Fairness and Freedom

Fairness and Freedom

Trigger Warning: Contains acts of war.

We both stand in the clearing, staring at each other. I'm struck motionless by the suddenness of seeing him in front of me. His fear-stricken eyes mirror my shock. We recognize each other immediately—not the person, but the uniform. Neither of us has our guns at the ready. I hold mine by the stock, pointing it to the ground. He grasps his, white-knuckled, pointing it to his left, his fingers nowhere near the trigger. The slightest movement by one would send the other swinging the gun to a shooting position.

The lack of movement on both our parts allows me to listen, listening for any of his fellow soldiers that may be in the forest with him or for mine trying to save me. But I hear nothing. No rustling leaves from behind him and nothing from behind me. We are both alone, facing our enemy with no reinforcement. Time seems to stop, and sound becomes a foreign concept. Not even a fly buzzes, and the birds are silent. It's as if the world is waiting with bated breath for the outcome of this chance encounter. This moment feels staged, executed for the twisted pleasure of some higher power watching two struggling individuals to see who would survive. Everybody knows that life isn’t fair, but to which of us was it being unfair—him or me?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I patiently lead my eight-man combat team around the ruins of a brick building at the edge of a small, seemingly deserted village surrounded by trees. We know it's not deserted; all our intel has told us this village serves as a command post, but not a single soldier or civilian is in sight. At this late stage in the war, though, anything is possible. The countries involved are hesitant to call it a win or a loss. There are too many casualties on both sides for any government to be happy with the outcome. That tension, coupled with the intense heat and nearly 100% humidity, makes this part of the war unpredictable. This ‘tame war’ that was predicted to last only months is now in its third year. Governments, civilians, and especially soldiers are far past war-weariness. They want an end regardless of the methods used and are willing to turn a blind eye just to be done with it.

I'm already stressed and tortured from my first tour at the beginning of this war, but my government decided it needed me out from behind my comfortable desk and sent me back to the frontline only two weeks after my son was born. Two weeks.

Apparently, fighting in the war is more important to them than bringing people into the world. I was given a guarantee that the end was near, only a few more weeks. When I complained about it not being fair, they assured me a three-month stint overseas was a reasonable request (it wasn’t a request), and I would be home to my wife and son soon. Plus, an officer with my experience from my first tour is exactly what they needed to quicken the end. Realizing I would never get my commander to budge, I saluted him.

Sometimes a salute is a sign of respect, and other times it's a soldier’s way of politely flipping off a superior.

I turned from him and faced my assignment: lead an eight-man team behind enemy lines and take out an enemy command post.

We position ourselves in the shadows of the first vacant building we come to in this small hamlet tucked away in the woods. This town is the last of our assignment, and when we clear it, we can call the rest of our team to occupy it. The American involvement in this war was not originally supposed to be direct contact, but over time, we did what we had to do. For every command post we took out, it made it that much easier for the others to come in and fight their own war.

As team leader, I'm on point, so I'm in front of my team. I inch along the wall where the entrance waits just around the corner. I’m to scout the side of the building facing the rest of the town and ensure there’s no enemies inside. Once inside the tall building, we can have an aerial view and strategize a plan to sweep all the buildings.

Their uniforms mirror our own jungle-warfare gear. Brown, green, black, and grey are hard to spot in the lush green surroundings. The uniforms allow us to blend in slightly with the vegetation, but when death is on the line, slightly invisible is better than nothing.

I reach the corner of the building and slowly pull a mirror out of my backpack with practiced motion. It's a one-by-two-inch mirror attached to the end of a telescoping metal rod that I painted green. I telescope the rod out and extend it so the mirror barely crosses the plane of the corner of the building. If somebody were looking this way, even if they knew I was here, they would have trouble seeing the small device I held. Looking through the mirror, I see the coast is clear and give the hand signal to my team to advance to my position. With a trained ear, I hear all seven of my men approach behind me as I replace the mirror back into my pack and raise my rifle once again.

I hear my team stop, and I feel the hand of my second-in-command gently tap my shoulder. I give them the signal to wait while I advance. I quietly make my way around the corner—separated once again from my team. When I'm assured there is no movement nor sound from any enemy inside, I signal to the next two members of my team, who are now looking around the corner at me. A Sergeant First Class and a Private, whom I’ve just met a couple of months ago, serve as cover for me.

