Sweger

He was walking down a street in Fallujah Iraq. The power lines sagged and the light poles leaned at awkward angles. He was awkward, the catch for the door to the compartment on his rifle’s stock had broken and the piece of plastic jangled loosely in the chilly winter breeze. The city looked like suburban Southern California, stucco clad and uniform; every house had a gate, and most had rooftop access. The civilians had fled our sector but locked all of the doors behind them, which left empty houses that we spent the day breaking into. Every now and then a suicidal group of Jihadi’s would surprise the infantrymen like a jack in the box.
This had happened and third platoon was down a squad after a successful group of suicidal Jihadi’s popped out of houses and surprised the infantrymen like jack in the box’s. He had not been there but had come to third platoon to help replace the wounded squad. By trade he was a machine gunner. He had not had to clear many houses before, that was the rifleman’s job, and after the house was cleared the machine gun would be placed on the rooftop to cover the riflemen on the ground level. Now he was a rifleman and that was alright with him, everything was always alright with him. His haunting smile floats in dreams, a buddah, only speaking of his family and his girl back home, was always going to go back home.
The Captain had told the Lieutenant to tell the grunts that someone was going to die the next day. We sat next to each other on the tracked vehicle, which would vibrate violently for a few miles and come to an abrupt stop that would toss around the Marines on the benches. The back hatch would drop and the Marines would run out the hole, fresh into sunlight.
I would walk next to the Lieutenant and listen to my radio chatter. There was an argument between the leader of first platoon and my Lieutenant as to which platoon was going down which street. They switched streets and third platoon carried on down its new broken down blown out city route. I watched him as the Lieutenant and I followed another squad. The power lines were sagging behind the leaning light poles and I wondered why he didn’t fix that damn catch and close that plastic door jangling awkwardly from his stock. He didn’t care, not about that or anything, he was going home. The suicidal Jihadi’s surprised him to death and startled the other Marines when they popped out of a house like a jack in the box.