09 July 2004 – Bagram Air Base, Bagram, Afghanistan

Jeff sat in the hospital’s library bright and early the next morning, trying to learn everything he could about altitude sickness. He kicked himself for forgetting to do so during the pre-deployment preparations. He noted the signs and symptoms of two similar syndromes: high-altitude pulmonary edema and high-altitude cerebral edema – fluid in the lungs and swelling of the brain, respectively – both caused by the decreased air pressure at higher altitude.

3d Battalion discovered a third, related side effect soon after they landed in Afghanistan called high-altitude flatus expulsion. They nicknamed it ‘explosive decompression.’ When the battalion landed in the reduced air pressure at five thousand feet above sea level, their bodies wanted to equalize the pressure inside the colon with that of the outside air, continuing the process which started on their flight. Bodies equalized that pressure by expelling excess gas. If they flew straight through without the break in Germany, the phenomenon would have occurred in the confined space of the plane due to the cabin pressure in flight. Instead it occurred in the platoon tents.

<BRRRAAAP!>

“For the love of God what did you eat, Nauert?” Stan Mauer, a fire team leader in 2d Squad, asked that night.

“Eat?” Ruben Montes protested. “I think whatever it is crawled up his ass last month and died!”

<BRRRAAAP!>

“Shit, where’s my gas mask?”

“Does anyone have a book of matches they can light on fire?”

“Doc, how long will this torture last?”

“Until the pressure inside us drops to match the air pressure here,” Jeff answered. “If they serve beans in anything tonight someone keep Nauert away from the chow line.”

<BRRRAAAP!>

Jeff looked over at Rick Mendoza.

“We’re stuck in the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles!”

“Super.”

Jeff shook himself out of the memory with a chuckle and returned to the book in front of him. His ubiquitous iPod played familiar music through the small speaker connected to it. His hand played air keyboard of its own accord while he read.

“Is that J. Geils?” someone behind him asked. “By God, someone around here listens to music I recognize?”

Jeff turned to find a large man filling the doorway. His long sandy hair matched his beard. His altered BDU shirt sported Special Forces unit patches on both shoulders. Everything about the man screamed ‘non-standard’ while also screaming ‘you don’t want to mess with me.’

“Sure is,” Jeff answered. “It’s part of a playlist I named ‘Growing Up Boston.’ I’ve got ones labelled ‘Hair Bands’ and ‘Growing Up 80s’ also.”

“What’s on the ‘Boston’ playlist?

“Aerosmith, Boston, J. Geils Band, Del Fuegos, The Cars, John Butcher Axis...”

“Sweet! Is that where you’re from?”

“Well, Western Massachusetts originally. My family and I live in Central Mass now.” Jeff rose and extended his hand. “I’m Jeff Knox.”

“Simon Michael Kasperson. Yeah, I get that look all the time,” Kasperson laughed in response to the question on Jeff’s face. “Dad sports the curly black hair, brown-eyed Jewish look, but Mom was the hippie with the blue eyes and long blonde hair. Obviously I take after her. Dad’s parents used to give Mom and me the Hairy Eyeball when we’d visit. We reminded them too much of the Nazi bastards who wiped out their families.”

“Must make family reunions interesting.”

“Very. The same was especially true when I had my blond buzz cut during the summers as a kid. We only visited with Dad’s parents once or twice a year while I grew up. Dad didn’t talk to his parents for the better part of three or four years after Bubba called Mom a shiksa – not a good thing. Mom and Dad moved to Mom’s hometown of Dover, New Hampshire not long after that. I grew up there, so I remember most of those bands’ names.”

“Where are my manners? You wanna sit?” Kasperson nodded and took the offered seat. “Do you go by Sy? What do you like to be called?”

“Mickey, actually. Simon is my paternal grandfather’s name – a peace offering which was ignored for a long time – and Michael is Mom’s dad’s name. I give my full name when I introduce myself but I prefer Mickey.”

“I’m guessing you’re in here because you’re an SF team medic?”

“Yep. I’m the 18-Delta on team Charlie-97, 12th Special Forces Group out of Fort Carson, Colorado.”

“‘Charlie?’”

“I guess it’s because ‘C’ is twelve in hexadecimal, or so I’ve heard. 1st Group’s team numbers start with 1, 10th Group’s numbers start with A, and 19th Group’s numbers start with 9. Helps avoid confusion.”

“Is 12th Group the group they brought back after 9/11?”

“Yeah. I used to be in the 7th but got caught in the expansion draft when they spun the 12th back up. Can’t have the newbies running the show after all. Anyhoo, I’m guessing you’re in here for a similar reason? You’re a platoon medic, right? Studying up on some stuff?”

