Part VIII: Hotel Echo Lima Papa Year 2

Part VIII: Hotel Echo Lima Papa

Year 2

2008

I’m sitting in the medical tent, I felt like total s**t, I must have caught something or something. I’ve been puking my guts out all morning. Jesse comes in and sits on the bed next to me. “What the hell do you want now??” Lisa asks, annoyed.
“I need to mellow out, I can feel another anxiety attack coming on.” he says.
“You had one. ONE. Now you think any kind of discomfort is an anxiety attack.”
“No, check me out, see for yourself.” She examines him.
“You’re fine, get out.”
“Can’t I at least get one pill?”
“NO! Get the f**k out!” Jesse huffs as he gets up and leaves. “I can’t stand him.”
“Don’t you, uh, have an obligation?” I ask.
“Only to care for people who need it, he’s faking it.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s my job to know.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Alright, take these, and I’m gonna ask you be put on light duty until you feel better.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, whatever, get Jim for me.”
“Which Jim?”
“Stec.”
“Ohhhh... gotcha.” I leave the tent and find Stec. “Lisa’s looking for you.”
“Oh, neat.” He heads into the tent. “What’s up, Lissy?” Stec says.
“Oh, Stec, I need you to get something for me.” Lisa says.
“What’s up?”
“I need a hit of acid.”
“What makes you think I can find acid?”
“Cause you’re you.”
“Wow, that backfired.” Just then, Eric walks in.
“Hey baby, you should probably check me for a hernia.” Eric says.
“Get the f**k out Eric.” Lisa says.
“Sorry, didn’t realize you had company, unless, you know, you want us both.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Come on, the desert sucks, you can’t tell me you’re frustrated?”
“Not for you.”
“Ah, come the f**k on!”
“Why don’t you hit on Kait?”
“Cause she could probably kick my a*s, have you seen that girl? She’s huge for a short girl.”
“If I give you a couple pills, will you leave?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t be expecting this.”
“No, I got it.” She hands them to him.
“Thanks baby.”
“F**k you.” He leaves.
“I wish.” He says as he leaves.
“Better make it two.”
“Got it, I’ll get it on my next trip.” Stec says.
“Thanks, I owe ya.” The sound of gunshots go off outside, they grab a weapon and head out. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Leo ams being an idiot.” Johan says.
“Sorry, I needed to fire something, I’m itching, it’s been too long.” Leo says. Kait walks up to him.
“Gimme your gun, you’re on suspension.” She says.
“For how long?”
“I’ll let you know once I discuss it with the MP.”
“F**k.”
“Well, that was a whole load of nothing.” Lisa says as she goes back into the tent.
“Would you rather do autopsies today?” Stec asks.
“Yeah, no, I guess you’re right about that.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll pick you up something nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Alright everyone, can I have your attention?” Kait asks. A blonde girl with glasses is standing next to her. “I’d like to introduce you to Lieutenant Tiffany Cougle. She is my second in command, when I am not around, you will take orders from her. Understood?” Everyone says yes sir all at once.
“What in the f**k is happening to this world?” Jon complains.
“What now?” I ask.
“You really have to ask? We’re in the middle of the desert fighting towel heads, a n****r is president, and we have women in charge of a bunch of mostly guys, it’s f*****g backwards. What’s next, legal gay marriage on the federal level?”
“That would be wonderful.” Jesse says. We all look at him. “S**t.”
“It’s ok, we’re all cool about it, we all know.” I tell him.
“I forget sometimes.”
“I ain’t cool with it, I haven’t been, only reason I don’t say s**t is cause you pick out the best hooch when you guys get supplies.” Jon says.
“Really? That’s all I’m good for?” he asks.
“Basically.”
“You’re a b*****d!”
“I’m an a*****e, it’s what I’m good at.”
“At least he admits it.” I say.
“I’m heading out for supplies.” Stec tells us.
“I’m coming with you.” Jesse says.
“No, not again. Samson, you come with me this time.”
“Sure.” I say. We go into the truck and head into town. “Why’d you ask me to come with you? Usually, Jesse is the one who goes with you.”
“He can’t know my business.” We pull up to the market. “Here’s the list of supplies and requests, I’ll be back soon. If I’m not back in an hour, get in and start driving. I know the way back, so I know what direction to follow you. Drive slow so I can catch up, I mean really creep.”
“Um, ok.” I do the shopping and am about to head back when Stec catches up to me.
“Alright, are we all good to go?”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”
“Awesome.” As we get in the truck, I notice there’s a crowd gathering around.
“Should we check it out?” I ask.
“Let’s get back up first.” We make it back to base, and everyone gets what they asked for and the supplies get put away. Stec goes into the medical tent and comes back out. I see Tyler coming back from talking with Kait.
“What’s up?” I ask him.
“I wanna go home.” Tyler says.
