“HEY LIEUTENANT! …..Are you two holding each others fucking hands?”
Unbeknownst to the world, Infantry Marines are actually the most openly gay straight men on the planet. This story is just a small taste of the gayness that goes on amongst Marines.
Gay Chicken
July 6, 2012
Musa Quala District Center, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
In July of 2012, Kilo Company was given one last chance to kill Taliban in Afghanistan. With the war winding down, and an organized troop withdrawal slowly beginning, we were trying to do less fighting and convince the Afghan Army to take over security for their own country. There were two shining problems with this idea.
1) The Afghan National Army blows.
2) No one in Afghanistan gives a fuck about Afghanistan, but especially not the Afghan Army.
Battalion leadership decided to insert Kilo Company into the heart of Taliban controlled territory by helicopter for four days to make things safer for the good Afghan people, one dead Taliban at a time.
This last nighttime helicopter insertion into Zamindawar, was to “disrupt enemy operations.” This was just a politically correct way of saying,
“The war’s over boys, go get your kills while you still can. Oh, and let us Senior Officers get a few more Bronze stars.”
Zamindawar had become our favorite place in Afghanistan because it was crawling with Taliban who were willing to fight.
The area was controlled by the Taliban government. They had a courthouse, jails, hospitals, and schools. The Taliban had actually never lost control of the area. The largest disruption of Taliban operations occurred when a few other Companies from my Battalion went there a month prior and had small battles with tanks, Cobras, jets, and artillery. The entire experience is actually on National Geographic’s Battlefield Afghanistan.
After the battle the Marines left the area, and nothing changed.
After this last mission, we would be completely done with combat operations, and would focus on retrograde for our last few weeks in Afghanistan. Retrograde really meant, weight lifting, eating, and some more weightlifting, with the occasional, and annoying, bit of work.
This was a huge bummer for us in the Infantry. The most fun thing to do in Afghanistan was to patrol, raid, ambush, and hunt the Taliban.
No hunting = No fun.
It should go without saying, Kilo Company’s last chance to score a few more kills before we went home was the most exciting time of our lives.
We had a whole 2 weeks to prepare for this operation, and as usual, my Company Commander (also referred to as the CO) did the bare minimum planning, gave a terrible Combat Operations Order to the Company leadership, and was annoyed if I asked him for more information.
We, the rest of the Company leadership and I, had come to expect this from him.
In general, after our CO gave us a Combat Operations Order for an upcoming operation, we would laugh at the stupidity and incompetence, we’d joke about how we were all going to die, and then the other three platoon commanders and I would get together to plan out the operation ourselves.
Once we had formulated a decent plan we would walk into the CO’s tent and brief him our plan. He would put his nose up in the air, pause for a moment, and say, “good, that’s exactly what I wanted.”
We would say “thank you sir,” with the utmost respect, then roll our eyes and walk out cursing his name.
The intelligence we received from Battalion for this particular operation was horrible. The plan that our CO made was half ass, and all of us Lieutenants, Staff Sergeants, and even Sergeants, felt like our luck was running out. We had narrowly escaped death and dismemberment on many occasions, and with this being our last mission, everyone was a little nervous.
The Marine Corps is full of stories about guys who were on their last patrol, or last mission, when they stepped on an IED and blew their legs off, and/or died. Naturally, we dealt with the fear by joking about it, but the words “last mission,” were inherently nerve racking.
The reason it was getting so dangerous, (as if night time helicopter raids into Taliban territory aren’t normally dangerous) was because the Taliban expected us, and knew exactly how we executed these helicopter raids. They knew our execution because we had done about 16 of these raids as a battalion, in a short period of time, all the same way.
By this point in the deployment, the Platoon Commanders and Platoon Sergeants were disappointed that our Battalion Commander had not fired our Company Commander for incompetence. We realized that the reason he had not fired him was because we, the Lieutenants, would always save our Commander’s ass by completely ignoring his plan and coming up with our own plan.
Then our Company Commander would take the plan that WE made, brief it to the Battalion Commander, and he would look perfectly competent.
I was so fed up that I convinced the other Lieutenants we had to let him fail. We had to agree with his plan and let him believe it was great. That way he would brief his plan to the Battalion Commander and battalion staff, and they would all get to witness his tactical incompetence. It was the only way the Battalion Leadership would see what we had dealt with all deployment.
