Lethal Minds Volume 13
Volume 13, Edition 1 01JULY2023
LETHAL MINDS JOURNAL
Lethal Minds Volume 13
Volume 13, Edition 1 01JULY2023
Letter from the Editor
In 2010, I was up an hour past my bedtime, waiting to watch a man die. We hoped to drop a JDAM on his head, 2000 pounds of explosive that would render a living, breathing human being nothing more than molecules. It wasn’t the first time. I had been in the military for sixteen years at that point, and actively in the business of killing people by various means for six, and I was not stressed by anything about the impending death other than the sleep I was sacrificing to watch it. Our intended target was a bad guy, responsible for multiple deaths himself, and I was ready to see things to a conclusion.
It had been a long day after all.
Exasperated, I finally asked the commander of the task force I was supporting, “Are we going to smoke this guy or not?” He and I had a good, largely jovial relationship. Which is why it stung when a man responsible for creating a lot of orphans pointed at me and forcefully said, “Don’t say that. He’s a human being and we’re about to take everything from him, all his future and all his past. This is serious business and you shouldn’t lose your own humanity in it.”
He was right.
As I type this, five human beings are lost 13,000 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic. They were on a sightseeing expedition to see the RMS Titanic, a pursuit only available to the ultra-rich. Somehow that fact has obscured their humanity for a stunning portion of the population. It’s an extraordinary example of our culture’s increasingly ordinary lack of empathy.
In all the discussion about the flaws of various generations, with my own Generation X’s famous apathy and cynicism, I have to think that the anonymity offered by the Internet and the dopamine effect of likes offered for our Internet “hot takes” have damaged our collective humanity, rendering some aspect of each of us as nothing more than rats performing for electronic food pellets.
It feels like cruelty is replacing “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as one of our few cultural commonalities, and while my belief system vacillates between “Whatever, man” and “That seems nice,” I’ve been truly disheartened to watch a meanness I would not accept from my child be publicly proclaimed by some of the same people exhorting me to come to the arms of their loving God. Ironically, they seem allied with some of my atheist friends who assure me they don’t need a divine moral compass to make them behave, as they laugh off the death of five people.
Religion is hardly the only area in which schadenfreude seems to be supplanting empathy. I’ve watched people across the political spectrum be united by “FAFO,” an easy button for people who have never seen another human being torn apart at the seams, much less caused by it. Whether it’s someone shot by a police officer for the crime of running away or someone whose death is deemed comedy for the crime of having too many zeroes in their bank account, we drop a meme and move on.
And we’re all lessened by it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald offered that, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” I’ll cop to my lack of a first-rate intelligence. My pursuit of objectivity, empathy, and reason often leaves me intellectually incapacitated, laid low by my damnable tendency to see at least glimmers of value in a host of varied positions. But since 2010, I've been increasingly unable to deny the value of human life, even that of people whose deaths I’ve helped engineer.
Clawing back my own humanity is not a straight-line proposition. I believe killing is sometimes the only means by which we humans, only a few cells removed from fang and claw, can settle irreconcilable differences. I believe some people are so monstrous as to make it almost impossible to feel a splinter of regret at their passing. But increasingly, no part of me rejoices in death, while I acknowledge I have in the past.
Our business, one of lethal pursuits driven by lethal minds, is a serious one. We shouldn’t lose our own humanity in it.
Fire for Effect.
Russell Worth Parker
Editor in Chief – Lethal Minds Journal
Submissions are open at lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com.
Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.
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In This Issue
The Written Word
Comms Check
An Interruption at Chow
Moby Dick
Map Check
I am the Infantry
The World Today
The War In Ukraine: An Infantry Officer’s Observations
Transition
The Armed Forces Initiative
Poetry and Art
Last Meals
The Written Word
Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.
Comms Check - Tamim Fares
Tamim Fares is a former Infantryman, sniper, and serial misanthrope. When he's not being crushed under the weight of his existential dread, he strings words together in semi-coherent sentences. Follow him at @insurgent.chimichanga on Instagram.
Originally, I submitted a completely different piece for publication in the Journal. It was a jumbled mess. Some deeply personal trauma dumping in the form of scattered memories from Iraq, bookended by a history lesson on one side, and a scathing rebuke of US foreign policy on the other.
Safe to say, it was incoherent at best; a rambling and self-aggrandizing attempt to analyze Iran’s role in the modern power structure of the Middle East through a historical lens. Somewhere along the way I got lost. History turned into my own experiences, which turned into anger at the position my buddies and I had been forced into.
I got some truly incredible feedback from the editors that boiled down to a simple question:
“What are you trying to say?”
I had to really think about it and came to the conclusion that put another way, the question could be asked like this:
“What did you feel?”
Because after all, that’s the whole point of writing as I understand it; to explain a feeling. To try and drop the reader into a specific time and place where something of substance can be transmitted, something that the reader can understand and empathize with.
So here’s my attempt at a story. A quick tale from my time on the bleeding edge of our war against terrorism. I’ll do my best to get the details right, to try and put you into that place with me so that you can understand what it felt like to be out there, past the point of no return and full of bad intentions.
It was one of those nights. We were deep in the funk of a waning Baghdad summer, when the trash piled in the streets still stunk to high heaven, and the power grid cut in and out, blanketing the city in a patchwork darkness. There were a lot of pointed glances that night; penetrating stares from one close friend to another. It was the shared knowledge that something was going down in the night, but no one knew precisely what. The danger would undoubtedly present itself. When, was the question.
We stepped off. Staggered column into the stinking night. Dangerous men off to do dangerous work, while the night lay on us like a moist blanket. We needed to know what the enemy was doing where we couldn’t see, so the decision was made to stage a raid. A failed assault on an empty house where an element would be left behind to observe the area. A squad plus the sniper team. By way of support, the rest of the platoon would be quartered a few houses back. The point position, however, would sit right on an intersection that was just past the furthest reach of our electronic eyes back on Blackfoot.
The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. Our raid made a lot of noise and sent the message that we’d been up to something. A Stryker came up, braving the pockmarked street where a foot patrol discovered an IED a week earlier. The truck popped all its smoke canisters, setting a pile of trash on fire and filling the objective with noxious black smoke.
We set in upstairs, tacking up our black mesh netting, pulling it back at a 45-degree angle, and dragging furniture around; constructing an urban hide site exactly the same way we’d been shown back in Germany. Down below, a squad from 2nd Platoon entertained a family that unexpectedly lived in the target house. The squad made sure no one left, exuding a subtle menace that kept the locals in line. Things started calming down and we settled into our guard rotation. The trash was still burning, and it cast a pale flickering light on all the surroundings while choking us with its stench.
