Militia (2 page)

Chapter Two

“
H
oly shit, man
I think this one is alive! Better get him back to base fast.”

Well it’s not the Taliban cause that didn’t sound like any kind of Arabic or even broken English. What did he mean this one is alive?

Mike opened his eyes in time to see two young medics roll his throbbing body onto a green board. He tried to talk but instantly felt the immense pain in his chest before the words could come out and moaned instead.

“Don’t try to talk Sergeant. We are gonna get you something for the pain just as soon as we get ya secured on the chopper, and you should be able to sleep the rest of the way home.”

“Where,” Mike tried, “Where is…my…team”?

Mike looked at the medic that was carrying the board by his head.

The medic looked down at the ground for a moment and then back up to meet Mike’s eyes. “The front of the cave got hit and the rock crushed them Sergeant. You seem to have only gotten enough of the blast to toss ya a few feet and rattle ya around. I’m sorry but they were dead before we could get here.”

With that Mike closed his eyes and began praying for sleep or death, whichever he might be granted but preferably the later. Moments after he felt the board being strapped down, Mike felt the pinch of a needle and the numbness that follows a shot of morphine. He was granted sleep.

There was nothing peaceful about this sleep. Mike was used to the routine nightmares that had haunted him since his first deployment. IED’s exploding, RPG fire, and friends blown apart by mortar rounds were becoming almost normal, but this was the first time that the dead in his dreams were men that he was personally responsible for. The whole time he slept Mike saw their faces and heard every word they had said to each other before the cave had been hit. It was Mike’s job to bring them home and he had failed. Part of him knew that this was not his fault. Part of him knew that this was one aspect of the job that all military leaders had to face at some point; but that part was swallowed by his guilt for being alive while his men were headed towards flag draped metal boxes.

Each of his soldiers had families back in the states that would never see their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers alive ever again. Mike knew that his own mother and father dreaded every second of his deployments, waiting for the call that would tell them that grandchildren were out of the question. Facing the families of his men would be the single hardest thing that he would have to do since joining the Army, but it had to be done and the families of his men deserved to know the last minutes of their loved one’s lives as told by the only person who was there with them.

When Mike awoke he was still on the chopper but instead of being outside the cave or in the air, he could tell when he unstrapped himself that he was back on base. He could hear the sounds of the chopper quieting as the engine slowed to a stop. Looking around Mike saw the medics who had carried him earlier yet they didn’t make any effort to stop him from getting up. Mike imagined that they had checked him out a bit while he was out and knew he either didn’t have any serious spinal damage, or they just didn’t care.

As soon as he stepped out of the chopper, Mike was met by a truck being driven by a brand new private from his unit. By the clean shaven, unstained, unmarked looks of the kid Mike assumed that he was a commander’s driver. Mike climbed into the passenger seat and looked at the clean young private.

“So which one is it?” Mike asked.

“Sergeant, Colonel Thomas wants to talk to you before you head back to your room. He didn’t tell me what for but that’s pretty normal.”

“That’s ok soldier, I know what it’s about.”

When the tan truck pulled up beside the command headquarters Mike jumped out and walked straight into the Colonels office without a knock. He knew that he was supposed to knock and then walk in and salute when told to but at this point Mike had no desire to take part in military formalities and ass kissing.

“Well c’mon in here, Sergeant Hoffman. Can I get you anything to make you more comfortable?” The Colonel asked sarcastically.

Mike sat down without saluting or responding to the Colonels sarcasm. “What do you need me for sir?” Mike asked.

“I just figured that I’d give you a chance to tell me what happened before you brief a room full of your superiors tomorrow. I know that you are in a bad mood and I don’t expect you to play the Army game right now, but I need to know what happened out there and I need to know that you are all right.”

“I’ll be ok, sir. My men won’t though. The enemy was just setting up waiting for us. We didn’t see any trace of them until their sniper took out Woods. We tried radioing back here but nothing was going through. The mortars started and I found the guys a cave to take shelter in. It looked secure so I told the team to stay put and I went out to try the radio again. That’s the last thing that I can remember before the chopper showed up.”

Colonel Thomas looked very understanding. Mike knew that he had a lot of combat time for an officer and had severed most of his time as a Ranger. “Ok, Hoffman, I’m going to need you ready to give a room full of officers that you could rightly give a shit less about a briefing on your mission. For now have my driver take you back to your room and try to get some sleep. We have all lost men in this war but it sounds to me like you did everything right. It’s going to be hard, I know, but keep your head up kid. My driver will be back to pick you up at zero eight tomorrow so make sure you get chow before then.”

Mike stood up and saluted the Colonel before leaving the office. He actually felt kind of bad for not saluting when he entered after the talk they just had. The driver was still waiting for him and Mike hopped back in without saying a word. Apparently the kid had already been told where to take him because he never asked which way Mike’s room was and drove straight there. A few minutes later they came to a stop and Mike hopped out.

“Hey sergeant, the medics stopped by while you were with the colonel and asked me to give you this.”

Grabbing the small box, Mike turned without giving it a second look and walked into the room that until today he had shared with Woods. When he sat down on his bed the first thing that he noticed was the picture of Wood’s girlfriend back home that sat on a shelf at the end of his bed. Woods would always talk about Sarah and told Mike everything about her. Right before they had left for this last mission Woods had confided in him that he was going to ask Sarah to marry him as soon as they went on leave.

Mike got up and went through some of his dead roommate’s things before finally finding what he was looking for. There was a small notebook that Woods put all of the phone numbers and addresses that he needed in. On the first page was Sarah’s number followed by his parents and other friends and family contact information. He had already made up his mind the second he saw Sarah’s photo that the first thing he would do after the briefing would be to call Sarah and inform her of what happened.

