I am War

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A young officer discovers through a very strange soldier that the histories of Man and War are forever intertwined.

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I am War By Timothy C. Phillips

It wasn’t the Third World War, but it was their war; a war that could make widows of their wives or break the hearts of those who waited for them at home, so for them, it was enough. They were soldiers, this was war, and a strange country hedged them in on every side. They bivouacked for the night beneath a small rise, shaded from observation by dense trees. They ate their cold rations in the darkness, and most of them scratched out a place to rest. Others sat staring into the dark. They had seen their first action that day, and the images were still too fresh in their minds for sleep to come. It wasn’t the Third World War, but for them it might just as well have been. It could kill them or cripple them, take everything they knew away forever. Sgt. Hunter finished eating and crawled on his belly up the slope of the hill and became motionless, invisible in the darkness. The young Captain looked blankly at where he had seen him move. The man was a puzzle that Capt. Simon could not solve. Twice today the man had amazed him. Previously he had not thought much of Hunter; he had four sergeants under him, each with his own squad. They were all good men, and did their jobs well. Hunter took especially good care of his men. But today the world was a different place for all of them. They had been involved in three minor actions that they had seen today. And Hunter had done things. Things that were perhaps heroic; or perhaps criminal. The captain could not altogether make up his mind. That morning they had headed out from base camp, and Captain Simon had given

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the company their orders. He would stay with Sgt. Hunter’ squad, which in the field would function as HQ. The other two would patrol three clicks out to the sides, and stay in radio contact. They were looking for a pocket of enemy resistance. It was a small force of about ten men that had been harassing convoys in the newly secured area. The squad that made contact was to radio HQ immediately. They had been humping it for about an hour and a half when they had first heard gunfire. A heavy machine gun, from the sound. They had all went to ground immediately, taking cover behind some rubble left over from recent bombing. Simon peered from behind the remains of a demolished truck, and immediately there was another burst of machine gun fire. He jerked his head back. There were two men running in his direction, he had seen, but they carried no weapons. They ran past the squad’s position and took cover in a nearby pile of rubble. Simon saw that they were allies; Italians. Downed aircrew. They saw the Americans squatting nearby, and began waving frantically. Capt. Simon nodded. The machine gun was in an abandoned store, a hundred yards in front of them. The front window was gone, and the gun crew had set up just inside. There was no other cover available, Simon saw, once his men left the cover of the rubble. Simon knew they were going to have to suck it up, though. "Corporal Conners!" He shouted for the radioman. "Yes sir!" The freckled young radioman was beside him immediately. "Radio in that we have positive contact enemy two clicks north of Point Bravo--"

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Suddenly he heard his own men shouting and the chatter of their own M-16A2’s that was soon joined by the more bass note of the enemy MG. He heard three quick explosions, grenades, and the MG fell silent. Simon peered incredulously from around the truck. Sgt. Hunter was standing in the window of the blasted storefront. As they all rose slowly and moved forward, he held up the machine gun, and threw Simon a sardonic grin. “It’s an old M-49. Yugoslav machine gun.” He was saying as they reached the ruined store. “It’s got no traverse. If you zig when they zag, you can get close enough to lob a few grenades at the gunner before he can get you in his firing arc.” He smirked to himself as if enjoying his own private joke. Capt. Simon and the squad looked at Hunter admiringly. He had probably saved some of the squad, they knew. Hunter went on. “Jap guns were like that on Guadalcanal. One man had to wear the gun on his back, and fall on his face when they saw us coming. The guy behind him would fire the gun. Once we learned that, we were able to take out a machine gun nest pretty easy.” Simon looked down at the two soldiers who had operated the gun. One had a bullet hole in the temple, he noted. Contact wound. “Once we learned, Sergeant?” Hunter grinned wolfishly. “I mean the Army, Sir.” Later that day it began to drizzle, and they stopped for chow in another bombedout hulk, this one formerly a bus station. A Soviet tank of some early style was motionless nearby, having been hit by A-10 "warthogs" in the initial phases of the conflict. Its turret had been blown off; there was no sign of it, or its crew, anywhere.

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Simon ate with his sidearm near him. It seemed quiet, but you never knew. Hunter stood guard nearby. He had not donned his rain poncho like the other men in the squad. Later, as they prepared to move out, Hunter motioned them all to keep down. The squad immediately deployed in a defensive posture, crouched in various dark holes. Simon crept over close to where Sgt. Hunter squatted, motioning for the radioman to follow. "What is it, Sergeant?" Hunter nodded toward a copse of trees to the right of the tank, about fifty yards away. "We got movement, in the trees. I think it's a rifle squad. Probably got a SAW or two in there. I think they're getting ready to hit us. I better get the men ready." Simon looked hard into the dense growth, and saw nothing. "We should pull back, sir." Hunter advised in a quiet but urgent tone. Simon wasn't convinced. "Sergeant, are you sure that you saw movement? Let alone Squad Automatic Weapons. I don't see a damn thing." "Yes, sir, Captain, they're in there, no doubt about it." "We'll see, Sergeant Hunter. Corporal Conners, call G for George and tell them to converge on our position." Conners nodded vigorously and barked code words into his handset. "Yes, sir. Billy Dilly, this is Stagger Lee, over?" While Cpl. Conners relayed his message, Simon tried to look the Sergeant over appraisingly without being too overt. Had the man's success earlier today went to his head? The Captain remembered studies from OCS that revealed that the strict, by-thebook type non-coms were more susceptible to battle fatigue. Hunter was certainly the type.

