Chords of War + Giveaway
Chords of War by Christopher Meeks and Sam Gonzalez Jr.
Publisher: White Whisker Books (Sept 30, 2017)
Category: Military Fiction, Literary Fiction, Music Fiction
Tour dates: Oct-Nov, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9863265-2-3
Available in Print & ebook, 275 pages
The Chords of War is the tale of punk rock teenager Max Rivera from Florida, who seeks purpose as he tries to understand why his life always teeters between music and mayhem. After he's kicked out of his band on tour, he joins the Army to change his life. It's after 9/11, and he finds himself under fire in Iraq, part of the surge in Baquabah.
In order to deal with his teen angst and raging hormones among daily patrols, coordinated battles, and women fighting alongside him, Max creates a new band with soldiers. Will Max and his friends survive? How did he get to this point in his life? The novel was inspired by the true-life Iraq adventures of Samuel Gonzalez, Jr. His life, and this book, reflects the story of a punk rocker who, after being kicked out of his Florida band, joins the Army and experiences the surge in Iraq in 2007.
Rutgers University professor Peter Molin, who teaches contemporary war fiction, has read an advanced copy of the novel. He writes, "The Chords of War breaks clean of Vietnam and World War II war-writing traditions by incisively portraying the war experience of millennial-era men and women agonizingly stalled between adolescence and adulthood."
My Review
This book is based on true events from Sam Gonzalez Jr.'s life. Which, I really liked the "raw" writing and telling of Mr. Gonzalez Jr.'s story. What I mean by this is that there is a no holds bar. The "f" word is used but in good context. Additionally, I thought it helped lend to portraying Max's angst as he dealt with life and war. Another aspect that I liked about this book is that Max was very relatable; as well the rest of the characters that appeared in this book.
Again, while this book is loosely based on the author's life, it did not read like a stuffy memoir. It kind of read like pages from a journal. This brought me closer to Max. Plus, I enjoyed reading about his experiences in the military. There were no political sides chosen, so you the reader can make up your own assumptions about your feelings of war...good or bad. Instantly, I was transported into this book. A fast read. Fans of military books, memoirs, and good reading will enjoy this book.
Advance Praise for Chords Of War
"The Chords of War breaks clean of Vietnam and World War II war-writing traditions by incisively portraying the war experience of millennial-era men and women agonizingly stalled between adolescence and adulthood."- Peter Molin, Rutgers University Professor of Contemporary War Fiction“Not your father’s or grandfather’s war novel! The Chords of War, about a young rock’n’roller who only thinks he is leaving music behind when he joins the Army to fight in Iraq, is realistically and movingly true to the voice, thought, and emotions of twenty-first century American soldiers on deployment. It invites comparison with novels such as Matthew J. Hefti’s A Hard and Heavy Thing, Brandon Caro’s Old Silk Road, and Maximilian Uriarte’s The White Donkey and memoirs such as Michael Anthony’s Civilianized. The Chords of War breaks clean of Vietnam and World War II war-writing traditions by incisively portraying the war experience of millennial-era men and women agonizingly stalled between adolescence and adulthood.”-Lt. Col. (Retired) Peter Molin, US Army,
Editor of Time Now: The Wars in Iraqand Afghanistan in Art, Film, and Literature,and Afghanistan veteran 2008–2009 “In a meaningless war, the soldier must find meaning from within – this is the crux and conflict of the Chords of War, a must-read contemporary war novel by Christopher Meeks and Samuel Gonzalez, Jr., inspired by the real-life story of Gonzalez. An ex-rocker, Max, enlists as a military policeman in the Army after a series of bad decisions cause him to reconsider his life. Music comforts and guides him as a millennial taking his turn on stage in the forever war. But the overture of his former life does little to prepare Max for the melee of modern war: the forte-piano highs and lows, the crash of life and death stakes. A very compelling coming-of-age story representative of many from Generation Y who have answered the call-to-arms to defend our nation.”- Dario DiBattista, Editor of Retire the Colors: Veterans and Civilians on Iraq and Afghanistan
Praise for Christopher Meeks
“It is a given, now, that Christopher Meeks is a master craftsman as a writer. The novel is a gift—and one of the many that continue to emerge from the pen and mind of so genuinely fine a writer.”—Grady Harp, Amazon Top-Ten Reviewer“This is one action packed thriller that you don’t want to put down. The author doesn’t waste time with the trivial; he gets right to the action and stays there. Just when you think things are as bad as they possible could get…wrong! This was different from most thrillers I read in that it also has a little humor, I absolutely loved that aspect of the book. The characters are well written, they seem like real people, flaws and all. There’s also romance in this book, which gives you a little relief from the gripping adventures. I liked this book very much and so I will be checking to see what other books this author has written.“- Vicky, I’d Rather Be At the Beach
“Blood Drama was highly entertaining and extremely enjoyable. It is a combination black comedy and crime novel. The characters of Ian and Aleece are memorable, quirky, and unique. I reveled in Ian’s quoting David Mamet (or some other playwright or work of literature) to deduce and interpret the information he had to ascertain where the clues were leading them. Meeks is a gifted writer. He has a pleasing way of propelling the action forward while developing his plot and characters. I enjoyed Meeks Love at Absolute Zero quite a bit, but I liked Blood Drama even more. I’m hopeful that Meeks will bring back Ian and Aleece to solve another crime.”- Lori, She Treads Softly
About Christopher Meeks and Sam Gonzalez Jr.
