It had been a dull week with the only pleasant aspect of boredom in a dusty, acrid, third world ghetto was the good fortune of unseasonably cool weather. But despite the lull, Specialists Jimmy Marzan and Michael Rollins could feel the omnipresent “little brown man? watching, grinning his snaggle-toothed grin whilst covertly plotting their destruction.
Michael Rollins cynically understood this bleak, Goyan world well and he enjoyed the life he was leading in it especially its moral relativism and its ruthless code. He was a muscular fellow of about five foot ten with blondish hair that was so fair and thin that it blended with the color of his pale scalp giving him the appearance of baldness. He had a terrible bout of acne as a teenager which pock-marked his jowls with deep creases. Also, his bulging eyes were set too far apart giving him something of a praying mantis? face. This potpourri of unfavorable genes made Michael Rollins the subject of ridicule and a reject of the young ladies as an adolescent. Rollins thus evolved into an embittered, angry, drifting man-child of twenty six years.
Rollins and the Army eventually found each other. And in it ranks, Rollins felt— for once in his difficult life—acceptance in the form of the embrace of brotherhood that is woven amongst men placed in a milieu of destruction and filth and terror.
Jimmy Marzan— conversely a handsome devil— noticed a fomenting agitation in Rollins over the prior days. Rollins had seemingly exhausted his pressure release mechanisms and was becoming quick-tempered. Just that morning, Marzan noticed when Rollins had discovered his wristwatch had succumbed to moisture damage and ceased to function. Upon this realization, Rollins slowly, calmly removed the watch from his wrist, delicately placed it upon the ground, and then hammered it fifteen times into tiny fragments with the heel of his boot.
“Typical U.S. Army-issue…destroyed by moisture in the middle of a fucking Haji-desert”, he lamented.
Jimmy Marzan had long ago grown accustomed to Rollin?s epithet-laced tirades. He did not encourage them but he did not protest, either. Any protest of a soldier?s multi-cultural insensitivity would be an act of extreme pussification. The mere anticipation of reprisal would vastly exceed any discomfort associated with enduring the original offense. Jimmy Marzan made himself believe that Rollins meant nothing personal by it, anyway.
Colorful language was but one of Rollin?s three venting mechanisms the others being: obsessively manicuring his nails with his twelve inch Bowie knife, buffing his over-sized, silver Osiris Eye ring which lime-lighted rude gestures cast with his left middle finger, and head-banging to his catalog of battle-worthy heavy metal which sounded more like continuous semi-automatic rifle fire than actual music.
The convoy of Humvees rattled and rumbled down the hot dusty road, blaring their captain?s musical selection— Elvis— through the PA until finally coming to a stop at a non-descript mud hovel. A dog, some multi-breed mutant, came out of the yard and frothed away at the soldiers drowning out the verse of “…Then one night in desperation, a young man breaks away…” The tune was cut short and replaced with the commands of an Army interpreter who was trying to coax the inhabitants out of the house with a bullhorn from the safety of his armored Humvee.
The dog was a vile creature, indeed. Skinny and covered in a hide of rat?s fur, it barked and foamed and choked itself on the chain trying to lunge at the soldiers. It nearly took a chunk out of the Captain?s ankle who was standing too close on the road, talking on his radio. No one would be able to get through the gate unscathed with this rabid, mangy beast guarding the way.
Rollins took matters into his own hands firing one round at the dog, exploding its left hind paw and sending it into a yelping hysteria. Rollins grinned faintly as he aimed again, but he stopped short of finishing the job.
The man of the house soon after burst out into the yard with his hands flailing, hurling incoherent Farsi towards a surprised Captain Albert „Al? A. Rick who was not marked as an officer in any manner but drew the little brown man?s appeals, nonetheless. Marzan supposed that it was the Captain?s aura— if there was such a thing— that had betrayed his rank. The Captain had height, weathered skin, and a chin that looked as if it had been pounded into shape in a Birmingham forge. In addition, all the other soldiers were arranged like spokes, eyes pointing in towards him. Captain Rick couldn?t avoid looking like the man in charge. Truth was, he didn?t want to avoid it.
The interpreter was summoned out from the safety of his Humvee and spent about ten minutes describing to the native how it was necessary for the U.S. Army to search his particular mud hovel as there had been reports of a cache of insurgent ammunition stored somewhere in his neighborhood. Certainly the native would wish to clear his families? name? In other words, some neighbor had rolled over on him. The native man made many assurances as to his innocence in regards to hoarding ammo and RPGs but did not outright welcome the soldiers into his home. As a final nudge to get him to comply, Rollins finished off the crippled dog with another rifle shot. The native immediately ended his protestations and welcomed them in.
Five soldiers, including Rollins and Marzan, stormed the well-kept hovel and began their room to room search. They pulled a grandfather from his bed and walked him into the common room, setting him down onto the tiled floor in a huddle with three young girls and their mother. Household searches were messy operations and operations that could not be carried out with too much polity. After three or four searches, even the pretense of restraint was ditched in favor of rapid efficiency. Get in and get out, was the idea.
The soldiers turned the place inside out in a few short minutes. They went through the cupboards throwing food and dishes onto the floor. They went through the bedrooms turning the beds over and yanking the drawers out of their chests. They ripped the laundry from the line dropping it in the dirt, and Rollins dutifully dug his filthy claws through the mother?s under things— as if an RPG might possibly be stashed in a lingerie drawer.
With his dog murdered, his children terrified and crying, and his wife screaming, the native man— a father and husband and undoubtedly a proud man as he had a decent house by his countries? standards— sat cowering in a corner of his common room, shielding his face from shame and the bullets that might burst out of the two M4s pointed at his head.
After tearing the house apart and grilling the family for twenty minutes and after not finding any weapons or materiel, the squad extricated itself from the mess.
Jimmy Marzan was the last man out and he left the house and the native man with an apology, an apology that the man could not understand as he spoke not one single word of English.
But the U.S. Army did leave, Jimmy reasoned, and they did leave the man with his life and that was worth something. That?s how Rollin?s would process it, Jimmy thought. The little brown man’s dignity was a small price for him to pay for being permitted to live. The U.S. Army were their liberators, after all.
That was the first of five searches and it indeed ended up a very hot day for a change.
This is how we are ensuring future blowback…
Those would be M4 Carbines, the Ar-15 is a civilian model. Also, if this is Iraq, the hovel description would be semi accurate. in afghanistan, it would be a roughly square compound with no exterior windows, a gate and several small buildings and animal pens scattered around attached to the outer walls. In the nicest of these hovels the men and boys would sleep, in the next would be the women and animals together with the rest being storage.
other than that, ok delivery, but remember, most searches like that ended in 2004 when I was in baghdad. they do dumb shit now like “cordon and knock” where you surround a place with heavy weapons and then ask nicely to enter.
for accuracy, change AR15s (the civilian version of the old M16), to M4s, the current variant in use today. enjoying the story, so far.
It’s neither Iraq, nor Afganistan. It’s Iran, since the language of the country is Farsi.