Just to illustrate the type of planning that my Company Commander did for a night time helicopter mission with over 100 Marines in a Taliban controlled area, I will describe his exact plan, in detail.
1) Land at night by helicopter, somewhere around… here (Points finger to map)
2) Enter a nearby compound, maybe…..here (Points finger to map)
3) Decide where to go from there for the next four days (Shrugs like it’s ‘no big’)
4) Extract at night by helicopter somewhere….further south (Makes a circle motion with finger while pointing to map)
Ball game.
Someone give that man a Bronze Star with V. Only Napoleon himself could have come up with a better plan.
Three days before the operation….
All the Platoon Commanders and Company Commander for Kilo Company drove to the Battalion Headquarters at the Musa Quala District Center to brief our CO’s award winning plan to battalion. These trips were always fun for me.
They allowed me to visit all my friends who were stationed at the District Center, see some wookies, (female Marines) and catch up on all the Battalion gossip. I viewed these as fun “field trips.” Truth be told, almost every time I left the wire in Afghanistan was a fun “field trip,” but that’s because I’m a child.
The District Center was right next to the Musa Quala wadi. It was the size of two football fields, surrounded by ten foot high walls of sand and sea wire, and had the tallest buildings in Musa Quala. The three buildings were roughly five stories high, and were riddled with bullet holes and marks from explosions of RPGs and grenades. There was a helicopter landing pad, a chow hall tent, a medical tent, a gym tent, and lots of berthing tents.
We pulled up to the District Center in a convoy of trucks, which we in Kilo Company called “Mobile Assault Platoon,” led by the infamous Sergeant Loya.
After putting my things in my new room, which was a dark, musty dungeon full of miserable Lieutenants and Captains working long and odd hours and never leaving the wire, I walked outside to the smoke pit to catch up with friends. I was shocked to find an old friend, Johnny, who was supposed to be at another base, 30 km away from the District Center.
He was sitting on a bench by himself smoking a cigarette. He was leaned back against a mud wall, and his legs were crossed like a woman. His entire demeanor was very effeminate. He puffed very slowly and calmly, tilting his head back and slowly exhaling, like a stuck up movie star. Each drag from his cigarette looked like it was the most delicious and savory air that he had ever tasted. He had strawberry blonde hair, fair skin, blue eyes, and freckles. He reminded me of Cate Blanchet. He had a skinny body, the confidence and swagger of a hippie who truly believes he is single handedly saving the world, the energy of an ADHD kid, too much sarcasm, a permanently hard dick, and an inability to experience shame. In short, he was absolutely nothing like a typical Marine Officer, thus making him fucking awesome.
I yelled at him from across the common area, not caring that there were a dozen other officers around.
“JOHNNY! What the FUCK are you doin here?”
The large group of officers looked at me with judging eyes. As soon as they realized I didn’t give a shit about them, they instantly didn’t give a shit about me.
Johnny looked at me and grew a big smile. He stood up and put his arms out as he yelled,
“I came to see you baby girl!”
I walked over with an equally large smile and extended my arms out to embrace him saying, “gimme a fuckin’ hug right now.”
He tiled his head down and responded with a creepy look on his face, “Oh I’ll give you more than a hug,” as he reached down and grabbed my dick. Not a poke or a touch, it was a very healthy grab.
I flinched and stepped back, laughing hysterically but slightly embarrassed because there were lots of other officers around. If they were all Lieutenants I wouldn’t have cared, but there were a few Captains and Major's in the crowd who I didn’t know.
We hugged a long gay hug. I heard one of the other Lieutenants scoff and say,
“Oh great, they’re probably gonna start making out now.”
I didn’t acknowledge the guy who said it. Instead I looked Johnny in the face and said,
“Honestly bro if all these fuckin’ faggots weren’t around I’d makeout with you right now.”
He nodded in their direction and said “fuck them, I’ll kiss you right now.” He nodded at me and said, “you won’t kiss me, pussy.”
On cue, we both tilted our heads, closed our eyes, and went in like we were going to kiss, then backed out at the last second like straight guys always do, and began giggling like little girls. I heard one of the other Lieutenants say with disgust,
“Oh my God are they serious right now?”
We continued giggling as we caught up on the last few months of combat. He was the leader of an ETT (Embedded Training Team). His job was to live with an Afghan Army Company and teach them to not suck so fucking bad. It’s a nearly impossible job. He had been getting into firefights with the Taliban in the Musa Quala wadi while patrolling with the Afghan Army. We joked about one radio transmission that me and the other Kilo Company Lieutenants had been laughing about for the last few weeks.
