Youngblood by Gallagher Matt

Author:Gallagher, Matt [Gallagher, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

26

* * *

The hell of July passed in a seared haze. Hours and days melted into one another under a sun so tyrannical the soldiers began calling it the Sultan. Siestas weren’t sometimes anymore, but most of the time. On the barren stretches of no-man’s-land and in the alleyways of town, we asked the Sultan for compassion. There was no response.

We patrolled during the mornings. For our efforts, the locals called us majnuns, madmen. They weren’t wrong. “Don’t you understand?” they asked. “The insurgents work at night.” In between, I smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank a lot of Rip Its and watched DVDs about 1960s-era Madison Avenue and Prohibition-era gangsters. They made me miss home without reminding me of it.

We’d made national news for finding Rios. NO MAN LEFT BEHIND was the headline blasted out by the army to every news service that still gave a shit. I spoke to an Associated Press reporter over the phone, reading a statement prepared by a public affairs officer. “We acted on a tip provided by a local, evidence that Iraqis are ready and willing to take control of their nation,” I said. “As important as this moment is for Americans and the U.S. military, it’s just as important for the Iraqi people.”

“You believe that?” the reporter asked. “The violence numbers are increasing all over the country.”

“Sure,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

My mom found my quote in ten different American newspapers and cut out and framed each one, even though they were all from the same AP article. “You’ll want these someday,” she assured me.

Even Will was impressed. “This is a big deal,” he said. “And good leverage for you when you make your move against Chambers. What’s the deal with that, anyways?”

“Nothing new,” I said. I still hadn’t told my family about the firefight or the medal for valor. I didn’t want to worry my parents. I didn’t tell Will for other reasons.

A two-star general called from the Pentagon, asking to speak to me about finding the remains. “You Porter brothers sure are something,” he said. “I want you on my staff. Could use some hard-chargers back here, whip some bureaucrats into shape.”

“Think I just want to stay here, sir,” I said. “But thank you.”

He laughed and explained that he’d meant after we redeployed. I took down his contact info.

Other than a long afternoon spent patching the security hole in the outpost Haitham had found before the firefight, the war went back to normal. The headaches lingered, something Doc Cork attributed to too many Rip Its and too little sleep. Each evening around dusk, our company’s leadership gathered, the only time I saw Captain Vrettos anymore. And every morning around dawn, I met my platoon’s night patrol as they filed into the outpost, scorpions on their shoulders, fatigue on their faces.

“Everything good?” I always asked Chambers.

Everything always was.

We settled into a strange sort of routine, the kind that demanded our time yet nothing of our attention. I began thinking that maybe we could really ride out the rest of the deployment and make it home all right.

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