Five Minutes in Afghanistan

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! A few AK rounds snap past my ears, leaving the distinct smell of gunpowder in the air. I dive down and hit the ground hard with a thud.

I pause. My heart is racing, sweat bleeding from my pores. The adrenaline rush is sinking in now.

I pop to my knees and take a breath, looking through the scope on my M27 and focusing in on my target. My heart starts to race faster now. More rounds snap past my head and kick up dirt just inches in front of me. I keep my focus on my target.

I can see him now.

He’s looking down the sights of his rifle. I stop to wonder if he can see me. What is he thinking? Are they the same thoughts as mine?

I brush away those thoughts. My heart is now beating through my chest. I click off my weapon’s safety. I slowly exhale, letting all my breath out. Staying focused on my target, my finger slips onto the trigger.

My heart stops. I’m about to do it. I’m about to fire my weapon at another human being in real combat. I’m struck with a wave of emotion. The memories of my training come flooding back into my mind. I no longer see a man in my sights, I see a green IVAN target, a target I’ve shot at thousands of times before. Suddenly, my heart slows and I feel a sense of calm come over me. This is just like training. It’s just another target in my sights.

I’ve almost fully exhaled now. I steady my aim on my target and apply all the fundamentals of shooting that I have been taught. My brain triggers the impulse in my body to tell my finger to squeeze the trigger. I slowly begin to depress the trigger on my M27, waiting for the surprise of the round as the firing pin strikes the primer, and the round accelerates out of the barrel. BANG! BANG! BANG! I let off a quick three-round burst. My ears begin to ring. I stay focused on my target, waiting to see if it falls.

Thump. Thump. Thump. My focus is broken as I hear the M32 grenade launcher pop off three rounds behind me.

“WOOOHOOO! Damn, baby, look at those fuckin’ fireworks!” Samora screams with smoke dancing from the barrel of his M32. Cheers and shouts erupt down the line as the rounds impact the earth only 150 meters away. Branches snap and trees fall.

I watch as the clouds of smoke and dust rise from the ground. I catch myself cheering as we hear the screams of our enemy. What’s wrong with me? Why am I cheering? Was I really happy and excited?

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! More AK rounds snap past my head and hit the ankle-high berm in front of me, kicking up clumps of dirt in my face. I try to make myself as small as a mouse and sink further down behind the small berm I’m lying behind. I recall the sunny days in my backyard when I would play war, when the bullets snapping past my ears were twigs snapping in the forest and the enemies shooting at me were as imaginary as the safety I longed for now.

War was just a game to me then.

Not now. War is real.

It is very real. Now, as I lie there behind that tiny berm in Afghanistan, I find myself wishing it was still only a game, wishing that I didn’t have sweat bleeding from every pore in my body, wishing that the smell of gunpowder wasn’t in the air. I wished for the smell of the freshly cut grass that always greeted my nose in the spring mornings when I raced out the door to start the day’s adventure.

What the fuck was I doing here?

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The ground shakes as violently as a small earthquake devastating a town. I return to the fog of war. It creeps up on me like a morning mist across a lake. Smoke fills the battlefield as dirt and mud rain down on me. There is panic across the line of Marines.

“What was that?”

“Where’d that come from?”

“Get down! Get down!”

Confused and disoriented shouts come up and down the line. No one can make heads or tails of the situation. I sight back in, scanning for my next target, trying to see who was firing at us. I scan from the vast emptiness of the barren desert to the mosque hugging the left edge of the tree line. I look for any kind of movement. I look for anything out of the ordinary.

War is like a sick game of hide and seek played over a long distance. Maybe war is still a game. A game to see who finds who first, or rather a game to see who kills who first.

I spot him: my next target.

“Enemy UGL. 150 Meters, next to the mosque!” I scream over my ringing ears and the gunshots still coming from both sides.

I focus in on the distinct figure of this man. Is he a father? An uncle? A brother? Maybe somebody’s son?

I brush those thoughts away as I feel my lungs fill with air like a balloon. My aim steadies. I slowly begin to exhale. My mind calms itself. I feel my body relax even though my heart is still trying to beat though my chest. I can feel the bullets of sweat sliding down my forehead, following the corner of my eye, then sliding onto my cheekbone, and then continuing to slide gracefully down my cheek until they finally splash onto the dry, dusty ground.

I slowly let out all the air in my lungs, keeping my focus on my target.

There he was, reloading his weapon.

I slip my finger onto the trigger again, my brain sending the impulses out through my body to my finger, telling it to slowly depress the trigger. I stay focused on my target. I anxiously wait for the surprise of the rounds to go off. When they do, I know his time will end. It will come to an end at my hand, once I finish depressing the trigger and the rounds accelerate from the barrel.

I feel a lump form in my throat. The kind of lump you get when you get in big trouble with your parents. The kind of lump that makes you feel like a little kid getting put in time out. I am trapped in that moment. I am trapped alone with my thoughts.

Am I really capable of this? Am I really a killer? No, there’s no way. I’m not a killer… right?

The vision of the man then becomes a distant memory. He fades away like a sunset. I’m almost done fully depressing the trigger and I can see the green IVAN target again.

Of course. I’m not a killer. I’m just shooting at another target, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Another short and sweet three-round burst accelerates from the barrel of my M27 towards the green IVAN target I have in my sights. I stay focused on it like an eagle focused on a mouse in a field. I’m watching and waiting like an eager hunter who has just fired a shot at a trophy buck, waiting to see if my target falls.

“We’re moving up! We need to attack these fuckers and force them to retreat!”

My Platoon Sergeant has now joined the fight. He is a short, stocky man with fiery red hair. His voice is raspy and his skin is torn and weathered. He’s only 26 years old, but after eight years of war he looks like he’s in his mid-forties.

Will I look like that someday? Old and weathered from war?

You could see it in his eyes. He has killed men before. He had that look about him that told you that you didn’t want to mess with him. He was confident and self-assured when he spoke. He didn’t just lead his Marines, he inspired them and gave them confidence.

When I heard his voice, I felt my heart slow. It was no longer trying to beat through my chest. It was now beating steadily. It was a beat you could march to, a beat you could dance to.

“Pate, get your men moving! We need to bring the fight to them!”

“First team, get ready to move! Teams two and three move up and wait for my command!”

My squad leader put the plan in place. The training made sense now. The long hours running around the desert with my flak on, time spent shooting at the range, and completing maneuver exercises. It all made sense now.

This is why they put me through hell. This is why my squad leader and team leader had always been so hard on me: To prepare me for this moment.

I was ready.