Brothers in Arms- A harrowing escape

While I’m in the bathroom, I hear the screeching alarms. My pulse starts pumping as I hear the *klack klack klack* of AK’s in the neighboring rooms. I feel awful for the guys getting shot. But I wouldn’t do anybody any good by going against all those bad guys (who knows how many) and their AKs versus me and solitary pistol.

I huddle the bathroom until the sound fades. I know it’s now or never. I dash out the bathroom, and down the hallway to the exit. When I jump out, a bearded young man stands with his AK pointed to the ground, apparently standing guard, shocked and speechless at my apparition. I, too, am dumbfounded by his appearance. This is one of those moments where seconds turn into hours. Rushing through my mind are thoughts of disbelief, that I am actually in a warzone, standing in front of a person who wants to kill me.

With my thoughts all over the place, I default to my training. I raise my pistol to the level of his forehead and shoot twice. He falls to the ground before he ever gets a chance to point at me.

I can’t believe it. I just killed someone. Why did I hesitate? He must have been less experienced than me. Why else did he pause at the same time as me?  I should be elated that I eliminated my threat, but guilt instantly creeps in. I push it aside and focus on survival.

I make a mad dash for a rock. It’s the only protection I have from the invaders. From the safety of this rock, I see a hole in the wire fence at the edge of the base. The invaders apparently penetrated through there but have left it unsupervised. That means I have a narrow window of escape. I set my mind on running through that hole. Before I do, I check my surroundings to make sure no one has their eye on me.

But I find something more disturbing than being spotted: my brother Grant, laying flat against a rock between the base entrance and the JAG building (apparently he tried to escape through the gate but was pinned by the invaders standing guard), with three invaders: two of them with an AK and one guy with a heavy machine gun. The thought of my brother getting blown away by all that makes me sick.

I have to act. I don’t think twice. I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t do something, especially since I let my buddies in the base get shot.

I take my pistol, remember that it has 13 bullets left in the magazine. I have two magazines in addition to that. That should be enough to do something.

I take aim and fire. I hit the wall behind the invaders. They stop to see where it came from. I shoot again, kicking up the dirt behind them. I fire 4 more shots rapidly with the same result. Come on! Why did I nail that one guy but I can’t get a bullet anywhere near these guys? Then I have a flashback to my short-range weapons training: my instructor said pistols are SHORT RANGE weapons.

The long-range inaccuracy of my weapon notwithstanding, my shots mercifully distracts the invaders enough to let Grant to fire a few shots from his pistol. He nails the one with the heavy machine gun right in the shoulder as he runs for cover behind the JAG building. I shoot another shot to confuse them and let Grant dash to the next building. He fires a shot in between the buildings.

The guy with the bad shoulder is screaming and out for the count, and the two guys still standing don’t know who to shoot at first. In their confusion, they shoot at the buildings, at the rock, above the buildings, next to the rock. A fourth invader jumps from the side of the building and they shoot him on accident.

Grant plops down next to me, as if magically appearing out of nowhere, panting breathlessly. I told him now’s the perfect time to run through the hole in the fence. The enemy is frustatingly confused and doesn’t have back up yet. We dash through the fence together.

My heart pounds in fright when I suddenly hear Grant screaming bloody murder. I look down, but he’s not bleeding anywhere. He says, “Pretend like you’re shot.” The second he says that, I hear three whizzes past my head. I drop instantly, screaming bloody murder like Grant, putting on one of the best acting performances of my life.

Thankfully, we are at the top of the hill. We tumble down in and hide in the trees next to the stream.

Expecting unfriendly company, we carefully trudge our way along the stream. We keep an eye on everything. The rustling of every leaf is like a threatening unwelcome to our presence. It appears that we have no pursuers. This generates mixed feelings: maybe we should be glad that they’re gone, but perhaps they’re only in our blind spot.

Grant takes the lead while I keep vigil on our tail. We keep our pistols in our hands at all times.

