Interlude: The War Story

It may surprise you, but I am not the best of in person story teller. I can type for days, but my delivery is just a little off. Standing behind the circle of lower enlisted the last night of the OPMOVE I watched SPQR show off his mastery of the War Story.
It is a simple game, always start with something small and easy. A kinda funny thing. The story should be either self deprecating or bizarre. If it is about how cool you were, then it is called boasting, an automatic disqualification. Then you play ‘one up’ following the theme of the last story you tell one that is stranger, dumber or more bizarre.
The story should follow the general lines of what really happened, but some…. Dramatic license is allowed. But I digress SPQR is talking.
“She was like totally digging on me, grinding one the dance floor. I’m doing my normal impersonation of an epileptic and she is like all over me. Now I don’t get much action… come on… with a grill like this amnd my fuckin’ alien shaped dome? We get all close and hot, and she kisses me. And I am all like wow… then she speaks… and I shit you not IT WAS A DUDE!!!!! I kissed a DUDE! But not all a dude, like going through the surgery, the top half was girl, but the bottom was still… well hanging there….”
The laughter is rolling as he goes into how fucked up his love life is. One of the HET drivers goes on abut finding out her boyfriend was bi… the hard way… coming home early from work. I wander off before SPQR lays down the War Story smack with his story about the buddy, a candle and a woman of negotiable virtue.
At the other end of the court yard is the War Stories about previous tours. Here is where we laugh about the back end of trucks disintegrating, or friendly fire, or helicopters that can’t tell the difference between a Toyota and a 5-ton truck.
It is the last night we will be hanging out with this group. This is how you bond. Like tribes have for as long as man has had the power of language. You gather around a fire and send out your story tellers. You learn where the other guys come from, who they are. It is also the only way to vent sometimes. One of the HET guys tells one about getting hit by an IED, and falling down in the back of his hummer. Then dragging his ass back into the turret. Wondering why the world seemed to be shaking until he realized he was dragging himself up by the triggers on his .50 cal machine gun. That gets a good one.
It is getting light in the sky by the time the last guy heads to his room. I take a wander to stare at the lightening horizon. My throat aches from the cigarettes, but I light one anyways. All the hardship, the pain… Every fucked up thing that happens to us, makes us tighter, as a squad, as soldiers, as members of the military.
Back home they don’t even know, this place is so removed from that. As soldiers leave the army over the next dozen years, and re enter civilian life, will they change our society? I know we will all miss this family of convenience. Vets from previous wars, those I knew when I enlisted, did it. Built families around their friends, they found hobbies that provided opportunities for night like tonight. Fraternal orders, SCA, Boy scouts, the American Legion or the VFW, all meet this need, when we miss it later. 2 million soldiers have rotated through Iraq… how much of an effect is that going to have on our country?
I ponder until the cigarette is finished, then turn my back on the sun and go crawl into my sleeping bag.