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SERGEANT JOSE GITHENS
- University of Virginia Press
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50 SERGEANT JOSE GITHENS LITTLE GIRL, RUN . . . IT’S NOT SAFE HERE It’s 150 degrees and the breeze feels like a hair dryer blowing finely powdered dirt at close range into my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and even under my clothes. Everyone on the team wears a neck gaiter and pulls it up over his face in order to breathe. I thought today might be uneventful, but one of the commander ’s runners walks my direction. “Hey, he wants you to grab your gear and be ready to roll out in an hour.” We all know who “he” is. I am an armorer, and before deploying I helped fix and calibrate multiple weapons systems in our battalion . The commander wants me in his Humvee whenever he goes on a convoy so if he runs across one of his units with an inoperable weapon I can fix it. Or, say we get ambushed and a weapon malfunctions , then he has someone to correct the problem. After the first few ambushes I began to think of the adrenaline rush as normal, which allows me to focus less on when an attack might happen and more on my part in the countermeasures. I grab my flak vest, Kevlar helmet, and load of ammunition. On my way to the staging area, I stop by my storage CONEX (military shipping container) and pull out a couple of AT-4s (antitank ordnance ) and a box of grenades, and then drop the keys off with my first sergeant in case I don’t make it back and someone else has to locate the spare weapons and ammunition. He gives me a look as if to say you better make it back here. I don’t care if you limp back, just make it back. I meet up with the rest of the guys at the staging area, a broken piece of road inside the wire. “Which vehicle am I in?” A friend who works in the motor pool as a mechanic replies, “Lead vehicle. You know that’ll never change.” What the fuck is wrong with the commander? I think. Doesn’t he realize the first and last vehicles are most prone to being hit during an attack? Drivers and gunners huddle up for the convoy brief with the LITTLE GIRL, RUN . . . IT’S NOT SAFE HERE 51 commander. Everyone listens, because if you’re not a driver then you’re a gunner. No such thing as a passenger. Everyone locks and loads when we leave the wire. We complete basic vehicle checks, including radio, personnel, weapons, ammunition, and water. Once vehicles report good-to-go status, the commander orders the rollout. We drive into Bagram, the town just outside the wire of the air base. We end up parking on a side street adjacent to a main road. The destination point is the corner building. We exit the vehicles and post guard while the commander and a few others walk inside the building. Many of the locals, young and old, come out to talk. Most ask for food, water, even money. I stand with a firm stance and a look that says I will kill any of them who come too close to the vehicle. Sometimes locals rush toward the vehicles, trying to steal whatever they can grab, while others throw grenades inside. When a young boy points toward my vehicle and little by little walks toward it, I tap on my rifle and signal him with my hand to step back, but he keeps speaking in Pashto and pointing. Kid, I don’t know what you’re saying and I don’t really care. Just back away. Then the kid lunges toward the Humvee with his arm extended and hand balled into a fist. Fuck, he’s chucking a grenade into my truck is my first thought. As he lunges, my M16 comes up to center mass, dead center of his chest. My finger wraps around the trigger a pulse away from squeezing. Our actions unfold in both a split second and slow motion. Out of the corner of my eye I see his finger is extended. The kid’s pointing at something inside the vehicle. He freezes a few inches from the Humvee, and I realize he’s pointing at a Snickers candy bar left on the dashboard. “Fuck, kid!” I yell, adrenaline flowing high and heartbeat accelerated . “I almost took you out for a fucking Snickers bar!” My finger unclenches the trigger...