Silence. The night ticked on while we kept a wary watch on the darkness. Regular trips to smoke cigarettes in an interior bathroom broke up the monotony. That, and the expectant waiting. Downstairs, there was an occasional cough or the drone of whispered conversation. Each sound was identifiable to the individual who made it, by virtue of the time we spent together in training and in combat. Everyone knew everyone under NODs. We recognized each other by silhouette and gait; our mannerisms and our quirks of habit. It was an intimate knowledge I’ll probably never have again and something I miss intensely.
Day came on and with it the first signs of movement. A cat slunk by, sticking to its nearest cover and pausing to sniff the gentle breeze. A woman came out of a courtyard, a trash bag over her shoulder and her hair uncovered. She dumped her trash in the middle of the street and shuffled back to make breakfast for her family. So far so good. There was no indication that anyone in the area knew we’d been left behind. While the boys downstairs kept watch on our rear, the sniper team began recording patterns of life and sending back reports.
Somewhere in that time I managed to sleep. Vest hanging open, sweat crusting on my top in the heat of the day. I really don’t remember when the shit actually popped off, but I do remember waking suddenly at the report of an AK47. A quick second to get my kit situated and I stuck my head out the door of the room we’d occupied for our OP. Our spotter was hauling ass down the hallway toward me.
“DON'T GO OUT THERE!” he managed, before barreling into me and knocking us both to the ground. Several rounds snapped by, striking the concrete wall beside us.
By this point it was on. Both sides were lighting each other up in a thunderous mad minute; that first moment of contact where each combatant expels their pent up anxiety and seeks to gain fire superiority. I crawled down the hallway to the window and jammed the barrel of my rifle through its metal grate, firing twenty or so wild rounds in the general direction of the enemy. It was impossible to tell what was going on, but for the moment it sounded like the bad guys had the upper hand.
What was almost certainly an RPK was laying accurate fire on our position and the hiss of its deadly salvo kept me pinned to the ground beside my window. Teddy, our shooter, grabbed an AT-4 and burst through a metal door that led out onto a small balcony. He took aim with the thermobaric rocket and let fly, demolishing the interior of a house that sat directly across the intersection.
There was a lull and our side picked up the rate of fire. Cheering from the squad down below, who’d pushed out to the courtyard and were firing down the street with their two light machine guns. The family who lived in our house were cowered together in the corner of the living room. Cringing at the gruff Americans who strode back and forth, resupplying on ammunition and pointing out known and suspected enemy locations before snapping off a few quick rounds and moving to a different window. QRF launched from Blackfoot and the Strykers came into the fight. A MK19 popped a string of grenades onto a house and the trucks pushed up, disgorging their Infantry payloads while the M2s thundered.
Eventually, the enemy gave up the fight and it was time to leave. We packed up our hide site and displaced, following our rear security squad over the back wall of the house. We linked up with the rest of 2nd Platoon and realized we’d left a crate of ammunition behind. I was boosted over the wall and had to rush back into the house, past the bewildered family and up the stairs. I returned, shrugging at the Iraqis, and tossed the ammo over the wall before hopping back over myself. I disappeared into the late afternoon with a final wave, leaving that family to forever wonder what the hell had just happened…
…That’s just one story among dozens that ultimately need to be bled out. If for no other reason than to ground the negative vibes like a live electric wire. In the course of that summer we executed dozens of raids and hundreds of patrols. The majority resulted in nothing more than sore feet and frayed nerves. But sprinkled in there among the tedious monotony of normal combat operations, there were some eye-opening moments. Instances of sheer insanity and utter absurdity.
It was the best and worst of times. A tired cliche for those who experienced it and a mystifying totem for those who haven’t. So, what am I trying to say? Well, I don’t quite know. But as long as I’m telling the truth I’m at least halfway there.
An Interruption at Chow - Frank Kancir
One day during my second tour in Iraq (OIF II) we headed in after four days out on patrol on the MSR. Now, times were few and far between when we got the chance to get back to the forward operating base (FOB) to get a shower, eat a proper-ish meal at the chow hall, get mail, or use any of the other “luxuries”. After fueling up, restocking, going to the command post (CP) to report our last mission results, and submit the mission for our next patrol, the guys and I split up to take care of personal tasks. We normally got about an hour or two to take care of everything we needed to, depending on the urgency of us needing to be back out in the area of operation (AO). Captain Rel gave about 90 minutes, so I headed to the chow hall, figuring I would make it to the shower and whatever else I had time for after.
The chow halls and other commonly used places were targets for indirect fire weapons like mortars or rockets. This happened regularly enough, but didn’t change our habits much. As I entered the line outside, the first mortar round landed close enough for the Marines and locals working on the FOB to head to the makeshift shelter nearby in a hurry. As we got inside the shelter, pretty much an upside-down U made of concrete with some sandbags around and on top of it, the rounds came in at consistently timed intervals. They were getting closer and closer, and as they got closer more and more people came running into the shelter. With experience you learn after a certain point it’s just safer to hit the deck and wait it out. The rounds were so close to us at this point I could see the fear on an Iraqi’s face as the world shook, dust filled the air, and the impacts thundered through our collective bodies.
I laughed knowing there is sometimes nothing you can do but die. That realization is a unfortunate side effect to your state of mind after a couple of tours at war, or a much needed mental alternative compared to the reality you’re taught in a civilized upbringing without war. As the man next to me and deeper in the shelter crouched down into a kneeling fetal position, another man was running full sprint towards the front of the shelter between the seventh and eighth volley that seemed to drop on top of us. As the man reached the lip of the enclosure a piece of shrapnel ripped through his neck, spraying blood across us and peppering his back as he collapsed into the structure. I took my boonie cover (hat) off and immediately put it over his wound and drug him inside. There were now 3 Marines working on the man, checking over him, cleaning up what we could and eventually replacing my cover with sterile bandages. As we waited for the all clear from command (normally 7-11 rounds would fall, but there could always be a late round in the air and you didn’t want to get caught out with it in the air), we did the best we could to keep the man calm and keep pressure on his wounds. Some five minutes would pass, before we could move him to the battalion aid station. Two of the Marines took the man for help, and I continued on, back to get ready for patrol, as food was out of the question and the Captain would want to get going. Another day south of Baghdad.
Sgt S.
