I'm Bobby

I'm Bobby

By Cleve Taylor

Bobby lay in an earthen and snow covered hide he had constructed in a treeless scar on the side of a hill several kilometers northeast of Kyiv's city limits. Looking through the reticulated scope on his sniper rifle he could clearly see the convoy of Russian armaments, supply vehicles, tanks, and soldiers that had bogged down after tanks and vehicles were destroyed when confronted by Ukrainian defenders armed with rifles, Javelins, mortars, and a willingness to die to protect their freedom from Russian aggression and autocracy.

Bobby had been there for over three days now, fighting the creeping numbness of the cold, supplementing his shrinking water supply with melting snow that he scooped into his hide under cover of night's cape of darkness. His assignment was to break radio silence and report on any major movement of the sixty-five-kilometer-long column. But what Bobby hoped for, was a clean shot at any Russian General who might present himself. No other rank would do. Taking out a general would be worth the risk of his hide being targeted the moment he took a shot.

Years earlier Bobby had spent two years studying architecture in America at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he learned not only architecture but American culture. He spent many evenings with his roommate at an off-campus student bar whose jukebox afforded him an introductory course in American rock and roll, both old and new.

And now, secreted in his hide fighting for Ukraine's freedom, Janis Joplin's line that "Freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose" was stuck in his mind and cycled through his mind over and over again. He loved the song, "Me and Bobby McGee" and the story behind it. He also liked to imagine that he was the Bobby with Janis on their way to Baton Rouge. It was released and became a hit after her death from an accidental drug overdose.

As he reflected on that line, he considered that freedom was actually having something to lose, of having choice, of having relationships and rights so valuable to you that they were worth fighting for, and if it came to that, worth dying for. That was certainly true in his case. His sister and her two children, he hoped, had made it to Poland by now. His parents wouldn't leave and huddled with other tenants in the basement of their apartment building in Kyiv each time the sirens wailed. God only knows what they would do when their water and food ran out, or their apartment building collapsed on top of them. Yes, freedom was a word of something worth fighting for.

Bobby removed his gloves and rubbed his hands together to create friction and warmth. His trigger finger had to be usable at all times. He looked through his scope and noted movement partially obscured by the track of an armored personnel carrier. Three officers were listening intently to a fourth officer. Bobby looked more closely. That fourth officer was, "My God. It's a General," he said to himself in surprise.

He did not hesitate. He sighted his rifle on the general's head, took a deep breath, held it, and slowly pulled the trigger. Twice. The second shot into the body mass for good measure. He was on target.

Russian gunners, though bogged down, were not asleep, and pinpointed Bobby's muzzle flashes and targeted the source. One moment Bobby was a freedom fighter alive and alert. A moment later he was a hero of the resistance and a martyr to the cause. The last sound Bobby's mind acknowledged was Janis Joplin singing `"Freedom is just another word…"