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“What’d she have to say? Was she cool?” He pokes a saliva-soaked finger into my ear and I pull my head away quickly, scrunching my nose and throwing a wild punch that he easily maneuvers..

“Cocksucker, you know I fucking hate wet willies.”

“I know, that’s why I do it!” He chuckles, causing Thomas and Mike to both stir in their sleep. “So … was she cool?”

I take a moment to think, tugging at the frayed edges of my sleeve. "Well, let’s just say we won’t be doing The Amazing Race together anytime soon.”

We both laugh, and just as I'm about to continue, a gunshot fires in the distance, echoing toward our position. Another one pops off and then another, and clusters of civilians run feverishly back toward their houses.

More shots ring out and Mike is awake and nervously looking around, but Thomas somehow remains sleeping.

"Thomas, wake the fuck up!" I nudge him in his side, but he doesn't move. "Thomas, wake your fucking ass up now!" I hiss, and he finally wakes, startled and confused.

"There's some shit going down. I need you to pull it together." Thomas nods his head in affirmation, though he still isn't fully there. I direct my attention back to Navas.

"You see anything up there?" While I wait for him to respond, I peer out the windshield opposite the neighborhood toward the field stretching a mile into the horizon. Palm groves and large boulders are scattered across it, making it hard to spot enemy movement.

"I don't see anything. Nothing through the binos. Nothing in the field or adjacent neighborhood, but there’s a lot of cover that way,” Navas yells down through the hatch. “You think it's a sniper?"

"That's what it sounded like to me. Who the fuck are they shooting at though?" Two more rounds pop off. I notice movement in the neighborhood, but I can’t make out what’s going on.

As I'm about to have Thomas d

rive toward the houses, a mob of civilians—at least ten to fifteen—exit the neighborhood and make their way to our position. They're frantically pointing toward the field and then back at the street. A woman slips between the mob carrying something in her arms. It looks like a little sack of potatoes covered in a light blue shawl. A deep red quickly overwhelms the blue. Fuck.

The group nearly reaches our position when another shot rings out. It hits nothing, but most of the men and women go scrambling for cover. The woman with the bloody shawl doesn't even flinch but continues shuffling forward. She weeps relentlessly.

"Mike, let's go!" I say as I exit the Humvee, and he quickly follows suit. The woman meets us behind the cover of my open door and maneuvers one hand around to pull back the shawl. My stomach tightens and I feel vomit working its way to the surface. I also feel an insuppressible rage as I stare into the lifeless, doll-like eyes of a young girl, no more than five years old.

Blood pours from an entry wound in her chest. My heart lurches beneath my rib cage, and I instantly want to kill every last one of these desecrators of innocence. I want to make them suffer. I want them to wish that their Allah would rip the life from their bodies because the pain is just too unbearable.

"Navas, call the fucking medics! Get them over here now!" I yell, my voice breaking.

I grab a blanket from the trunk and lay it on the ground behind our Humvee. Mike is trying to talk to the woman, but his words are interrupted by her screams. I meet them back by the door and gently take the girl from the woman's arms and into my own.

One more round tears through the leg of a civilian clinging to the outer wall, blocked partially by a palm. He wails in pain. Mike ducks and pulls the woman in closer to us. We move in unison back behind the Humvee for better cover.

"It's her daughter,” Mike says. “She says the gunfire came from the field. That there’s a man shot in the street, too.” He points to the neighborhood as I set the girl on top of the blanket and check her pulse. Nothing. I grab a pressure dressing from my med-pack and hold it tightly against the wound as our other Humvees pull up behind us, parking side by side. I lift the girl using the blanket and lay her back down between the vehicles. Our platoon medic, Specialist Benedict, races from the back seat of one of the Humvees and meets me by the girl’s side. The other doors begin to open.

"Stay the fuck in the vehicle! We're taking fire! Let your gunners hold up a defensive position while Benedict works." Mike guides the woman to Benedict and they both kneel down beside us. The woman is hysterical now, rocking back and forth. Her screams cause the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. "Benedict, I need you to see what you can do here. I'm going to take our Humvee to that field to find these motherfuckers."

"Roger that, Sarge!" He quickly goes to work, though for just the briefest of moments, his eyes say exactly what I already know—this girl is gone.

I motion for each gunner to point their weapons in opposite directions, and then I head toward my own vehicle. Mike starts to do the same, but I put a hand up to stop him. "Stay with them! Talk her down," I say, climbing into the vehicle and pointing in the direction of the field. "Thomas, go! As fast as you fucking can!"

He pulls out slowly at first, mindful of the three kneeling behind us, but once the coast is clear, he puts the pedal to the floor. The engine roars as the Humvee picks up speed, tearing toward the field. We get about a mile down the road when we see a man leap from behind a large boulder, throwing his sniper rifle down and taking off in the opposite direction. As we come up beside the boulder, two more men throw down sniper rifles and ammunition, pick up AK-47s and take off .

The first man is about a hundred yards away when Navas rips off a string of shots from his machine gun. They tear through the man's back, putting a hole straight through his stomach. He grips both hands at the open wound as he falls to his knees, finally settling face-first in the sand. Navas then directs his machine gun toward the second man and he fires. The rounds don't hit the man but tear into the ground just behind him. The insurgent throws his AK-47 to the ground and then himself, putting his hands behind his head. The third man sees this but continues running. He turns and fires rounds at Navas, forcing him down into the safety of the vehicle. More rounds come in, one after the other, preventing Navas from resuming his post and firing back.

"Navas, stay down, I've got this one." I open my door and exit, and with the Humvee between the fleeing insurgent and myself, I rest the barrel of my rifle on the hood. I position the red crosshairs on his head as he turns to fire again, and then I gently squeeze the trigger. The round erupts from my barrel and rips a hole through his head, taking off a piece of his skull. Blood spurts from the wound as he crumples to the ground.

I race to the other insurgent, who remains facedown on the ground, and I quickly zip-tie his hands together. Navas scrambles back in the turret to pull security while I snatch the insurgent up by his arms and drag him back to the Humvee. I throw him into the back seat carelessly, then I walk to the boulder they used for cover and find a small cache of weapons to include sniper rifles, AK-47s, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and several cases of ammunition. One by one, I place them in the back compartment of the Humvee.

When I’m all done, I return to the vehicle. The insurgent is angrily speaking Arabic to Thomas, who just as angrily ignores him.

“Shut the fuck up!” I scream at him, though he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. He looks defiantly at me then spits in my direction, missing me by an inch, and continues rattling off shit I don’t know or care to know.

“I said shut the fuck up, motherfucker!” I repeat with fire burning in my eyes. I want to kill him … I want to rip the soul from his body, but we need him. We need a live body for the detention facility. He continues talking, but this time I say nothing. I leave the driver’s side of the vehicle and swing open the back door, charging in and punching him squarely in the face. He topples over, and I grab him by his arm and yank him back to a seated position. He wipes his bloody nose on his shirt and continues eyeballing me. I punch him again, and then again, until he finally averts his eyes to the Humvee floor.