Moby Dick - Jared Prewitt
Death by a thousand cuts.
Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) became masters of this.
Ramadi was well known for its deluge of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Thousands of Moby Dick’s lurked beneath the surface.
IEDs weren’t purely physical through killing and maiming.
They were a mind-f**k like no other.
Every step or rotation of the tire could be your last.
We were crewmen of the Pequod roving the flooded streets of Ramadi in 2006 for the white whales that lurked beneath the surface, under foyers and in the walls.
IEDs came in all shapes and sizes. Artillery shells, anti-tank mines, homemade bombs, remote detonators, victim-initiated triggers, suicide bombers in dump trucks and even a suicide bicycle bomb… basically, if it can go boom, it was in AQI’s Anarchist Cookbook.
Emplacing them wasn’t easy, some were better than others.
With the advent of drones, we were able to spot teams digging and burying IEDs in the streets where we could move in on them and wipe them out. Moby Dick down.
A sneaky bastard we called, The Fisherman, used a long pole while he was inside of a building to push his whales onto Route Michigan using the murky depths to his advantage.
They could strike at any time.
There was no understanding their nature.
It’s war.
Photo Submission: Alejandro Chagoya
Map Check - Aren Brandfass
Aren is a Marine Raider who retired in 2016 after 20 years of service and went to work as a contractor for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This work took him back repeatedly to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria in support of his old friends and his old friend's units. Finally figuring enough was enough, he bought a small farm near Pilot Mountain, NC, and is making a go at growing food, animals, and a son who looks just like him.
"I'm doin' a map check," I announce over the team radio net as I ease down to one knee. I scan past the open field into the treeline ahead and behind me at the single-file line of 25 Afghan Commandos and 4 fellow Marines. Once satisfied that everyone has stopped and taken a knee, I support my weight with my left hand as I sit all the way down. My heavy pack keeps my torso upright as I lean against it, cradling my weapon and peering through the artificial emerald of night vision goggles. I hear the subtle creak of pack frames, scrapes of weapon slings, and soft thuds as the patrol gratefully mimics my "rucksack flop."
I reach for the goggles mounted on the front of my helmet and push, and they ride their swing arm away from my eyes to their "up" position atop my helmet. Temporarily blinded as my eyes adjust from the bright synthetic optic to the moon-shadowed Afghan night, I use both hands to pull my comms headset away from my ears. Their spring-tension mount gives an audible and tactile pop, and my ears are free. The cool night air is a sweet relief as sweat drains from my ears and off the headset's padded ear cups. It's not as oppressively hot as it will be in the coming day's sun. Still, the exertion required to move pack, weapons, and ammo over the undulating micro-terrain of the poppy field causes the sweat to pour, soaking my uniform and pooling in and around my ears. A gentle breeze feels like it's passing through my left ear and out my right, unimpeded by thoughts as I temporarily blank my mind. I have a lot to think about, but not yet. I need 5 seconds of cool air in my ears before I face what's next. The nearer we get to our "compound of interest" (a funny way to describe someone's family home), the higher the risk of encountering some of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that are the most effective tool of our otherwise-outgunned and out-matched enemy. I've got to pay attention to the time. We need to move slowly enough to avoid the buried pressure plate IEDs but fast enough to reach our destination, secure the place, round up everyone in the vicinity, prepare our defenses, and set up in an ambush position well before the local muezzin sounds the first morning prayer.
I said I would check the map, so I do, but it's perfunctory. At this point in my life I'm 15 years into a professional career that features land navigation as one of its foundational disciplines, and we've been walking in a straight line since the last halt half an hour ago.
I pull a device called a Garmin Montana out of its pouch in the center of my chest rig. The Montana GPS includes a moving map displaying my position overlayed on satellite imagery. The map is programmable with waypoints and key places and is state-of-the-art for 2012. If this were any previous war, I would be under a poncho with a red lens flashlight squinting at a laminated paper map and hoping my pace count was close enough to estimate the distance traveled from the last stop. The Garmin was way better. I have the display turned down to its dimmest setting and can barely see the red dot showing me I was right where I thought we'd be, about 250 meters from the objective, with an irrigation canal separating us and it.
The canal is the main thing I avoid thinking about for the 5 seconds I allow my mind to go blank. On a recent mission, at the edge of a field just like this one, while crossing a canal like the one we're about to cross, our dog handler stepped on a pressure plate IED and was blown to pieces. That night, like all nights, we had been worried about the canal. We were "sketched out" about it to use the vernacular common to our team. For the Taliban, IEDs are a constrained resource, so they tend to emplace them where they can have maximum effect. Choke points, crossing points, and natural lines of drift were all places of concern that required extra caution. On that particular night, we were avoiding an earthen bridge and had decided to cross in some thick brush about 50 meters down the canal.
The victim-operated IED changes the dynamics of ground combat. I think people imagine combat in Afghanistan to look like a lot of running around and shooting and calling in airstrikes from behind thick mud compound walls, and it is that. But that's the easy part. Sure, men are shot and killed in these exchanges or wounded by grenades and rocket fragments, but none of that compares to the monsters buried in the sand and dirt.
Avoiding IEDs in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan during the fighting season becomes an obsession for anyone trying to be successful and make it out of the valley with their appendages intact. It's an all-encompassing problem we respect at every stage of any operation. In planning, we pour over SIGACT (Significant Activity) reporting for the area. We study post-blast reports from other units that encountered IEDs in the vicinity. We put ISR drones over compounds of interest and study where the locals walk and, more importantly, where they don't. Once out on the mission, we employ an arsenal of tools and procedures to try and mitigate the low-tech but deadly threat. We use dogs to sniff, metal detectors to find, explosive charges to sympathetically detonate suspected bombs, ladders to go over what we're worried about going through, and when required, we drop down on our knees, remove our gloves, and use the tips of our fingers to gingerly search for the hard wooden edge of a shallowly-buried pressure plate switch.
That little move is something we came to call the "finger-sweep," and for most men that have done it, it's a transformative experience. Sometimes the dog is tired from the 115-degree heat, and we no longer trust him. Sometimes we're in an area where the bomb-makers are known to use low-metal-signature components that escape our detector's notice. Occasionally, for reasons we can't elucidate, the hair on the back of your neck sticks up, and you have to take personal responsibility for determining whether or not your patrol's next steps will result in an explosion. So you drop to your knees, and you get it done. If you think about it long enough, you won't be able to make yourself do it, so you say "fuck it" and understand that you volunteered for all this and wouldn't be anywhere else even if you could be. Even for a fan of high adventure and novelty, searching for an explosive device with your fingertips is fucking absurd, no less so when it's necessary.