“Right. I’m a platoon medic in the 3d Ranger Battalion. I’m reading up on altitude-related injuries. You know, the reading I should have done before we deployed? We got here a few days ago and learned about one unpleasant side effect of reduced air pressure after we landed.” Jeff described the events of their first night in-country.

“We’re lucky in that Fort Carson’s already at about five thousand feet of elevation. We didn’t have any of those problems when we deployed.”

Jeff shuddered again at the memories of that night. “It was like what I’ve heard about being seasick: first you’re afraid you’re gonna die, then you’re afraid you won’t.”

<snapBANG!>

Impacting fragments rattled against the steel door. The door crashed open after a loud slamming sound. A battering ram landed in the dirt with a thud. The shuffle of feet rushing in. Loud, shouted commands were heard from inside. Then:

“GRENADE!” <crump>

A short burst of automatic weapons fire.

“CLEAR!”

“CLEAR!”

“CLEAR!”

Tense seconds ticked by before Jeff heard “Hey, Doc?” over the radio. He dashed inside the compound before the next syllable. Once inside the target building now-Specialist Steve Cunha waved him to Emilio Reyes, who bled from a few spots on his face. Emilio had raised his NVGs at some point.

“What’s the matter, Emilio? Cut yourself shaving?” Reyes looked at him half-dazed. “Okay, forget I said anything. Steve, what gives?”

“After the flash-bang went off we made entry per plan. One of the enemy tried to throw a grenade from inside that room there while we cleared the front room. He definitely wasn’t destined for a career in Major League Baseball, because his throw missed the door and the grenade bounced back at him. I pulled Reyes out of the doorway just as the grenade exploded; I think he caught a few pieces of adobe and ricocheting shrapnel off the door frame. The target all but took himself out with his own grenade.”

“Does he need to be checked after I treat Emilio?”

“No, he still tried to raise a weapon after the grenade went off. He suffered a fatal case of acute lead poisoning.”

Jeff nodded. “Emilio, take off your safety glasses, would you?”

Though still in a daze, Reyes did as Jeff asked. The younger man’s left cheek showed abrasions below where the face-hugging lenses once rested, along with a scattering of small cuts. The safety glasses were scratched. If the Army hadn’t started mandating eye protection in the field, at a minimum Reyes would be dealing with corneal damage. Jeff cleaned the cuts with an alcohol wipe for the moment. He’d take a better look at Reyes’ face after they returned to the base and the younger man washed up, but all the cuts looked minor.

“Anyone else hurt?” Jeff asked over the net. He heard repeated answers of “Negative, Doc” from the other section leaders.

“Doc, all set to move?” Sal Pellegrino asked on his way through the room. Their ride would be there soon and they needed to clear the area.

“What, this isn’t our new summer house? It’s kinda cozy and has a great view of the mountains there.” He waved at the peaks visible through his own NVGs.

“Get your ass outside, Doc,” Sal laughed, “and take the kid with you.” He knew Jeff wouldn’t be joking if he wasn’t ready to go.

“I hear and I obey, oh Great One!” He gave Reyes a small push and they left the building.

“Reyes all right?” Rick asked him outside.

“A little sandblasted, that’s it. He’s got a few minor cuts on his face but won’t even need a Band-Aid,” Jeff replied. “Unless he’s hiding something else from me, he doesn’t even qualify for a Purple Heart, Kemosabe.”

“Let’s try to keep it that way, okay? It sounds like plenty of Purple Heart paperwork got filled out last time the battalion was over here.”

The Black Hawks landed outside the compound walls to bring the platoon and their two prisoners back to Bagram, some thirty miles to the south. The sun was just beginning its climb above the horizon.

“I don’t know why, but I’m still surprised by the swaths of green around here,” Rick commented once they were at cruising altitude. Dawn revealed fields of deep green scattered across the dusty brown landscape.

“Did you think these people only ate sand or something? Just because the base is a uniform desert tan doesn’t mean the rest of the country is, Rick.”

“From up here the place almost looks peaceful.”

“Unfortunately we know the reality is quite different. You manage to catch your breath yet?”

“Almost, but not yet. You?”

“No. I know we’ll acclimate to conditions up here soon, but it’s a bit jarring to go from playing games at Fenway Park’s altitude to playing at Mile High Stadium.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“Sue me.”

2d Platoon walked into their tent following another successful raid early one morning the following week. It was 0415, but the weary soldiers still faced an hour or so of weapons cleaning before they could shower and crawl into bed. The op tempo for them seemed to be one every two to three days.