Before I get into the story of his radio transmission, I should take a second to explain to the non-combat-leader-readers that whenever you’re in a firefight, the Commander above you wants to know everything that’s going on, as its happening. They want constant and immediate updates of the situation. The trouble with their demand, is that when YOU are in a firefight, your number one concern is communicating with your subordinate Marines to understand where the enemy is. Your immediate concern is usually not communicating with higher command when bullets start coming at you.
There are a few other things you might be thinking about in a firefight, things like:
Where are all my guys? Is the enemy maneuvering on us? What is the IED threat? Is anyone hit? Can we maneuver? Wait, are they sucking us into an ambush? Do we need air support? Where are my machine guns? Did we bring mortars? No? Fuck. Do we have enough ammo to sustain a long fight? Where are the stupid chicks in the patrol? Are they pissing themselves yet or just subtly crying? OMG somebody take her fucking weapon, that’s just pathetic. Does McCormick have his fucking head in the ground again? Goddammit, he’s goin’ back to Headquarters. Where are the prisoners? Is Jacobs using a prisoner for cover again? Fuck. Why are those scumbags peeking at us from behind wall? Somebody shoot at them so they stop fuckin’ lookin’ at us! Where is that machine gun fire coming from? Are we shooting at a person, or a mud wall that a person was behind at some point? Goddammit somebody tell me what the fuck we’re shooting at!
These thoughts, among others, consume a Marine leader in a firefight. Needless to say it’s a constant struggle to give your higher command the information they need, as quickly as they want it.
Back to Johnny’s famous radio transmission.
While Johnny was in the middle of a firefight, the Battalion Operations Officer Major Dyce, who I’m certain had Asperger’s, asked for Johnny’s situation over the radio. Johnny’s callsign was HITMAN, Battalion’s callsign was WARCROSS. This is what the radio traffic sounded like.
“HITMAN this is WARCROSS, what’s your SIT?” (Situation)
No response.
Out in the wadi, One of the Afghan soldiers had a weapon jam. Johnny ran over to him under fire, showed him that his magazine was loaded in his AK-47 backwards, slapped the soldier in the back of the helmet as if to say “Comon’ bud you’re better than that,” then ran back to his position, firing a few more rounds at a couple of shitheads who were shooting at them.
“HITMAN, this is WARCROSS, SITREP?” (Situation report)
No Response.
Out in the wadi, Johnny saw two ANA soldiers holding their rifles over their heads, firing blindly. He ran over to them and used hand motions to communicate “Stand the fuck up and shoot like a man.” Then walked away shaking his head.
“HITMAN, this is WARCROSS, need a SITREP!”
“WARCROSS, this is HITMAN. We’re bangin’ in the wadi, standby.”
The sounds of automatic weapons and yelling filled the background of the radio transmission.
“Say again HITMAN? ”
The Major had the same look on his face that he always had, which was a look of pure confusion and despair.
“We’re bangin’ in the wadi, catch you later”
This radio traffic says a lot about Johnny the man, and the combat Marine. Needless to say, word of this radio transmission evoked lots of laughter amongst the Lieutenants and Sergeants in the battalion.
We caught up and laughed more, then finally I had to piss. I asked him to come with me so we could keep chatting, then shit got weird.
“Bro come with me to the pisser,” I said.
“For sure,” he said.
“Wait, we have to hold hands,” I said, initiating the game.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he responded with a big creepy smile that made me giggle.
We grabbed hands and looked at each other like a gay couple who finally agreed to show affection in public.
This was a game, taken very seriously by the both of us, called Gay Chicken. The first person to stop being gay; was gay, a coward, and a chicken.
We walked about 20 feet before someone yelled “DON’T PUSS OUT DONNY!”
I tightened my grip on Johnny’s hand and smiled knowing that a group of Lieutenants 20 feet away knew exactly what we were doing.
We walked another 15 feet and noticed a large group of officers coming our way, about to pass us on our left. It was the Battalion Commander and his posse. We both tensed our grips and moved closer to each other in an attempt to conceal our gripped hands. I really wanted to puss out and let go. Our Battalion Commander was a Mormon fucking tool bag who was so disconnected from reality that he tried to convince enlisted Marines that drinking was pointless, and getting drunk was stupid. He was such a sheltered and naïve dork that he would never understand all the cool kids played gay chicken.
