Soldiers don’t think such thoughts
Baghdad, Iraq
“Oh great, here comes the Liar in Chief,” said Soldier One to Soldier Two at the desert-embalmed military base not far from Baghdad.
“How you two soldiers doing?” said the President of the United States, strolling over with an entourage billowing around him, a cloud of cavalry made up of administrative, military, and media personnel. The President, dressed in desert camouflage, thought it all a great photo op.
“Just fine, Sir.” Soldier One extended her peg arm to the President. Her hand and forearm had been blown apart by a roadside bomb. She was off duty now wearing a wooden peg because still spooked by the metal claws that made for her new active duty fingers and by the synthetic flesh of her modeled prosthetic hand.
So the President shook her peg. “Good, good, that’s good to hear.” He turned to Soldier Two who took a half step forward on his wooden peg, hidden in his boot, to more firmly grasp the hand of the President.
“We’re ‘living the dream’, Sir.” He stared the president in the eye, his look lively, unsmiling.
“Is there anything you need? Anything at all? Any splendors of life the military denies?” The President chuckled in what he imagined was fraternal bonding. The President, often criticized for not appearing with the wounded, had jumped at the chance to greet these hobbled soldiers when he spied them passing by and almost left his handlers in the desert dust.
Soldier One rammed her peg into the President’s gut.
No, I’m sorry, of course she did not, that’s just this crazy story getting away from its author.
“No, Sir. We get about everything we ask for out here, and then some, we get everything we got coming, we don’t ask for much, would be a fool to ask for too much. We got all we need. No complaints,” said Soldier One.
“Sometimes my foot itches,” said Soldier Two. “You can’t see it but I’ve got a foot blowed off in my right boot. I’m walking on wood as we speak. But who am I to complain? I’m a soldier in the US Army. So I reach down and scratch the wood a bit. Sometimes I mark it with a knife. Sometimes I just leave the knife sticking straight in.”
Soldier Two had yet to grow fond of the titanium and plastic foot so vital for duty but figured he might in time. For now when off duty he preferred the old-fashioned peg. Peg leg. Leg of a peg. He had whittled the wood, contrived the padding and strap himself, with the help of Soldier One who showed him how after fashioning her peg hand and arm.
Soldier Two grabbed the President by the head and wrestled him to the ground.
No, of course he did not.
“Glad everything is good as can be here,” said the President of the United States with a firm nod. “Gotta go.”
But the President did not go. Soldier One reach out her peg arm and caught the President at the elbow. Soldier One, lately, had been suffering nightmares about being shot at and blown up for doing nothing, for rebelling, for breathing, and in her nightmares she was always petrified but never killed, as if she could not be, because each bullet struck wood, each screaming hot torching slicing tearing piece of shrapnel plunked wooden body parts that had been flesh only moments earlier. Occasionally the missiles blew Soldier One apart entirely, but someone always came along to pick up the pieces and cobble her back together, splinter by splinter, by timber by chunk. Soldier One – a wooden soldier. She could not be killed. So she hooked the President by the arm.
“Sir, there is something I must tell you.”
You’re a war criminal?
At that moment, Soldier Two foot-swept the President with his peg leg, dropping him to the dust. He put his peg upon the President’s neck.
No of course he did not.
