None Left Behind by Charles W. Sasser

Same ole same ole. You know, rescuing damsels in distress and saving the world from the manticore. I got to get some sleep. If you guys are going out, wake me for chow when you get back, okay?”
    â€œYou have it. See you in a few hours.”
    â€œNo
feaky-feaky
with the ladies.”
    On his way through, Specialist Dar-rell Whitney (spelled Darrell, but pronounced Dar-rell) rescued Brenda from the floor where Sergeant Montgomery had tossed her. He copped a feel.
    â€œAin’t
feaky-feaky
the reason we got Brenda?” he said.
    Joe Merchant grabbed
him
in a headlock. “What’s with you black boys, always fucking with the white girls?”
    â€œThat’s
African-American men
to you, honky,” Whitney shot back, slipping free.
    â€œWhatever. Get your hands off Brenda. It’s my turn to sleep with her.”
    â€œShe is such a whore.”
    Soldiers in an all-male environment could be remarkably disgusting. Day-to-day life at the forts was an eclectic mixture of
Animal House,
Doctor Phil, and
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Life might be more or less expendable outside the walls, but inside existed at least a modicum of security where guys could let down a little.
    The patrol bases were never really quiet, not with soldiers working 24-hour shifts and always coming and going—on-going shifts walking doggedly out to their vehicles to replace soldiers who staggered in to their bunks looking drained from the bone-deep weariness of day-after-day tension, but nonetheless gamely trying to keep up each other’s spirits. The forts had about them the feel of old bus stations coupled with the odd stench of occupation most would always associate with the war—the putrid odors of burning garbage and human excrement, of diesel fuel, open MRE packets, sweat, and musty clothing.
    The bunkrooms were mostly kept near pitch dark because of shift work. They resembled cluttered and fusty caves strewn with resting bodies as from some apocalyptic disaster scene. Sandbags, sheet metal, and planks of wood barricaded the windows against the enemy as well as against sunlight. Only a few diligent rays found their way through cracks to the sleeping soldiers within.
    Off-time, what little there was of it when men weren’t sleeping or eating, was consumed with taped music, reading, cards, Nintendo and computer games, laptop music, and the grabassing and clowning around of young men away from home, some for the first time. Men got tightwith others they might not have even spoken to under different circumstances, forming a closeness and loyalty that time and distance would never break.
    Guys like Anzak and Jimenez had the capacity to raise the mood of entire squads and platoons. They were always joking around, never seeming to let things get them down, seldom a bad word to say to or about anyone. A bunch of guys back from patrol would start comparing stories about whatever action may have occurred, debating about who shot what and how close they had come to getting wasted. Before the mood had a chance to get dark and the guys started brooding, Jimenez might flash one of his million-dollar grins, throw himself onto the old torn-up sofa, and plunge into a joke that only he could tell to its fullest benefit.
    â€œThese two Arab fuckers boarded a flight and sat down in the window seats with a 10 th Mountain soldier in the aisle seat. The Polar Bear kicked off his shoes and was settling down when one of the Arabs says, ‘I need to get up and get a Coke.’
    â€œ ‘Don’t get up. I’m in the aisle seat. I’ll get it for you.’
    â€œAs soon as the soldier got up, one of the Arabs spat a goober in his shoe.
    â€œThis happened twice more. The soldier knew immediately what had happened when the plane landed and he put on his shoes. He leaned over to his Arab seatmates.
    â€œ ‘Why does it have to be this way?’ he asked. ‘How long must this go on? This fighting