With the two men on guard, silent and frozen like two gargoyles protecting a skyscraper, I edge my way to the door. I lower my weapon and remove the mirror again. This time, instead of sticking it around a corner, I cautiously place it under the door until I can see in the room beyond. There are no enemies in the room, and I adjust it to look at the inside of the door. I scan the edges and the handle of the door, looking for any type of wire that could trigger a bomb. Seeing nothing, I turn to the men behind me to signal them to bring the rest of the group up to me.

As I lift my right hand to signal, a loud explosion comes from around the corner where my team is waiting. Chaos ensues as we hear gunfire and bullets racing through the air around us, all the while feeling the blast of heat and pressure that came from the explosion. Without any cover, we sprawl on the ground and return fire at the bursts of light we see coming from the ends of our enemies’ guns in the forest and from the buildings around us that we had not cleared. They must have known we were coming, waiting until they could be assured we were contained in one area.

My second in command, to my right, lets out a sickly groan just after I hear the whiz of the bullet and the ‘thump’ of the bullet slamming into his forehead. He's dead immediately. I scramble over him to regroup with the Private as we turn the corner to assess the rest of the combat team.

At my nod, we dart around the corner and see that there is now a hole in the side of the building, probably from a mortar deep in the woods. Chunks of brick and wood are smoldering and scattered all over the ground. Not a single one of the five men is moving. Two of the men had been blown away from the blast, and their mangled bodies lay twenty to thirty feet from their original location. The other three are buried under the rubble, their bodies bloody and unmoving.

I stare at what remains of the five men and then to the fallen man behind us. I look from lifeless man to lifeless man. Their bodies now belong to the war. They are reduced to memories that will only be cherished by loved ones and to the statistics that historians will quote for years.

I’ve failed these men.

The Private, the only remaining man on my team, shouts at me to get down and find cover, but I don’t. Not for a few moments anyway. I continue staring. I continue staring at the death that I had sworn to keep at bay from my men.

I did my tour once and had a comfortable desk job. Had we known I would have to come out here again to risk my life, then Genevieve and I would have waited to have our baby boy. My mind races with thoughts of unfairness. It’s unfair that our eight-man team has just been sliced down to two. It is unfair that a father is fighting for his life as his innocent and helpless child waits at home. I took too many lives on the first tour and tried to amend that by having my own children. My therapy team, which stretched over the last year, agreed that I was ready to get back to living, not traumatized and resigned anymore. At the military-ripened age of twenty-six, I started my family.

My reverie is cut short as I hear a familiar sound coming from the woods amidst the flurry of bullets. It's a soft yet distinct ‘thwomp.’

A mortar shell is heading our way. Statistically, the first mortar shell rarely hits its mark, but the location would be noted, and different angles factored into the next shell. The next one would be considerably closer, if not completely on target.

The shell explodes the door in front of the building where I had just been standing a few minutes before. There's no time for anything but to run. I shout to the Private to follow me to the woods. I look over my shoulder and see him running in the opposite direction. He must not have heard my directive and fled to what he thought was the best position. Before he even reaches the safety of the building, his head jerks backward as his arms fly outward into the air. His forward momentum carries his body another five feet, where he lands face-first. After his feet kick up behind him in an awkward see-saw motion, he finally comes to a rest.

That’s it.

I am finished trying to figure out fair and unfair. My entire combat team is gone, all dead within ten minutes. I am the lone survivor, and I need to get myself out of here.

I hurdle toppled stone pieces of the building strewn all around. The combat radio is still strapped to one of the dead Privates behind me, so I cannot call for air support or even an extraction. I’m truly on my own, deep in enemy territory.

I plunge into the woods behind the building as gunfire continues. I hold my rifle vertically across my face to block tree limbs as I race through the trees. As I put distance from my attackers, the barrage of gunfire stops, only shouting remains. They’re most likely following me. I run in erratic patterns instead of a straight line. My careless sprint through the trees is most likely lengthening the gap between us. I can’t hesitate even for a second. The trees get denser the further I get into them. After running for a few minutes, the trees thin out, and I quickly glance behind me. I don’t see or hear anyone, so I slow to a trot to scan for a brief hiding spot. I see a thick tree, almost two feet wide, and I duck behind it, listening.

