Recon

This story is based on fact. Well, parts of it. Not much, actually :)

Recon

Must have been something wrong with the air on that morning
I could see through the eyes of the birds they were coming
I remember thinking to myself
That I am just a stranger in their land

The Mayan Factor �" Recon

There must've been something wrong in the air on that morning.

At least, I tell myself that now; that I should've known, that s**t doesn't just happen, that there's at least some kind of warning, some sign. But then there are times when I'm sitting in my apartment, when the rain outside my window's my only company, when TV's full of s**t (and it's mostly these days) and I've to take a piss and I realize for the hundred and thirtieth time that I don´t even have to go to the bathroom anymore in order to so, that I simply have to let it flow through this f*****g catheter, and ain't that too damn handy; at times like these, I tell you, that I tend to believe that s**t simply happens. But let me reconstruct what happened.

It was the 29^th of May in the glorious year of 2003, praise the lord. It was a hot day, but then, each day I spent in Afghanistan seemed to have been hot. You might remember: our mighty German government under Gerhard Schröder (does anybody remember him? That somewhat podgy person, I've always kind of liked him, he seemed to have a sense of humour) had decided to send our troops there back in 2001, the mission was called Enduring Freedom.

You know, I don´t even have my f*****g Abitur or something, but has anyone bothered pointing out to the ambivalence (I had to check this one out �" hope it´s correct) of that mission's name? I picture a bunch of fancy military experts sitting in a even more fancy conference room trying to come up with some name for their brand new, world-changing mission. They come up with Enduring Freedom.

Oh, never mind.

Speaking of ambivalence: In Afghanistan I was part of the ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, or as our American colleagues called it: I SUCK AT FIGHTING.

I was only 20 back then. I was hard as nails, working out regularly, had a girlfriend back home, Theresa, whose picture I carried in a small tin box on a chain around my neck everywhere I went. It was more than a romantic gesture, it was essential. I liked my job, being a soldier. I actually believed in the good cause of all that; supporting Afghan police forces, supporting the Afghan people. You've to be aware of the fact that it was way before the Kunduz airstrike in 2009, when public opinion really changed and we became the bad guys.

And, well, it was before the mine.

German troops were (and I think they still are) notoriously badly equipped. The Americans, they laughed at us, if they didn't pity us, which they did most of the time. Left wing politicians in Germany think it's a great idea to simply cut of expenses for military needs at once; leaving the soldiers with rifles that fire if you look at 'em in the wrong way, trucks that stop working in the middle of the f*****g desert and, worst of all: Instant coffee. I still kinda get the creeps when I think back to that brew that passed for coffee.

The morning of the 29^th started off usually enough; that is, it was just plain ordinary military insanity. Getting up at five. We were stationed near Kunduz, north-east Afghanistan. I´d been there for roughly one month and, like my comrades, I´d been wondering, when our mission was gonna start. Being a soldier, that basically meant: Waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for clear instructions, waiting for the water to boil, looking at that strange semi-desert landscape where it's hard to believe that it belongs to the same earth as my apartment back home in Münster, Theresa and her cat, my parents sitting in the living room watching old episodes of Tatort or whatever. The same old sun, the same old stars; I still don't get it.

We were told, we were supposed to support the Afghan people, helping them train the police forces. I've spent one month in Afghanistan and there wasn't any of this. What we did was: Listening to Slipknot, Rammstein and Faith no more, playing X-Box (Call of Duty mostly �" a war game and ain't that hilarious?) drinking German beer in an atmosphere charged with growing sexual frustration. We went for patrol and we manned walls in the desert looking out for… yeah, for what? Nobody seemed to be too sure. Trouble, mostly, I'd say. But there wasn't much going on. Just the heat and us desperately fighting for shady places.

On that day, we went on patrol. There were three of us: Paul, my German comrade with whom I'd became friends. We called him Private Paula, of course all of us had watched that movie, Apocalypse Now. He was one of those guys that make you feel proud when they address you as pal. He was reckless, a hot shot, always making fun of everything, including himself. He had a sunny attitude towards things, never falling short of pointing out to the many absurdities we were confronted with as soldiers, making friends with Americans in broken English, making friends with Afghan children by getting down on his knees and smiling at them.

The other one was an American. We called him Bill and if I got it right that makes his real name William. He was from Texas and he had the same strange, drawling intonation most Germans know from George W. Bush, or, as Bill, no friend of his President, called him: George Wanker Bush. The Americans had the reputation of being rather arrogant but Bill, he was the opposite. He didn't talk much but when he talked it made sense.