I heard someone yell “DON’T LET GO!”
The Battalion Commander was at the front of the posse, walking proudly, as if all the Officers behind him were following him because he was such a great leader. To his left was a Captain, nodding and laughing at everything the BC said, asif his FITREP depended on it. Behind them were at least three Captains and two Lieutenants. We avoided the Battalion Commanders eyes, and the attention of all the other Officers as we walked right past them, but a few steps behind them was the badass Battalion Executive Officer (XO) Major Mason.
Major Mason had the respect of every single Marine in the battalion. He wasn't intimidating because he was an asshole, his intimidation was created by everyone's desire to make him proud. I knew he was a good dude, but I didn't know how he felt about two of his front line Lieutenant's holding hands in public. I became very nervous and desperately wanted to let go of Johnny's hand; but my gay pride wouldn't let me. I tried to look at the ground, but I allowed my eyes to wander too close to his face, and my gaze was sucked into his gaze. He looked from my eyes, to the oddly close distance between Johnny and I. He squinted his eyes as he attempted to register the situation.
I was literally squealing as I thought about whether or not he saw our hands. I had the same feeling that I always got when I heard an enemy machine gun off in the distance, as I waited for a string of bullets to litter the patrol.
We passed him by a few steps and hoped we were in the clear. I held my breath. Then someone yelled,
“HEY LIEUTENANTS!” I knew it was Major Mason. My heart sank.
We both quickly let go of our grips and turned to face the Major.
“Good afternoon sir,” we said in unison.
He had his hands on his hips and his head was cocked to one side, “are you two holding each others fucking hands?” He looked pissed.
I heard the group of Lieutenants laughing hysterically as they watched us from a distance.
At the same time, I said “No sir,” and Johnny said “Maybe sir.”
My face became bright red.
Major Mason’s walked over to us. His demeanor changed from angry to curious as he looked at his watch and said,
“Wow. We’re what? 6 months in? I would’ve expected this gay shit to start month 3.”
Johnny and I looked at each other confused, then looked back at the Major, with smirks. The Major concluded the conversation.
“Well, carry on boys, just don’t let your Marines see. Although they’re probably doing way gayer shit than that.”
“Roger that sir,” we said in unison again.
He walked away and we looked at each other in disbelief, then we lost it with laughter. We respected him for his understanding of what young Marines do. Even though we were Lieutenants, when we got together, we acted like a bunch of Sergeants, who, when they get together, act like a bunch of Lance Corporals, who, when they get together, act like 15 year old boys. All Marines of the same rank in a room together are like adolescent boys.
"Bro, we have to declare a tie. There's no way we can call that." I said.
"Agreed. We will live to play another day."
Johnny and I spent a few more minutes hanging out, then wandered over to the group of Lieutenants who watched it all. We knew we were gonna’ have a slew of jokes thrown our way at some point, so we just took it.
One Lieutenant kicked off the comedy, “so now that Major Mason knows you guys are faggots are you gonna’ just be totally open or what?”
Johnny shrugged, “yeah bro, I really don’t see why not.”
“I gotta tell my fuckin’ dad first man,” I replied.
“Well you’re gonna’ have to tell him you have AIDS too, cause’ after that British slut he nailed on Camp Bastion Johnny’s definitely HIV positive,” a Lieutenant said.
“No, no, that was herpes I popped for,” Johnny replied, “the AIDS is a non-issue right now bro. Don’t be givin’ me credit for diseases I don’t have. It’s not right, I have to earn it first.”
“Well, Doc said as long as I keep re exposing myself to different strands of the same diseases it’ll keep canceling them out. So as long as I keep fucking Johnny I’ll be golden.” I said.
“Yeah, actually I heard the same shit,” a Lieutenant said. “That’s why those hookers in Africa keep on turnin’ tricks. Cause’ every time they get plowed by a new dude they get a new strand of HIV and it just cancels itself out or some shit. Fucking brilliant bro, really. Good on you for stayin’ up on that shit.”
“It’s just science bro.” I said. “You do your research, and then you implement.”
“BAMCIS,” a Lieutenant said.
Everyone nodded and agreed about nothing.
I said bye to Johnny and moved on to visit another friend, a guy I was closer with than anyone at the District Center. Nick Garret.