Chris and Sam at Barnes and Noble
Award winning author, Christopher Meeks has had stories published in several literary journals, and he has two collections of stories, Months and Seasons and The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea. His novel The Brightest Moon of the Century made the list of three book critics’ Ten Best Books of 2009. His novel Love at Absolute Zero, also made three Best Books lists of 2011, as well as earning a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist award.
His two crime novels, Blood Drama and A Death in Vegas have earned much praise. He has had three full-length plays mounted, and one, Who Lives? had been nominated for five Ovation Awards, Los Angeles’ top theatre prize. Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. To read more of his books. Website at: www.chrismeeks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christopher-Meeks-212382392140974/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.meeks1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeeksChris
Samuel Gonzalez Jr. is an Emmy nominated and award winning filmmaker who was born in the Bronx NY and raised in South Florida. He joined the United States Army in 2006 and was quickly deployed overseas during the height of the Iraq War as a military police officer. While there, in response to the stop-loss, he formed a punk rock band at Camp Warhorse, who then played several shows that raised morale for their fellow soldiers during the time of the surge. In 2007, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal with "V" device for combat heroism. Since his return to the States, Gonzalez has received his B.F.A in Film from the prestigious Art Center College of Design and his Master's Degree in Screenwriting from the New York Film Academy. His feature film directorial debut Railway Spine, a coming-of-age period war and crime drama about the real psychological disease that is PTSD won the Golden Eagle Award for "Best Military Film" at the 2016 San Diego International Film Festival and several other awards including "Best Screenplay". He lives in Los Angeles where he is currently in development on The Chords of War as an eight-part television mini-series. To see more of his work visit www.vimeo.com/samuelgonz alezjr.
Buy Chords of War by Christopher Meeks and Sam Gonzalez Jr.
AmazonFollow Chords of War by Christopher Meeks and Sam Gonzalez Jr. Tour
Chords of War Web Tour Schedule
Ken Amazon Review Oct 3 Review
Lisa's Writopia Oct 16 Guest Post & Link to Review
Karen The Wiser Way Oct 25 Review
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus Nov 10 Review
Cheryl's Book Nook Nov 15 Review, Excerpt, & Giveaway
Mindy A Room Wihtout Books is Empty Nov 29 Review
Dan Amazon Review Nov 30 Review
Justin Amazon Review Nov 30 Review
Hank Amazon Review Nov 30 Review
*This schedule is subject to change
1
Kuwait
and Iraq, November 2006
As we cleaned our barracks for the
final time in Fort Lewis before our deployment, I felt excited. I swept around
my bunk, tightened my duffle, and smiled in anticipation. God knows, I’m no
thinker, but it occurred to me that few people loved where they were in life,
and I did. Physically, I’d never been better. My small paunch had hardened into
washboard abs. My arms could be Popeye’s, my legs, more powerful than a
locomotive. Mentally, too, I felt confident, and my parents were proud. Add to
that, I was headed off with my two best friends, Hitch and Styles. I had
purpose, helping my country. What more could a person want?
Sure, somewhere
inside I knew Iraq wouldn’t be easy, yet after all the training, I felt ready.
Everyone in the platoon, men and women, watched my back, and I covered theirs.
