I Felt Good

The road was full of bongo trucks packed twenty feet high with stuff—grain, cows, donkeys, goats, fertilizer, furniture, and people—all halted to let us cross.I put the tube of my Marine Corps issued camelbak into my mouth and bit down on the end to release a flow of hot water that almost burned my throat as I swallowed.The sun in southern Afghanistan was unforgiving in the summer, and the 120-degree heat took all the pleasure out of hydrating.I didn’t really care though; I was a United States Marine and experiencing trivial displeasure such as this made me feel more alive for some reason, probably because I was naïve and blinded by the excitement of being in a warzone.I had been in Afghanistan for three weeks, and I was eager and determined to put all the training I had received to the test.I felt good; I felt a lot of things.I was part of route clearance platoon 3, in 1st combat engineer battalion, and our job was simple: clear routes in the Helmand province of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for follow-on forces to come through.We were on our second mission since becoming operational, and it had been boring and quiet; we hadn’t even been shot at.Martinez, my fire-team leader, was waiting on the other side of the asphalt road gesturing me across.He was a seasoned war veteran who was always pissed off.He was a tall fit man of Spanish descent with a serious demeanor and a hawk-like gaze that made you uncomfortable if you made eye contact with him.He had deep dark wrinkles that split his forehead into thin cigar-shaped sections from his perfectly horizontal hairline down to his neat eyebrows that looked as if he combed them.I struggled to get to my feet, fighting the 80 plus pounds of gear—M16 assault rifle, M203 grenade launcher, 12 magazines full of 28 rounds each, F12 mine detector, 2 frag grenades, 1 stun grenade, camelback, first aid kit, drop pouch, Kevlar helmet, and body armor—that weighed me down.After reaching the other side of the road I took a knee next to Martinez who was in the middle of complaining about the locals.“These people are hopeless,” he said, “We should just drop a nuke on this place.” He had a hatred for all the people in Afghanistan that I couldn’t understand, but I never dared to question him and always just agreed with him to make things easier.I was hot; the sleeves of my fire-resistant camouflage blouse were covered with salt crystals that reminded me of the sugar glaze on a donut that had been sitting out too long.My sweat had dried and made my blouse feel like a cardboard suit.  After his rant about the locals, Martinez explained to me that we were about a mile from the dirt road that we were to clear of bombs, and then he told me that he and I would be taking point on the road with our mine detectors.I felt good after hearing this.It was exciting to know that my platoon leadership wanted me out in front to find the bombs, and so I gave him the proper response, “aye aye Sergeant.”I felt good.We kept moving in our staggered formation toward our mission objective, the thick sand cushioning my steps as we went.The locals watched us as we passed them.All men—no women or girls; they were not allowed out of their mud huts when we were around; they were forbidden to show themselves around us.The men wore long “man dresses” that covered all their skin, and were dirty and stained at the bottoms where the thin cloth dragged on the ground when they walked.Almost all of them wore sandals for shoes, or nothing at all, and they had funny looking hats on their heads that always made me think of a scene in “Indiana Jones” where the little monkey with the same kind of hat would run around the bazaar and steal things to bring to his master.The locals never seemed to sweat; I guess they were just used to being outside all day in extreme heat, but it perplexed me all the same.Martinez stopped 20 meters ahead of me and gave me the signal to halt, so I stopped where I was and took a knee to provide security.Martinez and some of the platoon leaders were using our interpreter to question some of the locals about the road we were about to go down.  A local man was squatting like a baseball catcher off the side of the dirt road, studying me as I studied him.His face was worn—leather skin with age marks and wrinkles jutting off in all directions, disappearing into deep dark eye sockets.He turned to yell at young girls who were peeking around the opening of a mud hut, their curious eyes and foreheads vanishing upon the squatting man’s command.  A young boy of 5 or 6 interrupted my view as he walked by, tugging a rope attached to a skinny dirty-white cow.The cowbell clanked and clamored rhythmically as the boy led the cow past me; the cows protruding hip bones seemed to almost break the skin, and almost all of the ribs were visible.The boy looked at me and smiled, that innocent smile of a young child who cannot yet disguise his emotions.  