Fobbit (22 page)

The chaplain nattered on, unleashed. His too-kind, too-melodious voice washed out from the SMOG speakers, winding its way hither and yon across Baghdad and the surrounding vicinity, wherever men’s souls were tattered and in need of spiritual mending. Today, it went something like this: “Do you often lie awake at night worrying about the burden of responsibility you’re carrying around? We have all felt the weight of grief, the anguish of frustration, the gut twist of impatience. Maybe it’s a language barrier between you and the local sheikh . . . perhaps it’s that young sergeant who insists on doing things
his way
and tries to buck the system . . . or maybe you’re knotted up with problems from back home—the wife who let the car run low on oil and now your beloved ’75 Mustang has thrown a rod, the son who is
acting up
during kindergarten recess, the high school daughter who adds a new body piercing every month. Whatever your burden, please know we all carry them around with us in our knapsacks. Talk about your Load-Bearing Equipment, eh?” The chaplain laughed and paused, expecting his unseen listeners would also be having a little chuckle at his joke, forgetting the Army had phased out the LBE while Clinton was still in office. “But seriously, folks . . . Too many times, we hold everything inside rather than following the simple rule of
Let go, let God
. I’m sure you’ve all heard that one. Now, let’s put it into practice. Tonight, instead of trying to count sheep, maybe you should lie there and talk to the Shepherd instead.”

The division staff scattered across central Iraq listened to the static crackle across SMOG, most of their ass cheeks now squirming with frustration and impatience.

The chaplain clicked his microphone again. “Today’s Scripture reading is taken from First Corinthians, Chapter Fifteen. You may follow along in your pocket-sized King James.” (Save for a devout supply clerk at FOB Eagle and three die-hard Catholics over in Legal Affairs, none of them carried around the miniature Bibles handed to them during their “Welcome to Iraq” in-briefing.)

“‘Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’”

The chaplain droned on, burrowing like an insect into his listeners’ ears. Alone in his office on the top floor of the palace, the commanding general clipped his toenails, aiming (not always successfully) for the wastebasket. Three doors down, the chief of staff sifted through reports, sorting them into piles according to brigade. On the ground floor of the palace, Lieutenant Colonel Harkleroad leaned closer to the computer screen of his SMOG workstation, hanging on the chaplain’s every word because, he feared, he might be quizzed later on the sermonette by the CG and he wanted to get all the answers right this time. Two cubicles away, Major Flip Filipovich napped lightly, depending on the sudden absence of sound from the SMOG loudspeakers to wake him when it was all over. And, two miles across FOB Triumph, Lieutenant Colonel Duret sat with the rest of the brigade staff in front of the SMOG screen, thinking not about First Corinthians, but about his wife and his dog—though not necessarily in that order.

At last, the chaplain reached his crescendo. “‘Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”

The chaplain left that word,
victory,
hanging in the air like the echo of a trumpet blast.

When the hissing SMOG silence had stretched to an uncomfortable length, the CG cleared his throat and said, “Thank you, chaplain. As always your words of inspiration are . . . are
inspirational
. Now—”

“Sir, if I might—?”

“Yes, chaplain, what is it?”

Groans of agony throughout the SMOG network.

“Sir, I almost forgot to put in a plug for this Sunday’s service at Lakeside Chapel—eight a.m., Protestant; noon mass for our Catholic brethren. I’m calling this week’s sermon ‘Good Grief.’ You know—” his voice shifted into melody mode again “—we have all experienced sorrow during our time here in Iraq, but we each handle it in different ways. How one deals with ‘small grief’ from challenges and disappointments relates to how one handles ‘big grief,’ such as the loss of a loved one or a particularly good soldier. Be sure to come out this Sunday to hear the full prescription for Good Grief.”

Another extended pause, during which could be heard what sounded like the soft
snick
of a nail clipper.

“Okay, thanks again, chaplain. Is that all?”

“Yes, sir. Thanks for allowing me to jump back in with that.”