“Hey, do you guys mind if we try to turn on Sports Night?” Jeff asked while the others began field-stripping their weapons. “The Sox were playing the Yankees today and I’d like to try and see the highlights.”

Receiving the okay from everyone, Jeff tuned the satellite receiver to the appropriate channel. The receiver made the connection with the satellite, which wasn’t always the case. He shook his head at the thought of watching sports highlights from home in an active war zone. Not only was war hell but the contradictions in this one were crazy, too. The highlights show came on and Jeff took a seat while waiting for the Red Sox game’s segment. One of the guys told him the segment was on while Jeff scrubbed the powder residue from the inside of his rifle.

“The Yankees played Boston at Fenway this afternoon in the second game of their series and it got a little ... contentious...”

Jeff snorted. ’Contentious?’ he thought. A Sox-Yankees game is ‘contentious’ on a good day...

The sportscaster went on to describe a three-hour rain delay, and how the Red Sox players lobbied to play the game despite a soggy field, before getting to the events of the game.

“In the top of the third, things went from contentious to fractious.”

Jeff watched Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo plunk Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. The pitch hit him square on the large pad he wore on his left elbow. A-Rod began jawing at Arroyo while walking to first; Jeff could read A-Rod’s lips and he wasn’t using nice language. A-Rod soon turned his ire on Jason Varitek, the Red Sox catcher and captain who stepped between A-Rod and his pitcher protect him. The not-nice language turned into a string of f-bombs. ‘Tek took exception, then took his catcher’s mitt and tried to flatten A-Rod’s face with it.

“Holy shit!” Jeff cried out while watching the benches clear. He was sure the image of A-Rod getting pie-faced by Varitek would become as iconic as Carlton Fisk urging his home run fair in 1975.

“No love lost between these two teams,” Steve Cunha commented.

“Eighty-six years of frustration will do that for you,” Jeff replied. “Well, at least they won. Maybe this will wake them up now. They’ve only been so-so for the last couple of months.”

“Kahuna! Launch another one!” Rick yelled while pointing at a second-floor window with a bladed hand. Steve Cunha raised his M-203.

<bloop> <CRUMP!> Forty millimeters of attitude adjustment delivered. The enemy gunfire stopped.

“ASSAULT, GO!”

1st and 3d Squads charged into the low mud-brick structure with Jeff in tow. Jeff dropped one insurgent with two rounds to the chest.

“CLEAR!”

Half the force swept the first floor while the other swarmed up the stairs to the second.

“Bravo Two Six from Bravo Two Three Six, building is secure,” Josh Brogan reported while looking at three former insurgents upstairs.

“Roger, Two Three Six. Report status.”

“Two Six, zero KIA, zero – wait one – one wounded,” Brogan reported when he saw Jeff point to Private Ofume’s foot. The private hobbled out of the room with a grimace. “One package and four enemy KIA.”

“Roger, Two Three Six.”

“You three finish up searching the room, then search the dead. I want to be out of here in no more than twenty minutes.”

Brogan turned his back to the chorus of “Roger, Sergeant,” and focused on the platoon medic’s report

“What happened to Kwame?”

“He went partially through the floor in the other room, mainly the heel of his foot,” Jeff said. “He punched through a rotten board and he sprained his Achilles pretty good.”

“We might need a little more time than twenty minutes, Sarge,” SPC Noam Alexander added while hefting his M-249 SAW. “Kwame punched through to a hidden room. He’s lucky no one was down there or they probably would have lit him up.”

Josh’s eyebrows rose. “Why didn’t the bad guys head down there when we showed up?”

“I think the first high-explosive round from Kahuna’s -203 damaged the frame of a hidden door. The round impacted the frame and jammed it so the tangos couldn’t open it. Artie was going at it with a pry-bar when I came upstairs.” SPC Arthur ‘Artie’ Conklin was 3d Squad’s other automatic rifleman and a very big boy.

“Let me know if we need to call in the S-2 so I can tell Sergeant Mendoza.”

“Roger, Sergeant.” Noam left the room.

“Kwame still came up here after he got hurt, huh?”

“Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, Josh.”

“Back for more?” Mickey Kasperson asked when Jeff entered the hospital library.

“Oh hey, Mick,” Jeff replied.

“Thank you for not saying ‘Oh, Mickey’ or ‘hey, Mickey.’”

Jeff grinned. “I figure you’ve heard those lines enough.”

“Yeah, high school was a hoot after that song came out,” Mickey grumbled. “Gee, thanks, Toni Basil. How’s life?”

“So far, so good, dare I say? All minor stuff so far – minor cuts, bruises, and one sprained Achilles tendon.”