I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, and he returned the gesture as most of the locals did.I felt good; I was excited and intrigued to be experiencing another culture.   Martinez walked toward me from the huddle that was dispersing up ahead, his head swiveled back and forth on his broad shoulders, always scanning the terrain and the locals who inhabited it.Walking past the boy and the cow, he scowled and shooed the little boy off the road, then he did the same to the squatting man who was watching us.I felt bad for the little boy and the man; I watched their puzzled faces as they hurried into their hut made from earth and straw.Martinez yelled at me for letting locals get too close to our platoon, and then he told me it was time to get out my mine detector and accompany him to the front.  As we walked the hundred or so meters up the road to the front, I was still thinking about the little boy and the way Martinez yelled at him.I could understand why we had such a bad reputation over there.We reached the front of the platoon and I saw where the road forked to the left.  There was a line of rocks that cut across the road; the locals would do this to let each other know it wasn’t safe to travel past this line, an easy indicator that there were IEDs buried beneath the surface of the hot dirt.We got a quick mission brief from our Lieutenant, and then we got into staggered formation with Martinez and me at the front.I felt good. I slung my M16 assault rifle behind my back and unsnapped the 3 locking levers on my matte-black F12 mine detector, pulling the long shaft out of the CPU before snapping the levers back in place.I felt good; I was trained to find bombs and I was happy to be doing my job.  Martinez stepped off before me, down the left side of the narrow dirt road.I watched him go, his arm swinging back and forth like a pendulum as he used the same mine detector I had just readied, to carefully scan his side of the road for any sign of metal.I waited until he was about 15 meters away before I took my first step.I had done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, just in training though.I got into my rhythm—a slow steady arm swing, making sure to keep the perfectly round detector head 3 inches above the dirt and as level as possible.Every time I glanced up I could see Martinez striding along steadily in front of me, his combat boots created little dust clouds every time he took a step.I got comfortable pretty quickly.I felt good.We went on like this for some time—20 minutes or so, maybe longer.My right forearm burned from the constant swinging of my mine detector.I was thinking about switching the mine detector from my right arm to my left arm when it happened.My ears were ringing and it felt like I had water in them that needed knocking out.  I was lying down in the road and the air was thick with dust that made me choke on it.My corpsman (a medic for Marines) was running towards me with 3 of my fellow Marines.I realized what had happened and turned towards Martinez.The dust was settling and I could see a large mushroom cloud forming that was already 50 feet in the air.My corpsman quickly checked me over before the group of us ran up to where the blast had come from.The hole in the road was about 3 feet deep.My corpsman and two other Marines pulled Martinez out and put him on the greyish-green stretcher that had been set out next to the crater.As Martinez lay there on the stretcher, my eyes travelled up and down his broken body.His dusty manila combat boots were still on his feet.His legs were intact, his bones anyway.Most of the flesh from his calves to his waist was gone.There wasn’t much blood; the heat from the blast cauterized everything.The bones were a smoky color and the mangled flesh hanging off of them was charred reddish-black.His torso was still there, but he was missing his right arm from the elbow down.  His face was ghostly white and his neck was clearly broken.I will never forget his face.The blast pressure had forced his mouth wide open and broken his jaw, he didn’t look like Martinez.The contrast of his pale white skin with the dark abyss that was his mouth made him look like a ghost.His eyes were open but there was nothing that was human left in them.Martinez was gone. Walking down the road back to our convoy was blurry.I remember the spot where the boy had been with the cow, and the squatting old man, and the girls who had been peeking.I walked down the road, perfect dispersion from the Marine in front of me, my head swiveled back and forth on my shoulders observing the terrain and the locals who inhabited it.There were young boys in the street begging for food and water and pens and pencils, as they normally do when we pass.I scowled at them and shooed them away.I didn’t feel anything.