It Was My Fault

This short story contains graphic scenes from combat, explicit language, and references to mental health issues related to combat experience.

It was my fault.

“Fuck!  What did we hit?”  I yelled as my head whipped forward and hit a solid metal wall.  Only my helmet saved my skull from being cracked open like an egg.  Objects which apparently were not secured in their proper places pelted me as the whole world seemed to shake.  The tremors then stopped as suddenly as they had started.  A loud buzzing noise echoed in my left ear.  Static filled the other.  My vision blurred and my temples pounded.  I shook my head side to side, trying to regain my bearings, but that made things worse.  Everything began to spin.  Nausea hit me in the stomach like a heavyweight boxer.  My unsatisfying breakfast threatened to come back up.  Time seemed to stop, leaving me frozen in a disoriented bubble.  I sat in my fog for what felt like hours, until finally the direction of “up” finally revealed itself.

I pushed the ration boxes and cleaning gear off of me and scrambled up through the hatch in the roof and gazed around.  The armored vehicle had been traveling quite fast until the abrupt stop.  Now we were sitting at an odd angle, as if the left side tires were up on a tall curb and the right still on the street.  However, there were no streets in this backwater shithole.

Jet black smoke billowed up into the sky from the front of the vehicle.  A thick dust cloud blocked my view of anything more than a few feet away.  The gunner lay over the turret and he groaned as he reached for a hand hold.  The vehicle commander, seemingly as disoriented as me, was missing his helmet.  Blood trickled from his scalp and down his face.  His eyes stared off into nothing.  

I realized that the left front of the vehicle sat in a massive crater.  Twisted metal reached to the sky and the front tires were nowhere to be seen.  The driver’s hole effectively no longer existed.

Cassander…  Cassander had been driving.

Nausea hit me again and this time my breakfast did make its way back up.  I wretched over the side of the vehicle.

“Aurelius!  Start sweeping!  I need a path cleared out of here!”

Fabius, the vehicle commander, had regained his senses.  I looked back and he was directing the now moving gunner to cut power to the somehow still running engine.  Fabius sighted in behind the mounted medium machine gun.

“Get fucking moving, Aurelius!  I’ll cover you!”

No.  No.  No.  If my feet touch the ground I’ll die.  I can’t.  I’ll die.

Before I had even finished that line of thought my feet were on the ground and I was not in fact dead.  I slung my rifle behind my back and unfolded the metal detector.  As I moved the business end of the detector back and forth, its alarm beeped wildly.  The ground was saturated with metal.

This thing is useless.  What should I do?  What do I do now?

“How’s that clearing going?”

“Not well.  I’m getting a hit everywhere I sweep!” I said.

“Figure it out.  We need to get out of here now, before we get hit again.”

I stood paralyzed.  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  How do I find the secondaries?

The answer hit me.  It was so simple…  I’ll dig my foot into the ground and sweep it back and forth.  If there is another explosive, I’ll just trip it.

I accepted my death in that moment.  It was the most oddly calming sensation I had ever felt in my life.  Death was certain.  I would find the secondary explosive, trip it, be turned into human confetti, and then someone else wouldn’t.  It was that simple.

I cleared a radius of five meters around the vehicle in this manner, marking a safe path with parallel lines cut into the dirt and sand with the edge of my right boot.  

“Five meters clear!” I announced.

“Good job.  Keep going,” said Fabius.

“How’s Cassander?” I asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Not good then...

As I worked my way further away from the vehicle, I could make out Marines from the other vehicles in our column heading toward us.  They were clearing a path with detectors.  We met about 30 meters from the remains of my vehicle.

“Follow the marks I left in the sand.  Everyone back at the vehicle is hit,” I said.

Two Marines and one Navy corpsman hurried through the narrow safe zone I had marked out.  I sprinted toward the closest functional vehicle.  I banged on the rear hatch.

“Scouts!  Dismount!”  I screamed.

Two scared looking privates did as I said.  This will have to do.  Why did we not bring more scouts on this mission?

“We’re pushing south and taking that structure.”  I gestured toward a supposedly abandoned building made of cinderblocks which the miners in this region once used as a shelter before the precious metals dried up.  “If there’s a trigger man, he’s got to be there.”

The two Marines seemed skeptical, but were prepared to do as they were told.

“Hold fast, Sergeant!”

Fuck.  No.  Not now.  Not this fucking asshole.

I turned and faced Staff Sergeant Pompeius.  He glared at me.

“Set up a defensive perimeter and await orders from the Lieutenant.”

“With respect, Staff Sergeant,” I said, not even trying to hide my disgust, “We’re out in the open and your crewmen are perfectly capable of ‘setting up a perimeter’ with their chain guns.  None of these dumb dust farmers are going to attack us on foot in the open.  But an observer in that building could talk mortars or drones in on us.”

Pompeia hesitated for a moment then snapped, “Do as you’re told Sergeant or give up your weapon!”

“Fuck you, you dumb POG.  Why are you even here?  Shouldn’t you be filing something or sucking a promotion out of the Sergeant Major’s dick?”