“Okay. Well, if there’s nothing else, and no alibis . . . ?” Several staff officers clasped their hands in supplication, silently willing no one to utter a peep that would prolong the BUB with a bit of forgotten business. “In that case, go forth and do great things. Keep your chin straps tight. Nothing further. Luck of the Seventh!”

From a hundred SMOG stations came the echo of the division motto, “Luck of the Seventh!” They all clicked off and set about the day’s business.

A groggy Major Filipovich lifted his head from his desk, then muttered, “And don’t let death sting you out there, motherfuckers.”

16

SHRINKLE

O
ne week after “Adhamiya-gate,” Shrinkle was exiled to the tiny kingdom of Qatar. At least that’s how he saw it: exile. The Army called it R&R, a quaint term that came out of the mouth like a pirate growl and carried a strong whiff of nostalgia for the Vietnam War—stunned days of sitting on Hawaiian beaches, ears still ringing from NVA grenades.

Abe was joined by thirty others from FOB Triumph who rode in the ass-crunching seats of the C-130. They were leaving the bullet-peppered combat zone, headed for four days of freedom, sun, and endless hours of sleep at As Saliyah, an Army base none of them had ever heard of before but which now sounded better than Disneyland. In Qatar, the soldiers walked around with swollen chests and unlimbered tongues that liked to belt out, “Oh,
hell
yeah!” at the way their cottony civilian clothes felt against their skin or whenever a girl in a bikini jiggled by, showing off her rubbery, sweat-glistened flesh under God’s oven-bake sun just as natural as you please. They were all giddy with joy.

Coming out of Baghdad, the plane had risen and banked sharply. The men inside the C-130’s hot, metal belly were thrown side-to-side—rib cages crushed beneath the shell of flak vests, bowels flattened into laps by the G-forces, teeth rattled in clenched jaws, and sweat slicked the foreheads of thirty otherwise jubilant soldiers on their way to rest and relaxation in a place few of them could pronounce.

“Qatar, here weeee coooommmme!” cried a freckle-faced finance clerk who sat, thick as a piece of fudge, between Abe and a blunt-faced sergeant who looked like he’d come on R&R straight off a patrol in al-Dura.

“It’s
cutter,
you dumbfuck,” the sergeant said.

“Say what?” the clerk said, turning his still-beaming face to his neighbor.

“You said it like
guitar,
but it’s pronounced
cutter.
”

“Yeah, well fuck you, motherfucker.”

“All I’m saying, asswipe, is you better get it right if you’re gonna mingle with the locals down there.”

The freckled finance clerk sneered, “Who said anything about mingling? I’m gonna lay around the pool, kicking back with my four-beer quota and admiring the tits on the girls smart enough to pack their bikinis on this deployment.”

“It’s only three, dumbfuck.”

“Huh?”

“We only get three beers a day on R&R. Jesus, don’t you Fobbits know anything?”

“Yeah? Well, where’d you hear that it was only three per?” The grin evaporated from the clerk’s face.

“I heard it from a guy in my battalion who heard it from another guy who’d just come off R&R. Besides, everyone knows it—everyone except Fobbits who go around with their heads lodged in their asses, apparently.”

“Yeah? Well, who the fuck cares anyway? The girls will still be bringing their tits with them and that’s all I really care about.”

“Look around you. You see anything worth nailing on this plane?”

The clerk scanned the dim belly of the C-130, but it was nearly impossible to determine the sex of the bodies encased in Kevlar and DCUs. “What
ever,
dude.”

“I’m just warning you that you better keep the bar low cuz I guaran-damn-tee you it’ll be Dogs on Parade.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe they let locals
mingle
with us by the pool. You ever think of that, asshole? I’ll bet those Qatar chicks are some hot babes underneath the black robes.”

“You’re fuckin’ delusional,” the sergeant said. “You Fobbits must sit around Triumph getting high on Freon from your air conditioners. Your brains have gone to rot.”