To be a part of something—that’s special. Add to that, I’d be leaving the
country for my first time ever. Ah, to travel! I’d see things beyond my dreams.
I hadn’t felt this eager since Christmas as a kid.
A hundred Army soldiers and I headed
to Kuwait City in a C-17 military aircraft. We would be deployed to Iraq after
extra training. The seats were arranged lengthwise against the plane’s
sidewalls with conventional rows in the middle.
With its vast space and fluorescent
lighting, the C-17 felt like a moving Greyhound bus station. Two car-sized
shipping containers, lashed down in the middle, did not add any elegance. With
little to do, I fell asleep.
As if someone had shoved me, I awoke
to a falling sensation and a huge creaking sound. Screams erupted. My right
hand pressed against my chest. My uniformed comrades around me look startled,
and one guy yelled “Shit!” Then we leveled off. The plane became steady. I
laughed as I had on Disney World’s Space Mountain.
I stood and moved to one of few
windows on the plane. The clouds below me looked like the top of a brain, and
the flashes of light going off in the ridges could be nerve endings sparking
out electricity. Synapse. I remembered the term from
high school biology. I’d never made it beyond a single semester of community
college. I’d played in a few punk rock bands instead.
Soon, the plane started shaking. We
must have been entering a storm, which was what probably had awakened me. I
focused on the beauty of those flashes. “Wow,” I blurted without thinking. A
soldier near me seated on the sidewall stood to look out the same window, and
then the captain sitting on the other side of the cavernous tube stepped over
to see. Trying to make a good impression on the captain, I said, “Isn’t nature
amazing?”
After looking at my name on my
uniform, then staring out the window at the clouds several seconds, he said,
“Yes, Private Rivera, but that’s not lightning. Those are bombs going off.
We’re over Baghdad—over hell.” He sat down, grinning.
The short soldier next to me gasped,
and only then did I realize the soldier was a woman—stocky, sturdy, but a
feminine face. After other young faces jammed into the window, my skinny friend
Hitch pushed on his tiptoes to look and said, “Shit. We’re the mole in
Whack-a-Mole.” Whispers and groans erupted as fast as lit gasoline. The plane
shook harder, and while it was probably from simple turbulence, we all surely
assumed anti-aircraft missiles. The fasten seatbelt sign blinked on. I sat and
clutched my seat as if we were already careening in a ball of flame. All the
motivational films we’d witnessed in recruitment centers and in training—the
“Be All You Can Be” and “Army Strong” stuff—did not prepare us for this moment.
Forty-five minutes later, we landed
safely in Kuwait City. When I stepped out the rear into the sauna air, the hot
tarmac nonetheless felt wonderfully solid. Adrenaline rushed through me as the
words of our LT came back: “Every minute in Iraq can be filled with danger—snipers,
car bombs, suicide bombers, IEDs, or an ambush. You’ll have a lot of boredom,
punctuated by terror. It’s okay to be afraid. We all need a healthy dose of
fright.”
Heat waves made the green trees that
edged the field and the brown mountains in the distance waver. It reminded me
of when a film got stuck in a projector, and the single projected image would
melt.
This would be home for ten days.
After desert training and acclimatization, we would drive into Iraq. Our
superiors wanted to see that we could perform in the heat and hoped to boost
our confidence in our skills and equipment. We drove different vehicles and
were reminded again and again of the rules of engagement. Near the end, we
practiced fighting in a training village of two-story buildings, abandoned
cars, and dirt roads with real IEDs. The bombs weren’t powerful or filled with
nails, but strong enough to show that, in a real situation, we could be dead.
Our company, the 571st Military
Police Company based out of Fort Lewis in Tacoma, had 15% women, 85% men. We
were a crazy parfait of people, like Hoogerheide, a thin woman from backwoods
Georgia with an acne-covered face and fast feet, or Tracewski, a former
lobsterman from Maine with fingers like thick ropes. None of us were
particularly handsome, beautiful, or educated, and we came from poor families.
If we had been to college, we could’ve been officers. We joined in a time of
war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I entered the Army for a few reasons: it was
a job, it would give me discipline, and it would get me the hell out of fucking
Florida.
We’d spent nearly a year getting
ready for our deployment. Before I’d been a black-haired punk rocker whose only
talents were writing teen-angst lyrics in a half-torn journal and playing a
killer guitar—none of which translated to the Army, a place where music was
banned in boot camp except for the cadences we barked out as we marched.