To be continued in “Scent of an Angel”……..
Unbeknownst to the world, Infantry Marines are actually the most openly gay straight men on the planet. This story is just a small taste of the gayness that goes on amongst Marines.
Gay Chicken
July 6, 2012
Musa Quala District Center, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
In July of 2012, Kilo Company was given one last chance to kill Taliban in Afghanistan. With the war winding down, and an organized troop withdrawal slowly beginning, we were trying to do less fighting and convince the Afghan Army to take over security for their own country. There were two shining problems with this idea.
1) The Afghan National Army blows.
2) No one in Afghanistan gives a fuck about Afghanistan, but especially not the Afghan Army.
Battalion leadership decided to insert Kilo Company into the heart of Taliban controlled territory by helicopter for four days to make things safer for the good Afghan people, one dead Taliban at a time.
This last nighttime helicopter insertion into Zamindawar, was to “disrupt enemy operations.” This was just a politically correct way of saying,
“The war’s over boys, go get your kills while you still can. Oh, and let us Senior Officers get a few more Bronze stars.”
Zamindawar had become our favorite place in Afghanistan because it was crawling with Taliban who were willing to fight.
The area was controlled by the Taliban government. They had a courthouse, jails, hospitals, and schools. The Taliban had actually never lost control of the area. The largest disruption of Taliban operations occurred when a few other Companies from my Battalion went there a month prior and had small battles with tanks, Cobras, jets, and artillery. The entire experience is actually on National Geographic’s Battlefield Afghanistan.
After the battle the Marines left the area, and nothing changed.
After this last mission, we would be completely done with combat operations, and would focus on retrograde for our last few weeks in Afghanistan. Retrograde really meant, weight lifting, eating, and some more weightlifting, with the occasional, and annoying, bit of work.
This was a huge bummer for us in the Infantry. The most fun thing to do in Afghanistan was to patrol, raid, ambush, and hunt the Taliban.
No hunting = No fun.
It should go without saying, Kilo Company’s last chance to score a few more kills before we went home was the most exciting time of our lives.
We had a whole 2 weeks to prepare for this operation, and as usual, my Company Commander (also referred to as the CO) did the bare minimum planning, gave a terrible Combat Operations Order to the Company leadership, and was annoyed if I asked him for more information.
We, the rest of the Company leadership and I, had come to expect this from him.
In general, after our CO gave us a Combat Operations Order for an upcoming operation, we would laugh at the stupidity and incompetence, we’d joke about how we were all going to die, and then the other three platoon commanders and I would get together to plan out the operation ourselves.
Once we had formulated a decent plan we would walk into the CO’s tent and brief him our plan. He would put his nose up in the air, pause for a moment, and say, “good, that’s exactly what I wanted.”
We would say “thank you sir,” with the utmost respect, then roll our eyes and walk out cursing his name.
The intelligence we received from Battalion for this particular operation was horrible. The plan that our CO made was half ass, and all of us Lieutenants, Staff Sergeants, and even Sergeants, felt like our luck was running out. We had narrowly escaped death and dismemberment on many occasions, and with this being our last mission, everyone was a little nervous.
The Marine Corps is full of stories about guys who were on their last patrol, or last mission, when they stepped on an IED and blew their legs off, and/or died. Naturally, we dealt with the fear by joking about it, but the words “last mission,” were inherently nerve racking.
The reason it was getting so dangerous, (as if night time helicopter raids into Taliban territory aren’t normally dangerous) was because the Taliban expected us, and knew exactly how we executed these helicopter raids. They knew our execution because we had done about 16 of these raids as a battalion, in a short period of time, all the same way.
By this point in the deployment, the Platoon Commanders and Platoon Sergeants were disappointed that our Battalion Commander had not fired our Company Commander for incompetence. We realized that the reason he had not fired him was because we, the Lieutenants, would always save our Commander’s ass by completely ignoring his plan and coming up with our own plan.
Then our Company Commander would take the plan that WE made, brief it to the Battalion Commander, and he would look perfectly competent.
I was so fed up that I convinced the other Lieutenants we had to let him fail. We had to agree with his plan and let him believe it was great. That way he would brief his plan to the Battalion Commander and battalion staff, and they would all get to witness his tactical incompetence. It was the only way the Battalion Leadership would see what we had dealt with all deployment.