Mickey winced. “Ouch. Those hurt.”

“Kwame’s gonna be restricted to Bagram for a week or so until he can bear weight without wincing.” Jeff shrugged. “It’s not enough time for him to fully rest up, but it’s gonna have to do.”

“You guys going out a lot?”

“About three or four times a week right now. It’s picking up. How about you?”

“Our missions are longer, range further afield, and take a little more planning – not that yours don’t take planning – so we only go out once or twice a month. I haven’t seen you in a few weeks. You catch the Yankees game?”

“The one where ‘Tek tried to cave in A-Rod’s face?” Jeff laughed. “Not live, unfortunately. I caught the highlights, but we were out on an op while they were playing. I wish they showed the start of the fight in slow motion!”

“I know! I’ve heard a photo of the moment of impact is already behind every bar in New England!” The two shared a good laugh.

“So what are these things?” Jeff asked.

“AN/PVS-44s,” answered Rick, “the latest in NVGs. In fact, they’re calling these ‘VADs’ now: visual augmentation devices. Instead of binocular objective lenses, these use hundreds of tiny CCD cameras on the outside of the visor to give a one hundred fifty degree image on the flexible LCD screen inside. The cameras will give a full image, even with up to thirty-five percent of them damaged. They’ll do night vision, thermal imaging, magnification – the works. I hear they’ll help you see in a dust storm or through smoke too, even during the day. The signal processing takes place in this box at the back of the harness, which will be on the back of our MICH helmets. The rechargeable battery is back there, too. You can also use regular batteries if recharging them isn’t an option. The word out of Soldier Systems in Natick is the troops testing these absolutely love ‘em. Since we’re deployed, we’re one of the first operational units to receive them.”

“It seems like we should have some non-operational training with these before we use them on missions,” Sal Pellegrino commented.

“Guess what we’re doing tonight, Sal?” Rick asked.

That night 2d Platoon prowled through the empty desert inside the perimeter east of the airfield. The clarity of the VAD’s images was stunning. Rangers used to the grainy, narrow view through their usual NVGs ran through battle drills without worrying about missing something they could trip over. The normal side-to-side scanning to maintain awareness of their surroundings could be abandoned since they could still use peripheral vision.

“These things are awesome!” 1st Squad’s Benny ‘Rabbit’ Ware crowed. “Shading, depth of field, full field of view, and they flip up out of your way easily! Sergeant Dinkins popped smoke out there and I could still see! Natick hit one out of the park with these!”

“We’ll have to see how durable they are in the long run,” Sal muttered while checking his visor for any possible signs of wear. The high-impact plastic covering the CCD cameras didn’t have a scratch. “The balance of the device is good, though. The NVGs always made my MICH front-heavy.”

“The flexible LED screen inside the visor is really sharp,” Kwame Ofume added. “I watched you guys creeping around out there, and I didn’t notice the individual pixels unless I made a real effort to look for them.”

“When are you back in the game, Kwame?”

“Doc says it’ll still be another week or two. I guess I sprained the Achilles worse than they first thought.”

“Doc, mail call!” Steve Cunha yelled through the tent’s entry door.

“Thanks, Steve. I’ll be right out.” Jeff finished writing the email to his family and walked outside. August weather in this part of Afghanistan wasn’t much different than at home in Massachusetts: daytime highs in the nineties with nighttime lows in the fifties. Winter temps would be about the same as home also. It was pleasant under the awning erected by previous tenants of their platoon’s tent, especially with the breeze that day.

“Your pile is over there, Doc,” Emilio pointed out.

A small mountain of packages waited for him on one table. A quick scan of return addresses told him most of his friends sent something; Keiko’s letter – marked ‘read me first’ – confirmed that. His friends hadn’t sent him packages, they sent enough items for everyone in the platoon: wet wipes, various kinds of jerky, shaving items, magazines and books, even gift cards for a music downloading service.

The package from Jane, Alice, and Tom contained a minor surprise for him: a letter from TC. The letter itself wasn’t a great surprise since they’d been talking all along, but the revelation that Heather threw out a few of Jeff’s first letters to TC was. The news started Jeff on a slow burn. If she wanted to ignore him that was one thing, but a federal crime was another. To Jeff it signaled the definitive end of their friendship.

The laughter from his platoon shook him from his bad mood. Emilio Reyes and Kwame Ofume laughed at the retelling of Jeff’s introduction to the platoon. Nauert and Schultheis shook their heads at the embarrassing first-hand memories. The laughter helped reinforce the lessons of the past month: that these forty men were – as with his platoon in ‘91 – the people Jeff would rely on the most for almost everything over the next year.