“Why?”
“Do I really need a reason? I hate it here.”
“What does that have to do with Kait?”
“I just asked her if I could leave. She said no, she said I’m needed here.”
“I’m sorry, man, but we need you. Francios, Leo, Kait!” Kait comes over to me. “We have a situation, did Stec brief you?”
“Whatever, I guess I’ll deal.” Tyler says.
“Yes he did, let’s move!” Kait says. We load up in the truck and head back to town. Johan, Tyler, Eric, and Harry load up in another truck. We make our way back to town, and a local runs towards our truck.
“You must help, there are hostages, including my daughter!” He yells in his middle Eastern accent.
“How many?” Kait asks.
“Four, please, hurry! I think one of them is American.” We get out of the trucks, and head towards town with our weapons at the ready. We make our way through the crowd, and happen upon four people tied together with rope. An Iraqui woman, an Iraqui girl, an old iraqui man, and our missing comrade, Sean Lutz. A single terrorist stands over them, his face covered, a gun strapped to him, and a knife in his hand. The Iraqui woman has an explosive strapped to her.
“You pay us 200,000 of your American dollars, and they will live. You have ten minutes, and to prove I am serious.” The terrorist demands. He slits the old man’s throat. “I didn’t say they all would live.”
Kait moves toward the terrorist very slowly. “Okay, first of all, we don’t negotiate with terrorists, secondly, it’s impossible to get that amount of money in that small amount of time. Third of all...” She aims her gun at his head. “It’s you against us.”
“Ah, ah, ah.” Something falls out of his sleeve, into his hand and he clicks it. At the same time, we hear the sound of guns being armed behind us. “You kill me, we all die.”
“Gamma F-1 Delta 97.” We immediately turn, and kill the nearest armed person, while Kait grabs the terrorist from behind and knocks him down. The innocents scatter, leaving just us and the terrorist, the bodies of his comrades lying next to us. Sean finally regains consciousness.
“What the f**k?” He asks, dazed.
“We’ve got you, welcome back, Sean.” Kait says, as she cuffs the terrorist and he drops his detonator. As we head towards the hostages, and Kait is walking the terrorist away, he kicks it, and it slams into Sean, setting it off, and the Iraqui woman explodes, killing the other two that were on either side of her. All four hostages dead, and we didn’t get to save one. Not even our missing comrade. At least we found him, as short as it was. We head back to the embassy, drop off the prisoner, then head back to base. Kait was silent the whole ride back, that usually means she was chewed out.
I really hope people will shut the f**k up and stop acting like f*****g idiots, the last thing I need is for her to take it out on us. I made sure to give the guys a heads up when we got back when she was out of earshot. We had a funeral for Sean, and sent him home. There was nothing we could do, between the time he dropped it, and the time he kicked it, none of us could get it in time. Not even Kait was fast enough, she was busy holding on to that terrorist f**k. At least the citizens were spared, it could have been worse. While Kait and the terrorist were talking, our group was scoping the crowd, looking for weapons. When they pulled their weapons, we already had a bead on them. As soon as she gave the code phrase, we just let the trigger go, it was clean all around, not a single civilian death. And then that f****r ruined the whole thing.
“Do you think we could have done anything different?” I ask Leo and Johan.
“Yeah, they could have me just spray everyone.” Leon says. “And she shouldn’t have talked to him, she should have just shot him in the head.”
“He had information, he’s no good to us dead.”
“Whatever, we lost anyway.”
“I’d say it’s about half and half.”
“We dids whats we were trained for, if we had gotten closer, we would have been hurt or died from the explosion too.” Johan says.
“Would have been nice to kill more than one guy though.” Leo says.
“Why are you so obsessed?” I ask him.
“It’s what we’re here for, and it just...feels so right.”
“Look, we did our job, and even though it wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for, we spared a lot of lives today.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And, you killed one more person than you thought you would today.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
“There ya go. Now c’mon, I gotta go on patrol, come with me, it’ll give you something to do.”
“Yeah, sure.” We do the patrol, and luckily for me and unluckily for Leo, there wasn’t anybody shooting at us. “Well, that was a bust.”
“Look on the bright side, we killed some time and our shift is almost-” the radio crackles.
“Get your asses back here!” we hear Kait say. We head straight back to base, where there is a firefight going on. I thought we cleared the caves, d****t. Me and Leo get in there, and we take out a couple guys on the way to the base. It looked surrounded, and lucky for us, they didn’t know we were coming. I took out way more guys that day than I ever had. Leo was having fun, it worried me the way he looked so gleeful as he mowed down a bunch of terrorists. I see him go over to one of our fallen comrades, bend over, and run farther towards the base. I pass by our fallen comrade, and notice that his throat is slit. Poor b*****d probably got it from behind, that sucks. We mow down a few more enemies before we finally get to base, which has finally calmed down.
