Roll-Call

“Bang!”, “Bang!”” Bang!”

I still fully asleep look up, as a bright light overwhelms me as the door to our CHU (Container Housing Unit) flings open.

I hear a booming voice, but it is unreadable and unintelligible as I regain a tangent of cognition. As my eyes adjust to the discomforting immediacy of SSG Donahue’s silhouette, I began to comprehend the words being spoken to me, us.

SSG D speaks louder than was necessary in those waking moments, “Company formation at the motor-pool, 20 minutes”. The door was immediately slammed shut by SSG D, partially a reprieve from the early morning light that had invaded our home, and equally a measure to stir an awakening among us.

I heard his words, but ever so wanted to pretend that I was not listening. Hearing 20 minutes immediately computed to my well-conditioned soldiered mind that we needed to be there in 10-15 minutes. I without hesitation chose to be there as late as possible, need to keep my Specialist “sham-shield” status.

Again, I began to regain a greater appreciation for my immediate situation and surroundings. A feat made all the more difficult by our last week of unrest, during the always trying “Quick Reaction Force” detail, nine months into our fifteen-month deployment to Iraq during the Surge. I lay on the same cot issued to generations before me, one only capable of giving a dog-tired soldier any degree of rest. As I throw off my “woobie”, I look at the two other inhabitants in my (our) domicile of rest.

PFC. Young and my fellow Specialist, who I came to the battalion with a little under a year ago. SPC. Actaeon and PFC. Young, were my squad-mates, and the other “Joe” members of our truck-crew. Young (AKA Tard, for his “retard strength”), a nickname that made him salty to boot, as our relative “boot”. As well as Actaeon, who easily enough managed the moniker “Greco”. SSG Donohue was our truck commander, with two tours under his belt, and an easy going but focused point of view, he was the best NCO I have ever known.

I was acting gunner, and therefore was most immediately responsible for my crew, and their corresponding actions to make formation. Our crew, us. In all honesty, it was a responsibility I despised, and which myself and Greco happily passed back and forth as we fucked up individually in the role. That is not an admission of being shitbags, but that we accepted the OCD standards of our NCOs (Don, Platoon Sergeant, 1st Sergeant, Command Sergeant Major), could not be met. Greco and I basically gauged that our chain of command was not really expecting what they said, but to meet them halfway. And that is what we attempted to do.

I began making more noise than I ever wish to at my exhausted friends, and rouse “my” crew. For whatever stupidity follows our retarded tour thus far. This is the shit we hoped to forgo upon departing garrison life, and into a combat zone, where we can be treated as somewhat responsible young adults.

The three of us threw on our uniforms and gathered our immediately necessary sensitive items (personal weapons, a spare magazine, and an MBiter radio on my part) in a space no larger than the smallest walk-in closet. We do so, half-alive and half-aware, a norm that no person should have to meet.

We exit our CHU, and see a somewhat familiar but all the same disturbing sight. Every member of our battalion is stumbling towards the same direction we are supposed to. I know the “walking dead” expression, but this isn’t it, it is something different.

No matter we fall in with our cohorts, not even immediately cognizant of the order that woke us. It is fair advice to follow the crowd in the military when you are somewhat unaware of your immediate intended function. In our collective stupor of sleeplessness and physical exhaustion, we followed our crowd.

The city in which we operated in was always talking. There was the near constant chatter of gun-fire and explosions. After nine months in and around that city, those violent events gave a certain peace of mind, where their absence raised alarm.

They were absent this cold and solemn morning, around a group of buddies that always found humor in the worst of circumstances.

Our friends and comrades are headed towards the battalion motor-pool, and we follow without a second thought. No jokes were made on the journey, a rarity among the collective company surrounding us. We have been here before, and bad news usually follows such an atmosphere.

We have had plenty of bad news recently, with an ongoing steady trend of friends being lost to the nature of war. Weapons and tools have evolved, but that part of warfare hadn’t changed since before recorded history.

We were late, at least in comparison to our fellow members of the Banshee Company to which we belonged. Looking at their faces as we approached, it appeared as if they had been standing there all night, waiting for something to stir them into motion. There was a noticeable melancholy in the faces of my fellow soldiers, one that was admittedly painful to see among persons I considered to be my 2nd family. There was also an apparent seething hatred among them all, one where the calm surface they exhibited was not reflected by the inward determinacy towards extreme violence on those who have lethally contested our presence since arriving in this far away land.

We took our places within the Banshee Company formation, filling absent spaces that were explicitly tied to our roles and functions in an organization greater than any one man in our unit. Over the next few minutes, others did the same. The end result was battalion of soldiers in formal formation within our motor pool. Minus Apache Company, who only had their HQ platoon present. No matter the immediate issues, we had an ongoing responsibility to keep a presence within our Area of Responsibility within the city. That boot had fallen on us before, and now Apache took up the guard. All members had a weary and pained body-language painted across them, with a greater resolve apparent among the Non-Commissioned Officers that guided the implementation of our Commissioned Officers, who directed our cumulative efforts according to the assigned vision from the Battalion Commander that we served under.