On the night we lost Josh, we deviated from our planned patrol route. We encountered some locals along the way from the patrol base to our objective, and we interrogated them. By encounter, I mean we forced our way into a civilian compound (people in the Helmand generally live in hardened mud homes surrounded by thick mud walls, and the only word that fits is "compound"), rounded everyone up, and interrogated the adult males. Doing this was a standard procedure for us. We carried around a device to collect biometrics; we'd collect fingerprints, iris scans, and basic biographical information for every military-aged male we encountered. We would add these to a country-wide database to identify and arrest anyone tied to insurgent activity. During tactical questioning and gathering biometrics, we got a tip that the Taliban had recently been active in a set of compounds along our patrol route. We decided to alter the route to avoid the high chance of IEDs.
It was along this altered route that we encountered the canal and the earthen bridge the locals used to cross it. Part of our counter-IED doctrine was that we never, or as close to never as we could manage, used bridges. There's an old military adage that says, "The easy way is always mined." There's a lot of wisdom in that, so we developed other ways to cross these canals. It takes most guys a few weeks of operating on the ground to get there physically, but we could jump across a 6-foot canal with 80-110 lbs of pack and weapon on or at least land high enough on the opposite bank to avoid getting wet. If we couldn't jump it, we'd use our commandos' lightweight aluminum ladders as a bridge. Failing that, we'd wade through it and add being wet to our list of miseries.
On this occasion, we had yet to decide how we would cross. We were still in the determining-if-it’s-safe phase. In keeping with our propensity to avoid the easy path, we picked a heavily vegetated segment of the canal to use as our crossing point. We decided to use our military working dog to sniff around the near side. These dogs are trained to identify homemade explosives by scent and are operated by specially trained Marines who work with dogs. In this case, we needed more dog handlers than we brought to Afghanistan, so we borrowed a couple from the MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force) on the big base.
Josh was about 6 foot 4 and looked to be carved from granite. He was one of those Marines that really looked the part -- tall, muscular, and classically handsome. His dog was named Sirius, like the Star, and was a Belgian Malinois. Sirius was big and handsome like Josh, and the two made quite a pair.
If you overuse the dogs, they quickly become useless, so we'd keep them in the middle or back of the patrol and only call them forward when we intended to use them. We called over the net for the patrol to halt and for Josh to bring Sirius up. As they approached, I aimed my weapon at the vegetation on the near side of the canal and activated the IR laser aiming device on my rifle, emitting a laser that you can see with night vision goggles but not with the naked eye. I keyed my radio and said over the team net, "Hey Josh, we're trying to cross right there," as I made clumsy, erratic circles with my laser. "Alright, we'll check it out," answered Josh as he and Sirius headed off from the patrol at an oblique toward the crossing point. Myself, the Afghan Commando with the metal detector, and another Marine waited a few seconds and then followed. Once the dog had sniffed around, we'd run the metal detector a bit and then take a better look at the canal. Maybe we'd use the ladder as a bridge, and perhaps we'd say fuck it and get wet.
Josh came over the net and said the last thing he'd ever say, "We've got nothing on the near side. I'm gonna send Sirius across to check the far side". Josh had enough leash to let Sirius jump across and check the far bank, but only if he got a few feet closer to the canal. He took a couple of steps forward, and WHAM! The night silence was shattered as 25 lbs of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder buried in a jug under Josh's feet exploded, sending him up and back and knocking those of us closest to him down.
I knew immediately what had happened, but my mind tried to negotiate with reality. Maybe it was just Sirius. Perhaps the jug was offset from the pressure plate, blowing up harmlessly where Josh wasn't. You know better, but you try to self-soothe. Your instinct is to get up, sprint to where the blast happened, and start rendering aid, but this is one of those sympathetic nervous system responses you must overcome with training. It's frequently the case that where there is one IED, there are more, maybe even positioned to target people responding to casualties resulting from the first one. A beloved Marine bomb tech from our unit had died that way recently, and we were all very familiar with the story. So we're trained to think before we run forward. We train to overcome the magnetic pull of a friend in desperate need, pulling you off the ground and toward danger. We prepare for the eventuality that we might be the one blown limbless and apply our own tourniquets and deploy a length of nylon rope hooked to our body armor to aid in our recovery—anything not to suck more men into the problem before we can mitigate other risks.
In this case, we order the patrol to stay put over the radio as the three of us make our way forward to get Josh. Many hands make light work, but more hands mean more feet, too, and another person stepping on an IED right then would turn an emergency into a catastrophe.
We make it to Josh, and we get to work. A lot of what we did is blurry in my memory. I can see the outline, but many sharp details escape me. I remember the agonal breathing and my mind trying to convince me that wasn't what I was hearing. It's one of those sounds that haunt you forever, the conscious human being not communicating, but the body itself using the chest and vocal cords to register a furious rejection of what was happening to it. I remember only looking at his legs once. They were both gone, above the knee, with one severed so high up we could barely get the tourniquet on. I remember the windlass rod on one of the tourniquets snapping and one of the other Marines cursing and grabbing another from his kit. I remember working on the left arm that was also gone, the medic not having a breathing bag, and us taking turns blowing breath into a tube he had inserted into Josh's throat. I remember Andrew having to recover Sirius from the far side of the canal and Sirius going absolutely insane at the site of his wounded and dying handler. I remember having to search for Josh's night vision goggles and weapon, sheered off by the blast and flung into the field. I remember the medevac taking him away and us all consolidating in a nearby compound to collect ourselves, only to be told over the SATCOM that we were to end the mission and return to base. The night's final insult comes from our headquarters denying us the opportunity to right the ledger as we count heads, police Josh's gear, and trudge despondently back to where we came from.
A night like that can have some dangerous consequences if you let it. The Taliban bomb makers would probably have been tickled if they knew how the effect of their devices could reverberate through their victim's souls the way they do. Once you've seen or participated in an IED event like the one that got Josh, it's not the fear of other IEDs you must overcome so much as the doubt. You can doubt yourself and your capabilities. It can affect your confidence. It can make you tentative and unsure, and many other things that don't serve you on the ground in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. And possibly worse than all that, despair can set in and lower your status.
