I don’t remember what the assignment was here, but I know I wrote it for a class. It could’ve been a really vague assignment like “write a 1500 word story with first-person dialogue.” I really don’t know. All I do know is that it was inspired by events going on at the time. 9/11 occurred just a few years before this was written, and we’d only been in Iraq for a year or two. One of my classmates that reviewed the story felt it was a completely unrealistic story, and I’m sure they are right. But cautionary tales aren’t supposed to be warm, fuzzy, and realistic. They’re supposed to be terrifying. It should also be noted that I wrote this years before the World War Z movie had zombies piling on top of each other to get over a wall, so the “human ramp” idea was my own. Not to say that the filmmakers took the idea from me, but I just want to be clear that I didn’t steal it from them.
When I turned in this assignment I messed it up: it was supposed to have three perspectives, and I wrote it with two. Even that threw my creative writing class for a loop. Many of them were confused about who was speaking. Because of this, I had the text color-coded for a while, but that took away from the point of the exercise. After all, we can’t expect people to print stories in color. Anyway, I decided to keep the two speakers in two different fonts (instead of colors) because I wanted it to be immediately obvious that there were two different narrators without having to spell it out for them every time I made a transition. I was never in the military, so I am sure that anyone who was in the military (or combat) will find flaws in the way I portray them. I’m sure I got a few technical or procedural things wrong, but I feel like I know humans well enough to portray them appropriately.
I celebrated my nineteenth birthday a week ago in the back of an armored vehicle in the deserts of Iraq. I didn’t even get the chance to vote before they shipped me over here. I joined the military in order to serve my country, but I didn’t expect to actually go to war. Now I’m busy surfing a wave I couldn’t see coming, and all because of my swelled sense of pride. Don’t get me wrong. I am more than willing to fight and die for my country. I just want to know who I’m supposed to be fighting against first.
We rolled through this damn desert of a country like a stampede of cattle, a continuous cloud of dirt rising behind us. We came in here like we owned the place, but now we’re just snooping around city streets. I actually wondered if I’d be willing to fire my gun, but as soon as we started taking fire it was no problem. Once they’re in range, I’m in range, and I’m not going to die while I debate my sense of ethics.
We’ve had mostly insignificant resistance, but it has affected us significantly. These people are horribly overpowered, but we still run into folks attempting to make their stand. Some of the guys keep taking fire because they don’t feel right about shooting them. Not everyone is in uniform like we expected would happen in a war. In fact, the people who are attacking us are dressed identically to those who aren’t attacking. Every time I see a local looking at me I feel like a racist.
It really boggles my mind that the Iraqis keep fighting. Everyone who resists gets killed, no questions asked. I don’t know what they’re thinking. Yesterday, we actually had a small group attack our line of armored vehicles with rocks and sticks. What is happening here? I feel like we’re playing volleyball with a hornet’s nest.
I remember the first American war clearly, though I was just a young boy. I was impressed with how the Americans were able to hold us back without an army. Our great and powerful leader made some bad decisions and was labeled a dictator. Until then, the world hardly seemed to take notice of him. I feared that his overzealousness would come back to haunt us. My fears, it seems, were justified.
Many years later, extremists who claimed to be followers of my religion sent thousands of Americans to their death. They changed the face of the world and brought the wrath of that Christian nation upon us. I have often feared what little truth there is in prophecy, and I heard the term jihad thrown around too readily. People were exploiting the idea of defending their religion to give cause for war.
I had been living in France for several years (attending university) when an intense pressure began to build in my home country. The Americans were putting pressure on Iraq, and they were certainly feeling it. I saw it as grossly antagonistic. Though at first I sympathized with how the Americans had suffered, I felt a surge in nationalism once I saw what they were doing to Afghanistan. They invaded a whole nation to find one man.
Feeling the pressure on “rogue” nations like my own, I made the decision to leave the university and join the Iraqi military. I felt a sense of companionship for coming home to my brothers and joining them in uniform. We believed that we had the blessings of Allah. We believed that our cause was just. We believed that our Muslim brothers would come to our aid from across the globe. Truly, we believed too much. I was simply being a foolish young boy.
The complete story appears in the 2026 revised edition of Ten Terribly Terrific Tall Tales Trying to Trip the Triune, coming soon.
