Known Unknowns

By David P. Ervin

Birds chirped as the prayer call drifted over the village of Al Isham. Sergeant Grant Morrison snatched off his sunglasses and wiped the sweat from his eyes. His two-hour guard shift in the rooftop bunker of Alpha Company’s outpost, ‘Shamville,’ was half over. He glanced into the market. The Iraqis had closed their shops for the hottest part of the afternoon. None milled around the concrete and stucco buildings. After the prayer call ended the only sound was the birds.

He looked past the dusty machine gun down Route Toledo. It was the only hardball road leading out of the village, their lifeline to the highway leading to their main base, FOB Osborne. Toledo ran straight through ragged fields until it bridged a tree-lined canal a kilometer to the west. The road curved south just past the bridge and the guards at Shamville could not see past the treeline.

Diesel engines chugged down a dirt road to the north. Morrison perched on the edge of his seat to look down onto the intersection. Then three Humvees trundled past the shuttered market stalls. Through the dust he saw their Headquarters Company markings and called it into the command post downstairs. Staff Sergeant Shaffer, his squad leader, acknowledged in his bored Carolina twang.

The Humvees lurched onto Toledo. He saw their gunners squat in their hatches before they disappeared behind the treeline a kilometer away.

He wondered if they’d get hit. Everyone got hit by the bend at the treeline.

He wouldn’t see it. One of his guys might. Pasquale was down in the bunker by their gate with Specialist Escalante and had better line of sight. Everyone would hear it, though. They always heard them in Shamville.

Two months ago First Platoon got picked to turn a commandeered house at the edge of Al Isham into an outpost. They dubbed it ‘Shamville.’ Even for grunts it was hard work. For a week it was two hour guard shifts and then two hours filling sandbags and building bunkers. They were supposed to sleep for another two, but they had to run up to the roof to pull security whenever IEDs thumped out on Toledo and the main highway – a sound they all came to know well by now.

It was bad. Guys in other platoons on patrols or resupply runs would stop by Shamville. They smoked cigarettes and shook and pointed at new shrapnel holes in their Humvees from close calls. There had been many.

But there was nothing this time. The sound of the engines faded and Morrison heard the birds again. Cards slapped down in the open courtyard from a game of spades. He lit a cigarette.

“Hey Jenkins,” he said. His folding chair creaked as he leaned back.

“Yeah, sarn’t,” said Jenkins from the next bunker over. He was Morrison’s newest soldier in Third Squad, a freckle-faced guy who’d transferred in from Headquarters Company a couple weeks before.

“You know those Headquarters dudes that just passed by?” said Morrison.

“Uh, negative, sarn’t,” said Jenkins. His voice was gravelly, tired. “I didn’t really get a good look.”

“Alright…You good, man?” said Morrison.

“You know he’s sleepin’, Sarn’t Morrison. Smoke his ass,” said Specialist Taggert from across the roof. He laughed.

“I’m not sleepin’,” said Jenkins.

“Naw, he’s fuckin’ jerkin’ off,” said Chavez.

“Hey man, I’m not…” said Jenkins.

“They’re just fuckin’ with you, man,” said Morrison.

The other guards joined in and joked for a while longer but there was no heart in it, not on the fourth day of their platoon’s rotation out there. Not at Shamville.

It was hard for Morrison to believe, but they thought they had it bad their first few months in-country. They’d taken a lot of incoming on the FOB. They’d shot up a van that ran a checkpoint and had seen what machine guns could do to people. They even saw IEDs occasionally. No one had been hurt, though.

Once they moved out to Shamville they knew they had it bad. Everything changed. They had six guys killed, all on Toledo, all past that bend. Now they knew how IEDs mangled and twisted and burned those Humvees down to their frames. Now they knew their crews got thrown around and ripped apart. Now they drove around on patrol just waiting to get hit. But they tried not to think about it or talk about it.

Morrison didn’t even talk to anyone about losing his best friend, Specialist Paul King. They had been new guys in Alpha Company two years ago. They stuck close. On weekends they split bottles of whiskey in the barracks while they listened to music and talked about Alan Watts or lucid dreaming or something else far from the world in which they both lived. But for some reason King avoided him after he got promoted to sergeant. Morrison didn’t know why. King had barely spoken to him the whole deployment. He wanted to talk to him about it but hadn’t gotten the nerve to yet when he got killed.

