Continuing Actions on Objective Part 2
A quick excerpt from a bigger piece that I felt would keep the creative flowers blossoming. Enjoy.
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SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP!!! The bullets passed over my head, receiving gunfire from the Taliban for the first time in Trek Nawa, as the massive burning ball of fire in the sky peaked over the horizon line turning the sky gold. My only reaction was to bury my nose into the berm compiled of clay, dirt, rock, and weeds. In the previous deployment, my platoon operated out of our vehicles or in the middle of a giant sandbox playing hide and seek, observing rat lines - small underground tunnels to transport drugs and weapons - never firing my gun. My only memory of anything like such was when I was a teenager; growing up in a bad part of town known for gang violence, shootings, drug addicts, and prostitutes. One late evening with the city lights burning out the stars above, running a basketball game with the homies. A couple of local thugs approach the court with a sense of purpose, wearing a pair of tan dickies pants wrapped around their asses and a brown flag hanging from the back pocket, showing the boxers they wore underneath. The chubby boy - because that is how he looked - rolled up, calling for my homie Joseph who controlled the drug selling in the area, owed someone above him money, and they sent their collectors. Joseph walks off the court and starts to chat with them, with a posture ready to fight, watching from the other side, no longer interested in the game. Joseph swings and knocks the chubby dude back, and his homie taller and chubbier named Puppet reaches for his gun, which triggers my sprint across the paint, meeting his barrel eye to eye and says, ‘Stop, let it stay one on one, homes,’ looking at the two fight, I respond, ‘Right on, I believed in a fair fight,’ watching him lower the pistol. The fight lasted a few more minutes till Joseph stopped and gave him the cash. The chubby boy deserved it; my homie Joseph stood tall like a brown Gumby and said, ‘Don’t come back into my hood, homes,’ pull the kid off the ground. Experiences in that area were not always that outcome but were the closest situation I had come to being shot or killed till this moment as I sniff the afghan dirt and air into my nose and mouth.
