Comrades, Come Over

“Kameraden! Treffen sie uns!”

“What are those cabbage-eating bastards saying now?” said Sergeant Trevor MacAllister, 1st Coldstream Guards.

The prisoner, his hands bound and his English passable, said, “His words are ‘Comrades. Come meet us.’”

What You Can See from the Blind

Camouflaged men clustered in the predawn darkness, huddling amongst rows of heavy trucks that rumbled at idle. The smell of diesel and coffee hung in the night air. Their vehicles were loaded with equipment: guns, ammunition, maps, binoculars, food and water, medical supplies.

Some were veterans and had been in this theater of operations

Creative Commons License, SpaceManor

before. They were at ease, checking weapons and gear, plotting routes and where they’d sit in ambush. The vets reassured the novices among them, their recently issued camo new and unwrinkled and yet to fade. It wouldn’t be long before the shooting started.

It might have been the Kuwait/Iraq border in 2003. Or it might have been last weekend along Highway 22 in Samburg, Tennessee, with guys getting ready to hunt duck.

Shipmates

"Patient or visitor?” the valet asked each driver arriving at the treatment center. Sander had been shaving his head since the Navy. His smooth pate had nothing to do with chemo, but the parking guys didn’t know that. In this case, Sander didn’t mind being profiled. If they didn't bother to ask him "patient or visitor," he was fine with that. He felt like he was undercover, with cheap parking.

He registered, let the clerk tag him with a barcoded wristband, and settled into a seat with a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated. Lindsey showed up, kissed him on the forehead, and planted next to him.

High-Speed Malfunction

The stadium was a mile below as Wheels and I stepped into the night air and dropped away from the Cessna 182. We both had smoke canisters and streamers, and I had a football strapped to my rig.  Slyde and Kivett were already 1,000 feet below us, their parachutes deployed and towing American and Indiana flags.

The plan was for Kivett and Slyde to glide their banners toward the high school football field as the National Anthem played across the crowd.  Wheels and I would deploy 500 feet above the flags, pulling the pins on our smoke canisters and dropping them below us on a length of paracord.  Then we’d each unfurl a 50-foot Mylar streamer and commence an artful spiral around the flags as the four of us all came in to land just as (if we timed it right) the crowd sang along with “… O'er the la-and of the freeee, and the home… of the… braave.”

Nawzad Rendezvous

Thirty minutes until boarding and Trevor Kilkenny had his eyes on the fellow seated on the other side of the waiting area. The guy's hair was cropped close, high-and-tight. A polo shirt was snug across a hard chest and flat belly. A duffel in MARPAT camouflage was to his side. Trevor’s final point of observation: the man was in a wheelchair and had no legs.

Jenny looked up from her magazine, saw Trevor’s gaze locked on, and followed his line of sight. “What is it, hon? Something the matter?” she said. Trevor glanced to his wife, and tipped his head in the direction.

Welfare Check

John's grandmother listened to the police scanner when she knew John was on duty. At the end of each night shift, he'd stop in for breakfast with her and Gramps. When she heard John call dispatch to mark "out of service," she knew to raise the garage door and put on the bacon and eggs.

She teased him with questions he knew she knew better of. "I heard the dispatcher send you on a welfare check," she'd say. "Do they really make you deliver welfare checks? Ain't that what the mail is for?"

John had been on duty through the night and Grams had been up since 3:00. Gramps, on the other hand, she had to shake to get him out of the rack. Gramps sipped at the coffee she set down in front of him and rubbed a knuckle around his eye. "When do you move to dayshift, boy? I love ya, but I'd rather be eating supper with you."

Train

Marck and I joined the Marines together. We were 19. For six months, we were inseparable. We trained through the summer leading to boot camp: running, pushing iron, studying military history, and cooling off with some beers. During the three months that followed at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, we were on each other’s wing. Every day.


A bus brought a load of us recruits from the airport. Somebody whispered to his seat mate, wondering if they'd give us a snack before bedtime.  The bus rumbled through the gates of MCRD and pulled up to a placard that said "Receiving." The bus doors swung open and bedlam commenced. We grab-asstic civilians piled out the door and were herded onto columns and rows of yellow footprints painted on the asphalt.

Drill instructors swarmed and circled, barking and bellowing and snarling. It was like running a gauntlet of rabid shepherds and pit bulls and Dobermans, their ears laid back and their mouths foaming and their fangs bared, their chains just long enough to keep them from getting to our throats. It had begun.

Thank you for your service

A misunderstanding at Texas Roadhouse led to my being named a “Local Hero.”

The restaurant manager, Joel, presented himself at table side as we were tying into a couple of Roadhouse steaks, medium rare. He seemed early – usually the manager waits until you’re sopping up the last of your gravy before he drops by to ask the enthusiastic and leading question, “Was everything delicious tonight?”

“Are you former military?” Joel asked. My first thought was that my carry might be showing. “Excuse me?” I said, rearranging my sweatshirt.

“Your hat. I noticed your hat and thought you might be former military.” He pointed to my ball cap, olive drab with a large blue/gold Indiana state flag patch. He said he thought I might be Indiana National Guard.

“Military, yes. But Marine Corps,” I said. “Tonight I’m just showing some Hoosier pride.”

Andrew and Prasad

Prasad has muscular dystrophy and lives in an orphanage near the Godavari River in southeast India. His best buddy is Andrew. They're both 12. During a mission trip, my brother Steve's crew played a game -- mock "job interviews" to help the kids build some skills.

On one question, Steve asked, "How often are you late to school, Andrew?"