Morrison wasn’t there for it. King’s squad was on patrol and hit an IED on Toledo. They came back to the tents on FOB carrying King’s bloody, blackened body armor. King was gone, though. The whole platoon was a mess. Doc Rodriguez told them he’d done what he could but King had bled out. Pasquale started sobbing. Morrison had no idea how to help him or how to deal with any of that. He still didn’t when they lost their company commander a few days later to a car bomb or some Second Platoon guys after that.

Morrison put out the cigarette and trained binoculars down Toledo. They had to watch what they could even though they never saw anything from Shamville. No one ever saw anything at all, not on twelve-hour patrols or all-night observation posts or raids. Not on patrols until it was too late. The Iraqis never knew anything when they questioned them. They only shook their heads, saying ‘no Ali Baba’ and fiddling with their prayer beads. But the IEDs were always there.

There were more diesel engines to the north and somewhere behind him, still far away, were helicopter rotors beating. Morrison grabbed the walkie-talkie.

The first Humvee was followed by a couple Toyota pickup trucks with Iraqis in the back, some manning machine guns mounted in the back. All of them wore desert-tan flight suits and their faces were covered by scarves and ski-masks. The vehicles creaked and rattled as they hit the edge of the hardball and the helicopters got louder.

“CP, tower one, over.”

“Go ‘head,” said Shaffer over the walkie-talkie.

“CP, tower one. Five friendly victors moving west on Route Toledo. Looks like SF and their Iraqi guys.”

“Roger that,” said Shaffer.

The last vehicle was a Humvee with an automatic grenade launcher and its engine revved to a whine as it took off down Toledo.

The drumbeat of helicopter rotors crescendoed behind Morrison and then faded fast. He turned around, craning his neck to get a look and saw that Taggert was leaning out of his bunker to see them. Morrison wondered if he should tell him to get back inside.

Then there was short, sharp crack of thunder.

Morrison ducked then snapped back around. He shouldered the machine gun to get it trained on the intersection. The ammo belt jingled as it slid across the plywood.

He hesitated a moment and yelled, “IED on Toledo!” His legs shook.

The walkie-talkies blared as Escalante called in seeing the detonation and a dusty mushroom cloud rosefrom the treeline by Toledo. It had gone off past the bend.

The convoy’s weapons opened up, pops at first then longer bursts.

“Nothin’ gets close to the wire!” said Morrison. He fumbled for the walkie-talkie and said, “CP, tower one, that convoy’s engaging, dunno what. Can’t seem ‘em.”

“CP, roger that,” said Shaffer in that same even tone.

“Hey Jenkins! Eyes on that north-south road. Don’t let any vehicles get close.”

Sergeant Hannah was on the other side of the roof yelling orders, too, but everyone was already going through the motions. They had done all this before, knew the drill well. The guards couldn’t do anything else but secure Shamville’s perimeter.

Morrison saw the dust plume give way to pouring black smoke. His mind registered that a vehicle had been hit just as Escalante called it in. His eyes hopped around between the intersection and the smoke on the treeline. His shaking stopped and he thumbed the safety.

It was a big one. There had been bigger, like the car bomb by the bridge that had killed Captain Henderson. It shook Shamville hard. It was pretty bad waking up to that, but he’d only had to pull security on the roof the whole time. A bunch of guys from King’s squad ended up going out there and he could not look them in the face when they got back, knowing he hadn’t even tried to volunteer to go with them and help. Not that he hadn’t had his turn doing that stuff.

Charlie Company had lost four guys a few weeks back. That had been a big one, too. Morrison’s squad had been on a checkpoint when they heard a faraway rumble. There were frantic voices on the radio so they mounted up to go help them. There was no medevac. Morrison had seen the smoke from a long way off.

It had been secured by the time they got there. All there was left to do was to help the Charlie Company grunts do a hands-across-the-desert police call to find what was left of their buddies. Those guys had been blasted to nothing. Almost nothing. There were just pieces scattered all over. Sometimes it was stuff Morrison knew, stuff he wore like a scrap of desert camouflage or a chunk of tan boot sole. But the rest were just wet pieces that glinted in the sun and he couldn’t tell whose pieces they were.

