I first set foot in Afghanistan about ten months after the world watched the Towers burn, a newly-minted member of the few good men of the United States Marines. I saw my fair share of combat, found myself promoted a few times, but not much of that’s relevant to what I saw on that day in 2011. I was still in the country at that time, on my ninth or tenth tour; after a while, you sort of just forget what civilian life was like and stop missing it. It was just after the SEALs aired out bin Laden, but al-Qaeda was still kicking, and many of its leaders had gone dark for the moment. That didn’t stop us, though.
The man my squad was tasked with taking out was a true zealot, and that made it all the worse. His particular area of expertise was taking children from the nearby villages and teaching them that the best, no, the only way to reach Heaven was to take out as many Americans in one final blast as they could. General Petraeus had taken up a particular hatred for this insane Preacher, and thus the Marine Raiders were on the task to end the threat.
It was the middle of the night, Kandahar Province, just west of the Pakistani border. I and six others lay in wait in the vast desert as the Black Hawk peeled off and returned to base. We took up positions atop a particularly tall dune, where I pulled a pair of binoculars from a cord around my neck and surveyed the complex far below.
A cluster of sand-colored buildings was surrounded by a high concrete wall, behind which flitted about a dozen men, each of them armed. I adjusted the microphone in front of my mouth and spoke into it. I’m paraphrasing, of course; I’d be in even more trouble than I probably am already if I said real names.
“AWACS, requesting ETA for sniper support, over.”
“Sniper is currently setting up to your north, awaiting greenlight by CENTCOM, over.” the voice of the airplane’s radioman, harsh with static, rang out from the other end of the line.
“Wilco, out.” I said, turning the mic back off and returning to my watch over the base. It was illuminated with harsh industrial floodlights, but their cables all tracked back to a large, humming generator at the back of the compound. Now I knew what the sniper would shoot first. However, before I could look at anything else, a distant pop, pop caught my attention. Instantly, I snapped to the source of the noise and saw the occasional tiny spark of light illuminate the wastes to the west. The tangoes in the base rushed to their positions over the walls and began to return fire.
The seven of us ducked back behind the dune. “AWACS, we’re seeing shots; we’ve got a third party here. Any militia in the area, over?” I whispered.
“Negative; no forces that we know of. Identify and report, out.”
I flicked off the radio and turned to my men. “Well, you know what the boss means. Lock and load.”
All spoke their hushed assent; the loudest noise was the racking of rifles. I flipped my night-vision goggles down and activated them, peeking over the crest of the dune just in time to watch as a spray of gunfire sent three men tumbling down from the wall, their bodies broken and perforated.
“CENTCOM approves continuation of mission. Repeat, greenlight to advance, over.” the AWACS officer ordered in his usual monotone. At the same time, the complex’s generator let loose a shower of sparks and the whole facility plunged into darkness. A few moments later, the piercing crack of a high-caliber rifle shot rang out.
“Go, go, go!” I barked, standing up and beginning the charge down the dune, my team hot on my heels. Coming down from the northeast was another Raider squad, and we had taken a bet on who would breach the target first. It was a bet I was intent on winning. Before we knew it, we were huddled together at the wall with an insurgent directly above frantically shooting at a distant enemy while completely missing us. Moving single-file, I took point as we scampered around the perimeter, avoiding the occasional partially-buried improvised explosive and searching for a point of entry. Eventually, we came across one in the form of the compound’s main gate; we had inadvertently circled a full quarter of the way around to the east.
The other team appeared suddenly on the other side of the gate and the bet was immediately forgotten. I pointed to myself and then the gate; the other team leader nodded. Smiling silently (even though there was no chance I would be heard with the firefight still ongoing), I reached into my pack and retrieved the breaching charge I had spent months in training to be certified for. With utmost care, I placed the block of plastic explosive against the metal gate and pressed down until it stuck, then pushed in the detonator. We all inched back from the bomb as I made sure to keep my hand far from the remote at my belt. Once we were at a safe distance, I collected my thoughts, took a deep breath, and then, just as the gunfire fell silent, squeezed the lever.
With a tremendous crash, the gate folded in on itself and disintegrated in a spray of shrapnel. On cue, all fourteen of us surged through the breach and into the compound, only to find that our job had already been done. Slumped over the walls and sprawled out on the ground were a dozen militants, each man leaking crimson from several gunshot wounds.
“Alfa, what kind of ammunition killed these men?” I asked, slowly sweeping my rifle over the bullet-ridden interior of the fort.
“Looks like .45 ACP to me, but it also seems these guys were shot in the back. Spray patterns indicate some sort of submachine gun.” Alfa, our resident weapons expert said, rolling over a face-down insurgent with his foot. Indeed, a cluster of gaping holes far larger than their entry wounds was located on the front of his torso.
I looked at the rest of the Raiders. “Seems our friends got in first. Stay sharp–”
Suddenly, a loud yelp of alarm rang out from the central building, followed by two stuttering bursts of gunfire. “Down!” Alfa shouted, diving for cover. I hit the dirt hard, my rifle pointed at the redoubt of the Preacher. A few moments later, there was a crash of furniture as someone slumped to the ground, and someone cried out in Pashto, “Kill the demons! Kill them, by Allah!”