Now, we were one of five companies
in the 42nd Military Police Brigade coming over to aid the infantry in forward
operating bases north of Baghdad. In theory, at least, we military police would
secure an area before the infantry went in to search for or fight insurgent
groups. Before basic training, none of us knew where Iraq was, and no one knew
that Arabic was the main language spoken there. Then again, I doubt any of us
knew where North Dakota was, either.
Each day in Kuwait, to my surprise,
made me anxious. I didn’t have an appetite, and I didn’t sleep well—perhaps
because a number of soldiers didn’t take the training seriously. One guy
learning to be a sniper bragged, “I want to kill five hundred hajis, one bullet
at a time!” The record by an American sniper was just over a hundred for an
American sniper. Others laughed when someone came too close to a practice IED
that blew off. One guy shouted, “You’re fucking dead, man. You’re a sweet
potato pie!”
I also worried that my mother
fretted about me, so I sent her an email from one of the computers in the
Kuwaiti camp. I wrote her and cc’d Dad that I’d arrived, that it was hot, and
I’d spotted a McDonald’s here with its name in an Arabic scrawl. I said Kuwait
City was on the sea, and we’d be in the desert. I tried to sound sure and
untroubled, even if I felt the complete opposite. They divorced after I’d left
high school, so I tried to be nice to them equally.
My mom had been born in Panama,
where my father had been stationed in the U.S. Army. He wooed her right, always
with one of her family members present, until they let him take her disco
dancing. She didn’t know much English, and my father, despite being a Rivera,
didn’t know much Spanish. He asked for her hand in marriage, and after a small
ceremony, they moved to the Bronx, where he’d grown up poor. I’m told their
first year was tough.
In those days, my father zipped off
to work as a UPS driver, leaving my mother and me in a tough neighborhood. I
didn’t know it then, but my mother was scared, what with gang violence and
neighbors robbed. She left the apartment only when she had to. I remember those
years fondly, though, with my mother turning up the stereo loudly to block out
the sounds of the neighborhood. “Oye Coma Va” remains one of my favorites.
I thought of Carlos Santana’s
lyrical guitar the day we had to leave Kuwait for Iraq, and the whoop whoop of
a helicopter swept over our heads. Two platoons of just over twenty soldiers
each drove north from Kuwait City toward Iraq’s border. My stomach gurgled,
empty, as I couldn’t make myself eat. Some platoons got to fly into Baghdad,
but ours just received reconditioned Humvees, our High-Mobility Multipurpose
Wheeled Vehicles, ready to return to the theatre of war. The Hummers on
American roads were variations of these wide-stanced Jeep-like vehicles. Ours
were painted in camouflage. All were dented like hell, old and beat, but many
had the latest armor added. They all once had working air conditioning, but as
the LT explained, “The AC stops functioning in the Iraqi dust.”
I was a gunner on top. I had the
ability to swivel using my feet with some steel armor in front and, lower,
around me. I felt exposed. There were newer models where a gunner could stand
in the Humvee through a hole in the roof. Here I could certainly get hit from
above or the side. I needed to remain vigilant. The enemy could hide in a mere
indentation in the desert.
The air from above rushed in like
exhaust from a jet engine. Florida had been hot, but not this hot, oven hot.
None of the trucks followed closely because if an IED buried in the road went
off, only one truck would get it. The whole platoon was split up into many
Humvees. Each Humvee held three or four soldiers, and each Humvee was a team
with a team leader: a specialist or corporal. That’s how the Army worked,
always with a clear chain of command. Every four Humvees were a squad, which
had a squad leader, a specialist like Styles or a sergeant like the monster guy
in my Humvee, Sergeant Gasparyan. Together, we were two squads, one platoon, with
a platoon leader.
Our platoon leader was a first
lieutenant named Graver. He was a beefy guy with a friendly smile but also at
times a sharp stare. He must have worked with weights because of his broad
shoulders. Just a few years older than me, he’d gone to the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point. He’d grown up on a ranch in Wyoming and knew how to talk
like he was one of us.
“Listen to me,
and I’ll keep you alive,” he told us when we stopped at a pull-off near the
Iraq border--a small gas-refill depot behind concertina wire and blast walls.