Shaffer was down in the courtyard yelling at guys to move their asses and get their shit on and get up there. Even his raised voice seemed calm.

A couple of puffy-eyed soldiers with sleep-lines on their faces clattered up the courtyard stairs. Soon half the platoon had spread out and crouched behind the walls surrounding the roof, some with grim faces and most with the slack look of interrupted sleep, all of them distracted by the column of smoke and the shooting out there.

The convoy’s machine guns hammered away. Morrison only saw the tracers zip through

the treeline, some hitting trunks and bouncing and fizzling. The automatic grenade launcher rattled and thumped in the treeline. Then it died down.

“Somebody get hit?”

Morrison turned and saw Yost standing in the middle of the roof, his nose held up to see under the brim of his helmet.

Morrison half-turned and pointed with one hand. “North wall, Yost. Right there. Watch those side roads.”

“Roger sarn’t,” he said. His untied bootlaces flopped and snapped as he jogged to the wall.

“It’s those Green Beret dudes from the FOB,” said Morrison, turning back.

“Shit. Looks bad,” said Yost.

“Yeah. Yeah it does,” said Morrison. Morrison stared out at the deep black smoke billowing out from behind the palms. He did not have to see the vehicle to know that the flames would be hissing and whipping all around its gutted frame.

“Behind ya, Sarn’t Morrison,” said Shaffer. His long, sunburned face was scrunched against the brightness. He ducked inside Morrison’s bunker and peered down Toledo with binoculars.

“I don’t think it was a daisy-chain. Just heard the one,” said Morrison.

“Alright,” said Shaffer. He stepped back out of the bunker and looked all around the roof.

“Everybody’s covering sectors, sarn’t,” said Morrison. “Are there casualties?”

“Yeah. Four KIA an’ one wounded. Hit one a’ them pickups,” said Shaffer as he shook out a cigarette. “Said the wounded guy’s just routine.”

“Jesus,” said Morrison. “No medevac then?”

“Huh-uh,” said Shaffer. “Probably a real fuckin’ mess.”

“Hey Sarn’t Shaffer, we goin’ down there?” said Yost.

Morrison’s froze and his face burned.

“Third Pl’toon’s on th’ way out,” said Shaffer. Morrison pushed out a breath.

“Where are they anyway, Sarn’t Shaffer?” said Morrison. “Third, I mean. Haven’t seen ‘em the whole shift.”

“One a’ them civil affairs things, a clinic. Same place we did las’ week, there just offa Route Des Moines,” said Shaffer.

Morrison remembered. There were long lines of black-shrouded women with kids in tow waiting to see the medics. The older boys swarmed them to ask them about soccer balls. All he’d been able to think of at the time was having to clear Toledo after they wrapped it up.

They were silent for a while. Morrison set the machine gun down. He waited on Shaffer to say something else but knew he wouldn’t.

Shaffer wasn’t really a talker. After King’s memorial ceremony he’d called a squad meeting. They expected some wisdom-laced speech or something since he’d been in the invasion. But he’d just stood there staring at his boots with a blank face. All he’d finally said was to make sure they had the medevac procedure cards taped to all the radios and to grab extra tourniquets for the aid kits.

“Gonna check on Hannah an’ Jenkins n’ them,” said Shaffer.

Morrison nodded.

The smoke had dissipated some. A breeze blew the patchy shadows across the fields

toward Shamville. There was a faint smell of burning rubber.

“CP gate,” said Pasquale over the radio after a while.

“CP, go ahead,” said Lieutenant Riley’s deep voice.

“Third Platoon’s on site, CP.”

“Gate, CP. Roger, we’re tracking.”

Morrison picked up the binoculars. He didn’t see Third’s vehicles but saw desert-tan silhouettes spreading out in front of the treeline and the bank of the canal. There was no shade out there and their uniforms were bright against the dingy green reeds.

“Sheew,” breathed Shaffer, behind Morrison’s bunker again.

Morrison wondered whether Shaffer was talking about the heat or the smell or the size of the IED. “Jenkins good, sarn’t?” he said.

“Squared away.”