“Doc, you’re gonna wear a hole in the floor.”

Jeff stopped pacing. He stood still for a solid minute before the pacing started again.

“He’s like a caged lion!”

“More like a nervous father, Sal,” Rick replied. He turned to his platoon medic. “Would I be out of line if I suggested you take some of the Valium you carry?”

“A little,” Jeff answered while still pacing, “and that’s only because I don’t carry enough to keep me calm.” The statement was true in that he carried enough to keep half the platoon calm, not just himself.

His friends continued to laugh at him until they heard, “X-ray Two Two returning, mission complete. Negative KIA, negative wounded, one package.”

“Roger. X-ray Two Two is RTB with zero, zero, and one,” they heard over the radio speaker.

Thirty minutes later 1st Squad swaggered up to the tent laughing and joking. Trace Dinkins bumped fists triumphantly with Rick, Sal, and Josh while wearing a wide smile.

“What’s with this guy?” Trace asked, gesturing at Jeff.

“Mom was getting worried,” Stan Mauer commented, jerking a thumb toward the medic. “He about walked home to the States he paced so much.”

“Aw, I didn’t know you cared, Jeff,” Trace commented with a chuckle.

“You comedians keep laughing,” Jeff grumbled back. “Yes, I know it’s your squad, Trace, and your platoon, Rick, but I’m the one you’ll turn to when something goes south on a mission. You’ll take a look at someone who’s been unlucky, turn to me, and say: ‘Fix him up, Doc.’ Sure, I’m ready for that and that’s my job, but if something bad happened out there just now you’d have come running back here – screaming hot – headed for the hospital.

“DJ, Norm, and the other guys are trained and equipped as well as I’m allowed to get them, but that’s still a hell of a spot for them to be in alone. So, yes, it’s like being a parent: we send our charges out into the unkind world, hoping to hell they’ll be alright, and we can’t do a damn thing to physically stop something from happening to them when we’re not with them.”

Jeff shook his head and walked back into the tent. He was already asleep in his bunk when the rest of the guys walked in.

The following morning Rick Mendoza exited the tent to find Jeff gazing off at the mountains to their north. He walked over, sat next to his friend, looked at the mountains too, and waited.

“What’s wrong with me, Rick?” Jeff asked a few minutes later.

“Nothing I haven’t been struggling with myself, Jeff. Maybe I’m hiding it better but the pressure’s there. In different ways you and I are responsible for the whole platoon.” Rick turned away from the distant peaks and toward his medic. “You’ve been a little quiet since you got those packages at the beginning of the month.”

Jeff shrugged. “Mourning the loss of a friend, I guess.”

“The one who stopped talking to you?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s still there, though? Married to another good friend? I can’t say I know what it’s like, especially since I’ve never been through it and you’re living it, but it’s gotta be tough.”

“I’m sorry I implied you guys don’t care last night.”

“I know you are, Jeff. The rest of the guys know it, too. All of us use swagger and bravado to keep the reality of what we’re doing here at a distance. What sane person enjoys killing people? None of us are sociopaths. We care about our families, and each other, and can’t reasonably expect not to care about people in general.”

“What the hell are we doing here, Rick?”

“Keeping the wolves at bay. Trying to make sure they don’t hurt us again, and in doing that we’re trying to stop them from hurting their own.”

“Who are we to say what’s right for another country? What makes what’s right for us right for others if they don’t put it in place themselves?”

“You’re asking me to solve the world’s problems before coffee? You think I’m gonna be able to do that when neither the LT nor the captain has? El Presidente hasn’t figured it out either, nor the entire United Nations.” It was Rick’s turn to shrug.

“I don’t know the answer to your question, Jeff, or even if there is one. There are plenty of opinions, I’m sure. As for what we’re doing here, you say it often enough: ‘When you take the King’s coin, you do the King’s bidding.’ National policy has us here, like it or not.”

“‘ ... my country right or wrong... ‘“ Jeff sighed.

“For a Navy guy, Decatur was pretty astute.”

“You trying to put me out of business as the quote master, Rick?”

“You ain’t the only swingin’ dick around here who’s edjumacated, Bones.”

“Well,” Jeff said while rising from his seat, “time to strap your athletic supporter around said member and fall in for PT, platoon sergeant.”

“Time for wind sprints around the airfield again, Doc?”

“Pain is weakness leaving the body. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Leave it all on the field...”

“Personally, I like to keep it simple. ‘Be hard to kill’ is the best quote I’ve heard about staying in shape.”