“Cato, Metellus disarm Sergeant Aurelius,” said Pompeius.

The two privates looked at each other, terrified.  Before they had a chance to act, a loud voice butted in:

“What the hell is going on here?”  Gunnery Sergeant Macer screamed at the top of his lungs.  “Pompeia get back in your fucking vehicle.”

The Staff Sergeant began to protest, but was cut off.

“Now!”  The Gunnery Sergeant’s helmet shook as he yelled.  He was a small man but gave the impression he could beat the daylights out of someone much larger.

Pompeius did as instructed.

“And you three, go set up an LZ.  We have a bird inbound.”

Cato, Metellus and I started toward a patch of flat ground.

“Aurelius, how many from your vic are hit?” called out Macer as we ran.

I turned back and replied, “All of them!”

***

Clearing a landing zone for the medevac chopper was uneventful.  I kept staring at the small building to the south, but never saw any signs of activity.  We marked the edges of the landing zone with brightly colored engineer’s tape.  When the whirring of the inbound aircraft finally came, I threw out a yellow smoke grenade.  The pilots acknowledged the signal and landed.  Dust kicked up and small particles sand blasted all of my exposed skin.

Gunnery Sergeant Macer and Metellus carried a stretcher forward.  It was covered with a green tarp.  As they approached the waiting aircraft, the wind from the propellers blew the covering off of the stretcher.  I ran forward to assist, but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what had been underneath the tarp.

Cassander....

If my stomach had not already purged itself earlier, it would have done so at that moment.  I could see his bones…  A mess of flesh and fabric hung off of his femur and tibia.  Blood soaked his abdomen and some of his intestines hung out.  His face was untouched.  From the neck up, he looked peaceful, almost as if he were sleeping.

He’ll lose his legs.

I grabbed the tarp and pulled it back over Cassander.  The flight medics took the stretcher and loaded it onto the aircraft.  It then took off and the second bird landed.  Fabius and Longus, the gunner from my vehicle, were escorted to the second aircraft by our Corpsman.  They did not have their weapons.  I turned to head back to one of the remaining vehicles, but Gunnery Sergeant Macer stopped me.

“Aurelius, you’re going too.”  His voice was stern as usual, but had a hint of compassion that I had never heard before.

“What Gunney?  What do you mean I’m going too?”

“You were in the blast zone, you need to get checked out.  These insurgents sometimes lace the bombs with slow acting nerve agents, and you probably have a concussion.”

“I’m fine Gunney.  I’m not hit.  Let me take my scouts south and hit that building.”

“I’ll handle that.  Now give me your rifle and get on the bird.”

“Give you my what?”  He can’t be serious.

Macer just stared at me.  He looked hurt, vulnerable.  The tough as nails veteran hated to do this, but he had to.  He placed a hand on the stock of my rifle, but did not try to pull it away.  His grip tightened and I let go.  Macer lifted the weapon and sling over my head and handed it to Cato who stood a pace behind him.  He stared for a moment, uncomfortable.

“Your other weapons too.”

Cato stepped forward to collect my machete, sidearm, and my large knife.  I then handed two grenades to Macer.

“Is that it?” asked Macer.

I nodded.

“Get on the bird.”

I turned and saw one of the flight medics waiting with an arm outstretched.  I grabbed his hand and helped me aboard.  Fabius and I sat together. He stared at the floor.  His eyes were wide open and his hands trembled in his lap.  The crew chief slammed the side door shut and up we went.  My eyes fixed on the rifle rack just behind the pilot.  Two old, but pristine looking, weapons sat in the rack.

I still have my ammo, my other knife, and the extra grenade I keep in my dump pouch.  WHEN this chopper goes down I’m taking the medic’s rifle.  It wasn’t as new or tricked out as mine.  Non-combat arms troops always carried the older weapons without all the new toys.  It would do though.

I wonder how Cassander is...

***

I don’t actually remember the flight to the forward operating base.  We touched down next to a large tent and the Army personnel manning the flight line herded us to a waiting area.  Fabius, Longus, and I stood next to a dirt barrier with concertina wire running across the top.  No one spoke and we all stared at the ground.  The other helicopter that Cassander was loaded into touched down on the pad.  There was no urgency among the ground crew.  We watched for what seemed like several minutes.  The props on the bird slowed and finally stopped.  Two large Soldiers approached the aircraft and retrieved a stretcher covered in a black tarp.  They plodded toward the large tent and disappeared from sight.

He's dead. I should have realized it when I saw the body, but I didn't want to believe it.

“Bet you’re glad you didn’t drive today, huh, Longus,” said Fabius.

“What the fuck?” asked Longus.

“Yeah, what the fuck?” I echoed.

“Sorry…  I…  Just… sorry.”

“No.  I’m sorry,” I said.  “I wasn’t watching my sector when it happened.”

Both Fabius and Longus stared at me.  I began to cry.

“It was my fault…  I wasn't watching my sector because it was cold and I had my head down.”

Neither of them said anything.

It was my fault.