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In The Hole, Spectacularly Not Winning
(This is a repost from 2007.)
In The Hole, Spectacularly Not Winning
Too busy to write much. History is written by the winners, and we are spectacularly not winning. I especially don't want to compromise details, operational patterns, and especially names in the event that a boot kicks over my body and pulls this memory card from my PDA.
However I have to get it out of my system somehow. No defusings or PTSD counsellors when you are being hunted by helicopter gunships with FLIR and unlimited clearance-to-fire. To emit radio signals is to die. To move is to die. To not move, is to die slower.
All I can do with the moments I have left is images, snapshots of moments.
Limited nuclear war. Taiwan vs. China. There is no Taiwan. China not doing much better.
The body hanging from the light pole with the placard. "Slant eye" it reads. I look up. Wrong type of eye fold. What were they thinking?
The look on everyone's face when we heard the hollow booming CRUMPS from halfway across the valley as the demolition charges took down half the high-rises in downtown, County Jail, and every overpass over every highway.
Military units moving out to their staging areas. Fear on all faces.
The maze of contrails overhead and the single contrail slamming down into a suburb.
CNN, shortly before all the dishes stopped working, playing Madam President's speech. Churchill did it better.
Teaching people how to kill main battle tanks with vodka and motor oil and a hell of a lot of nerve.
Pictures from twenty year old books taken from the public library.
The sharp CRACK of the battle rifle and the spreading bruise on my shoulder as the soldier drops, strings cut . . . and his buddies react, way too fast. Laying a base of fire, throwing smoke grenades, laying out a marker panel. Spot the RTO-platoon leader pair and put a round through the RTO. I think.
Running. I've run these hills. Never thought I'd be racing mortar shells.
The summer camp felt like barracks when I camped here as a kid. Now it is barracks, and nothing strange about it except that there is no armory. We keep our weapons handy. We sleep with our weapons.
The bell starts ringing frantically. Fumbling for my pants as the figure leaps through the door machine pistol at high ready. CRACK CRACK CRACK as I triple-tap with the Glock and disregard pants, running through the door as more make dynamic entry. Opening up full-auto on beds full of my friends.
Poison oak all over my legs and thighs from hiding half-naked in the brush. Hurts like a bastard. Red and bleeding. Just deal with it.
One overworked dental hygienist and me for twenty seriously wounded, stacked in the basement of the burned-out estate home.
Three die in the night, unremarked.
Urban ops. Keeping my head down. Watching the police check papers at the light rail stop. Being scared but not too scared.
"Your papers are in order." As she looks up, BLAM! and brains splatter the rail car floor. The body dragged by the heels and dumped. Swearing as the police pick it up again and move it clear of the track.
The dog walked past. Does not react. Attack, not detection. The PVC pipes have no fragmentation, but at least they do not clink.
The captain realizes that we are trapped. Goes out front waving a white flag made from an undershirt.
White spackled with red. Glazed look as he topples and the fire intensifies.
Climbing through the culvert while voices above chatter. I can smell the cheap tobacco from their cigarettes. One flicks through the air in front of me.
The splash as one unbuttons and addresses the stream I am lying in. Acrid smell. I lie motionless with the revolver pointed straight up. I wonder if it will fire or simply explode from water in the barrel.
The terrified look on the woman's face when she answers her front door and sees me in the black fatigues with the rifle over my shoulder. I ask politely to come in. She panics and ran for the phone in the kitchen.
I stop that, then she goes for a knife. The realization that yes, she was fighting to kill me and yes, that
I would have to kill her.
Her crumpled body on the kitchen floor.
The flyer on the unplugged and emptied refrigerator: "LAW OF TEN. The harboring of a terrorist shall be punished by the execution of Ten Family Members. LAW OF ONE HUNDRED. The death of a soldier will be punished by the execution of One Hundred (100) civilians." Further kanji I could not read.
The little kid asking me, "Mommy?"
Another flyer with pictures. Kanji and dollar signs all over it. My picture in the middle.
Dead Or Alive.
The days blur to become the same. The attacks too. The faces of my troops. But only during the day. The faces are sharp in my nightmares.
I am on point. No one else left willing to do it.
The sharp metallic snick as my foot steps down on something solid on the trail.
Flying through the air looking down on my squad from above.
The pain in my side and my groin as the litter bounces down the trail.
Looking down and I cannot see my boots.
I have no boots.
I have no feet.
"We have to extract. Do you want to wait for them, or do you want to go now?"
Snick of a bolt drawing back. I shake my head.
"Good luck, man."
Rustle of bushes as they move on. Quickly. We know the price of loitering.
My bitten lip dribbling blood down my face as I clumsily pen these words.
Rotor blades spinning down. I know what this means.
Fumbling for my holster.
Empty.
A booted foot.
Tearing impacts.
I didn't expect that.
This is what it is to feel your blood pressure fall to zero.
Note: this electronic document was captured on 28/01/20?7.
Author executed shortly after capture as unlikely to surv-
ive to interrogation. Yet to be translated due to lack of
priority. Cells in the Santa Cruz Mountains are no longer
functional. Chinese Military Intelligence operator 322CA.