The dark, moonless night hid the dusty Afghanistan landscape below 2d Platoon’s choppers. It also hid the blacked-out choppers from any observers on the ground as they sped across the ink-black sky. They arced over mountain peaks before diving into the valley where the target city lay. Through VADs the scene appeared as bright as day at 3:38 in the morning.

The choppers flared over a nondescript compound near the city’s edge; no discernible difference between it and the others surrounding it existed until this moment. Ropes dropped and dark figures slid down from the aircraft. The aircraft increased power and pulled away leaving silence in their wake. The silence lasted only seconds before half the assault force breached the main door on the ground level. A crash signaled the other half’s entry from the roof door.

“DOWN!”

“GET DOWN!”

The wide-eyed terror of children contrasted with parental defiance after the house was secured. No shots had been fired, but there was plenty of yelling. Jeff raised his visor and pulled down his balaclava to reveal his face before he knelt in front of an angry mother and her scared children.

“Shhh, little ones, no one will hurt you,” he said gently in Pashto, the language in this house and the only phrase he’d learned in it so far.

The mother let loose with a stream of angry words, none of which he came close to understanding except ‘American.’ She spat the word like a swear word. He smiled, shook his head, and shrugged.

“No more Pashto.” Jeff stood and drifted away.

“You’re not gonna win hearts and minds here, Doc.”

“Not with her, that’s for sure, Josh. Maybe the kids will remember a kind word in the future. Even if they didn’t understand it now, hopefully the tone will be remembered later.”

“You’re a dreamer, Doc. At best this place is a warm-up for how we’ll be received when we rotate to Kandahar in a week.”

“You know what they say about a journey of a thousand miles, right?”

“Yeah, they call it ‘Ranger School.’”

During the flight home Jeff noticed DJ Schultheis staring off into the distance with a sad look on his face. He nudged Terry Nauert and nodded toward DJ in a silent question. Terry pulled one of his headphones off and motioned for Jeff to do the same. They rotated their microphones away from their mouths to keep their conversation private.

“Deej hasn’t been able to reach his girl for a couple of days,” Terry yelled into Jeff’s ear over the roar of the helicopter.

“There is an eight and a half hour time difference between here and the east coast, Terry,” Jeff reminded the younger Ranger.

“I wish it was that simple, Doc,” Terry sighed. “I think she’s stepping out on him.”

“That’s pretty cold. What’s happening at home can be a serious stressor, especially while deployed. You tell Sergeant Dinkins yet?”

“Not yet, but I’m gonna have to soon.”

“You keep an eye on DJ and I will, too. We’re moving south next week. We need to be on our game down there.”

“Welcome to Kandahar, gentlemen.”

“‘Gentlemen?’ Is he talking to us, Rick?” Trace asked while shaking hands with Sergeant First Class Paul Dacy, platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 3d Ranger Battalion.

“There’s always room for personal growth, Trace.”

“I’ll bring you guys over to where you’ll be bunking for the next month or so,” Dacy said.

American troops had made headway in the Taliban-controlled south over the previous three months. Elements of the 173d Airborne Brigade seized the airfield in a company-sized combat jump two months prior to 2d Platoon’s arrival. Conditions were still primitive compared to Bagram but were far above those during Jeff’s previous combat experiences.

“All of our personal stuff is cleared out of here. We’re leaving the TV and computer stuff knowing you left yours for us.”

“It’s a good thing we hadn’t moved into those B-huts yet,” Enos Torvalds commented. “The guys would be pretty grumpy about moving back into a tent.”

“We could always see if there’s a FOB nearby we can visit, Enos. That might change their minds.”

“You looking for a mutiny, Jeff?”

“We’re not huddled in a hole somewhere with just our woobies to keep us warm at night, Enos. Don’t forget it could always be worse.”

2d Platoon took a day to get settled, then began to plan for their first mission in the south. Their preparations soon showed them they were now playing against the varsity.

“The bad guys up north weren’t slouches by any stretch, but the ones down here look like they’re a step or two past them,” Rick commented to Jeff in the hours before the op. “We need to be ready.”

“We are, Rick. You have us ready to go.”

Rick nodded and went back to checking his equipment.

The convoy left the base three hours after sunset. To an observer it was a standard supply run. Ten minutes in the trucks darted off their obvious route, speeding through dense Kandahar neighborhoods before sliding to a stop in front of their target.

<BAM!>

“GO! GO! GO!”

3d Squad swarmed into the house.

<CRACK!> <CRACK!>

“CLEAR!”

Jeff flowed through the front room. He kicked open the next door.

“AAAHHHH!” came the yell from Jeff’s left.

A machete whistled toward his head. Jeff brought his rifle up for the block.