Just to illustrate the type of planning that my Company Commander did for a night time helicopter mission with over 100 Marines in a Taliban controlled area, I will describe his exact plan, in detail.
1) Land at night by helicopter, somewhere around… here (Points finger to map)
2) Enter a nearby compound, maybe…..here (Points finger to map)
3) Decide where to go from there for the next four days (Shrugs like it’s ‘no big’)
4) Extract at night by helicopter somewhere….further south (Makes a circle motion with finger while pointing to map)
Ball game.
Someone give that man a Bronze Star with V. Only Napoleon himself could have come up with a better plan.
Three days before the operation….
All the Platoon Commanders and Company Commander for Kilo Company drove to the Battalion Headquarters at the Musa Quala District Center to brief our CO’s award winning plan to battalion. These trips were always fun for me.
They allowed me to visit all my friends who were stationed at the District Center, see some wookies, (female Marines) and catch up on all the Battalion gossip. I viewed these as fun “field trips.” Truth be told, almost every time I left the wire in Afghanistan was a fun “field trip,” but that’s because I’m a child.
The District Center was right next to the Musa Quala wadi. It was the size of two football fields, surrounded by ten foot high walls of sand and sea wire, and had the tallest buildings in Musa Quala. The three buildings were roughly five stories high, and were riddled with bullet holes and marks from explosions of RPGs and grenades. There was a helicopter landing pad, a chow hall tent, a medical tent, a gym tent, and lots of berthing tents.
We pulled up to the District Center in a convoy of trucks, which we in Kilo Company called “Mobile Assault Platoon,” led by the infamous Sergeant Loya.
After putting my things in my new room, which was a dark, musty dungeon full of miserable Lieutenants and Captains working long and odd hours and never leaving the wire, I walked outside to the smoke pit to catch up with friends. I was shocked to find an old friend, Johnny, who was supposed to be at another base, 30 km away from the District Center.
He was sitting on a bench by himself smoking a cigarette. He was leaned back against a mud wall, and his legs were crossed like a woman. His entire demeanor was very effeminate. He puffed very slowly and calmly, tilting his head back and slowly exhaling, like a stuck up movie star. Each drag from his cigarette looked like it was the most delicious and savory air that he had ever tasted. He had strawberry blonde hair, fair skin, blue eyes, and freckles. He reminded me of Cate Blanchet. He had a skinny body, the confidence and swagger of a hippie who truly believes he is single handedly saving the world, the energy of an ADHD kid, too much sarcasm, a permanently hard dick, and an inability to experience shame. In short, he was absolutely nothing like a typical Marine Officer, thus making him fucking awesome.
I yelled at him from across the common area, not caring that there were a dozen other officers around.
“JOHNNY! What the FUCK are you doin here?”
The large group of officers looked at me with judging eyes. As soon as they realized I didn’t give a shit about them, they instantly didn’t give a shit about me.
Johnny looked at me and grew a big smile. He stood up and put his arms out as he yelled,
“I came to see you baby girl!”
I walked over with an equally large smile and extended my arms out to embrace him saying, “gimme a fuckin’ hug right now.”
He tiled his head down and responded with a creepy look on his face, “Oh I’ll give you more than a hug,” as he reached down and grabbed my dick. Not a poke or a touch, it was a very healthy grab.
I flinched and stepped back, laughing hysterically but slightly embarrassed because there were lots of other officers around. If they were all Lieutenants I wouldn’t have cared, but there were a few Captains and Major's in the crowd who I didn’t know.
We hugged a long gay hug. I heard one of the other Lieutenants scoff and say,
“Oh great, they’re probably gonna start making out now.”
I didn’t acknowledge the guy who said it. Instead I looked Johnny in the face and said,
“Honestly bro if all these fuckin’ faggots weren’t around I’d makeout with you right now.”
He nodded in their direction and said “fuck them, I’ll kiss you right now.” He nodded at me and said, “you won’t kiss me, pussy.”
On cue, we both tilted our heads, closed our eyes, and went in like we were going to kiss, then backed out at the last second like straight guys always do, and began giggling like little girls. I heard one of the other Lieutenants say with disgust,
“Oh my God are they serious right now?”
We continued giggling as we caught up on the last few months of combat. He was the leader of an ETT (Embedded Training Team). His job was to live with an Afghan Army Company and teach them to not suck so fucking bad. It’s a nearly impossible job. He had been getting into firefights with the Taliban in the Musa Quala wadi while patrolling with the Afghan Army. We joked about one radio transmission that me and the other Kilo Company Lieutenants had been laughing about for the last few weeks.
