The road more taken

Rolling down another dark hi-way, the wind in my face. The intel brief said the temperature would be around 40. The gunners bundle up, the crews inside bring a jacket. SSG Lifeguard has complained about the heat down inside the truck before. Until the summer gets here he gets no sympathy. With Might Mouse on his four day pass we have a guest driver still, Sgt Zohan. All three of us deployed together last time. The energy level is so high you might be able to power an LED with it. This is the more dangerous route.
We get occasional small arms fire and once a week or so something blows up. Stay alert, stay alive. We scan and chat, I switch between NVGs, and the naked eye and occasionally gripe about wanting a thermal viewer. I might as well wish for a tank while I am at it, and I do. I miss my tank.
A bright flash up ahead reflects off the low thin clouds.
“You see that?” Lifeguard asks.
“Yep, looks like someone got hit, you want to ask the magic box what happened?” I ask, flipping down my NVGs and continuing the scan.
“Working on it.” He replies and begins tapping on the screen, trying to get some information from the satellite system. There is some mumbled derogatory comments from the TC seat as I scan the near and far distance. More lights fill this landscape. The NVGs reveal more but cause eye fatigue, you can only use them so long before you get a headache from focusing at different distances with each eye.
“Zohan, did you see some red stuff with the flash, kinda like tracers?” I ask.
“Yep, but nothing in the air.”
Tracers bounce, I don’t know if ball (lead) rounds bouce, but the burning marker rounds usually bounce into the stratosphere if they hit before burning out.
I keep scanning. Nothing out here but us chickens.
Life Guard gets the info. One of our sister company’s convoys was passed by a smaller faster unit, and they found the IED, no casualties.
We wait for a unit to clear the scene then move on south. Our ride along for this trip, SFC Big Daddy, pokes at SSG Moto to see if he is doing his job. Moto is always doing his job.
At the other end, as we sit and eat a midnight meal Moto, Lifeguard Zohan and I are sitting together. Normally the four of us don’t, I usually eat with the enlisted types, and the SSGs are gathered up by senior NCOs and officers. Zohan manages to switch up where he eats regularly. We get to talking. Earlier today we ran across another soldier who worked with us on the last tour. We look around and realize there are only six of us left who went with this company last time. Out of over seventy troops who went with the company last time only six are left. Seven if you include Doc Mom.
In only a few years, guys transferred, or got out, or just dropped off the face of the earth. It gave me a pause. I look at Moto, and say, “Next time you better be a platoon sergeant.” He just smiles and the conversation moves on.
My father used to teach a class to officer candidates about fear. The most important factor in controlling fear is knowledge. Knowing what to expect, or who is to your flanks, and what they are doing mitigates fear, or at least its effects.
One of the reasons they call us the Prozac squad up at battalion. Of course it might also be the easy leadership of our Squad Leader, but he might hear about it and I wouldn’t want his head to swell.