A man learns the trade of soldiering, becomes competent, and can serve as part of a well-oiled system. He can be a reliable cog and survive the war; he could even lead men and bring them home. But a warrior who can develop his own style, navigate the many constraints and restrictions inherent to a military bureaucracy, think and act faster than his adversaries, and maintain his humor amidst the hell and chaos of battle can become an artisan. And artisans were what our strange, non-linear war in Afghanistan required. One blast, one young body torn asunder, one look into the darting and desperate eyes of a dying friend could reduce an artisan back down to the rank of apprentice cog.
I couldn't forestall the inevitable any longer, so as the seconds of protecting darkness ticked away, I return my Garmin to its pouch and snap my headset back into place. I lower my goggles back down in front of my eyes, and as I turn them on, I'm once again looking at a world painted artificially green. It's time to determine whether I'm an artisan or a cog. Will I leave this field on my feet or the blood-slick floor of a helicopter?
"We're moving," I announce over the radio as the patrol struggles to its feet. I strain forward against my pack onto my two knees, then one knee, then finally standing erect as I scan the vegetated canal and look for a place we might cross. I indicate the direction with my laser and tell the nearby commando, "Harakat," let's go. And the patrol steps forward, toward the canal and the compound beyond. Deeper into the night. Deeper into the summer fighting season of America's longest war.
I am the Infantry - Chad Alpaugh
Chad Alpaugh is an observationalist. Sometimes, his observations find themselves in song, written word, or photography.
Socia media: @chad.alpaugh
No one will ever know the pain which is felt.
Before the words are even breathed upon my tongue, I know they will fall on deaf ears.
I will never escape the half-witted jokes and sarcasm of people who have never experienced the blood loss, or the lives taken from both sides of the line drawn in the sand.
The bullet can shred a thousand layers of cloth, skin, blood and bone and still not be felt. I try to force myself to sleep, eyes pressed shut, but I won’t be taken into the deep. Because here, would, could, and should haves are all plausible with a fading memory.
Here I feel the dusty air racing into my lungs, my heartbeat pulsing on the smooth surface of the trigger, which decides so much with such simplicity.
And to the beat of its metallic heart . . .
Bang, Bang . . . Bang, Bang . . . Bang, Bang . . .
The shared universal motive, tipped in green, course through it's rifled vein.
Though the year of my age was but a fraction of the weight, which was my gear,
I feel every gram of adrenaline, fear and sweat which flows from me.
I am your sons, brothers, and fathers.
And for a moment's time, I am God given the decision of life or eternal damnation.
I AM THE INFANTRY!
The World Today
In depth analysis and journalism to educate the warfighter on the most important issues around the world today.
The War In Ukraine: An Infantry Officer’s Observations
The current phase of the war between Russia and Ukraine has entered its eighteenth month. This is much longer than how long many people, including in the Russia and the United States, assumed it would last. While the war itself is a travesty, it has provided ample insight into what a modern Large Scale Combat Operation (LSCO) may look like, something which the United States Army is reorganizing itself for as it again pivots away from counter insurgency, just as it did in the 1970s and 1980s post-Vietnam. The observations listed below are the author’s, having watched the current war in Ukraine closely since the invasion in early 2022, and are part of an ongoing series on the author’s social media channel as well.
The War has validated the purpose of American Combat Training Centers (CTC). Even though most Army personnel were likely disappointed at Russia’s inability to live up to the capability of American OPFOR formations and their success rates, what the war validated early on was the purpose of CTC rotations and their focus on sustainment, cross country mobility and maneuver, movement of troops, and the necessity of synchronizing all war fighting functions to achieve success.
The combination of SOF and irregular forces in support of a conventional fight makes a very difficult problem set for the enemy. The pairing of conventional and irregular forces to push back the initial incursions and contest Russian’s ground line of communications proved extremely effective in blunting Russia’s initial offensive. It is highly likely that the trend of militias augmenting federal forces will only become more and more common in the future as a continued theme of Fourth Generation Warfare.
Proxy war will continue to be the first choice of modern nations. Lethal Aid, training by SOF and conventional forces, and C4ISR support will be the first option nations look at in future crisis and wars. Conventional forces can be expected to be used for both strategic signaling and posturing. Think of the choices as a new PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) plan with Proxy, (Lethal) Aid, C4ISR & SOF support, Employment of conventional forces as part of future strategic decision making processes.
Air Superiority is key. Achieving it is a joint problem, not just an Air Force one. Air superiority requires not just control of the air but also the denial of the enemy’s ability to conduct surface to air fires. Air parity results in mass expenditure of artillery munitions and will likely then prolong any conflict as ground forces dig in to avoid exposure to indirect fire, further stagnating the war.
Air Power at the tactical level destroys your opponent’s key systems and prevents them from massing combat power. Air power helps kill systems and equipment that hold value to the enemy and forces the enemy to disperse to avoid being targeted. As loitering munitions and armed drones continue to proliferate and become common below the squad level, the application of air power will need to be known by individuals to best make use of their expendable drone air force.
Air Defense is important, and for major and/or key locations active air defense is necessary and can be decisive. Air defense is not a shield nor is it able to cover everything all the time. In a tactical fight, concealing location and signature is a matter of life and death. The use of passive air defense is imperative to ensuring units can survive their opponents’ ISR-Strike cycle long enough to use their own.
Airborne Forces are not irrelevant. The ability to conduct a vertical envelopment or a joint forcible entry are critical capabilities that will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. However, Russia’s failure to maintain an airhead at Hostomel Airport brings into focus the importance of an effective Suppression of Enemy Air Defense / Destruction of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD / DEAD) campaign ahead of the airborne forces. Additionally, if an airborne (or air assault) element is unable to conduct link up with friendly mechanized ground forces their chances of success rapidly deteriorate. This was first seen in World War II with Operation Market Garden and reinforced at Hostomel. American and NATO airborne forces would benefit from future CTCs incorporating a link up with an armored battalion task force (or greater) as part of their Joint Forcible Entry validations.
Unlike in CTC rotations, small arms fire can have an effect on enemy armor. Small arms and swarming infantry versus armor is often a shortcoming of CTCs due to equipment limitations and, understandably, safety constraints. In reality, small arms fire will force a crew to button up and drastically reduce their situational awareness. Bullets will spiderweb and degrade the visibility of bulletproof glass, puncture and damage sensors and external weapon systems (think CROWS / RWS). Small arms may not result in a vehicle kill but may succeed in a mission or mobility kill. Swarming infantry in close quarters with limpet mines (e.g. Saving Private Ryan) or irregulars with Molotov cocktails can be a serious threat as well. Ukraine should serve as proof that infantrymen, when properly equipped and in restrictive terrain, can indeed hold their own against armor and should serve to do away with any irrational “tanks versus infantry” fears.