I was in the back, Paul was driving and was talking about what he'd pulled off with some friends back home. I´ll always remember that, the way we tend to remember unimportant things which are connected to traumatic events. He'd told us, in that rather broken English of his with a strong accent, how he and a friend in a disco pretended to know Tom Skeritt. Tom Skeritt is a not too famous actor. They had made up an elaborate plan how to subtly drop the fact that they know Tom Skeritt in order to impress the girls (Hey, what´s up with Tom Skeritt, last time you saw him?). Bad thing about that was: No one knew Tom Skeritt (No one knowed the f****r!). So it rather backfired. Bill listened politely while I was looking at the strange scenery. It was at the outskirts of Kunduz; a settlement in the semi-desert, like right from these old westerns where John Wayne stepped into the scenery, confronted with two competing gangs, declaring that there is a new sheriff in town.

In Afghanistan, there was a golden rule: Always distrust quietness. In that war (even though it was not called that way back then) you had to watch out for deserted streets, quiet places, the absence of children playing, for these were signs of danger.

I remember preparing to raise my voice, addressing the fact that it was too quiet, that I have that feeling inside my guts that said that something was wrong, something was terribly out of place.

As I did so, I had a premonition. I knew, that I'd be too late. That I'd be too late, even if I say it now. Self-fulfilling prophecy, I learned that term after that. I was nauseated by a sense of dread, making it impossible to act. I'm not saying that it was some supernatural twilight zone s**t, you know, but it was weird.

This sense of dread was the last thing I remember from that day.

Next thing I remember, was pain. The pain in my back that had become such an integral part of my life since then, like breathing. I was lying in a hospital bed and a nurse was leaning over me. She had nice breasts that pressed against my right arm. I was thinking: Is this the place where soldiers go when they die? Maybe I even said it aloud; I must've said something, for she looked me in the eye (she also had nice eyes; brown with sparkles of green) and said, in German: What did you say? Everything's gonna be alright.

It´s hard to reconstruct the next weeks. I slipped in and out of consciousness; but even that isn't exactly right for both seemed to be the same thing at times. Was I dreaming: Theresa at my bed, holding my hand, her tears warm on my hand? Did it really happen that a doctor informed me that my spine had been broken and that I probably won't be able to walk again? Was it true that my mother was standing in front of my bed screaming at the nurse that she wanted information, what had happened to her son?

Later I found out that all these things must've happened at some point but it´s impossible to say whether they happened the way I remember them.

Then there are things where I'm not sure if they happened at all. I have a lasting image of Theresa slipping a hand under my blanket and the shame, confusion and defeat after that. Paul, sitting next to me not talking much. Telling me, that Bill had died. From pieces of information I gathered that we must have lured into a landmine. One of those whose purpose had long been forgotten, maybe even from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

I was in hospital for 2 months. It was a military hospital in Wilhelmshaven and that town is so boring that, after a few excursions, I found that I might as well stay in my room and stare at the ceiling. The north sea a grey pastiche, the town grey from concrete and parking lots. The air was fine, though. Always look at the bright side, as my therapist likes to point out, at which I always smile because of the really entertaining images of me strangling him that arise from my mind.

So, this is getting quite clinical now. I suffer from paraplegia. No, wait. Monoplegia, it´s monoplegia and doesn't it sound great? I´m unable to move my left leg, I walk on crouches.

That also means, I've to piss through this catheter-thing as mentioned above. And, yes, let's put it plainly: I am as impotent as some eunuch from the middle ages. The mighty Bundeswehr pays quite a bit of a compensation for that; me being an impotent hero of war and all. I won't have to worry about money all my live and isn't that something?

Well, what can say? She left me. Half a year after I returned from the hospital. I don't wanna point the finger at her but sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel betrayed, left alone; an old man sitting on a porch muttering to himself. We really tried to hold the pieces together, we really did, but in the end it didn't work out. One day she told that she was in love with her yoga teacher. I didn't even know that she was into yoga. And that was that.

Now, sitting in my apartment I have these deep thoughts, you know? Like, what's it all about and is this supposed to tell me anything? Not too sure about that. And returning to that question, whether s**t simply happens to all of us, or whether there is some kind of deeper meaning to things like plane crashes, earthquakes and stuff, I'd say, after having reconstructed a bit, no sir, there´s no meaning. S**t simply happens. But we don't have to like it.