Lethal Minds Journal: Stand Alone Edition
The Sandbox, Part 1 of 3 - Joshuah Landspurg
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Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.
The Sandbox (Part 1)
Joshuah Landspurg
Two soldiers left in body bags a week ago. The loss lingers over us like the stench of this land.
“We’re rolling out in fifteen mikes,” the First Sergeant yells.
I yank the charging handle back on my M4 rifle, sending a round into the chamber. The sound of sliding metal reminds me that my life is on the line – every mission. If I make it out of this shithole alive, I need to live a life worth living. Or so I tell myself.
Get your head in the game, Jay.
“Princess, double-check ammo and comms,” I tell my teammate, who is rousing it up with a grunt named Jonesy. They’re debating which state produces the best football players as Princess points to the patch on his hat that says, “Don’t mess with Texas.”
The idea of making out a will before we deployed to Afghanistan is a joke. All four hundred dollars in my checking account, couch, and Xbox can be gifted to my parents. Still, being twenty years old, making a will was never a situation I could have predicted. If I get smoked in this sandbox, a crisply folded flag and a four hundred thousand direct deposit from the U.S. government might ease their pain. Or at least I hope, despite knowing money would never replace the pain of losing a son.
It’s a morbid task, but I didn’t sign up for this to die. No point dwelling on it. We’re here now, seven thousand miles from the land of liberty. What matters is protecting friends, leaving with my limbs, and completing the mission.
Princess paces. He’s smoking a cigarette and chugging his energy drink. “Do you have any idea why we’re going out so soon?”
“Catch the enemy by surprise. Win the hearts and minds of the locals…fuck if I know. I don’t like it any more than you.”
The First Sergeant and other men in the platoon light up their cigarettes. If you get lucky with your care packages, you’ll be blowin' down a Marlboro Light or stickin' a pinch of Copenhagen Long cut in your lip. If you’re unlucky, you’re smokin’ some poorly packed Afghan cigs with who knows what, in them. There is a decent chance that you might not be making it back home; the cancer sticks are the least of your worries.
Between the cigs and the dollar store energy drinks Uncle Sam provides us, we keep our hunger down and our attention up. Complacency sneaks up on the best of us. Only when someone dies does it snap us from the trance.
“Yo Princess, everything should be good, but let’s double-check our night vision, maps, food, and hydration.”
I run back through my checklist. I tug the six magazines of 5.56 ammo out of the chest pouches to ensure they’re topped off and ready for my rifle. Three magazines of 9mm ammo for my pistol, check. A red dot targeting scope is mounted to the rail of the rifle for aiming precision. When I place that little punctuation mark on anyone, I become the judge, jury, and executioner with a trigger pull. “You or me” renders the quickest verdicts.
“I got you Lima Charlie,” as Princess completes his internal radio check with our convoy. “Comms are solid,” he tells me and shotguns his second energy drink.
A caffeinated platoon of men firing rounds from our rifles, a couple of fifty caliber machine guns, and a Mark-19 grenade launcher can be the appetizer if anyone out there is hungry. The main course and dessert are thirty million dollar iron-winged angels with itchy trigger fingers and thousands of dollars in munitions. I hear our taxes going up with each explosion. It’s ironic that our angels in the sky bring the Angel of Death. The life of a USAF Forward Air Controller team isn’t one of peace. We’re the figures in the box behind the glass that reads, “Break in case of war.”
“10 mikes, men. Get your shit together!” The First Sergeant shouts.
The Commander of this platoon is young, a few years out of college, close to my age. The First Sergeant is salty and more experienced; this isn't his first deployment. A few of these army grunts have had several deployments since operations started four years ago. I remember four years ago well. Seeing those assholes turn our Boeing 767s into four hundred thousand-pound missiles forever changed the lives of all Americans, mine included. I put an earbud in from my MP3 player, and Lateralus by Tool comes on. Ironically, the album was released the same year as the attacks.
It's almost dusk so I check my night vision goggles to ensure they're operational. Princess does the same. Extra batteries, check. Don’t want to look like a dipshit fighting at night and have your vision go out. The Taliban move fast and know their terrain well. The fighters of this country are intimate with war. From Genghis Khan 800 years ago to the Russians a couple of decades ago, the absence of peace is as familiar as their seasons.
“What does the chair force actually do around here?” one of the Army grunts jokes. “Certainly, it isn’t pulling tower duty.”
"In my spare time, I write love letters to your mom," I say a little louder as he walks back to his Humvee. “You're just jealous the Air Force recruiter was at lunch when you stopped by his office." He laughs while walking away. I guess the "Be all you can be" commercial got him.
Chair force is something we hear frequently - he's not wrong. Most of the Air Force maintains a support role. And we're certainly not pulling guard duty in the tower while on this Forward Operating Base (FOB). My career field is the bastard stepchild of the Army and the Air Force. Whenever we’re back in the States, and we must do some nerdy Air Force shit, we get out of it by saying we’re training with the Army that day. Whenever the Army wants us to pull tower duty or some other trivial job, we tell them we have Air Force stuff to accomplish. We’re smart enough to drop ordnance close to our position and clever enough to dodge unnecessary work.
“Five mikes, you fucks. Tighten it up.”
The combination of energy drinks and anxiety sends my heartbeat up into my throat, and I throw on ballistic glasses to hide my apprehension.
Princess is behind the steering wheel. He clicks the ignition to warm the glow plugs of our bullet magnet of a vehicle. It gives him the blessing of a green light, so he turns over the engine. The convoy machines mutter to life. Diesel fumes add ambiance to the soldiers' smokestacks.
