I Came From The Desert

I Came From the Desert

-Prologue-

FOB Tiger, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. It was mid morning, and the sun was just starting to make the place a living hell. Thank god it was dry heat, though... I wouldn't have been able to stand it there if there was any humidity in the air. But even still, any sweat we secreted evaporated within moments, forcing our bodies to keep making more, thus dehydrating us rapidly. Because of this, we had to pack a lot of water, which was making my rucksack very heavy.

As I packed away my second canteen of recently filled water, I looked over my gear, making sure that everything I needed was there. I had my duffel bag, rucksack, and assault pack filled with things like extra clothing, bedding, water, and other living supplies to last me a few days. Though I only had two MRE's on me, which was mainly just a precaution, as food would have been provided to me and my buddies where we were going. But still, it all just added together to make more weight, especially since I packed my laptop packed into my duffel.

As I flung all my gear onto my back and walked out of my tent, I thought about the mission I was about to go on. My entire platoon got tasked to head on over to some COP somewhere – I forgot the name, really – and help tear it down over the course of the next few weeks. That was all we were doing lately, either providing security to places that were packing up and moving out, or doing it ourselves.

It seemed like almost all US forces in Afghanistan were preparing their posts for either a complete tear-down, or making way for the Afghan Army that would be replacing them. Most of the shooting and raiding and overall field of war stuff was gone, replaced by the whole “tear-down and move out” plan brought forth by the government. Can't say I could complain though, it was about time we pulled the hell out of Afghanistan and all that, but it really started getting boring just sitting around and doing... essentially nothing all day every day. Our FOB hadn't even been attacked, nor seen any nearby IED's in the five months we'd been out there, making everyone complacent. I was right alongside them though; I really got bored of everything by the second month.

“Hey, Cosby,” I heard, snapping me out of my thoughts as I pondered over how much I didn't want to go tear down yet another installation. I looked to my right, seeing my good friend Duffy approach me with all of his gear on his back. “You all ready for this shit?”

“As I'll ever be,” I replied, shaking my head with my usual smile. I was all about that for some reason, and I really didn't know why. Every day I would be walking around, just smiling without even knowing I'm smiling, and being an all around up-beat character. I was a goofball for sure, messing up occasionally and often times forgetting something I either needed to do or to report to someone, but they never blamed me... most of the time. I got told to do something, replied appropriately with either a “yes sir” or “yes sergeant,” and proceeded to accomplish the task. Really, it made things a lot less of a hassle if you didn't complain to the person telling you to do something... but I sure as hell complained to everyone else.

“Man why the fuck do they got us goin' to another fuckin' COP? I thought we tore'em all down already.”

“Well think of it this way, Duffy,” I chuckled and jabbed him with my elbow as we both walked. “Eventually there'll be no more places to tear down!”

“Yeah, and they'll make it so that all the work's spread out through the entire deployment, so we leave the very next day or somethin'.”

“Yup, probably,” I sighed, my shoulders sagging. “Bastards...” This earned a chuckle from Duffy, who began to smile as well for a few moments. Just then we turned around another tent, our Stryker we were going to be riding in coming into view, and both our smiles vanished.

We both walked slower than normal over to the back hatch of the vehicle, which was already lined up with the rest of the convoy and ready to move out. Ours was either the 4th or 5th in line, I really didn't care to check which, but I hated how I had to be stuck in the back of a freaking Stryker. At least with a Humvee you could open the window or something, but the back of a Stryker was a near literal oven. Hot as hell back there and no reprieve until we could get out, which sucked considering we were going to be stuck in there for the several hours we knew it would take to get to whatever COP we were going to.

Slowly and begrudgingly we loaded our gear into the back, then herded ourselves inside and took our seats. Someone else was already in there, some specialist I didn’t know, who was sitting at the far right corner just looking bored as he sweat his balls off. Both Duffie and I were quick to join him, and it wasn’t long before the vehicle’s Driver and passenger showed up. They came to the back to make sure we were there, then got in and started up the vehicle, making our foundation vibrate subtly.

“Once more into the oven, eh Duffy?” I said, looking to see him sitting across to from me against the back hatch.

“Shit man, I can’t wait to get outta this fuckin desert,” he said, pulling out his phone with his headphones already attached.

“I hear ya brotha-man,” I replied, my own phone coming out with its own headphones. I popped the buds into my ears and began to listen to some music as we felt the truck lurch into motion, and soon enough, we were on our way.

I looked to my watch, seeing that half an hour had passed since we left the FOB. We were exactly where I expected us to be at that time as well, in bumfuck nowhere Afghanistan still driving along some dirt path that someone made a couple million years ago. I turned off my music and put my phone away, deciding to save a bit of battery and just try to get some shut-eye instead. I looked over to duffy, seeing him already dozing off in the corner, his head eyes constantly fluttering from closed to half-closed, and then back again like he was possessed.

The other guy was reading from a paperback book he was holding in his hands, and the driver and passenger were holding some sort of conversation as they both shared a bag of Tostitos or something. I really couldn’t care less, I just wanted to get where we needed to get to already and get on with my life.

It was then that I heard the radio in the front of the vehicle crackle to life, and though I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, the two up front seemed to take enough interest in it that they stopped grabbing from their back of chips. They then started to look around some, and I heard the passenger say: “This is HHB zero niner, that’s a negative, I don’t see anything on our end, over.”

This got me to sit up, and even the other guy was starting to take interest. I scooted a bit closer, and could hear a bit more of the chatter coming over the radio.

“Roger, I just-” static “-nearby rocks, I couldn’t see any-“ static “-contacts, we’re looking over it right now but-“

Just then a loud boom echoed around us, and a bright flash came from the driver’s view. The three of us in back immediately jumped to full awareness, and the two up front were ducking their heads.

“Shit, IED!” the driver yelled out, and I could feel the vehicle swerving around something, and almost immediately after I heard another smaller explosion, followed by multiple popping sounds from all over.

“Contact, contact, they’ve blocked the road ahead!” I heard someone scream through the radio, as everything around us turned loud with the sound of gunshots.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed, pulling my weapon close to me and hugging it against my chest, preparing myself mentally for an actual engagement.

“Fuckin shit’s lighting up out there man, we need’a get out!” Duffie yelled over the roar of the battle outside, accompanied by the sound of bullets hitting the outside of the vehicle.

“Driver, we gotta get outta here!” I yelled up to the front, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention as they were focusing with something up front.

All three radios around the vehicle blew up with repots of contact and personnel getting hit, and I could tell we were in the middle of a bad ambush. “Holy shit this is going on the news,” I said aloud.

“Man I don’t wanna be part of the fuckin’ list of dead people, we gotta get out of here and shoot back! Shit, driver let us out!”

We looked over to see the glass of the windshield shatter, and both the guys up front shake violently as blood began to splatter onto the stuff around them.

“SHIT! Duffy, the emergency hatch, where is it!?” I screamed, my body shaking horribly from my fight or flight responses just begging for a release.

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, MAN!” he screamed back, looking around everywhere for it.

Time seemed to slow down as I heard a high pitched whine grow louder, and for a brief moment I stood perfectly still as I recognized the sound.

“RPG!” I screamed, before everything went red, orange, and yellow… and then black.