In The Hole, Spectacularly Not Winning
Too busy to write much. History is written by the winners, and we are spectacularly not winning. I especially don't want to compromise details, operational patterns, and especially names in the event that a boot kicks over my body and pulls this memory card from my PDA.
However I have to get it out of my system somehow. No defusings or PTSD counsellors when you are being hunted by helicopter gunships with FLIR and unlimited clearance-to-fire. To emit radio signals is to die. To move is to die. To not move, is to die slower.
All I can do with the moments I have left is images, snapshots of moments.
Limited nuclear war. Taiwan vs. China. There is no Taiwan. China not doing much better.
The body hanging from the light pole with the placard. "Slant eye" it reads. I look up. Wrong type of eye fold. What were they thinking?
The look on everyone's face when we heard the hollow booming CRUMPS from halfway across the valley as the demolition charges took down half the high-rises in downtown, County Jail, and every overpass over every highway.
Military units moving out to their staging areas. Fear on all faces.
The maze of contrails overhead and the single contrail slamming down into a suburb.
CNN, shortly before all the dishes stopped working, playing Madam President's speech. Churchill did it better.
Teaching people how to kill main battle tanks with vodka and motor oil and a hell of a lot of nerve.
Pictures from twenty year old books taken from the public library.
The sharp CRACK of the battle rifle and the spreading bruise on my shoulder as the soldier drops, strings cut . . . and his buddies react, way too fast. Laying a base of fire, throwing smoke grenades, laying out a marker panel. Spot the RTO-platoon leader pair and put a round through the RTO. I think.
Running. I've run these hills. Never thought I'd be racing mortar shells.
The summer camp felt like barracks when I camped here as a kid. Now it is barracks, and nothing strange about it except that there is no armory. We keep our weapons handy. We sleep with our weapons.
The bell starts ringing frantically. Fumbling for my pants as the figure leaps through the door machine pistol at high ready. CRACK CRACK CRACK as I triple-tap with the Glock and disregard pants, running through the door as more make dynamic entry. Opening up full-auto on beds full of my friends.
Poison oak all over my legs and thighs from hiding half-naked in the brush. Hurts like a bastard. Red and bleeding. Just deal with it.
One overworked dental hygienist and me for twenty seriously wounded, stacked in the basement of the burned-out estate home.
Three die in the night, unremarked.
Urban ops. Keeping my head down. Watching the police check papers at the light rail stop. Being scared but not too scared.
"Your papers are in order." As she looks up, BLAM! and brains splatter the rail car floor. The body dragged by the heels and dumped. Swearing as the police pick it up again and move it clear of the track.
The dog walked past. Does not react. Attack, not detection. The PVC pipes have no fragmentation, but at least they do not clink.
The captain realizes that we are trapped. Goes out front waving a white flag made from an undershirt.
White spackled with red. Glazed look as he topples and the fire intensifies.
Climbing through the culvert while voices above chatter. I can smell the cheap tobacco from their cigarettes. One flicks through the air in front of me.
The splash as one unbuttons and addresses the stream I am lying in. Acrid smell. I lie motionless with the revolver pointed straight up. I wonder if it will fire or simply explode from water in the barrel.
The terrified look on the woman's face when she answers her front door and sees me in the black fatigues with the rifle over my shoulder. I ask politely to come in. She panics and ran for the phone in the kitchen.
I stop that, then she goes for a knife. The realization that yes, she was fighting to kill me and yes, that
I would have to kill her.
Her crumpled body on the kitchen floor.
The flyer on the unplugged and emptied refrigerator: "LAW OF TEN. The harboring of a terrorist shall be punished by the execution of Ten Family Members. LAW OF ONE HUNDRED. The death of a soldier will be punished by the execution of One Hundred (100) civilians." Further kanji I could not read.
The little kid asking me, "Mommy?"
Another flyer with pictures. Kanji and dollar signs all over it. My picture in the middle.
Dead Or Alive.
The days blur to become the same. The attacks too. The faces of my troops. But only during the day. The faces are sharp in my nightmares.
I am on point. No one else left willing to do it.
The sharp metallic snick as my foot steps down on something solid on the trail.
Flying through the air looking down on my squad from above.
The pain in my side and my groin as the litter bounces down the trail.
Looking down and I cannot see my boots.
I have no boots.
I have no feet.
"We have to extract. Do you want to wait for them, or do you want to go now?"
Snick of a bolt drawing back. I shake my head.
"Good luck, man."
Rustle of bushes as they move on. Quickly. We know the price of loitering.
My bitten lip dribbling blood down my face as I clumsily pen these words.
Rotor blades spinning down. I know what this means.
Fumbling for my holster.
Empty.
A booted foot.
Tearing impacts.
I didn't expect that.
This is what it is to feel your blood pressure fall to zero.
Note: this electronic document was captured on 28/01/20?7.
Author executed shortly after capture as unlikely to surv-
ive to interrogation. Yet to be translated due to lack of
priority. Cells in the Santa Cruz Mountains are no longer
functional. Chinese Military Intelligence operator 322CA.