Up in the gunner’s sling of Captain Jackson’s Humvee, J.C. mopped the sweat off his face. He used to think Texas was hot, but these Iraqi summers were something else. The sun had almost set, but it was still one hundred degrees. His body armor didn’t help. He drank a gallon of water a day and never had to piss, because he sweated every drop out. And though he stuffed himself with chow, he’d lost twenty pounds in nine months. The Baghdad diet. His uniform hung loose on his five-ten frame.
“They don’t feed you?” his mama had asked him when he came home to El Paso in July for his two-week leave. “They starving you to save money, is that it?” He told her the chow was fine, but she didn’t believe him. She was ready to write the president before he calmed her down. He understood. The food gave her something to focus on, something small that kept her mind off the real stuff. Or maybe she was just being a Mexican mama, looking for any excuse to stuff him with enchiladas.
Either way he’d be back with her and his girl again soon. A couple more months, and then he would never have to see this place again. until his next rotation. This was his first time over here, but lots of the guys in the 2–7 were already on their second trip. Like most soldiers, J.C. figured this war would go on awhile, no matter what the politicians said.
Almost seven-thirty. They’d been waiting to roll for an hour. J.C. was getting bored. Typical false alarm. They planned four raids for every one that happened. “How much you wanna bet it’s off?” he yelled down to Corporal Mike Voss, the Humvee’s driver. Voss just shook his head.
Then J.C. saw Captain Jackson walking toward the Humvee, Jackson’s quick clipped stride telling J.C. that they would be going out tonight after all.
t h e h u m v e e ro l l e d to the two-inch-thick steel gates that served as Camp Graphite’s front door. J.C. tugged his armor down tight over his shoulders and pulled his pistol from his leg holster. He had cleaned it a day before, but he double-checked the slide, as he always did before leaving the base. The metal slipped back smoothly. Good. He chambered a round and slipped the pistol back onto his leg. Not that he expected to need the 9mm. It was a popgun compared to the.50-cal on the Humvee’s roof, much less the machine cannons on the Bradleys or the 120mm main guns on the tanks. If somebody got through all that he was in deep shit, pistol or no. But extra firepower never hurt.
They crossed through the gates, and at his feet J.C. heard the barking chorus of “Who Let the Dogs Out” for the hundredth time: Who let the dogs out
Woof woof woof woof
Naturally the Mad Dogs used the song as their slogan; they played it every time they left base. J.C. tried to remember when the song had come out. Was he in eighth grade? Ninth? Probably ninth. A smile creased the corners of his mouth. That dumb song was good luck. None of the Mad Dogs had died here. The other companies in the 2–7 hadn’t been so fortunate. A car bomb had blown up one of Bushmaster’s Humvees, and a sniper had shot Lieutenant Poley of Commando and gotten away clean. Freaking sniper. Maybe the Mad Dogs would have a chance at him tonight. The Humvee swung through the chicane of concrete barriers that protected the front gate, then accelerated down a wide avenue west of Baghdad’s tattered zoo. J.C. concentrated his attention on the zoo’s deserted grounds, a natural hiding place for a guy with a rocket-propelled grenade. He had learned the hard way that ambushes could come anytime, anywhere. J.C. was a gunner. His buddies said he had the worst job in the army: sitting in a harness in a hole in the roof of the Humvee, handling a machine gun that swung 360 degrees. On hot days — which meant every day — he baked in the sun. When they rode the highways he ate dust and diesel fuel and came back to base spitting black clods of phlegm. And gunners had the highest pucker factor around. As in the pucker your asshole makes when you’re squeezing back your fear. The tanks and Bradleys had thick steel armor. Even the Humvees had steel plates and heavy bulletproof glass. J.C. just had his helmet and flak jacket, which wouldn’t do much good against an RPG.
