push him over so he flops to his back. He groans, cracks his eyelids to peer at me.
Vivid, arresting blue eyes stare at me, and suddenly I am thirteen again, watching another American die. I am just a girl again, helpless. Hassan is dead. I know this. Mother is dead, Father is dead, Aunt and Uncle are dead. Americans are dead. Iraqis are dead. Everyone is dead, I think. Except this man. He struggles for breath, whispers something to me in English, and his voice is a breathy gasp. He wrenches himself over, each motion obviously excruciating, and pokes his friend. He says something, his friend's name, I think. His voice breaks. A tear falls. He looks at me.
I can see the death on his friend. I lean over him anyway, touch his neck, feel no pulse. I shake my head, and the American sobs, collapses, saying the same thing over and over again.
I know no English, but it sounds like, "Derek, Derek." A name.
The American goes silent, and I know he has passed out from the pain, from the blood loss.
What do I do? I cannot let him die. There has been too much death.
I drag him to my home, several blocks away. I am exhausted by the time I get him there.
I cannot help wondering once more, What am I doing?
FOUR
HUNTER
Operation Iraqi Freedom; Iraq, 2003
Routine CP. Clearing houses, crouching in doorways, and following the APCs and Hummers. Rifle at the ready, ears tuned, eyes peeled. Derek is beside me, joking about something. A sex joke. I laugh, but I'm not hearing him.
I've got the jitters. My stomach is uneasy. This is my last patrol. I’m shipping home soon. My tour is done, and my four years are over. I’m not re-upping. I’ve seen too much death and blood for a lifetime. All I have to do is get through this patrol without anything going FUBAR, and I’m home free.
Of course, I don’t have a home to go to, but I can figure that shit out when I get home. For now, I just have to focus on this house, this room, this street. Then the next one and so on through this sector, and then we ride the seven-ton back to the MEK and I’m back Stateside within a week.