The tank is not obsolete. Ukraine has shown the world that the inability to effectively conduct combined arms warfare (on both sides of the conflict) makes armor ineffective. Ukraine reinforces that tanks employed in a non-combined arms capacity are extremely vulnerable, especially to swarming drones, dismounted infantry in complex terrain, and loitering munitions. Inversely, the author believes that future use of tanks in battle will become a much more deliberate action and have even more decisive effects on the battlefield than they do today, when employed correctly.
At the company level and below, your contribution to LSCO and Multi Domain Operations (MDO) is to master the basics of shoot/move/communicate within your respective domain down to the lowest level. Understand the concepts of cross-domain maneuver and where you and your formation fit in but let the echelons responsible for integration of multiple domains worry about how to do it.
Small Unit Tactics and Massing; Maneuver at the smallest level possible, link up to mass against your opponent quickly, and then disaggregate and move off the objective in small units again. The importance of the ability for squads to maneuver in independent, but coordinated, units to achieve the effects of mass against a target while protecting themselves from air attacks cannot be overstated. Think of independent fingers moving before coming together into a fist and then afterwards opening up into independent fingers once again. This will require sections, squads, and fire teams to be trained and confident in their ability to navigate and operate much more independently than they currently are.
Munition expenditure will be much higher than anticipated, individual discipline and leader management of on-hand supplies will be even more important. When paired with an austere logistical resupply environment and the need to remain dispersed to avoid identification by reconnaissance assets, it is very likely that small unit formations below the brigade level could go multiple days without meaningful resupply. Discipline during engagements to ensure there is ammunition available for after, must be instilled to ensure units don’t run out of ammunition, becoming liabilities on the battlefield.
Technology is pushing the ability to conduct combined arms maneuver below the company level. As technology continues to proliferate, more and more capabilities will become available below the company level. The greater capabilities becoming available to small unit leadership will require increased the emphasis on instructing team and squad leaders on how to conduct combined arms maneuver. What was once the wheelhouse of brigades and battalions is now finding its way to companies, platoons, and in some cases even squads. Ensuring our junior leaders are properly prepared to employ these new capabilities will be critical to future successes.
Squads, Platoons, and Companies need to plan and rehearse on how to rapidly dig in once they have halted. Engineer and Sapper units will be preoccupied with other MOS-specific tasks and with Army 2030 division redesigns infantry units may not even get engineer support at all in some occurrences. The ability to create “dig teams” as an additional special team alongside standard EPW and Aid & Litter teams, at a minimum at the platoon level, can help facilitate a company’s transition from the offense to the defense.
Despite the prevalence of body armor, intermediate projectiles like 5.56 NATO and 5.45x39mm are still very relevant on the battlefield. The need to use these calibers alongside more traditional battle rifle calibers like 7.62 NATO and newer rounds like 6.8x51mm is more important than ever. Likewise, the prevalence of body armor has caused a resurgence of battle rifles and increased the importance of effectively employing them alongside smaller caliber weapon systems. Neither on its own is the solution, both types of ammunition need to be employed together to have the best results downrange.
We need to rethink how we classify some Small UAS (sUAS) systems. Loss rates for UAS in Ukraine are extremely high, with claims as much as 10,000 per month. The current Army property and replacement systems for sUAS at the Company and below level is fully inadequate to replace these critical systems. Drones at the battalion level and below, especially drones that can be operated by an individual, should be assigned DODICs and treated as expendable munitions, much as flares, smoke grenades, and star clusters are. This would also help create a new class of expendable drone that could revolve around a common controller and battery charger, much like how the Javelin system has a Command Launch Unit (CLU) that can be reused over the course of multiple batteries and missiles.
Drones and your imagination can make direct fire weapons into pseudo indirect fire weapons. UAS enhance the ability for forward observers to fulfill their role with traditional indirect fire weapon systems, but they also enable the use of traditional direct fire weapon systems like machine guns and automatic grenade launchers in an indirect fire role, based on principles of plunging fire, but adjusted as one would with mortars or artillery. This pairing of new technology with existing weaponry is a great example of how individual ingenuity can create solutions that giant bureaucracies would never think of.
Electronic and Cyber Warfare to defend against swarms will become extremely important, though this likely will not be seen in action below the brigade or even division level. This does not mean that it does not occur at lower levels, and it is not an excuse for subordinate leaders to not understand it either. Whether such warfare serves to disable swarms to prevent their use or capture them to enable reverse engineering, being able to compromise or even actively repurpose enemy drone swarms will add an entirely new dynamic to warfare.
Formations will always be surveilled, and all personnel need to assume all movements will end up on social media regardless of where they are in the operation. Not only is it near-impossible for countries to launch a true surprise attack with the amount of surveillance assets that world powers now possess, but the prevalence of smartphones and social media access mean that a unit’s tactical operation can now very often be viewed in real time by kids halfway around the world.
Always work under the assumption that you are under observation by enemy ground and aerial assets. Not only are UAS and other types of drones not going away anytime soon, but in all likelihood, we are still on the front end of the adoption bell curve. The mixing of aerial and ground surveillance through both formal and informal means increases the likelihood that soldiers will work in constant contact.
It is not a matter of “if,” it is a matter of “when” you will be found. All static assets, regardless of distance from the front lines, will eventually be found and targeted. It is virtually impossible on the modern battlefield to hide anything while operating in an urbanized country with a semi modern cellular network, even when in friendly territory. Consistently moving locations enables formations to do their best to keep the enemy’s information out of date.
Encryption remains important, but emissions control and detection avoidance are more so. Encrypted radios stand out in the electromagnetic spectrum which can make the user stand out amongst other radio traffic. Opposition forces who have a solid grasp of friendly electronic order of battle can match encrypted signals to high value or high payoff targets. At times, the ability to simply hide in the background clutter of unencrypted traffic can have larger payoffs than reliance on encryption only. The use of triggers and code words can help mitigate the risk of broadcasting on unencrypted systems. Additionally, the increase in encrypted apps like Signal or Zello can provide just enough encryption to make exploitation in a tactical environment not worth the effort. Though it flies in the face of doctrinal “best practices,” the use of commercial apps and hiding in the background clutter can be more effective than using military encrypted radios.