“Attention!”

Hundreds of pairs of boots snapped together, despite many having to reach into their own energy reserves to do so, myself included. Made all the more difficult by paying false respect to an officer we all hated, Lieutenant-Colonel Tucker. Our hatred is well-founded, a coward of a leader who caused more casualties by avoiding fights that should have been fought head-on. The only man that made me hesitate to reenlist, ordering his lower officers (and us enlisted as result)  to follow his stupidity.

LC Tucker immediately took stand in front of us in the motor pool, with a near immediate order to stand “At Ease”. There was movement to follow his command, but no ease. Something was up. Tucker rapidly turned the formation over to our highest NCO, Command Sergeant Major Bell. A man who seemed to hate his fellow enlisted soldiers in garrison back in the States, but overseas we came to more and more realize that he was trying his best to look after us in respect to  ineffectual leadership from LC Tucker. They were private battles between Tucker and Bell, but we all knew the source of change in our ongoing  headache with insufficient formal leadership from Tucker.

Bell without any further formality began the continuous and ongoing practice of accountability through roll-call. The only difference this day, was he skipped immediately to my Banshee Company. Bell called out first our First Sergeant, 1SG Owens. 1SG Owens had silently done his best to protect his lower-enlisted soldiers from the calamities occurring higher in our chain of command. He was a hard-ass, but he protected us more than I would ever know.

“First Sergeant Owens!”

“Here Sergeant Major!”

Next followed was the calling towards our Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant First Class Burnett. A hard-ass to a fault, but the best and wisest man I have ever known besides my father. SFC Burnett was always cool and collected around me, outside from when he hosted us “joes” who were away from our families during Christmas.

He did something I had never seen from him, he hesitated, only to respond excruciating seconds after Bell’s command to address his presence. Even then, it was with little more than an anguished response rather than his trademark motivational demeanor.

“Here Sergeant Major”

SSG Donohue was called next by CSM Bell.

Donohue as a dutiful NCO responded nearly immediately.

“Here Sergeant Major!”

“Staff Sergeant Matt Donohue! Report!”

Donohue, among the rest of us were perplexed as he repeated himself vocally.

“HERE SERGEANT MAJOR!”. Donohue responded desperately as if he was about to lose his stripes.

Our buddies around us seem equally upset at CSM Bell’s command, and as puzzled around the circumstances as our crew was.

“Specialist Moore!”, with my name called I tried to remedy the overlooking of SSG Donohue by sounding off as loud as I could.

“HERE SERGEANT MAJOR!!”, a pause followed.

“Specialist Anthony Moore”

Frantically shout with as much vigor as I can muster.

“HERE SERGEANT MAJOR!!!”

Nothing but silence in response, and the looks of those around me that could seize hope from the strongest of men. Something was wrong, more wrong than we had ever previously expected.

“Specialist Actaeon!”, my friend did his duty in firmly responding as Donohue and I had done before.

“Here Sergeant Major!”

“SPECIALIST  ALASTAIRE ACTAEON!”

Actaeon shouted himself horse as he attempted to respond in earnest, only for our crew to be the only party to hear his passionate assertion of existence.

“Private First Class Young”

Young was catching on better than the rest of us apparently.

He despondently and half-heartedly responded.

“Here Sergeant Major”

“PRIVATE FIRST CLASS YANCY YOUNG!”

Young made no attempt to respond, looking utterly defeated.

CSM Bell did an immediate 90 Degree turn and faced LC Tucker, as he reported the absence of four troops under his command.

An Army band not previously seen or acknowledge by us began to play Taps, a tune that can melt the iciest of outward soldier facades. Our buddies around us are openly sniffling and outright crying as that somber song translates the painful reality of what has occurred. Even having experienced such ceremonies before,  that tune echoes the immediate pain that comes with every friend and acquaintance that is lost.

We slowly began to realize our state, and our crew of four huddled together while listening to that solemn song that has followed the passing of generations of American combatants before us. There was no acceptance, only unsaid acknowledgement among us that signaled we had followed the path of many before us.

We concluded our small gathering after an unfathomable amount of time, only to look up in awe. We were no longer among our comrades in Iraq, but among over a million of comrades from several generations who had met similar fates.

As we attempted to make sense of our new circumstance, a figure in an olive drab, with full-bird Colonel Insignia, wearing a warm smile, extended a hand towards SSG Donohue.

The figure with a noticeably heavy weight on his conscious, but balanced with an apparent graceful understanding of our collective fate, said only two words, “Welcome gentlemen”.