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Could the Sergeant be affected, he wondered? He remembered the bullet wound in the machine gunner's temple. Could remorse be causing him to invent a phantom enemy? In a sudden burst of gunfire, Hunter was vindicated. Cpl. Conners spun around and fell face first into the damp dirt, and writhed convulsively once, and was still. And then Hell was upon them. Tracers streaked through the mist. Explosions shook the ground and jarred the air. The intensity of the fire coming at them was dumbfounding. It seemed to come from all sides. Simon was amazed that he was not dead already. Trying his best to keep his keep his sanity, Capt. Simon scrambled for the nearby cover of the bombed out building, falling down in the process. He found himself side by side with Conners, who lay facing him, his eyes seeing nothing. An enemy round had taken the young man’s jaw away. He made a lunge for the radio in Conner’s dead hand still, saw that it was shot to pieces, and cursed aloud. He broke into a dead run, toward the ruined bus station. A blast of light behind him as he reached the wall made Simon turn. He was sure the enemy was hard on his heels; instead, he saw Sgt. Hunter, standing tall like colossus, beckoning, to him, to all of them, to follow him. The blast of light had come from him; he had hurled flares into the enemy’s midst, and shot several that had become illuminated; they could be seen writhing, bleeding, and dying, in the sulfurous glow. “Come on!” Hunter roared like a giant, and charged forward into that nightmare, unafraid. Simon felt himself move forward automatically at these words, something within him he could not put into words, nor define, taking him over. There was no fear. If they died going forward, fighting, it did not matter; they were better men now, because

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they had joined him, they were soldiers, and this bloody work, the work only soldiers understood. The enemy fire was still intense. A soldier to his right felt down, dead where he lay. They fired into the shadows where vague forms moved. There were screams. He heard shouts in a language he did not understand. The part of his mind still working, the training, the part that was supposed to work, informed him it was the enemy. He pulled his knife and charged ahead, and ran into a man in the darkness. Somewhere ahead, another flare went off. The man Simon had run into had been knocked flat. He saw that the enemy was younger, that he had dropped his rifle. A beginner’s mistake. He ran forward with his knife and the younger man threw his arm over his face and cried out. Capt. Simon, standing over him, wavered for a second. The knife felt heavy in his hand. Suddenly, a burst of automatic rifle fire raked across the young soldier’s body. Simon leaped around convulsively. Sgt. Hunter stood in the shade of a nearby tree. Stricken with horror and anger, he faced Hunter angrily, words of outrage welling up within him. The Sergeant lifted his rifle and fired. Capt. Simon had ducked instinctively. He rose and turned. There was a second enemy lying there, dead, rifle fixed with bayonet beside him. “Glad I came back when I did, Captain,” Sgt. Hunter growled in the darkness. “that other son of a bitch was gonna make a knife holder out of ya.” They counted twelve bodies in the clearing and the woods. They had lost three men killed and one wounded, leaving them with fifteen men. Most of the enemy had been killed by Sgt. Hunter, in a clearing in the center of the woods. The enemy had set up a

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double machine gun nest that guarded the road on the other side of the wooded area. Using his seemingly infinite knowledge of weapons, Hunter had determined that these weapons were postwar, heavy Russian Kalishnikovs. He had hit the dugout with a satchel charge and machine-gunned the survivors as they emerged from cover. Simon looked down into the hole. He felt sick. It was filled with dead and dismembered men. Their eyes were cold snails, there hands white clay things. They were in absurd positions, one man’s cringing face thrust into another man’s armpit. A decapitated man was still sitting upright, hands in his lap. Simon found himself searching absently for the man’s head, but it was nowhere to be seen.

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Captain Simon stood and faced Sgt.Hunter and the others in a clearing near a vacant church. “We are due to be extracted tomorrow at 0800.” He announced to the dirty, tired faces. “This extraction is taking place because enemy strength in the area is significantly stronger than headquarters anticipated. Our mission was based on incorrect earlier intelligence. All we are asked to do now is hold out tonight.” He tried to meet each man’s gaze, but it was hard. Some of them were missing. “We will set up a position,” he used his M16A2 to indicate the church, “in this building. For those of you who are religious, I apologize, but this is the only safe structure in the area. The rest of the buildings were structurally weakened by the bombing. This church will serve as our base of operations for tonight. Think of it as God being on our side. That will be all.”