“You’re late.” Kait tells us.
“Did you not see us?” Leo asks. “We killed like, twenty guys between us on our way here. They were so focused on you, they had no idea we were there!”
“Can confirm.” I tell her.
“We’ll have to double check that, but good job if it’s true.”
“Oh, it’s true. For the first time in a long time, I felt confident that I was gonna get away clean, and I was right.”
“All right, well congratulations. If it turns out to be true, I’ll make a note of it in your files. Dismissed.”
“Yes sir.” We say.
“See man, you had nothing to worry about.” I tell Leo.
“Yeah, well, it’s only going to be a matter of days before I start getting the itch again.” Leo says.
“Just try to restrain yourself.”
“I can try, no promises though.” We go into the medical tent, and see Johan getting bandaged up. “Hey buddy.”
“Ah, yous are alive!” Johan says.
“Good to see you too, Johan.” I say. About a week went by, and everyone in the unit was starting to get complacent again. Eric and Jesse started their little love spats back and forth, Jon started in with his racism, the usual. I think Lisa may be fed up with Eric hitting on her, cause something weird happened about a week later.
“Eric, Jesse, Lisa wants to see you.” Stec says. Eric and Jesse go inside.
“What’s up?” Eric asked.
“Here’s some pills, guys.” Lisa says as she hands them each a pill and some water.
“Awesome, thanks!” They take the pill and drink the water.
“Is that it?” Jesse asks.
“What else do you want from my life?” Lisa asks.
“Nothing, I was just wondering.” They leave the tent and rejoin the table.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
“Whatever.” A few minutes later, Jesse gets up.
“Oh, man, I feel weird, I need to lie down.” He gets up, and goes into the tent. Eric follows him.
“You alright, man?” He sits next to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.
“I-I don’t know.” Eric starts rubbing his shoulder.
“It’s alright, I’m here for you.” He takes off Jesse’s shirt.
“What- what are you doing?”
“Shh…everything is gonna be alright.”
“Wait-what? NOOO!!!!” We heard the screaming, and when we got there, we saw Eric f*****g Jesse. Me and Kait had to pull them apart, Jesse held on to Kait, shaking. I had to hold Eric back, who was still trying to get at Jesse. We took them to the medical tent, Lisa ran tests, and the only thing that came up were the pills she gave them.
“The only thing I can think of, is Eric’s repression made him attack Jesse.”
“Well, you do realize this means a discharge.” Kait says.
“What?” Eric says.
“For both of you.”
“What? Why?” Jesse asks.
“I’m sorry, Jesse, but I’ve turned a blind eye to your homosexuality, and even though I personally don’t care, the military still has an issue with it. I’m going to tell them that I only just found out about it.”
“But he raped me!”
“I’m sorry, my hands are tied.”
“But they don’t have to know I’m gay, can’t you leave that part out?”
“I’m sorry.”
“This is bullshit! I’m going to sue when I get home.”
“Go ahead, but leave me out of it.”
“Why should I? You’re my CO, you have the power to stop this right now.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll tell them you knew all along.”
“And I’ll tell them about your drug use and how you think I knew.”
“I’m not on drugs!”
“I know about the pills.”
“They’re prescribed.”
“I’m not stupid, Lisa has been telling me how you make up stuff to get pills, and you won’t stop until you’re given some.”
“This is f*****g bullshit.”
“Again, I’m sorry.”
“F**k.” They left the next day under dishonorable discharge, poor guys.
“So, that was some crazy stuff yesterday, huh?” I ask the guys.
“I can’ts believe the military would dos that to their own.” Johan says.
“What do you mean?”
“Kicks them out because of who they am.”
“I’m glad those f*****s are gone.” Jon says.
“You’re an a*****e.” I tell him.
“We’ve been over this.”
“And you’re ok with that?”
“Perfectly ok with it.”
“Haha, whatever dude, you do you.”
“Personally, I don’ts like it.” Johan says.
“Then go back to Sweden, you f**k.” Jon says.
“Whoa, that was uncalled for.” I say.
“NO! I’m sick of this bullshit, we’ve got immigrants fighting our wars, women in charge, black-“
“I SWEAR TO F*****G GOD, JON!” Kait screams as she comes to our table. “You’re here to serve and protect your country, not complain about it, if you have such a big problem with it, fight for someone else’s country and live there!” He shut up.
“When is my suspension going to be over?” Leo complains.
“When the week is through.” Kait tells him.
“F**k, I feel so naked without my weapon.”
“I’m not sure I should give it back to you.”
“What if s**t goes down? I’ll be defenseless.”
“If s**t goes down, you can have your weapon back, but for now, everyone will be safer if you don’t have it.”
“I promise not to start s**t again. Please, I just want my gun back.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Sorry, but you can’t control yourself.” She walks away from us.
Things were good for a few months, but all good things must come to an end