Understand the danger of using distinctive long range signals. When the majority of radio traffic is FM, transmitting on HF stands out in the spectrum and can signal to the enemy where a high value target is located. Knowing what level of command uses what kinds of signals can help the enemy determine where to prioritize their fires, inversely, the same can be said about the enemy. This does not mean the avoidance of HF platforms, only that use of such platforms be done wisely, with necessary precautions taken ahead of time.
Time is your most fleeting resource. You will never have enough, and it is the thing that will most quickly go awry. Time is your most valuable and least plentiful resource (and the one that is influenced the most). Effective time management, and realistic expectation management when planning movement tables, can make or break the synchronization of an operation. Quit burning subordinates’ time by overthinking or waiting for excessive information – get them the plan earlier. That will make the final plan more executable and survivable when contact is made with the enemy.
Never underestimate your opponents. It is better to prepare for Ukraine 2022 and get Panama 1989 (or Desert Storm) than the other way around. Always have a projected enemy Most Dangerous Course of Action (MDCOA) and plan not only for them to execute it, but for them to actively look and fight for opportunities to do so.
Not every country uses western doctrine, therefore grading them to western standards can skew analysis and lessons learned. Russia and China have their own doctrine, and there are entire sections of the American Intelligence community dedicated to learning them. Individuals who grade our opponents on our own doctrine risk drawing incorrect conclusions about how to anticipate or red hat the enemy. The best way to avoid this is to conduct a meaningful study into their capabilities and historic operations, to build out one’s ability to effectively red hat or wargame an operation.
A maneuver plan is great; but if your logistics and signal plan cannot support it then you are just wasting time and lives. Your S4 (logistics) and S6 (communications) are just as important, if not more in some cases, in helping to make the plan as the S3 (operations) shop is in finalizing it. Do not exclude your logisticians and signaleers in the planning process; equally so, do not let them plan in a vacuum and then try to integrate their plan with yours after the fact.
For planning you need (at minimum): Time available, friendly forces available (and when they are and when they are not), a good Information Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB) with knowledge of enemy forces, and a thorough terrain and weather analysis to make an executable plan. It might not be everything you wanted but it will get you to an 80% solution and provide a baseline that you can adjust. Get your subordinate formations to their objective; they’ll be able to handle it from there. Each echelon should worry about setting conditions through the applications logistics, fire support, and communications needed to get them there.
The current Brigade and below logistics points are in all likelihood not survivable enough and are a massive weak spot at both the tactical and operational levels. Plan and train how to make traditional logistics points smaller and more mobile, while maintaining redundant classes of supply to address emergency and planned resupply operations. Focus on how to increase the survivability of the tactical supply chain in the face of persistent ISR/targeting threats.
Plan and train to deal with casualty counts higher than anything the United States has seen since in close to 70 years. In the first few months of the conflict, casualty estimates for even just one side met and surpassed the 20 year total for the war in Afghanistan to upwards of five times that amount. Beyond ensuring that the medical capabilities of one’s formation (whether that is a fire team or a brigade combat team) are trained, senior level leaders need to think about the impact such casualties will have on the civilian and political fronts too.
When precision fails and frustrations rise, expect commanders to lean more heavily on massed fires. Understand the logistical burden of frustration-based decision making. Commanders are human too. This is not a mark against them, but as stocks of precision munitions dwindle, and especially when their effects are not as intended, commanders will lean more on massed fires (whether as part of the plan or out of frustration at not having achieved the desired effect). If the increase in fires has not been planned for and occurs often or with increasing regularity, expect an even heavier demand on overtaxed supply lines, to the point where something will break, either the ability to get the rounds in time, the supply units from being over exposed on their resupply runs, or the commander’s willpower.
The longer an urban fight lasts, the harder it will become. Destruction will create more, rather than fewer, obstacles and fighting positions. This lesson that has been known since Stalingrad has been reinforced at Bakhmut. As what were maneuver battles become stagnated and become battles of attrition, the fighting will only become more difficult. Urban fighting is unavoidable, and the ability to leverage SOF and dedicated ground reconnaissance elements to help narrow down the list of what needs to be destroyed can limit unnecessary destruction and help commanders try to avoid an urban quagmire.
No one battle in of itself will win or lose a war (especially in a modern conflict), instead it is the culmination of many battles that will decide “victory.” Be wary of senior ranking officers who have a dangerous obsession with fighting and winning THE decisive battle. Commanders who fight individual battles versus fighting the war will pay for their promotions with the unnecessary bloodshed of their soldiers. Bloodshed in war is unavoidable, but obsession with single battles simply turns them into meat grinders of limited tactical or operational value (Bakhmut is a perfect example).
No matter how many technological terrors of our own creation are made, the closer you get to the squad level, the more war remains the same.
Photo Submission: Alejandro Chagoya
Transition
Career and civilian transition guidance, geared towards helping servicemembers plan their careers and help transitioning servicemembers succeed in civilian life
The Armed Forces Initiative - Trevor J. Hubbs
In 2004, two veterans named Mike Beagle and Tony Heckard sat down around a campfire with five other conservation advocates and decided to create a non-profit organization devoted to public lands and water access and conservation. Mike and Tony both knew what public land and waters meant to their transition from military to civilian life. But in 2004 neither could have guessed the organization they created would one day be one of the country’s best examples of veteran's outdoor adjunct therapy or that it would be helping to advise the Veterans Administration, Department of Interior, and other government entities on the ways federal public lands can accelerate veterans’ recovery outdoors.
In 2018, during the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers annual survey, the organization learned that 12% of BHA’s membership was connected to the military community in some way, whether active duty, reserve, National Guard, veteran, or a Goldstar family. It was an interesting discovery because, depending on which statistic you read, only 4-7% of the general U.S. population has a similar connection. Upon further examination, BHA discovered that of that 12% military membership, over half of those members were serving in a leadership role within BHA, whether organizing events, leading trail or river cleanups, or educating others about public land and water access and conservation efforts. Naturally BHA sought to expand upon this key conservation demographic and began planning to launch what is now called the Armed Forces Initiative (AFI).
After a year of applying for funding, in 2020 BHA started the AFI as an official program with a mission, “focused on getting the military community into the backcountry to create more conservationists in this essential demographic.”
At BHA we have always believed our best leaders, whether volunteers or staff, come from a military background. We know the value of these individuals to the conservation community. We believe that by engaging with people with military experience, we can not only help members of the military community through the transition from military to civilian life but also greatly increase the talent within the conservation community.