His real name is Priniski. This tattooed goon showed up to a Halloween party one year dressed up as Princess Peach from Mario, but uglier. I dressed up as a fatter version of our mutual friend.
Princess takes a drag. “You ready, Jay?”
I throw on my Kevlar vest, carrying two large plates to protect my vital organs while squeezing my core. The plates and the gear combine their efforts with gravity, pulling me harder to Earth. “Yeah, ready as I’m gonna be,” I say.
Princess puts a few Spunkmeyer Muffins on the center console of the Humvee. The heat from the engine block and steel will warm up those delicious, sugar-loaded road snacks in no time. I set my helmet and NVGs to the side until it’s time to peer through those green lenses for countless hours. I throw on my tan baseball cap. It used to have Air Force embroidered on it, but at the recommendation of our Commander, it was to be covered or not worn. The Taliban have a bounty on killing any Air Force ground members – they know we talk to the aircraft. I wore it anyway and placed a tan American Flag over my branch insignia.
The desert camo-colored grunts throw down their cigarette butts and load up in the Humvees.
We don’t talk about it much, but under no circumstances will we be taken prisoner. If there is a chance you’ll be taken and you have one round of ammunition left, save it for yourself. Better than ending up on your knees, being videotaped while having your head cut off with a rusty blade.
“Roll out!” the First Sergeant says as he approaches the lead vehicle in our convoy.
Hesco barriers surround our base. These fabric and steel contraptions hold dirt to protect us from outside attacks and get smaller in our mirrors. We understand as these temporary structures rise, so does Dick Cheney’s stock portfolio. As we leave our temporary fortress, all that remains is ourselves and our Humvees.
The sky is painted with oranges and pinks behind the mountains. I’ve seen this sunset before, and I’m asking myself the same question—will it be my last? I suppose anything is beautiful if it's the last time you'll see it.
The day slowly gives, now it’s our advantage. We follow the vehicle in front of us, and we do not deviate. Your tire tracks go on their tire tracks. The lead vehicle stops, you stop. I shout over the sound of the Humvee to Princess and tell him what he missed in the pre-op brief.
“The Commander wants us to watch our spacing on the convoy. Keep your eyes peeled for anything,” I say.
“Like what?” Princess shouts. The sound of the truck and convoy comms are trying to drown out our conversation.
“Like anything, dude. Fucking anything. These goat fuckers will put explosives into dead animals, car tires, and trash. Anything.”
“Thanks, Confucius. There’s trash all over the damn place.”
“Just drive, asshole. At least we’re not the lead vehicle.” My positivity knows no bounds. I share his anxiety, but he doesn’t need to know that.
We quickly learn that the Tali's are modern-day Middle Eastern MacGyvers. The pressure wires are meant to connect, detonating an improvised explosive device the instant our tires make contact. Spotting every piece of trash only makes it worse.
Princess consistently grips the steering wheel tightly, then lets go. He taps his fingers in a rhythmic motion like he’s anxiously playing a brass instrument.
“Why did you choose this?” I ask.
“Choose what, sucking sand in the middle of nowhere?” Princess says.
“No, I mean, why did you choose the military, this job particularly.”
“Well. I thought – ”
“Hold up,” I shout. “You see those painted rocks?”
Princess points at the red-painted rocks on each side of the bumpy road. "Yeah. What about 'em?”
“Stay between them. Haji’s paint them to mark the safe roads and where the old Russian minefields start.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” I just reset my driver with a natural fear. Necessary to keep us alive.
“I’m not. Now, back to your answer.”
“Why the fuck are you just telling me about the minefields now?”
“I didn’t remember until I saw the painted rocks, dude.”
The combination of the potential IEDs and mine lines on the sides of the roads has his mind occupied. Stay on the road, hit an IED. Get off the road and hit an old Russian landmine. The odds are stacked against us. At some point, the house always wins.
“What’s your answer, Princess?”
“Hell, I don’t know. It's a good excuse to get out of my small town. Blow some stuff up.” Princess grabs the Otis Spunkmeyer muffin that’s steaming from its makeshift warmer. “What about you?”
I’m trying to think as this washboard dirt road rattles the life out of our Humvee’s suspension and scatters my thoughts. The headlights illuminate the cloud of dust in front of us as Princess attempts to keep the tires on the lead vehicle’s track.
“My grandfather was a controller in the Korean War when the planes were still turning props,” I say. “And joining a job that isn’t in the rear with the gear was always a goal of mine.”
The sun finally retreats behind the mountains. We know this is the most dangerous time for an attack. The time when it's too bright for NVGs, but visibility is severely diminished.
“You get any care packages recently, Princess?”
“Nah, but the wifey promised me some nudie pics and hopefully some vodka in a Listerine bottle. Don’t worry, I’ll share.”
“The nudie pics or the booze?”
Princess just flips me off.
“I guess just the booze,” I say.
Our interpreter, or Terp, laughs. We forgot he was in the backseat.
The Commander breaks the mood through the radio, “Go dark. Watch your spacing.”
Night takes over, our only ally out here in the void. The baseball cap comes off and is replaced by our helmets and NVGs. Princess switches the headlights off. He looks for the two infrared (IR) squares on the rear of the vehicle in front of us. The dirt clouds are a constant challenge as our bodies bounce like a steel sphere in a pinball machine. My eyes acquaint themselves with the NVG green glow as I stare through a straw, all periphery absent. I laugh in my head about all the dumb conversations I have out here with these knuckleheads. Our amusement and good nature wage their own war on our surroundings. I go back to monitoring the dangerous road between the minefields.
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This ends Part 1 of 3, The Sandbox (12JAN2025)
Part 2 of 3 released next Sunday.
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