The nearest friendly location is an Army base about 10 miles away. The sun is setting already. We don’t dare go any further in the dark. We don’t know what nasty things wait for us between here and the Army base.

We find a small cave to spend the night. In the chaos of the base invasion, we never thought to pack something to eat. I am starving and am desperate for even just a tasteless MRE. At least we both have our camelbacks and have something to drink. Grant’s is mostly full but mine is ¾ empty. I was going to refill it after I went to the bathroom. We agree to ration our water as much as possible. We also agree to keep quiet in the cave and not light any fires. Anything to keep the enemy off our tail.

In the fading twilight, I notice Grant pull out a picture of his family. As he looks longingly at the picture of his wife and two boys, my heart goes out to him. He was deployed two days after he and Sara their 9th anniversary, and missed Joshie’s 4th birthday in July and Mason’s 7th birthday in September. We had two weeks left in our deployment before we had to go back. I pray that we can make it back so Grant can be united with his family.

As I offer this silent prayer, I feel something in my right pocket. Of course. How could I forget? I always keep a picture of Kristina and me. We had been married for a little more than a year when I deployed and we had just been approved for adoption.  We were scheduled to receive a newborn baby girl in December, two months after coming home from the deployment. I pray for myself, so that I can make it back into the comfort of my wife’s arms, and feel the warmth of a baby girl in my own arms.

Without meaning to, my thoughts turn to the enemy I killed. He had a beard, but looked fairly young. Did he also have a wife and kid? If not, he must have had parents, siblings, friends, etc. who were worried sick about his safety. An internal conflict rapidly ensues:

No. Don’t let these thoughts get into your mind. He would have killed you.

But I was in his country. Doesn’t that make me the invader?

No, you were following orders. You didn’t want to be here more than anybody else.

But if I never joined the Air Force, I never would have been here.

Stop right there. The Air Force has treated you and your wife well. Further, you felt a duty to protect your country.

But...

With an unresolved emotional conflict, I surrender to my exhaustion and fall alseep on the rocky ground of the cave.

It seems like I barely closed my eyes when Grant gently shakes me awake. Through the piercing dawn, I see the face of the enemy I shot. Did he have plans to go to school? What were his dreams? I cut all of them short.

Stop. Think about your wife, and the daughter you will have soon. Just get home. Just get Grant home.

We walk out of the cave and head in the direction of the Army base. We suddenly spot a grey rectangle in the distance. It’s approaching. It’s a tank!

Grant says, “Down!”

At first, lying flat on the ground seems like an absurd solution. I feel like we should run to the forest, but I have witnessed Grant's gift for improvising his way out of a sticky situation, so I obey.

He explains, It’s possible that we’ve been spotted, but they probably haven’t seen us yet. If they have, they would have shot already. Running into the forest would guarantee that they saw us and shot at us. Just lay perfectly still.”

For several long, drawn-out, agonizing minutes, the tank rolls in our direction. Eventually, the tank rolls bye so close we can smell the fumes. But they don't stop and they don't shoot. We have avoided detection. Grant saved our skins.

After this harrowing experience, and a few hours of walking, we spot the Army. Even though we are famished, parched, exhausted, sunburned, and achy, we make a mad dash for the Army base, even quicker than the exit we made out of the invaded Air Force base.

We tell our story to the Staff Sergeant at the gate. He teases us for crawling to the Army for help, but he lets us in and tells us that they're glad we're safe.

We get in touch with our unit OIC (Officer in Charge), Colonel Johnson. He says since we’ve been through hell and our deployment is nearly up anyway, he rewards us by letting us end our deployment a month early so we can go home to our families.

Reflecting on the night in the cave, I start getting choked up with gratitude. I tell the Colonel I don’t know how to thank him enough. He responds by saying, “You already did, Lieutenant: with a job well done.”

Grant and I agree that we will find other work once our contracts are up. We can’t wait to be back in our own beds with our own families. In the meantime, we thought we’d never be happier to eat Army food, sleep on Army cots, or have the Army’s bottled water.