I'd planned on posting something else today, but this short story now seems more appropriate. It contains profanity so don't read it if you don't like such things.
“I don’t give a shit.”
Reese took a sip of his iced coffee and repeated himself.
“I don’t give a shit what the LT or anyone else says. I’m not running over any little kids.”
Whoever decided to start serving iced coffee in the dining facilities was a genius. Sure it wasn’t as good as the Starbuck’s lattes I was missing, but there a little goes a long way. Iced coffee is relatively cheap and easy to make, and even having one cup of the stuff can make the whole day seem better. The first time I noticed it in here; I drink nine glasses of it. That was a bad idea. I got sick.
Despite my lack of a response, Reese was determined to make his case.
“I will not run over kids. I’m just not going to do it. If I see them, I’ll try to drive around them or avoid them in some other way, but I will not run over little kids. I’ll stop the convoy before I do that.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to think or talk about this right now.
Earlier in the day, Reese and I had been in a briefing with our squad. Our team was completing our tour. Sometime in the next week or two we’d pack up all our equipment and make the three day drive back down south. Hopefully after that we’d be heading home. That was what we’d been told, but we’d been told lots of things lots of times before.
At this briefing the LT had brought up what Reese could not let go. In the time since our initial trip up here, the insurgents had started strapping bombs to their own kids. Then they would send the kids up to our convoys and when we stopped or reacted to the kids they would blow us both up. I kinda figured that you’ve given up any legitimacy you ever had when you start blowing your own kids, but my thoughts on the matter didn’t seem to give the insurgents any pause, and as usually no one had asked me for my thoughts (well except Reese, but that’s another thing).
Because of these attacks, Command had given, and the LT had repeated, a standing order to not stop a convey for any reason.
“Do your best to avoid anyone in the road, but if you can’t avoid them, run them over.” Reese repeated the Lieutenant’s order and shrugged. “I won’t do it. I just won’t fucking do it.”
“So you’d put us all at risk?” I asked him.
If Reese stopped a truck it would stop the whole convoy. We wouldn’t leave anyone behind, so if one guy stopped we all would. And most of the roads were far too narrow to allow us to drive around if someone stopped. Even if a kid in the road turned out not to have a bomb on him, and it was probably more likely than not the kid wouldn’t be packing heat, Reese would still be putting us all at risk. The insurgents made a habit of attacking convoys that were stopped. Even the bad guys like to be efficient, and it’s hard to do a lot of damage to a group of trucks that are driving away. So they would do things to stop convoys or wait for them to stop. As long as we could keep moving our odds would be pretty good. But if we had to stop, they would drop dramatically.
“We’re all at risk here all the time.” Reese countered.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Stopping for any reason gives them an opportunity to light us up. If you stop the convoy you could easily get some of us killed.”
“So what would you have me do? Run the little fuckers down? I can’t do that.”
“No, no one wants that. But can you really justify putting us all in danger only to satisfy your own conscious?”
Reese frowned and took a drink of his iced coffee. He set the cup down and pondered what I had said for a moment. He stood his ground.
“No.” He said, “Because it’s not about that. We have to draw a line somewhere. If I can run over those kids then I might as well be one of the murdering fuckers who strapped the bombs to them. It’s not enough that we can kill them better than they can kill us, we have to be better than them. If we’re not than what good is any of it? That is worth my life, and I hope you’d say it’s worth yours or anyone else’s.”
“How wonderfully idealistic. Is that the reason we’re fighting them too? Because we’re better than they are?”
To my surprise Reese didn’t get angry he just shrugged and said. “Dance around and away from the point all you like, you know I’m right. What would you do instead? Whatever your reasons you only have two options.”
I would much rather have been thinking about getting some sleep that night. Working continuously in such intense heat is very taxing and we were all always exhausted every night. I wonder if maybe that’s part of the reason everyone in this part of the world is always so pissed off about everything all the time. This much heat can’t be good for the human mind.
“I don’t know.” I told him, “I’m hoping something will come to me before we start the convoy back. Because I don’t like either option. Two bad choices is really no choice at all.”
Nothing came to me. I started the long drive back without a clue what I was going to do if I saw a little kid in road. All I thought about the whole way back was what to do, and I couldn’t figure anything out.
It took us three days make the trip back, and none of us even saw a kid the whole way.
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