Before I get into the story of his radio transmission, I should take a second to explain to the non-combat-leader-readers that whenever you’re in a firefight, the Commander above you wants to know everything that’s going on, as its happening. They want constant and immediate updates of the situation. The trouble with their demand, is that when YOU are in a firefight, your number one concern is communicating with your subordinate Marines to understand where the enemy is. Your immediate concern is usually not communicating with higher command when bullets start coming at you.
There are a few other things you might be thinking about in a firefight, things like:
Where are all my guys? Is the enemy maneuvering on us? What is the IED threat? Is anyone hit? Can we maneuver? Wait, are they sucking us into an ambush? Do we need air support? Where are my machine guns? Did we bring mortars? No? Fuck. Do we have enough ammo to sustain a long fight? Where are the stupid chicks in the patrol? Are they pissing themselves yet or just subtly crying? OMG somebody take her fucking weapon, that’s just pathetic. Does McCormick have his fucking head in the ground again? Goddammit, he’s goin’ back to Headquarters. Where are the prisoners? Is Jacobs using a prisoner for cover again? Fuck. Why are those scumbags peeking at us from behind wall? Somebody shoot at them so they stop fuckin’ lookin’ at us! Where is that machine gun fire coming from? Are we shooting at a person, or a mud wall that a person was behind at some point? Goddammit somebody tell me what the fuck we’re shooting at!
These thoughts, among others, consume a Marine leader in a firefight. Needless to say it’s a constant struggle to give your higher command the information they need, as quickly as they want it.
Back to Johnny’s famous radio transmission.
While Johnny was in the middle of a firefight, the Battalion Operations Officer Major Dyce, who I’m certain had Asperger’s, asked for Johnny’s situation over the radio. Johnny’s callsign was HITMAN, Battalion’s callsign was WARCROSS. This is what the radio traffic sounded like.
“HITMAN this is WARCROSS, what’s your SIT?” (Situation)
No response.
Out in the wadi, One of the Afghan soldiers had a weapon jam. Johnny ran over to him under fire, showed him that his magazine was loaded in his AK-47 backwards, slapped the soldier in the back of the helmet as if to say “Comon’ bud you’re better than that,” then ran back to his position, firing a few more rounds at a couple of shitheads who were shooting at them.
“HITMAN, this is WARCROSS, SITREP?” (Situation report)
No Response.
Out in the wadi, Johnny saw two ANA soldiers holding their rifles over their heads, firing blindly. He ran over to them and used hand motions to communicate “Stand the fuck up and shoot like a man.” Then walked away shaking his head.
“HITMAN, this is WARCROSS, need a SITREP!”
“WARCROSS, this is HITMAN. We’re bangin’ in the wadi, standby.”
The sounds of automatic weapons and yelling filled the background of the radio transmission.
“Say again HITMAN? ”
The Major had the same look on his face that he always had, which was a look of pure confusion and despair.
“We’re bangin’ in the wadi, catch you later”
This radio traffic says a lot about Johnny the man, and the combat Marine. Needless to say, word of this radio transmission evoked lots of laughter amongst the Lieutenants and Sergeants in the battalion.
We caught up and laughed more, then finally I had to piss. I asked him to come with me so we could keep chatting, then shit got weird.
“Bro come with me to the pisser,” I said.
“For sure,” he said.
“Wait, we have to hold hands,” I said, initiating the game.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he responded with a big creepy smile that made me giggle.
We grabbed hands and looked at each other like a gay couple who finally agreed to show affection in public.
This was a game, taken very seriously by the both of us, called Gay Chicken. The first person to stop being gay; was gay, a coward, and a chicken.
We walked about 20 feet before someone yelled “DON’T PUSS OUT DONNY!”
I tightened my grip on Johnny’s hand and smiled knowing that a group of Lieutenants 20 feet away knew exactly what we were doing.
We walked another 15 feet and noticed a large group of officers coming our way, about to pass us on our left. It was the Battalion Commander and his posse. We both tensed our grips and moved closer to each other in an attempt to conceal our gripped hands. I really wanted to puss out and let go. Our Battalion Commander was a Mormon fucking tool bag who was so disconnected from reality that he tried to convince enlisted Marines that drinking was pointless, and getting drunk was stupid. He was such a sheltered and naïve dork that he would never understand all the cool kids played gay chicken.
