because they didn’t want to relive the experience by recounting it, sure, but sometimes it was because they’d been forced into a depth of understanding of human nature that the average person would never have and could not relate to. Indeed, the real horror of war was what you discovered about yourself.
Private Justin Waterhouse was a wiry, oddly brilliant kid with a biting, sardonic sense of humor that probably went unappreciated in his native Midwest. Of all the men Len had met in the division he’d been assigned to, he most related to Justin’s piercing observations and droll understatements about the military and life in general. Justin was not the walking cliché Len had come to expect: GI Bill education, ingenuous idealism, and a cheating girlfriend back home. No, Justin was shrewd enough to see that he was there to secure oil for powerful business interests, and he didn’t even bother trying to rationalize it. Justin had a genius for simply existing, without any sort of self-righteous ambition in life, and Len admired his utter lack of pretense.
Justin came from a farming family. By pure happenstance of genetics, he’d been born with an astronomical IQ into a clan of average Iowans who pinned all their vicarious hopes on him. Justin didn’t want to be successful, though, and he was sick of their expectations of him. He just wanted to enjoy his damn life. He’d gone to college for two years just to shut his mother up, then failed out once he realized he didn’t care enough to finish. Eventually Justin enlisted simply to get away from his father’s shrill insistence that he do something spectacular. So there he was in Iraq, creating the appearance of doing something so people would leave him the hell alone.
It was said that war was 98 percent boredom and 2 percent terror. During the frequent boring parts, Len and Justin often played chess or got drunk on the vodka that people would dye green and smuggle into camp in mouthwash bottles. Len found the booze took the edge off his sometimes crippling anxiety disorder and made it easier to get some sleep under the constant threat of mortar attacks. Iraq was when the drinking became a habit.
Some men, when given control, lost their minds; they puffed up their chests, spoke in authoritative tones, and committed heinous acts without thinking twice. Power made the weak-minded forget who they were. This was what happened to most young bucks when they were given a uniform and a gun. Justin, however, wasn’t like that. Len frequently accompanied Justin on patrols and noticed that he treated the locals like real people, even though they didn’t always return the favor. Justin’s motto was, verbatim, “Neither of us is here by choice, so let’s not make this any shittier than it has to be.”
On one particular October morning in Fallujah, Justin’s squad was ordered to go house to house to search for weapons. Such searches in the past had been largely fruitless, and the men usually gave a perfunctory run-through while looking for anything obviously bomb-like. At the third house on the list that morning, Justin knocked on the door. An elderly man let Len, Justin, and two other soldiers in. The men split up, with Justin and Len going upstairs to check the bedrooms.
In an upstairs bedroom, Justin opened a closet door. It was the last thing he ever did. Hidden inside was a sixteen-year-old kid with a Kalashnikov rifle. The kid fired off a single round, which went right through Justin’s carotid artery, one of the few places he wasn’t covered in body armor. Justin collapsed, holding his neck as blood soaked his uniform. The Iraqi kid next pointed the rifle at Len and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. The boy had inserted the magazine into the rifle backward, meaning the round in the chamber, the one that went through Justin, was the first and only round that could have been fired from the gun. It was mechanically impossible for the kid to get off another
Private Justin Waterhouse was a wiry, oddly brilliant kid with a biting, sardonic sense of humor that probably went unappreciated in his native Midwest. Of all the men Len had met in the division he’d been assigned to, he most related to Justin’s piercing observations and droll understatements about the military and life in general. Justin was not the walking cliché Len had come to expect: GI Bill education, ingenuous idealism, and a cheating girlfriend back home. No, Justin was shrewd enough to see that he was there to secure oil for powerful business interests, and he didn’t even bother trying to rationalize it. Justin had a genius for simply existing, without any sort of self-righteous ambition in life, and Len admired his utter lack of pretense.
Justin came from a farming family. By pure happenstance of genetics, he’d been born with an astronomical IQ into a clan of average Iowans who pinned all their vicarious hopes on him. Justin didn’t want to be successful, though, and he was sick of their expectations of him. He just wanted to enjoy his damn life. He’d gone to college for two years just to shut his mother up, then failed out once he realized he didn’t care enough to finish. Eventually Justin enlisted simply to get away from his father’s shrill insistence that he do something spectacular. So there he was in Iraq, creating the appearance of doing something so people would leave him the hell alone.
It was said that war was 98 percent boredom and 2 percent terror. During the frequent boring parts, Len and Justin often played chess or got drunk on the vodka that people would dye green and smuggle into camp in mouthwash bottles. Len found the booze took the edge off his sometimes crippling anxiety disorder and made it easier to get some sleep under the constant threat of mortar attacks. Iraq was when the drinking became a habit.
Some men, when given control, lost their minds; they puffed up their chests, spoke in authoritative tones, and committed heinous acts without thinking twice. Power made the weak-minded forget who they were. This was what happened to most young bucks when they were given a uniform and a gun. Justin, however, wasn’t like that. Len frequently accompanied Justin on patrols and noticed that he treated the locals like real people, even though they didn’t always return the favor. Justin’s motto was, verbatim, “Neither of us is here by choice, so let’s not make this any shittier than it has to be.”
On one particular October morning in Fallujah, Justin’s squad was ordered to go house to house to search for weapons. Such searches in the past had been largely fruitless, and the men usually gave a perfunctory run-through while looking for anything obviously bomb-like. At the third house on the list that morning, Justin knocked on the door. An elderly man let Len, Justin, and two other soldiers in. The men split up, with Justin and Len going upstairs to check the bedrooms.
In an upstairs bedroom, Justin opened a closet door. It was the last thing he ever did. Hidden inside was a sixteen-year-old kid with a Kalashnikov rifle. The kid fired off a single round, which went right through Justin’s carotid artery, one of the few places he wasn’t covered in body armor. Justin collapsed, holding his neck as blood soaked his uniform. The Iraqi kid next pointed the rifle at Len and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. The boy had inserted the magazine into the rifle backward, meaning the round in the chamber, the one that went through Justin, was the first and only round that could have been fired from the gun. It was mechanically impossible for the kid to get off another
Similar Books