It had blue porta-potties and a handful of trees sticking out of the sand. The
whole area was so flat and bleak, with only hair-plugs of vegetation here and
there, that I wondered how the trees grew. “This is your last place besides our
camps where you can relax outside your vehicles. Think of this spot like a
fucking rest stop on an American freeway. We’re going to wait for sunset. Once
we cross the border, all of damn Iraq is the war zone. While most of the
highway is paved and wide like in Nevada, there can be enemy, ambushes, and
IEDs. Even in the middle of nowhere, we’re not safe. Stay in your Humvees once
we cross.”
The idea was we’d travel to Baghdad
under the cover of darkness. I went for a porta-potty. Once we crossed the
border, we’d have to piss into empty Gatorade bottles, so I took advantage. I
can’t say that a porta-potty in a hundred-degree heat is pleasant. The stink
alone could curl your hair. Add flies, and you wanted out of there as fast as
possible. I occupied my mind by reading the graffiti. Why Chuck Norris jokes
appeared on porta-potty walls across Kuwait, I don’t know, other than maybe
soldiers wanted to channel him. (“Chuck Norris has already been to Mars—that’s
why there’re no signs of life.”)
I had the squirts. I can’t lie. I
was fucking nervous. I looked down into the stinking hole, imagining maybe I
could jump in and just end it here. How the hell did I let myself in for this
nightmare?
After I wiped and stepped back
outside, I quickly lit up. Ever since I’d left America, my cigarette habit
doubled.
Whit Hitchcock and Blake Styles, my
two best friends, joined me at my Humvee. We rode in different trucks.
Thin-boned Hitch didn’t smoke but Styles did, and I offered Styles one. Hitch,
from Texas, short and only eighteen, reminded me of Peter Pan, more kid than
adult who tried to seem worldly and Southern, forever pushing his Texas drawl
like he was George W. Bush—not my favorite president. Still, Hitch was so
gosh-durn innocent, always asking questions like “You think if you burped and
farted at the same time, part of your colon collapses?” you had to like him.
Styles, in contrast, a New Yorker,
seemed out-of-place in this yokel Army, like a movie star among the masses. He
listened to people and nodded. He’d give his George Clooney grin and often
answer with something so smart, we didn’t know what the hell he was saying. He
talked about some German who liked to live in the moment. “Present in the
moment,” Styles said. Seems to me with someone shooting at you, you’re living
present in the moment—unless the bullet connects, and then you don’t.
“Isn’t this place a trip?” Hitch
said. “It’s like we’re aliens on a whole new planet.”
“Yeah,” said Styles. “Or it’s like
we’re on a tour of an amazing cave, and soon we’ll see stalagmites.”
“There’s another of them big words,”
said Hitch.
“It’s more like we’re inside an Easy
Bake Oven, and we’re fucked,” I said. “And we’re still in the safe zone.”
“We’re going to have a year of this
shit,” said Styles. “Heat with bullets coming at us.”
“As long as there’re strip joints, I
don’t care,” said Hitch.
Styles laughed.
“Didn’t you even Google this place? Haven’t you noticed the women covered head
to toe? No strip joints, no alcohol. Just Allah.”
“Why do you have to be so negative?”
said Hitch.
We stood
stone-like for a while as we watched Private Jenny Brown, one of our fellow
MPs, rush out of a john and gasp for air, laughing. A light-skinned
African-American, she spoke giddily to Wilhelm, a husky guy my height, quiet but
earnest. He was more a listener than a talker. I didn’t even know where he was
from. He looked down and kicked the dirt as she spoke. He must have been even
more at a loss of words with her.
Out of the blue, Hitch said, “You
ever think about dying?”
“Heidegger thought a lot about
death,” said Styles. “Said it colors every moment of our existence. It’s not
the physical death that’s important, but one’s attitude toward mortality.”
Hitch’s face screwed up as if a
kangaroo just hopped from behind a bush. “I’m talking about God,” said Hitch.
“Don’t start getting into that God
shit,” said Styles. “When we joined, we each balanced certain risk factors.”
“Balanced risk?” I said. “I said
sign me up.”
“Me, too,” said Hitch.
Styles put his hand on my shoulder.
“In your case, making a living as a musician was riskier.”
“I just wasn’t ready for
nine-to-five shit,” said Hitch. “This seemed a lot more fun.”
“This is fun?” I asked.
“Isn’t everything we do just pushing
a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll down again?” asked Styles.
