SHOW ME THE COLORS
1. White
Body bags are tender, but thick enough to keep the moisture in—nothing leaks out. And when the men realized this, they used them to wash their laundry, filling the green bags with hot soapy water, zipping them shut and kneading them, pressing and rolling them against the ground, squishing, massaging the bags, knuckles whitening, bubbles dripping onto the desert floor. Some men looked hard at the folded bags and read the instructions, felt the plastic. Others used the empty bags as hammocks and dozed in the shaded lean-tos that were erected whenever the armor unit came to an extended halt. And at times bodies were actually placed into the bags, slipping into the slick black sheath, concealed in plastic.
Hanshaw was dead. Letters to home had been written, condolences spoken. An investigation had been initiated and the chaplain gave a brief memorial service for nineteen-year old Todd Hanshaw during evening chow. Reassurances trailed from men’s lips.
"It’s okay," said one.
"Shit happens," said another.
"We were lucky to lose only one man," said the Lieutenant. Only one man.
And after the service, the chaplain placed his hand on Sergeant Baker’s shoulder and said that Private First Class Hanshaw died honorably. "He was a real soldier...made the extreme sacrifice."
Fuck you, thought the sergeant.
Todd’s personal belongings were packed into a duffel bag and padlocked shut. Specialist Zavian Johnson carried the bag over to the commander’s track, setting it down as if the worn canvas would break. Zavian wondered what the chain of command was going to do with Hanshaw’s stuff: his uniforms, books, his letters. He had packed Todd’s things tightly, just as he was instructed. But he kept a uniform—one of Todd’s—his name was on it, embroidered black thread Hanshaw. He rolled the shirt up into a ball and packed it away in his own duffel bag where no one would find it.
Night enveloped a world that no one wanted to see.
SSG Baker bedded down on the demolition crate inside the squad’s armored personnel carrier, pulling his sleeping-bag around him and zipped it part-way. Above him, the open troop hatch framed the night sky, stars shimmering in the frigid desert air. The night breeze drifted above SSG Baker and it reached down stroking his face; he felt the dust layering upon his skin. Far away, the oil wells burned and their thunder soothed the sergeant to sleep.
The distant fires laced the horizon with flickering golden dabs, their plumes rolling and twisting toward the sky and the rumbling never stopped. It never will. And the beginning of a dream unfolded; it was about massive waterfalls and great pools of green.
His machine gunner was close by, propped up in the cupola manning the squad’s .50 cal. Like a shrouded guardian angel, the sentinel had wrapped himself in a wool blanket and swathed his face with an oil-stained olive-drab bandanna. Only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were exposed to the cold. He glanced to the front, left and right. His eyes reflected the golden fires—the miniature plumes that flickered on the moist surface of his eyes—hypnotic. He stared deeply into the horizon and squeezed his eyes shut. The thundering was driving him mad—he couldn’t think—the smell of burning metal and plastic permeated his clothes, his skin—couldn’t think—couldn’t stand it any longer. A moment passed and he looked down at a letter he was trying to write; five words had been written in the past half-hour. Starting and stopping—beginning and ending—his mind and pen would just not connect. Illuminated by the glow, he finally picked up the pen and continued to write:
Dear Isolde, How’s my baby? Fine I hope. I guess you heard by now how everything went. It went bad, real bad. Todd was killed and I was there. It happened right in front of me. It sucks so bad here. They don’t know when we’re going home. It might not be until April worst of all May. I miss you so bad. Please write me. How’s Christina and Brigitte? Fine I hope. I can’t wait to get out of this fucking place and back into your arms. I miss you so bad! My Lieutenant is a total asshole and my squad leader keeps getting on my ass. I hate everyone. We’re doing so much stupid shit out here. I’m sorry about Todd. I love you more than anything.
Ich Liebe Dich, Zavian
He folded the letter and placed it into his pocket; it would be sent tomorrow.
He leaned back and scanned the landscape. Zavian thought about ghosts.
Shadows shifted, flickered and twisted in and out and around and in-between
the thundering of the fires and the movement of the wind. Ghosts. Sergeant
Baker said something about what it was like to watch some one die—they
become a part of you, their faces, images of their bodies stay with you,
never leave. The form of a man’s face began to float in front of Zavian,
mouth—eyes wide open.
"Fuck!"
"Hey—you be fallin’ asleep on me?" It was the sergeant of the guard,
Staff Sergeant Brookes.
"No—I’m fine. Scared the shit out of me."
"Hey, I bust yo ass I catch you dozin’."
"I’m fine, sarge—just didn’t see you coming."
"Open y’fuckin’eyes, Johnson. I’m comin’ back with yo relief." Zavian
watched SSG Brookes fade into obscurity—drifting back into the land of
phantoms. And like clockwork, Zavian’s idle mind played the repeated performance
of the death of Todd.