The tan shapes still wandered below the treeline and lingered around the shot-up outbuilding. Morrison pushed his helmet brim back and wiped his forehead. His skin felt slimy and gritty. He lit another cigarette because there was nothing else to do. He thought about policing up those Charlie Company casualties again. Those little pieces glinting in the sun.

He knew the Third Platoon guys weren’t talking out there while they did the same. He remembered looking up at the Charlie Company guy beside him as they searched. He wanted to say he was sorry or something. The Charlie Company guy’s lips were pressed together in a tight line and his chin was wrinkly like he’d tasted something bitter. Morrison had just given him a nod.

When they mounted up to leave that day Shaffer had come back he had that same, tight-lipped, blank face. He didn’t say anything then, either, but neither did anybody else.

“Sarn’t Shaffer, CP” said the lieutenant over the radio.

“This’s Sarn’t Shaffer.”

“We can stand down. Relief goes out in, uhhh, two-zero mikes.”

“Roger,” said Shaffer into the walkie-talkie. He nodded at Morrison, “Y’all back on at eighteen-hunnerd?”

Morrison nodded.

“You, uh,” said Shaffer. He cleared his throat. “Make sure them guys get some rack time, alright?”

“I will, Sarn’t.”

Everyone had heard the radios and their boots scuffed on the concrete roof then banged down the stairs. Someone mumbled “fuck it’s hot” and tore open their body armor. Downstairs guys dropped their helmets on the floor with a hollow thock. They talked over each other for a minute but it quieted down soon.

There was no smoke down Toledo anymore, not even a smell. The truck had burned down faster than a Humvee. Morrison heard the birds chirping again.

Third Platoon was still out there when Gutierrez relieved Morrison. Some guys sat in clusters downstairs, eating and staring in sweat-soaked t-shirts. Morrison smoked outside his squad’s door and watched four guys start their spades game again like nothing had happened.

Inside Third Squad’s room it smelled like old sweat and feet and the ceiling fan squeaked. Jenkins, Hannah, and Taggert were already crashed, or at least had their eyes closed. Chavez was gone but Pasquale was in the blue camping chair with his thick eyebrows knitted like he was thinking hard about something.

Morrison’s cot creaked when he stretched out on it. He laid there as the sweat dried and turned to salt-grime and wondered if Pasquale was in a bad place. Maybe he kept thinking about that black smoke this afternoon or maybe the crack-thump of the IED reminded him of the captain getting killed or the smell of the burnt-out hulk of that Charlie Company Humvee. Maybe whatever he was listening to on his headphones kept him from thinking of any of it.

Morrison flipped through his MP3 player, leaning back on the balled-up poncho liner on his cot. He put on Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them,” his go-to song because it always reminded him of summer nights back in high school when they’d drive back after swimming in the North Fork River all day, everybody mellowed-out and tired and stoned.

When the saxophone started he thought of the time he played it for Paul King. He had gone home with him on summer leave to Ohio. They were in a rental car driving to the Ohio State campus to see the girl Paul swore he was going to marry, Allie, the one with the curly brown hair he talked about all the time during those nights in the barracks.

King had said something about how Pink Floyd always reminded him of smoking weed. He started in on how he couldn’t wait to get out of the Army so he could get enrolled in school and start his life with Allie. He always talked about that.

He thought of King’s blackened, torn-up body armor and how Pasquale’s sobs started the rest of them crying. He thought about sitting in the bunker listening to that song, trying to forget about those slimy red and pink shreds in the dirt and how heavy they were in his hand.

“God only knows, it’s not what we would choose…to do...”

He pushed ‘stop’ and flipped through the whole playlist, not even reading the titles. He

didn’t know what would help him remember something that wasn’t this hot, haze-dulled place.

What he did know was that soon they would be driving up and down Toledo and the highway and the IEDs would be there. For seven more months. He knew they’d get hit one day. Maybe it would get Shaffer or Pasquale or Hannah. Maybe even all of them. He couldn’t know when it would happen. He just knew that it would.

The backs of his eyes felt full and he squeezed them shut at the thought of knowing there was nothing they could do about it.

****

David P. Ervin is an infantry veteran of the Iraq War. He has written numerous short pieces of nonfiction and fiction. His work can be found in The Line Literary Review, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Wilderness House Literary Review, among other publications.