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Each man began to move away to his assigned task. Simon called out to Hunter. “Sergeant, I’d like to speak with you a moment.” “Sir.” “Sergeant, I didn’t want to say this in front of the men. But it seems to me that you don’t have a clear enough understanding of our mission here. It is to pacify the hostility between ethnic groups.” “Meaning?” “Meaning, Sergeant, that we do not shoot men who have surrendered by laying down their arms.” “Captain, may I speak freely?” “You may, Sergeant.” “These people have been killing each other, and enjoying it, for thousands of years. It’s part of their culture, part of them. They never surrender, not really. Why, when the Germans were here—“ “I’m not talking about history, Hunter, I’m talking about modern, limited war.” Hunter’ only response was a cold glare. “What I mean, Sergeant, is that in the heat of battle, I can understand what you did. But I want you clear on one thing. It isn’t to happen again.” “Sir!” Hunter roared, snapping him a salute like privates must have given their Sergeant Majors at the Kiber Pass, or Islandwana. Sergeant Hunter strode away to take the first watch, and as his broad back retreated, Captain Simon had a weird thought, that he had met Hunter somewhere else, long ago. But he put the thought from his mind and bedded down for the night.

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He awoke to a hellish noise, the explosion of flares and the harsh sputter of machine gun fire. People dashed past him, crouched low, as he struggled to get out of his sleeping bag. Someone grabbed his shoulder and threw him to one side; it was Sergeant Hunter. Gunfire sounded in the night, close beside him. He finally got free of his sleeping bag, and a flare went off overhead. The ground was littered with bodies. It looked like half of his squad was dead. There were more enemy bodies than he could count. Standing between him and an onrushing wave of enemy soldiers stood Sergeant Hunter, an AK-47 in each hand, firing them like pistols. There were men lying everywhere, in various states of dismemberment. The flare began to burn down; Captain Simon freed his side arm and began to fire. Suddenly, the enemy was all around them. Something tugged at his jacket. He turned and fired instinctively in the direction from which the weapons fire had come. He was rewarded with a cry. He felt another tug in his thigh. Suddenly there was pain. What must have been a fist hit him in the back, and he knew he was dying. He fell down into a bottomless blackness.

He felt like he was being born all over again. He had awakened into blinding white light; he had not been able to make out his surroundings for hours. When he had finally been able to see that it was a hospital, he had spent a whole day trying to remember where he was, who he was. How he had gotten here. In the end it had all come back to him, the patrol, the actions, being overrun that final night. How were the men? How many had made it out? How could HQ have been so

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wrong about the strength of the enemy? He wondered what had happened to Hunter? Did he owe the man is life? He was the last man that Simon had seen before being hit. These thoughts troubled him for several days. One day when he awoke to find Sgt. Hunter standing at the foot of his bed, a lean and disciplined figure in his army dress greens. The sergeant snapped him a regulation salute and held his stance. “At ease, Sergeant.” “Sir, I just came by to make sure you were doing okay.” Hunter said without relaxing perceptibly. “The new Captain is a crack professional officer, who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, sir.” “Seeing that we’ve been through quite a scrape, I’ll let that remark go off the record, Sergeant.” “Thought you might sir. Brought you a present.” He eased a pint of Kentucky Whiskey out from under his blouse. “That is, with your permission, Captain.” “Consider yourself authorized, Sergeant.” He unscrewed the bottle and handed it to Simon, who, though groggy, took a healthy sip. “Ah. Didn’t know you realized that I was from Kentucky.” “Oh, yeah. Served with some of you boys in World War One.” Simon regarded the man silently for a moment. He thought of saying many things; most of them were dictated by rational thinking, by his education, his upbringing. He felt the realization dawning on him that no rational remark would apply. Instead, he said: “How many others are there? Men like you?” Hunter stood and glared at him with a primeval, smoldering stare.

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“More than there once were, sir. And there are more of us, every age.” The combination of drugs and alcohol was making Simon very groggy. “But…why…” “Maybe there are others not like me, too, better angels if you will, but I have never seen them. The times call for those like me. When there are weak leaders, when there is evil loose in the world and no one sees it. When people have forgotten how to do anything but tear each other to shreds, that is when we come. I am what you and yours wanted, Captain. I am war.” It wasn’t fair; but the light was failing. The Captain wanted to say one last thing, but the man before him put up his hand. “Forget about it, Captain Simon. Tomorrow you’ll be on your way home. Just be glad there are men like me, who’ll fight the good fight, as long as it takes.” But what fight? But what fight? And when can we stop fighting? Simon’s mind cried, as sleep overcame him once again. And when he fell to sleep, he dreamed, but his dreams were not of peace, but of maimed and lost and dying men, and the hateful face of war.

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