Third squad’s been hit! They’ve been hit! The tanks were outlined in the dark, silhouetted by the erupting bunkers, and they kept firing, saturating the bunkers with crimson streams of metal. Armored earth movers pulled up from the rear and buried the trenches, muffling the screams as the machine-guns hosed down the men in brown, the men who wouldn’t surrender. The impacting bullets blended with the dying sounds. Someone moaned. Someone was crying.
Then it happened. He heard it. Third squad’s been hit! They’ve been hit! the words repeating over and over and over again in his ears, in his head, his eyes, his hands, his face, his face...his face. And he thought about Todd’s body; he wondered where he was, right now—what he looked like
Zavian pictured how the medics probably arranged Todd into the green plastic bag. He would trace their actions step by step, imagining the fumes of rubbing alcohol blended in with the smell of the body, the muddy sweat, grains of dirt on white skin, the sound of the zipper and the rustle of the black plastic liner. Zavian wished that it was he who had zippered Todd away. But they just took him.
And they took his body away, first by an armored medivac. He was placed on a stretcher as one medic rapidly scissored his uniform apart, the other continued pumping on his chest, panicked. The pulse was gone. He had already bled to death. Part of his head was missing. Wrapped in blankets with his face exposed, he arrived at the dust-off site. The medics filled out the casualty card, the one SSG Brookes made him wear inside his helmet. Todd used to joke about it.
After the medical officer inspected his body, recording the four gunshot wounds—two upper chest, neck, head—.50 cal—close range—he signed the documents and authorized the confirmation of the unit’s first KIA. Todd’s body was laid at the entrance to the mobile surgical tent. His dead eyes and black plastic prevented him from seeing the passers-by. Wrapped in plastic, he was unable to feel the incredible power his body had on others. And his blood, his moisture, his smell was on the inside, and the men tried not to stare as they imagined the shape of the body through the green bag, which began to patter as it started to rain—again.
Mornings came early; the guards woke everyone at five and the eastern
sky was a carbon black speckled with gold along the horizon. The only hint
of twilight was the purple daub that hung over the west. And the combat
engineers positioned themselves and waited for nothing to happen. No one
knew what day it was. SSG Baker wiped the dirt from his neck with a baby-wipe
and manned the track’s .50 cal. until the rest of the squad had climbed
into the back of the APC. He made radio contact with the lieutenant while
the driver slid into his seat and placed his tanker’s helmet on. They were
waiting for the routine countdown...5...4...3...2...1—and the engines of
sixteen tracked vehicles roared to life
.
"Hit the heater," the sergeant spoke into the mike to his driver. The
driver flicked the switch and the heated air poured into the track warming
the five huddled bodies in the back.
"Fuckin’ cold," one of the men mumbled. No one heard him in the dark. An hour passed, then another and the sky began to take on an iron-steel gray. The rumble of the distant oil-fires was overcome by the clanking and squealing of sprockets and wheels as the APCs moved into a single file column. They gunned their engines moving into place, lining up on a northbound road, and halted. The lieutenant radioed his men informing them that they had about an hour before they were to move. Two of the sergeant’s men jumped down to the pavement and took turns heating their canteen cups with a blow torch. A mixture of instant coffee, creamer, and cocoa beverage powder was heated to a near boil and handed to each man until everyone who had wanted a cup had one.
Zavian held his cup soothing his hands with its warmth. He sipped the liquid and felt the sweet mocha seep down his throat into his gut. The convoy began to move and his mocha spilt a little. Just south of the city of Basra, Sergeant Baker, Specialist Zavian Johnson, the Lieutenant, and the rest of the combat engineers moved into where they were to pick up the pieces. The ground offensive was over, yet the carnage had to be inspected, quantified, separated, and sorted through.
It was along this road that the war really kicked into the men’s stomachs. A sea of abandoned Mercedes, Toyotas, Fords, Chevrolets, hundreds, thousands, trucks, busses. Terror skirted the road attempting to crawl into the men who were afraid to look into the scorched shattered windows, afraid to what they might see. But they looked anyway, instinctively...peering into the black, the abyss. Some vehicles were still smoldering, burnt plastic and rubber emanated with the fetid odor of charred meat. Bodies, mostly men, were scattered around the vehicles. Arabs, some partially clad soldiers; they resembled the clay figures from Pompeii, blackened with their arms bent at the elbows reaching for the sky. Others were half-burnt, as if the flames grew tired of consuming so much flesh, blood and bone.
A curious sight: one man was half-ash—half-human. On the ground was the smudged outline of his legs and torso as the wind had carried off half of his body away into the desert; only the man’s naked torso remained. And the flies were there. They festered in his eyes and mouth, their maniacal buzzing drowned out by the diesel engines of the passers-by. Zavian thought the positioning of the man’s body was odd and began taking pictures with his Nikon as they passed by.
The sergeant watched Zavian as he took the pictures; he knew it was a waste of film. Zavian wouldn’t need any photos to remember this moment. The sergeant tightened his lips thinking how despite everything, Zavian hadn’t changed. He repositioned the walkman speakers under his tanker’s helmet; he was listening to REM.
© Copyright 1997 Bryan Bailey