After a few minutes of listening, I continue, slower and more methodical this time. I alter my route from the line where I was running earlier to throw off their tracking. I hope they have pulled back and stopped searching, but they could still be pressing on. They could be on top of me at any moment. I’ll need to orient myself to head to familiar, friendly territory.

After another fifteen minutes of running, I stop and take in my surroundings. I look to the sky and find the burning sun. I know a sliver of the moon in the east is visible in the late afternoon during this time of year, but I can’t see it through the trees. I see two large, half-sunken boulders a few yards off. There is moss on one side of them, and I can generally assume that direction is north. Calculating approximately how far I’ve traveled, I quickly orientate where I am in this seemingly never-ending forest.

I adjust my course and head north to where I will eventually find my unit. I must travel quickly but quietly. The trees get dense again, which slows me down, not a full-on run like before. Some rocks crop up in a denser part of the woods, and I carefully place my feet so not to twist an ankle. Alone and broken out here in the deep woods would be deadly. I slow to a walk and guide my feet warily between the rocks. As I come out on the other side, I see the trees open into a clearing.

As I step into the clearing, I notice movement, and that is when I see him.

He sees me.

His eyes are full of fear, he is shaking. I see a young man and if he’s over eighteen, it’s not by much.

After what seems like an eternity, I decide that something must be done. The first person who moves may be the first person shot, but I’ve got to do something. He may have other soldiers behind him.

I lift my right foot, and his hands quickly raise his gun as a wet spot spreads over his crotch. My heart breaks for him.

“No, no, no,” I say in a soft voice. I drop my weapon to hang in front of me, and slowly lift my hands. After a couple more moments of staring at each other, he also lets his rifle go limp.

In broken words, he whispers, “I gir-freen home. I wan’ no die.”

I reply, “I have a wife and baby at home. I don’t wanna die, either.” After a few more awkward moments, I continue, “My home is that way.” I point behind him.

“I go there,” he says, pointing over my shoulder.

I still have my hands in front of me, and he mirrors me. I slowly lift my foot again and sidestep to my right as he does the same. We continue like that until we’ve circled and reversed our positions. We look at each other, both seeing something different than when we first saw each other.

I no longer see an enemy.

I see another human.

A human being with a life and loved ones.

I look at his face. I can tell he is trying to grow a beard to look grown-up, but barely any hair grows. I imagine him returning to his once beautiful house that now has chunks missing from the cement casing, exposing the brick. I envision his girlfriend running to him when he returns and wrapping her arms around him as she sobs from the fear of bombs being dropped randomly around their village.

I see that he is me, and I am him.

Whatever our differences, we are the same. I remember the peaceful look of my son’s sleeping face when I left. He didn’t have a care in the world because he didn’t know yet what he’d been born into. Is our meaning to be peaceful like the sleeping baby or barbaric and ferocious like the wars we like to incite?

Just as we have the power to bring people into this world, we also can allow others to live. We can save another’s life as easily as we can save our own. The meek shall inherit the earth. Isn’t this what meekness is? Having strength and not using it. Having the ability to take a life and consciously deciding not to. There would be fewer wars and fewer killings if everyone understood this. Why do people automatically think meek means weak?

I slowly turn around and walk away. Before I start running again, I wait until I am a safe distance from him. I get a few feet, and I hear a loud ‘crack’ coming from behind me. The familiarity of the sound sends me to the ground as I cover my head. After a few moments, I get up on my hands and knees as I check my body for blood. I hear movement behind me, and I pivot on one knee and slowly turn around. I see movement, and I’m sure that I’ve been caught by the rest of his men. They have tracked me after all, but then I notice the movement is coming from men in my own uniform. And then I see three more soldiers emerge from their concealment.

My team found me.

The first man I saw walks to a lump on the ground, his rifle still smoking. He reaches down and grabs a handful of black hair, lifting the head of the ‘enemy’ slightly off the ground as the others give a too-loud hoot.

The man I just let live is now dead.

Fuck them all.

Fuck fair.

I'm going home.