He took the small pad of paper over to his makeshift desk and set it inside his hat. Making this call was going to be hard but it had to be done. Mike had almost forgotten about the box. He sat back down on his bed, grabbed the box, and opened it. Inside was a pile of dog tags. For a second he just stared down at them and then slowly reached in and pulled them out one by one reading off each of his soldiers’ names and pertinent information. Mike Hoffman stared at these metal reminders of fallen heroes, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

The next morning Mike awoke just before five in the morning like usual. He got dressed and then headed to the rooms of his other soldiers, rummaging through their stuff just enough to find phone numbers for their friends and families. He skipped breakfast, having no appetite and knowing that if he got hungry he still had some food in his room to get him through until lunch time. Instead of waiting for the Colonel’s young driver Mike chose rather to walk the short mile or so to his unit’s command headquarters. After walking through the mountains for days with all of his equipment this was an easy walk and Mike wanted the time to think before having to speak to a bunch of officers about the previous day’s events.

He walked slowly and managed to arrive at the headquarters building at the same time Colonel Thomas did. The Colonel gave him a quick glance as if expecting to see him an hour before he was supposed to be picked up and opened the door for Mike to enter.

“You know Private James never picks me up in the morning because I like the walk. He is going to be at your room waiting for you in an hour. That poor kid is so new he will probably be waiting out there until you get back too nervous to come here without you,” the Colonel laughed, “Hoffman, you might have just cost me a driver for the next few hours!”

“Sorry sir, I just wanted to walk, gives me time to think.”

“I understand and I don’t blame you one bit. I’m gonna put on some coffee and then step into my office to do some boring paperwork before our meeting. Grab yourself a cup and go find something to read in the Sergeant Major’s office. He won’t be in this morning and that way you won’t have to deal with all these officers coming in before you have to. I’ll come get ya when we are ready.”

Mike thanked the Colonel, and once it was done brewing, poured himself a cup of coffee and headed to the office next door to Colonel Thomas’s. Their Sergeant Major didn’t have much good reading material lying around, and Mike knew better that to start going through his drawers. He found a couple old army magazines on the desk and began flipping through them just looking at the pictures. The time went by slowly but finally Colonel Thomas knocked on the opened door and waved at him to follow.

The long table at the end of the large office was now filled with Captains and Majors, most of which didn’t appear like the kind of men with combat experience. Mike even noticed a couple brand new lieutenants who looked like they were just out of officer school. As he walked into the room every eye went right to him. Colonel Thomas motioned for him to take a seat at the center of the table which Mike did without acknowledging any of the others watching him. The room was silent as Mike sat which he took as his cue to start. He briefed them on his entire mission from the original mission briefing to getting knocked out at the cave.

The whole time he talked he noticed these officers looking at him like they were just amazed by what he was saying. Having to sit here and brief a bunch of non combat officers angered Mike but he kept calm knowing that it was just part of the job. When he was finished the questions started, most of which Mike had either already answered in his brief or were completely irrelevant. With each question Mike’s patients grew thinner. He was just about to snap and start cussing the whole room full of his superiors out when the Colonel ended the meeting. Mike stood, saluted the Colonel, and walked back out of the room.

Mike had just left the building and was heading for the phone room when Colonel Thomas stopped him. “Hoffman, can I talk to ya for a minute?”

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

“Look Mike I’m sure that you have heard the rumors by now about the rest of us stuck over here getting pulled back to the rear and sent home. I just got the official orders while you were waiting in the Sergeant Major’s office. Mike, they are sending the whole base back to home station next week and it looks like a lot of us are going to be disbanded soon after. “

“Yes sir, I heard some guys talking about it. Is there any way that I can link up with another unit that is staying?”

“Nah kid the whole damn theater is coming home. The war is over.”

“Sir, do you think they are going to disband our unit? I mean after all the money they spent training us they would get rid of us last, right?”

“Well that, in my mind is precisely why they will probably disband us. This war isn’t ending because we won, far from it actually. They are ending this shit because the country is broke and can’t keep borrowing money when they can’t pay it back. So yes, I do think they will have us close up shop for the same reason you think they should keep us…we cost too damn much money.”

“So that’s it then sir? It’s all over and we have to just go home and find work, just like that?”

“Afraid so, Mike, I’m sorry. It’s gonna be hard on all of us but you’re young and smart. Go to school and try to find a job that is still needed.”

“Yes sir,” Mike nodded to the Colonel, turned and walked to the phone room. He kept thinking about his men. If they had just made it back from that mission they would all be going home with him. The team would get back, buy a bunch of beer, and pretend to celebrate the end of this war.

In one week Mike would be sitting in the rear of a plane heading back to Montana while his team was packed onto another plane in metal boxes heading to Delaware. Mike wished more than anything that he could be in a box next to his men. He didn’t know what was going to be waiting for him in the civilian world but knew that every time he went home on leave there were fewer and fewer jobs. As far as Mike knew the money he was making on deployments was far more than anybody was making that he had gone to school with.

Over the next week Mike barely slept and rarely ate. Every time he drifted off to sleep the nightmares started. When he did find a small appetite he chose to stay in his room and eat the food he had left from gift packages. The phone calls were painful. With each of his soldiers’ loved ones that he called he got to hear a new set of sobs and even screams. It took every ounce of integrity he could find to pick the phone up and dial one number after another. He used his free time to pack up all of his soldiers’ belongings and personally send them to their families.

Before he knew it the week was over and he was sitting on a plane starring out the small window at the mountains of Afghanistan for the last time. He had hurt and bled in these mountains. Friends and enemies alike had died in front of his very eyes here. This might be the last time his eyes would ever see these mountains but his mind would never be able to get rid of them.