Another Grain of Sand

Somehow he was between two buildings, houses, squeezed in between, no, not squeezed:  could have gotten out if he wasn’t wounded already.  He somehow got out of the house we burned.  Went old school, we did, molotov cocktails and let the bitch burn.  He got out.  Somehow.  Escaped the fire and got out and got shot and got stuck and yelled : “Allahu akbar!  Allahu akbar!  Allahu akbar!”  Our translator heard him first, alerted, “Ali baba!  Ali baba! Irhabim!  Ali baba!  Irhabim!”  So I approached, looked between the buildings.  He was on his back.  Clearly wounded, but alive enough to shout in protest in defiance “  Allahu akbar!  Allahu akbar!”  Aim.  Pull trigger.  Dead with a single shot to the head.  Point Blank Period.  But he was wounded.  He should have been taken as a POW.  Ne guh tiv.  Shut him up with a single shot.  Took the rifle off of automatic.  And took him out with a single shot.  Point blank Dead.  And ate a nice supper after.  Smoked a good smoke.  I never made expert shooter.  Did make marksman.  Allahu akbar!  Trigger pull.  Enjoy your virgins, motherfucker.  And the rest of you get to argue politics safely from your armchairs. Which among you were there?  Fight it and then politicize it.  Fucking civvies.  Never killed an Iraqi.  Killed Jordanians, Iranians, Chechyans humma humma.  Iraqis were too busy trying to survive, too busy surviving to fight.  And the Iraqi civvies were the ones who greeted us.  Gave us the thumbs up when we were on patrol.  “Mistah, hey, mistah, USA numba wan, mistah, numba wan!”  and we gave them school supplies and set up clean water in their villages and they wanted anything anything you name it anything from us:  a pen, a piece of notebook paper with our signature, something anything a souvenir to brag about because it was given to them by a numba wan mistah from America!  

    Too bad they’re dead.