Dulce Bellum Inexpertis (273 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.37 on 10 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by The Meat Popsicle (View user info) at 2006-10-19 10:57:53 EDT
Deafness. White noise.
Rain beat down on me and in that instant there was nothing. Then the pattering of the drops swam into my ears and the blank moment was over. The darkness fizzled away and the all too familiar gritty brown world materialized.
The pattering of the rain made a musical key change when the grainy dirt in my mouth dripped onto the blood on the ground. Rocks and pieces of the truck were coming back down to Earth, bouncing off of my checks. That forgotten sound of rain became the familiar sound of cheaply bought arms being fired from rooftops nearby.
I shook my head from side to side and horror scrambled my thoughts. I was coated red with flecks of sand and grime clinging to me as they floated in that cataclysmic cloud. Dean lay next to me, an unnatural guttural sound coming from the holes in his neck. Seeing him lying on my legs scarred me to an unbridled degree.
My first instinct was to check myself for damage. I didn't feel injured, just a little dazed. Without another thought my instinct for survival grabbed me by the nuts and pulled me to my feet, weapon in hand. Wyatt and O'Connor were already on the move and pressed against a house 20 feet from me. They were yelling something to me and the driver that appeared behind me. The staccato notes ringing like chimes off of the heavily damaged truck overpowered any form of communication.
They were motioning for us to haul ass across the street for cover. The truck was hot and we weren't moving. Dean lay prostrate and all I could do was huddle up next to the smoking hunk of metal next to me. The driver had been hit several times in both of this arms. His hands looked like ground turkey, that fake meat look clinging to my mind.
Wyatt was changing mags while O'Connor was emptying his. I grabbed Dean by the straps and decided that if I stayed in the middle of that roadway, we were certainly finished. The driver haphazardly lunged out from our burning cover and sprinted towards what was left of us. A bit of his hand fell away and rolled in the dirt half way to the safety of friendly soldiers.
With my weapon hanging across my chest I made my break. Every ounce of strength I had was irrelevant. I felt no weight on my arm as I pulled him. I felt no shrapnel puncture in my right thigh with every step. Feet from O'Connor and the concussion of the battle and I felt a few tugs on my arm. Slight.
I fell past the three leaning against the wall, Dean coming to a stop just past the threshold of cover. Wyatt kneeled down over Dean and I saw the look on his face. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to Dean. They'd shot my wounded friend 6 times as I dragged him. Dean was more than gone, these bastards desecrated him.
If it's one thing that I do well it's shoot. That was my calling. That was my reason for being there. That's what I did to every moving figure in the distance in that 20 minutes of hell. Every. Fucking. Person.
It was not the Coliseum. I was not a Gladiator. There was no happy ending. There never is in the real world.
---
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah man, I'm so excited," My Brother said.
"So when do you leave?"
"Not for another 4 years after I graduate from ODU. I'll be an officer and shit."
I wanted to smash that recruiters face in. I wanted to pull every finger nail out with a pair of pliers. I wanted to make a sandwich out of his brain matter. The taste would have been magnificent. I hate Liars.
I should have shown my Brother the truth. The scars, the pictures. I'd always tried to protect him. I tried to explain that this is not what he wants but he was never mature enough to understand. I wanted him to know that I go so he doesn't have to. And now that chance is lost.
He'll find one day that there is no glory in war, no matter how many commercials say otherwise.
Culture of fear? No. Culture of war.
User Reviews
Submitted by jfreakman (user info) at 2006-10-19 21:02:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
and because i forgot the +2 last time...
Submitted by jfreakman (user info) at 2006-10-19 21:02:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My ex-girlfriend just came back from basic training...she's completely different (Hence the word ex, I really don't understand why she's such a whore now). It does change you, and I can only imagine the horror that war must provoke in a person's personality. And I hate hate hate all those fucking recruiters. I wish every single one of those damn penis-sucking lying-through-their-teeth shitheads would hang themselves while simultaneously eviscerating themselves...naked.
That said, once again, fantastic post.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-19 20:07:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-10-19 16:42:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:54:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:40:16 (#)
Ranking: 0
My twin brother is a captian, U.S. Army.
He'll be finishing his second tour in Iraq, come December. Shortly thereafter, he'll return home a certainly changed man.
I can say with first-hand experience that what he has seen in war and what the Army has instilled in him has given him an immeasurably large edge on others his age. Not only that, but the kind of respect he has gained for his fellow man is ridiculously apparent.
While there are plenty of arguments to be made about the overselling that recruiters do, I feel you are skewing a bit the universally valuable benefits of military training.
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Chances are if you are a complete arsehole to start (and lets face it, if he is your twin he probably is) then it's more apparent that you have changed.
If you are a stand up decent bloke to start with, let's say rather like me, then the change will not be so apparent.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:50:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:40:16 (#)
Ranking: 0
While there are plenty of arguments to be made about the overselling that recruiters do, I feel you are skewing a bit the universally valuable benefits of military training.
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the recruiters do oversell and lie lie lie to get the numbers they need. i agree there are benefits to military training that you could never get through any other means. but i also believe that it depends on the type of person getting trained. i think the military also needs to be more picky with their psych evals because they're letting some absolute shit through just to make quota.
Submitted by MeatPopsicle (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:43:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
In argumentum ad hominem, you're OathMeal. 'Nuff said.
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:40:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
My twin brother is a captian, U.S. Army.
He'll be finishing his second tour in Iraq, come December. Shortly thereafter, he'll return home a certainly changed man.
I can say with first-hand experience that what he has seen in war and what the Army has instilled in him has given him an immeasurably large edge on others his age. Not only that, but the kind of respect he has gained for his fellow man is ridiculously apparent.
While there are plenty of arguments to be made about the overselling that recruiters do, I feel you are skewing a bit the universally valuable benefits of military training.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:26:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-10-19 11:02:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
THIS IS SPT!!!!!