Curious; I’d never heard them call us that before. I motioned for us to take up breaching positions while the other squad cleared the surroundings. There were two doors into this structure, so we split into two groups of three and four. As I and two others prepared to breach the front entrance, the pap-pap-pap-pap-pap of a Kalashnikov on full auto prickled my ears. A few moments later, a man let forth a harrowing, tortured scream of dying agony.
With a single well-placed kick, I knocked the front door from its hinges, disturbing yet another fallen insurgent, his legs blown off below the knees. The wall to my left was pockmarked with shrapnel, and to my right was the half-melted casing of a Claymore mine. The door on the opposite side of the room to me was busted open, bringing me to the uncomfortable conclusion that he had triggered it while fleeing from someone.
All together, we proceeded further in, eyes out for any additional traps. Unfortunately for the militants, it seemed that the fate of the doorman wasn’t exactly uncommon. The Preacher was a particular fan of guns mounted on tripwires, and judging by the amount of al-Qaeda laying about with their heads blown off, they hadn’t exactly been put to good use. More worryingly, several were propped up against the walls, their rifles still resting in their mouths.
Finally, we reached the quarters of the Preacher, but when I opened the door, all I saw was more of the same. There was a bed surrounded by an end table and bookcases and an ajar door leading into a corridor, but the furniture was all overturned and the paint on the walls was scuffed, like someone had dragged a heavy object over them. Still lying in the bed, slowly staining the sheets red was the Preacher, still bleeding from two clusters of bullet wounds.
A hint of movement caught my eye and I turned to see one last insurgent standing in the hallway, his eyes wild and insane with fear, his AK already shouldered. I turned, my carbine at the ready, but I already knew I wouldn’t be quick enough on target. All I could do was brace myself; this was going to hurt like hell.
Kpok!
I flinched at the noise, but felt nothing. The militant’s head snapped to the side in a spray of blood and he dropped instantly. A shell casing clattered to the floor behind him, then dissolved into smoke. Then, an M1911 appeared floating in mid-air, still smoking. The hand gripping it faded into existence next, and so on, until standing before me was a ghastly sight.
A man stood there, wearing a scorched uniform of the type not worn by Marines since the Korean War. His helmet was marked and pitted with shrapnel, and his legs were held on by the bones alone. His face was burned beyond recognition, his jaw hung limply from one side, and his eyes were milky white, but they bored into me with an intensity I had not seen before or since. Flanking him were two similarly-disfigured men bearing Tommy guns. The apparitions didn’t move.
“You’re all seeing this, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Alfa said, incredulous.
I inched forward. “Friendly?” I asked.
“Friend-ly.” the lead entity enunciated, his voice raspy and breathless.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The spirit must’ve taken me quite literally, as images of another life flashed through my mind. Growing up playing baseball in Kentucky, an idyllic life forever changed when President Roosevelt came on the radio to speak of a day that would live in infamy. Wanting to go out and help, but being too young to fight. His day finally coming two years later, when he joined the Marines. A few months later, deploying to an island he’d never heard of before, a place called Okinawa, as a replacement for a dead man in the relief camps. Admitting starving civilians, watching as a woman cradling a baby came up to their checkpoint, not seeing the stick of dynamite tucked under her formal kimono until it was too late–
It ended there. I returned to my senses to see the Marine waiting intently.
“You did all of this?”
He nodded.
“Was it because of what he did?”
Again, he nodded. Then, the full gravity of the situation hit me; I was talking to a ghost. I didn’t know whether or not to panic, open fire, or do any one of a thousand things flashing through my mind. However, the spirit put my mind at ease with two words.
“Sem-per fi-de-lis.”
It didn’t matter, did it? He was dead, yes, but no less of a Marine than I. In all probability, this old veteran was greater, a man who retained his loyalty after giving up his body. In a surge of passion, I saluted the Marine, and the two with me followed suit. A few moments later, he returned the gesture, and the good side of his face pulled back in a grin.
“Dismissed, soldier.” I said, putting my hand back down. The Marine nodded, then spun on his heel with his two men at his sides and vanished once more.
I’m still a Marine today, though I’ve gotten my commission now. CENTCOM called me crazy when I recounted my encounter to them, but considering how the three particular agencies with three-letter acronyms have sent their people to talk with me over the years, I don’t think the military was as skeptical as it let on. Certainly, there’s some field office somewhere where a bunch of scientists are trying to figure out how to call the dead upon the enemy; the Feds have funded weirder projects.
Now, me personally? I’m actually somewhat relieved. At least I know that when I give up the ghost, there’s a chance that me and my buddies will join the ever-growing ranks of the big Corps in the sky. You could call it a modern-day Valhalla, but I don’t think that does it justice. It’s a calling, a service just like in life, maybe even a gateway to something greater.
After all,
If the Army and the Navy ever look on Heaven’s scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.