The Armed Forces initiative takes members of the military community into the backcountry with the goal of accomplishing three tasks:
Provide short term medicine – We know that being outdoors, hiking, hunting, fishing, camping, bike riding, etc. has a positive effect on transitioning veterans, or anyone experiencing symptoms of PTSD. We know there is a correlation between time spent outdoors and reduced stress, feelings of depression, and anxiety. Our first goal is to take members of the military community and show them an amazing time outdoors while teaching them to replicate the experience without being dependent on an organization to take them the next time. We like to say, we don’t do once in a lifetime experiences, we create a lifetime of experiences.
Build A Tribe – We know another issue being faced by the military community, particularly after transition, is a lack of a community or tribe. By introducing our event attendees to people with the same life experiences, who also like hunting and fishing, we can ensure that our events are not simply a one-off event or a once in a lifetime experience. Upon leaving our event each candidate should have the skillset to repeat the experience and a peer group with whom to get outdoors.
Inspire a Mission of Conservation – The last piece to this puzzle is the most important. We know from surveys and outside studies that having a cause bigger than oneself is hugely important to mental health in the military community. Service to a cause bigger than themselves is why most of our members chose to enlist in a time of war. Fortunately, with hunting and fishing, conservation offers a cause greater than catching a fish or harvesting a bull elk. Conservation is a cause that ensures an experience that meant so much to a participant, is there for another comrade in arms. Supporting conservation efforts is a way for members of the military community to continue to serve their country by protecting public lands that only exist in the United States. BHA wants everyone who leaves their events to understand not only how to recreate outdoors, and to have a peer group with whom to recreate, but also to become so passionate about their chosen pursuit that they cannot help but get involved. BHA wants to give the military community a new mission, one of conservation.
There are obvious benefits to the military community in BHA’s efforts, but there is also a benefit to BHA in committing energy and funding to a program like the Armed Forces Initiative. The BHA’s military members are the most likely to take on leadership roles and conservation projects at the chapter level. Having more members willing to get their hands dirty for conservation is obviously a huge benefit to BHA. Furthermore, the military community has a very powerful card to play in policy. To put it gently, few politicians can afford to be seen as anti-veteran or anti-veterans’ adjunct therapy.
An example may be seen in the recent win in the Minnesota Boundary Waters, in which connection minded America’s delivered protection to a critical jewel in America’s wilderness crown. Americans writing their elected official opposing a sulfide mine in the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area received a standard form letter response indicating that the mine was critical for national defense. This was strange given that the mining company was from South America and the contract to sell the goods mined was with China. It was a big help to be able to say, “Yes, Senator/Congressperson, the Boundary Waters are critical to national defense, just not in the way you think”, and then show how these natural areas help the military community work through the last twenty years of war. Bluntly, when a tax attorney stands up at a natural resource meeting, their words don’t carry the political weight of someone standing up and saying, “As a veteran, or as an active-duty Navy Sailor, I think…” Veterans have a powerful card to play. We might as well play that card in favor of conservation.
Because it works.
The Armed Forces Initiative has introduced more than 5,000 servicemembers to the backcountry since its first event for eighteen veterans on the plains of eastern Montana in 2020. It’s now 2023, and after two years of data collection and 2000 survey results, we still don’t quite have the sample size I would like. But through the use of pre- and post-event surveys, along with hundreds of recorded interviews, we have accumulated data for a VA and Department of Interior study of the outdoors’ impact on veteran’s recovery. So far we have found that over 40% of BHA members are associated with the military community; that within six months of a BHA event participants spend an average of $1000 on outdoor gear for their personal use, indicating they continued hunting or fishing after we have taught them how; 99.8% of participants say that our events left a positive impact on their physical and mental wellbeing; and 34% of participants get involved with their local BHA chapters and lead more of these types of event one of the reasons for our rapid growth across the country. We want you to get involved.
The Armed Forces initiative has state-based volunteer leaders in forty-six states (we need help in Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, and New Jersey) with twenty-six active-duty installation clubs teaching veterans and active-duty military members to recreate outdoors at over 130 events annually. If you or someone you know would like to get involved in the Armed Forces Initiative by attending an event or becoming a volunteer leader for your military tribe, please check out our website:
https://www.backcountryhunters.org/armed_forces or email Hubbs@Backcountryhunters.org. The BHA mission is all of ours.
Poetry and Art
Poetry and art from the warfighting community.
Last Meals - Tales From the Gridsquare
Nick is an active-duty member of the US Army and a logistics officer. He has had a long-standing love of writing and has begun his own writer’s journey. He authored the book “Tales From The Grid Square Volume I,” a collection of 240 stories from across the branches of the US Armed Forces as well as foreign militaries of strange events and instances. He can be reached through the Instagram account @Tales_From_The_Gridsquare or email: TalesFromTheGridSquare@gmail.com.
A bittersweet home-cooked meal the night prior
An elephant in the room ignored one last time
The last goodnights whispered for a time
A quiet beer in the solitude of the night
A final family breakfast at a solemn table
Small talk to distract from this today’s reality
Reassuring promises and tears held at bay
A spoiled appetite and a cigarette with coffee for lunch
The last meals are the most bittersweet
The final sunset of normalcy
Before the sunrise of uncertainty
Last Meals: Continued - Tales From the Gridsquare
Today’s the end
The end of the new normal
Your duffel is packed and the connex sealed
The final foreign sunset your show
Before an uncertain dawn
So you sit
The day before uncertainty
Staring into your last meal
Served on a nondescript white plate in the AC
Or a flimsy cardboard tray on the hood of a humble
Government contracted food fills your belly
For the last time
Taste like shit, but you’ve accepted it
Finding comfort in the smallest things
You’ve been here so long
So focused on the tasks at hand
This place is all you now know
Home isn’t home when you live a world away
Just a semi tangible memory
Art Series - Lani Hankins
Lani Hankins served in the U.S. Army as an Automated Logistical Specialist and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. She is an author, podcaster, poet, and artist, who draws inspiration from her military experience, personal struggles, and life on the prairie.
Instagram (Art and Poetry): @sisu4life
Instagram (Podcast and Writing): @kruse_corner
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This ends Volume 13, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01JULY2023)
The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ fourteenth volume, releasing August 1st, 2023.
All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 July.
All written submissions are due as 12 point font, double spaced, Word documents to our email by midnight on 20 July.
lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com
Special thanks to the volunteers and team that made this journal possible:
Thank you for another excellent presentation. I look forward to reading them. Semper Fi