<THOCK!>

Jeff twisted right, pulling his attacker off-balance and toward him. He aimed a punch at the man’s chin. The man dropped. Jeff pulled his pistol for protection, not trusting his rifle now. The others in his team cleared the room.

“CLEAR!”

“You okay, Doc?” grenadier Rory Nelson asked.

“Better’n I should be, Rory.”

Jeff showed him his rifle. The upper receiver, ejection port, and bolt sported a deep gouge. Jeff tried to pull back the charging handle but the deformed metal scraped together and jammed.

“Damn, I really liked this rifle.”

“How many lives you have left now?”

“Hopefully enough to get me through the deployment.”

“You guys all set?” Rick asked while stepping into the back room.

“Got a spare rifle lying around, Rick?” Jeff showed Rick the large paperweight he now carried.

Rick whistled. “Tomahawk?”

“No, some kind of weird machete.”

“Better your rifle than your head.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

“Time to get out of here. Grab that bag-a-bones there and let’s go.”

“Fifteen days down, twenty to go, plus or minus,” Rick mentioned during the NCOs’ workout one morning.

“We need to keep our eyes on the prize, that’s for sure, Rick,” Trace agreed. “We’re going out again tonight?”

“Yeah, about zero-three-hundred local time. We’ll have a night off tomorrow night.”

“That’ll be good. Two weeks straight is wearing the edge off the guys a little.” Sal and the others nodded in agreement with that statement.

“How’s DJ doing in your eyes, Trace?” Both Jeff and Trace approached Rich a week ago to warn him of what they’d seen.

“He’s at about eighty-five to ninety percent. He’s keeping whatever’s really going on back home in the background, but it’s still affecting him.”

“Is he the only one who’s having problems?” Rick asked his squad and team leaders.

“For the most part,” Stan Mauer commented. “We’re only about three months into our time here in Afghanistan. Some of the guys get that blank look when they think about how much longer we’ll be away from home. Eight to nine more months, especially at the operational pace we’ve seen down here so far, will be a long time.” The others nodded in agreement again.

“Okay, good info, Stan. Thanks. Anyone else have anything they need to bring up?” The others shook their heads this time. “Bones, anything you need to report as Chief Medical Officer?”

“Other than seeing minor sprains and strains beginning to pop up, no. It seems counterintuitive with the pace we’re at, but keep reminding the others how important PT is to keeping healthy, guys. As we get deeper into the deployment it’ll only get worse.”

“Good point, Doc. We’ll plan for a platoon run around the housing area in a day or two. We’re at a lower altitude here – about fifteen hundred feet lower than at Bagram – but we still need the exercise.”

Jeff drifted over to the base hospital after his shower. He restocked his bags there and checked on the aviation forecast for the night. He wanted to plan ahead in case he needed to call for dustoff. While talking to one of the Army flight medics outside the ER, the doors from the flight line crashed open.

The airside ambulance crew pushed their patient into the emergency room while Jeff and the flight medic held the doors open. An Air Force pararescueman, known as a parajumper or PJ, strode in behind them. They closed the door behind themselves while they remained in the ER to listen to the PJ’s report. Jeff learned the wounded soldier was a New Zealand private from a unit operating at the edge of that country’s area of responsibility; Kandahar’s hospital was closer than any other from where they came from.

The scene was no different than the ones Jeff witnessed at the hospitals in Boston. The only patient in the emergency room at the time, the wounded New Zealand Defence Force soldier was the staff’s sole focus. To an outsider the ER was pure chaos. To Jeff it was organized chaos. In the end the chaos won.

Jeff saw the disappointment on the staff’s faces; no one liked losing a patient if they were in medicine, even though it was inevitable. The not-yet twenty year-old should be back home getting ready for his nation’s summer, not lying dead in some tent halfway around the world and in the wrong hemisphere. One young doctor, another New Zealander from her uniform, began to prepare the soldier’s body for viewing by removing tubes and wires. The American nurses understood why she started doing this and not them. Jeff and the Army flight medic nodded sadly to the PJ and walked back to the small hallway area. They discussed other, similar outcomes in patients through the years and how much alike the disappointment of losing each one was.

A C-130 and two unfamiliar helicopters zoomed in low when Jeff stepped out of the hospital two hours later. The color scheme wasn’t American. He turned around when he recognized the roundels on the tails. Stepping into the ER again he stopped beside the NZ doctor.

“Ma’am, I think your countrymen are here.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I best meet them at the door.”

“Sarah, I was the attending on duty today,” a young US Army captain said. “It’s my responsibility.”

“Yes, Captain Mitchell, but the private’s my countryman. I’ll go.”