"Five times," Andrew said.

"Five times a year? Five times a month?" Steve asked.

"No. Five times a week."

"Andrew, why are you late to school five times a week?"

"Because I carry Prasad on my back."

Coleridge's Flower

Marty sat on a chair in the middle of a darkened stage. An overhead spot spread a cone of light around her.  I stood in front of her and she looked up at me and gestured.  Her lips moved, but the stage was silent.

 

It was clear she was trying to tell me something, to ask me something. She was near imploring.  I sensed another person in the shadows just outside the circle of light.  It felt like a male presence. A young man.  He seemed to be waiting and watching, and also silent.

Reverie

Fifty miles to the east, snow melts on Mount Baker and lightning flares in the roiling billows of ash. The windows of our lighthouse on Patos Island rattle as the ground bucks and rumbles, like birth contractions of the earth in labor. Diane plays Debussy’s “Reverie” and it seems to calm the children.

Before Gulliver, there were New Year's Resolutions

Looks like it’s time for “New Year’s Resolutions.”  But we’re not the first.  Before he wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a 32-year-old Jonathan Swift wrote some resolutions that he titled, “When I come to be old.”

Here are some selections from his 1699 list, [[refreshed for 2014]]:

Patina

I’ve never been one for jewelry. At most, you might have seen a $30 Timex on my wrist, the kind with a rubber watchband. No necklaces, no bracelets. No pinkie ring. In my 20s, I wore a wedding band for a year and left it on the kitchen table when it was all over and done.

Even today, most of what I wear is made only of bone or paracord. The survival bracelet on my wrist comprises eight feet of braided 550 cord. The adventurer in my head tells me I might unravel this to use as an emergency rifle sling or to tie up a bad guy or perhaps apply as a tourniquet. Save the day. In reality, I’ll probably use it to replace a broken bootlace or something equally unheroic.

Gravel

Frost covered the plastic windows of Sharon's mobile home.  She stepped over sleeping kids and grandkids and out to the trailer’s front porch. Her terrycloth robe was thin and the color of green apples and she pulled it around her spare frame and it did little to hold back the cold.

Another soft knock and she pushed open the storm door. Are you Sharon, a woman asked. We’re from St. Matt’s. 

Seoul, at Night

Danae shucked her jeans to the floor. Her finger traced the edges of the adhesive discs that covered the crosshairs inked around her groin. She picked at the edge of one. There would be no more radiation.

She thought to tear it away quickly, like her daddy would have yanked a bandage from her skinned knee. Cruel, but short-lived and in that, the mercy. Instead she pulled slowly. The sting was bright and she could taste it. Coppery, like pennies.

Danae was twelve when her daddy taught her to shoot. He built a range behind the barn and he instructed her on trigger control and sight picture. He also trained Danae how to pack a wound and treat for shock. 

“This ain’t no game, little honey,” he said. “You carry the power to take a life, you best know how to save one.”

A Review of Richard Bach's "Travels with Puff: A Gentle Game of Lifeand Death"

Richard Bach is a writer who is serious about his privacy, but he is also a man most generous in spirit and on the page. In this his latest (2013, Nice Tiger), Richard opens by saying, "Destiny brought us together for this flight, and for love of you, dear reader...." 

I felt welcomed along on this particular journey.

Hawk

My father was captain of the militia and men was saddling up. I could hear horses snorting in the dark and the jangle of bits and bridles. Mother lit a lamp as my father pulled on his boots and had words with his corporal.

The Piankeshaw had attacked again, this time at Hardin’s farm. The corporal lowered his voice so my mother might not hear the worst of it.

“They cut ‘im down, cap’n. Scalped him and set the cabin afire and took captive Missus Hardin.”

My father asked how many they were. Number of muskets. Their direction of travel. Whilst the corporal told what he knew, my father gathered up his kit, his long rifle, powder horn and shot, and his tomahawk.

Don't Call Me Buckwheat

If you were any good as a bouncer at the Vogue Nightclub, you could usually get the job done without having to put your hands on anyone. 

A drill-field-worthy command voice with a haircut that said “recently-discharged Marine” goes a long way toward establishing alpha-dog status. It's all attitude and presentation.

Since its opening in 1938, The Vogue has screened the films of Burt Lancaster, Henry Fonda, Carole Lombard -- and even Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems when the place was an X-rated theater for a couple years in the 70s. As a concert venue, its stage has hosted acts like Willie Nelson, Keb' Mo', and Kings of Leon.

Running from Abaddon (Conclusion)

Jon Wertjes and I left Yaoundé later that year, toward the end of 1983. Jon was off to New Zealand and I was headed to my next duty station at our embassy in the Bahamas. I said goodbye to Ken on the weed-lined tarmac of the Yaoundé Ville Airport.  

He was looking forward to his upcoming transfer, taking his wife and two boys to his next assignment at the US Embassy in Beijing. I shook his hand and we promised to keep in touch. Ken was 32 years old.

Running from Abaddon (Part VI)

In his 2013 Washington Post travel log, Christopher Vourlias wrote: “In free-wheeling Douala, young hedonists danced until the wee hours to the latest bikutsi club tracks.” Thirty years earlier, Douala had no less music and was no less hedonistic or free-wheeling.

After a day of high-speed logisticizing, our consulate group gathered at a portside bar to debrief. It was there that I came as close as I ever came to getting hit by a flying beer bottle. A certain lady of questionable character... okay, the place was full of hookers. 

A hooker expressed her interest in my remunerating her for the pleasure of her company. I declined in my elementary French.