I heard someone yell “DON’T LET GO!”
The Battalion Commander was at the front of the posse, walking proudly, as if all the Officers behind him were following him because he was such a great leader. To his left was a Captain, nodding and laughing at everything the BC said, asif his FITREP depended on it. Behind them were at least three Captains and two Lieutenants. We avoided the Battalion Commanders eyes, and the attention of all the other Officers as we walked right past them, but a few steps behind them was the badass Battalion Executive Officer (XO) Major Mason.
Major Mason had the respect of every single Marine in the battalion. He wasn't intimidating because he was an asshole, his intimidation was created by everyone's desire to make him proud. I knew he was a good dude, but I didn't know how he felt about two of his front line Lieutenant's holding hands in public. I became very nervous and desperately wanted to let go of Johnny's hand; but my gay pride wouldn't let me. I tried to look at the ground, but I allowed my eyes to wander too close to his face, and my gaze was sucked into his gaze. He looked from my eyes, to the oddly close distance between Johnny and I. He squinted his eyes as he attempted to register the situation.
I was literally squealing as I thought about whether or not he saw our hands. I had the same feeling that I always got when I heard an enemy machine gun off in the distance, as I waited for a string of bullets to litter the patrol.
We passed him by a few steps and hoped we were in the clear. I held my breath. Then someone yelled,
“HEY LIEUTENANTS!” I knew it was Major Mason. My heart sank.
We both quickly let go of our grips and turned to face the Major.
“Good afternoon sir,” we said in unison.
He had his hands on his hips and his head was cocked to one side, “are you two holding each others fucking hands?” He looked pissed.
I heard the group of Lieutenants laughing hysterically as they watched us from a distance.
At the same time, I said “No sir,” and Johnny said “Maybe sir.”
My face became bright red.
Major Mason’s walked over to us. His demeanor changed from angry to curious as he looked at his watch and said,
“Wow. We’re what? 6 months in? I would’ve expected this gay shit to start month 3.”
Johnny and I looked at each other confused, then looked back at the Major, with smirks. The Major concluded the conversation.
“Well, carry on boys, just don’t let your Marines see. Although they’re probably doing way gayer shit than that.”
“Roger that sir,” we said in unison again.
He walked away and we looked at each other in disbelief, then we lost it with laughter. We respected him for his understanding of what young Marines do. Even though we were Lieutenants, when we got together, we acted like a bunch of Sergeants, who, when they get together, act like a bunch of Lance Corporals, who, when they get together, act like 15 year old boys. All Marines of the same rank in a room together are like adolescent boys.
"Bro, we have to declare a tie. There's no way we can call that." I said.
"Agreed. We will live to play another day."
Johnny and I spent a few more minutes hanging out, then wandered over to the group of Lieutenants who watched it all. We knew we were gonna’ have a slew of jokes thrown our way at some point, so we just took it.
One Lieutenant kicked off the comedy, “so now that Major Mason knows you guys are faggots are you gonna’ just be totally open or what?”
Johnny shrugged, “yeah bro, I really don’t see why not.”
“I gotta tell my fuckin’ dad first man,” I replied.
“Well you’re gonna’ have to tell him you have AIDS too, cause’ after that British slut he nailed on Camp Bastion Johnny’s definitely HIV positive,” a Lieutenant said.
“No, no, that was herpes I popped for,” Johnny replied, “the AIDS is a non-issue right now bro. Don’t be givin’ me credit for diseases I don’t have. It’s not right, I have to earn it first.”
“Well, Doc said as long as I keep re exposing myself to different strands of the same diseases it’ll keep canceling them out. So as long as I keep fucking Johnny I’ll be golden.” I said.
“Yeah, actually I heard the same shit,” a Lieutenant said. “That’s why those hookers in Africa keep on turnin’ tricks. Cause’ every time they get plowed by a new dude they get a new strand of HIV and it just cancels itself out or some shit. Fucking brilliant bro, really. Good on you for stayin’ up on that shit.”
“It’s just science bro.” I said. “You do your research, and then you implement.”
“BAMCIS,” a Lieutenant said.
Everyone nodded and agreed about nothing.
I said bye to Johnny and moved on to visit another friend, a guy I was closer with than anyone at the District Center. Nick Garret.
To be continued in “Scent of an Angel”……..