Songs for the Road
I wrote:I woke up the next morning. To be totally honest I wasn't sure I would. You never know
I'd slept in my uniform. I was far too tired to even consider undressing the night before.
I went to work field stripping and cleaning my M16 and USP. It's a ritual, you know? Keeps you cool and collected.
The M16's process of this is rather long and arduous, but it's a necessity. First, you set it to SAFE when it's cocked. Then you drop the mag, then you make sure there isn't a round in the chamber, "Visually and Physically inspect" is what the USMC tells us to do.
The next thing you do is lock the bolt, this will eject the bullet if you have a round in the chamber. I did, and it popped out and clanged on the floor. It wasn't very loud, but to me it sounded like a jet engine in the pretanatural quiet of the city.
The next thing you do is set it to SEMI and release the tension on the hammer by pulling the trigger. You gotta be careful with this so you don't shoot your foot off.
I took the sling off and set it on the counter of the bar I was standing at. I put the gun butt-first on the floor. I did the several mundane steps to remove the bolt carriage. I took out the firing pin retainer and put it in my pocket. I made sure to note which pocket, because if you don't know where it is and lose it, you're fucked with razor blades and sandpaper once it comes down to crunch time.
I pushed the bolt back and caught the firing pin as it fell out, then I removed the bolt. After this I cleaned and oiled everything. And I mean everything. To do anything less means jamming, which will kill you. And the M16, although it's a time-proven weapon, does tend to jam rather frequently. It was one of the reasons for the A2 after Viet Nam.
Then I reversed the process and put the whole thing back together. After that I did the same to my USP.
I popped the slide back onto the USP and loaded it, racked it, and holstered the weapon.
I went up to Riddler to ask what our orders were today. No change. Search and destroy.
We were on the move by 09:00. It's amazing how fast you get used to the time shift when you're on duty.
Today, it was my job to hump the computer. It's a funny sounding thing to do, but it's pretty mundane. To hump something simply means to walk with it. The computer itself isn't that special either. It runs Windows and we use it to report and keep track of KIA, wounded, and the like.
So we walked, and tried in vain to escape the smell. That cloying, eye-watering stench of death. It cannot be adequitely described. It's a symphony of foul odors. The smell of blood, tangy and metallic, the smell of piss and shit, because bullets put holes in that stuff. And the overwhelming smell of the dead and dying. You've probably never smelled a dead body. You're lucky.
We left the bodies of our comrades. There wasn't time or a place to bury them. We had to keep moving. In war, if you stop, you die. This one was no exception. The states had been incinerated at around 3 AM Eastern. A few people were probably awake, the rest, well they were cooked in bed like a deep-fried turkey on Thanksgiving.
One of the guys suggested we sing a song. So Riddler did his best Dylan impression and sang "The Times, They Are A-Changing". It lightened the mood considerably.
And then we all sang "Gimme Shelter" by the 'Stones in our best falsettos. It was like a seagull getting suffocated with a bagpipe.
Another favorite was "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden. A couple of guys did Air Guitars on their M4s (most of my buddies had M4s). I sang, and Riddler did drums with a couple of unstruck flares.
Around 15:00 we had exhausted our supply of pop tunes and did the old boy scout routine. Silly songs with no meaning. Like "The Unlucky Skydiver". Which went something like this.
"He jumped out of the airplane
and forgot to pull the cord,
He jumped out of the airplane
and forgot to pull the cord,
He jumped out of the airplane
and forgot to pull the cord,
And he ain't gonna jump no more.
Gory, gory, hallelujah,
Gory, gory, hallelujah,
Gory, gory, hallelujah,
And he ain't gonna jump no more."
Once we finished with the Boy Scout songs, we sang one more, one that we had saved, by unspoken consent, for last.
A traditional Marines' song that went to the tune of "The Mickey Mouse Club Theme"
"A-L-L, F-U-C, K-E-D U-P,
All fucked up,
All fucked up,
We're stuck here in Korea
and we can't wait to get out,
All fucked up,
All fucked up,
A-L-L, F-U-C, K-E-D U-P"
And it was.
All fucked up.