CPT Mitchell nodded and the young NZ lieutenant walked out the airfield doors. A soldier approached with a dark blue bundle.

“Sir, I have the private’s flag.”

The soldier unfolded it to reveal a defaced British blue ensign – one with a constellation of seven-pointed white stars.

“Begging your pardon, Captain Mitchell, but that’s the wrong flag,” Jeff said quickly.

“No, it’s not!” the other soldier protested.

Jeff persisted. “Sir, that’s the flag of Australia. Look at the flag patch on the private’s sleeve. There are only four five-pointed stars on it. We’re going to insult the private, his unit, and his country if we don’t find the right flag quickly!”

Captain Mitchell turned to the soldier holding the Australian flag.

“Find the right one now, Burnier!”

Burnier darted away. The young man was mercifully out of sight when Lieutenant Martin led the private’s unit into the ER, a unit clearly just in from the field. The faces of his friends fell further when they saw Private Taiapa’s lifeless body on the table. Captain Mitchell and Jeff stepped out of the way to let Taiapa’s fellow Kiwis have a moment in private with him.

“I think you just saved the day, Sergeant,” Captain Mitchell muttered under his breath on the other side of the curtain.

“I’m glad we were able to avoid that, sir,” Jeff replied, stressing the ‘we.’ “We Americans almost came off looking like real idiots.”

“How do you know the difference?”

“History major, sir. I concentrated in military history and studied the wars against indigenous peoples in many countries as part of that. That and I’m a bit of a flag geek.”

Burnier returned with the correct flag a minute before the curtain around Taiapa reopened.

“Sir, Sergeant Waiohenga asked if we could spare a casket for Private Taiapa, rather than a body bag? They neglected to bring one with them.”

“We’ll have one brought in immediately, Sarah.”

Burnier stepped forward and handed Lieutenant Martin her nation’s flag for the casket.

Fifteen minutes later Jeff stood with others on the airfield’s tarmac helping to form an honor guard for the New Zealanders. Other casualties had arrived in the interim, requiring the hospital staff’s attention, but Jeff and the other Americans hadn’t wanted the Kiwis to feel like they’d already been forgotten. The Americans snapped to attention and saluted their allies as they bore their compatriot’s draped casket on their shoulders to the waiting aircraft. The honor guard turned to face the -130 once they’d passed and waited in the late afternoon sun.

The New Zealand soldiers placed Taiapa’s casket on a temporary bier and spread out. They began to make faces and loud noises. A voice cried out in an unfamiliar language and all the NZDF personnel started stomping, beating their chests, and chanting rhythmically.

“What are they doing?” someone behind Jeff asked.

“It’s a haka,” Jeff whispered with reverence.

“A what?” Burnier asked from beside him.

“A haka, a traditional war dance from their country. The Māori people used to perform them before battle to intimidate their opponents and psych themselves up. Watching these twenty soldiers is impressive enough; can you imagine facing off against hundreds, even thousands, of warriors doing this before battle? They perform haka now for many different purposes. Here, they’re saying goodbye.”

“They’re not all Polynesian, though.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re all Kiwis. It’s their joint heritage.”

“‘Kiwis?’”

“New Zealanders. Kiwis. That’s why that bird – the kiwi bird – is in their roundel. It’s their officially unofficial national symbol.”

The Americans watched the rest of the haka in silence. Few understood what was happening, other than those who heard Jeff’s explanation, but they knew it was somehow important. Sergeant Waiohenga saluted Lieutenant Martin before she returned to the hospital, then he walked over to Jeff. He placed a hand on Jeff’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Sergeant Knox. I heard you through the curtain while we said goodbye to Percy. It means a lot to us that you would make sure he was properly honoured.”

“It was the right thing to do, Sergeant,” Jeff shrugged.

Waiohenga nodded, moved his hand from Jeff’s shoulder to the back of his head, and then pressed his own forehead to Jeff’s in a silent gesture of thanks.

“Heading home with him?” Jeff asked after they straightened up.

“No, it’s back to Helmand for us. Percy’s headed home on the -130 from here, which is why we came in the choppers to say goodbye here. Hei konā rā, Sergeant.” Jeff guessed that was ‘goodbye.’

“Sayonara,” Jeff replied in Japanese.

With many different ways to say goodbye in Japanese, that was the right one for this instance. Jeff doubted he’d ever see the New Zealander again. Waiohenga patted the back of Jeff’s head and jogged back to the waiting choppers. Jeff watched them fly into the setting sun before heading back to his platoon’s tent.

“Where’d you disappear to?” Rick asked. “We’ve got time for about five hours of sleep before we move out. What were you doing at the hospital all this time?”

“Practicing international relations.”