Vision Quest

32. Welcome to Afghanistan Part 1 Jesse James and Private Ryan

POV: Roger

    We arrived at the base in a C-141 outfitted to almost resemble a commercial passenger carrier. After landing all the new arrivals, were bussed to our barracks. There, we were assigned bunks and stowed our gear. Jesse and I were singled out as we were basically the only noncombatants to come in. We were greeted by a guy who asks if we were the two new supply specialists. He told us there was a jeep outside waiting to take us to the guy we'd be reporting to. We went out front and a guy in an open top jeep hollered at us, "Quartermaster grads?" We waved back at him and started toward the jeep.  

"Welcome to Afghanistan," he shouted. A gunshot rang out. He lurched and slumped over the steering wheel as if he'd been shot.

I turned to Jesse, "Crap! What do we do?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm going back inside and catching the next plane home." We both began scanning in every direction for help and for other additional threats.

I turned back towards the jeep to see if there was anything we could do for what I thought was the injured driver. My balls were in my stomach, my heart was in my throat, my bowels were about to lose it and my brain was running for cover with or without the rest of me. By the time I got all my organs under control I could see the driver was sitting up and laughing his head off at us.

We got in the jeep. "Kind of dark humor man," I scolded the driver.

"Get used to it. Everything is dark here. That gunshot was real, and somebody somewhere probably did fall over dead. The fatal shot can come at any time and from anywhere and next time the guy you are talking to drops dead it will probably be for real. I was just trying to prepare you for what to expect. By the way, bullets travel faster than sound. If you've heard the shot, it has already reached its target. Since you saw me jump after you heard the shot, you should have known I wasn't the target. If I had been you would have seen me jump first, then heard the shot."

The driver gave us a quick tour of the base and finally to a warehouse like structure where he introduced us to the man we would be reporting to.

We entered his office which was a small room in the front part of the makeshift warehouse. It was cluttered and generally in disarray. It stunk of stale tobacco and marijuana smoke, sweat and cheap air freshener. Sitting behind a standard metal World War ll vintage military desk was a staff sergeant leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk. I was beginning to suspect the laid-back type of guy the sergeant was when I noticed the stackable in and out box trays on his desk. On one side of the desk the two trays were labeled "IN" and "IN CREDIBLE." On the other side there were three labeled "OUT," "FAR OUT" and "OUT OF SIGHT."

"Here's the new cannon fodder Bernsy," our driver introduced us and handed him our paperwork.

"Private James reporting for duty," Jesse snapped to attention and saluted.

"Private Ryan reporting for duty," I followed suit.

"Chill dudes. Save your salutes for the dudes who wear their rank on their shoulders. Those of us who work for a living, wear our rank on our sleeves and don't have time to salute each other." He sat up in his chair and looked over our paperwork he had been handed. "So, you are the new guys. My sympathies." He motioned to two folding chairs. "Take a load off or at ease, or whatever. I'm sergeant Berns. You can call me Bernsy or Sarge and I'll be filling you in on your duties and how we do things here. You'll find things are a little different in a war zone than the way you were taught to do things stateside. First priority here is stay alive. All that takes is for you to do exactly what I tell you. I don't want to have to save private Ryan or worry about Jesse James getting shot in the back."