Interesting short stories About Gitmo and Iraq

I was hanging out with some Marines yesterday. It was a bbq and there were 6 enlisted guys shooting the breeze. In typical enlisted man fashion one guy had an 11 month old son that was conceived 1 day after he was home from his tour in Iraq. Also in typical enlisted fashion 4 of the guys had kids that were under a year old. Too funny, it brought me right back to my days in Norfolk.

As I was shooting the breeze with one of the Sgt’s he was telling me about Iraq and he was in Anbar Province and never really left based. “Yeah, they fired shells into base all the time” He said he got used to the noise of it all but this one time the air sirens were going off and this noise didn’t sound right. Everyone on base was freaking out as it got closer apparently it was one of the drones coming towards and over the base that had been routed wrong or something of that nature. He said it scared the living shit out of him. You didn’t have time to think but in the seconds you heard the noise he had thought the enemy had something new and more powerful to attack them with. It was funny after it was over but at the time you had no idea what was going on and where whatever it was was going to land and kill.

I asked him about the daily shellings and after poo-pooing the constant attacks as normal everyday life he said something else that was interesting. “After a while we just stopped putting on our flak jackets” I sort of looked puzzled and asked, “Why? You didn’t worry about getting hit?” “No, it wasn’t that. It was just a flak jacket and it really only protected your chest” As he pulled his hands over a small part of his chest around his heart.

So to sort of confirm what he was saying I half asked if he’d rather be killed right away than have it dragged out and have no legs or arms or some shit. He looked sort of shrugged in affirmation and said yeah pretty much. What was the point. He indicated in his body language that it was sort of like, “oh well, fuck it, what can you do.” type thing. I got it, I think.

Then a little later a baby was crying and it was a pretty good wail. I commented on how that was a pretty good cry and the father said oh, that’s nothing he can shriek something fierce and it can ring your ears. Then another one of the guys said, “Yeah, they make recordings of that and play it in the cells” Come again? “The guards, when they are done there shift for the night and leave they would slap on a recording of babies crying, wailing to keep them from sleeping”

So casual and ho hum talking about war…so casual.