“Fuck you, asshole.” The clerk tried to turn away but the constrictions of his seat harness and flak vest didn’t get him very far so he turned back to the sergeant. “What about you? What are your plans once we get to
Quitar
?”

“I’ve heard they’ve got some world-class dive spots there.” The sneer dissolved from the sergeant’s face as he thought of coral and neon-colored fish flashing through the water. “I’m gonna find me a place that rents scuba gear by the hour and see what I can see.”

“Oh, yeah? You think any of the local girls will be there swimming around? Maybe doing a little topless diving?”

“Who knows? Who cares? I just wanna get in the water and wash off all the Baghdad.”

“I hear you,” the clerk said. “By the way, my name’s Warnicke.” He reached his right hand around the bulk of his body and the sergeant shook it.

“Hanson.”

“Nice to meet you, asshole.”

“Same here, motherfucker.”

Sitting beside them, Abe Shrinkle couldn’t help but think he was now straddling their worlds. Once an armor officer, he figured he’d soon be a Fobbit, the crème-center pussies his men constantly despised. Either that or he’d be dead within the month, courtesy of a reluctant but obedient firing squad.

The C-130 shuddered and started to descend. The soldiers at the front of the cargo bay were crushed by the weight of the others smart enough to pick seats near the back of the plane. The plane rolled left, rolled right, then they heard the scrape-scream of wheels grazing the runway. With little ceremony, the plane jolted to a stop, the rear door dropped, and they were on their feet, pushing toward the exit, anxious to start their four days (three beers per) without delay.

Abe spilled out of the plane and stood blinking in the tanning-bed sunshine, which already seemed more comfortable than what he’d been suffering up in Iraq (though if he had checked a thermometer at that very minute, he would have been surprised to find Qatar was ten degrees hotter than Baghdad). He looked around and thought he’d been dropped in someone’s joke of a suburban America mallscape. Outside the plane, the land was a flat monochrome of beige sand, beige sky, beige vehicles, beige buildings. He was at once disoriented and soothed by the seamless, flat color of Qatar.

Abe and the others were herded into a loose formation by permanent-party soldiers who spent their entire deployment in Qatar, the lucky bastards. They crowded onto a bus, belly-dancing music blaring distorted from tiny speakers, and were whisked along a highway. They rode for an hour, passing first through the outskirts, and then the inskirts, of Doha, whose streets were filled with men and women in white robes that flapped like flags as they walked. Outside the bus windows, the country flickered like a movie that was going too fast: mile after mile of half-finished buildings and dusty BMWs and sputtering bongo trucks carrying workers to downtown construction sites where it seemed like every other building was new and thrusting from the ground, cinder block by cinder block, and the sky was filled with the arms of cranes moving back and forth, carrying buckets and winches to the coveralled workers on the scaffolding fifteen stories up in the air. Also flashing past the bus were shops with signs in both English and Arabic: “Hyper Super Market,” “Al Jazeera Electronicals,” “Your Best Good Buy,” and a billboard for a veterinary clinic which, along with a dog and cat, had the silhouette of a camel.

The bus made a sudden swing onto a barren highway, which it followed for three miles before making a left through a pair of tall gates, then snaking painfully through a serpentine maze of side-scraping concrete security barriers until they pulled up in front of a two-story vanilla-white building with a flapping banner that waved like a hand and read “Welcome to Qatar!”

They off-loaded—a couple of the jokers in the group making cattle sounds—then were ushered into a series of rooms where their bags were checked by customs agents looking for contraband (porn, ammo, dildos, 9mm pistols, blades over six inches in length, souvenir teeth from those they’d killed). They sat through a briefing about do’s and don’ts around the base and out in Doha, they were told about the various MWR excursions (shopping trips, cruises, a tour of the local zoo, and—
yes!
—scuba diving), they were handed linen, assigned rooms in a building the size of an airplane hangar, then turned loose for the next four days, with the admonition that if they didn’t report back to the recall formation (“Tuesday, oh-five-thirty sharp, full battle rattle”), they faced punishment under Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.