“Stop it,” I said to Styles. “You
always say weird shit like that.”
“I’m trying to say life is a bit
absurd, no?”
“All I know,” said Hitch,” is that I
didn’t want no job at Staples.”
“So you’re willing to take risks,”
Styles said to Hitch. “Good. Here you are, not part of the domesticated,
comfort-loving masses—no accident.”
“Whatever,” said Hitch. “God is a
factor. I’m not ashamed to believe.”
“That you’ll be protected?” I said.
“Yeah, protected,” said Hitch. “And
if I’m not, God will have his reasons to bring me back.”
For the last few days, Hitch had
been parading God as if he’d had emails from the deity. We usually let it go.
“You don’t think the other side has
a God?” said Styles. “Why do you think they blow themselves up?” He slapped
dust off his sleeve.
“Their belief system says to kill
innocent people,” said Hitch. “We’re after the bad guys.”
“Aren’t we the bad guys to them?” I
said jumping in. “And what about Ireland? Christian against Christian there.
Was it the wrong Christ?”
“You too, Rivera?” said Hitch.
“For you, killing other people is
God’s work?” said Styles to Hitch, incredulous.
“Hopefully we don’t have to kill a
lot,” said Hitch. “I think of it more as a missionary’s mission. We’re here to
show them freedom and democracy is the best way to live.”
“Dressed as soldiers?” said Styles.
Turning to me, he said, “What do you believe in, Mad Max?”
“I think we’ll do just fine. Just be
careful.”
Wilhelm strutted over.
“Hey, I saw you chatting up Private
Brown,” said Styles with a wink, teasing him. “Good going, man.”
“Not really,” he said. “Now that
we’re here, how’re the women still with us?” He thumbed back to Jenny Brown.
“How isn’t this combat?”
“My guess is we’ll be in trucks more
often than not,” said Styles.
“And trucks don’t blow up? It just
doesn’t seem right they’re here. We’re supposed to protect our women.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It makes us look weird, like we’re not so strong.” The fact that women could
be military police and serve in the Middle East just seemed odd to me. And why
did the military insist women weren’t in combat?
“You were in the training,” said
Styles. “We need women to talk to and inspect Iraqi females. Men and women
don’t mix in this society.”
“That’s crazy,” Wilhelm said.
“Jenny’s sweet,” said Styles.
Hitch’s mouth dropped as if he
disagreed. I knew her as rough—in a street-smart way.
Wilhelm stared at Styles, then
smiled shyly.
“Go on back and talk with her,” said
Styles. “Better she humps you than any of us. We’re spoken for.”
“I’m not,” said Hitch.
“You just have to say the right
things,” said Styles to Wilhelm. “Women like to talk about their periods. It
shows you’re in touch with their feminine side.”
“Their periods?”
“Ask her which brand of tampon she
prefers.”
Wilhelm nodded, taking it seriously.
I could only laugh.
“I’m fuckin’ with you, Wilhelm,”
said Styles. “The point is just to talk with her. Be friendly.”
Wilhelm gave a thumbs up and walked
back to Private Brown.
“I don’t know,” I said once Wilhelm
was out of earshot. “That guy’s too literal. I don’t think he can make small
talk.”
“Everyone’s got to learn,” said
Styles.
Hitch shook his head. “She’s tough.
She’ll eat him up.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Soon Brown shouted at Wilhelm, “What
the fuck’s wrong with you! What brand? What brand cream do you use to jerk off
with?” She gave him the finger and walked off.
“Well, now I feel bad,” said Styles.
We all laughed.
Knowing we were going to move into
Iraq soon, anxiety reached a recurring high C on my insides, and I pulled out
my iPod to calm me down. As I fit one earbud in, someone touched my shoulder,
and I turned around to see the LT.
“You don’t want that in your ears
right now, guy,” he said. “You need your ears to save you—such as for incoming
rockets, shooting going on, or hundreds of other deadly things.”
Of course, my stomach did a few new
somersaults. At this point, the horizon had nearly swallowed the cherry lozenge
of the sun, giving the strata of clouds above us a parfait quality. Some people
might have thought this worthy of painting, watercolor by God, but inside I was
screaming.
The LT shouted for everyone to hear,
“Everyone on point. Get your thumbs out of your asses. Let’s move out.”
These were my last minutes of this
particular life.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Comments