The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner

Author:Brian Castner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Iraq War (2003-), War, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Military, Special Forces, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780385536219
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2012-07-10T07:00:00+00:00

I’m sitting with Jimbo in another faceless airport, before dawn, drinking another cup of black coffee, waiting for another flight to I-can’t-remember. Texas? North Carolina? It all blends together. If the city wasn’t printed on the boarding pass, I wouldn’t know where I was going. My life is a bad combination of rental-car shuttles, PowerPoints, identical chain restaurants, jet lag, hotel and airline reward programs, polo shirts, and explosives. The childlike joy of blowing things up is waning, and no longer makes up for the rest of the headaches.

Jimbo and John and Bill and I and the rest of the guys drove to the airport the way we always do: in a convoy, a line of unmarked SUVs and pickup trucks, fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. We use handheld radios to coordinate while we drive, an unbroken column, unconsciously boxing out other drivers, bumper to bumper to keep civilian vehicles from cutting between. The lead truck blocks traffic when we change lanes on the highway, moving over and slowing suddenly to allow the rest of us to pass. Number two truck becomes point, former lead truck takes rear. The last man always runs the red light to stay together.

We never lose a vehicle. We don’t talk about it. We don’t have to.

I take another sip of coffee, look out the window at the awaiting aircraft, and then back over at Jim.

“Hey Jim—you know when you go down the Jetway to get on a plane, and you get that first stuffy whiff of the jet fuel? Do you think of Iraq every time?”

“Sure do, partner,” Jim replies. “Hell, I think of Iraq any time I do anything.”

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