Private Lindsay

She made a show of liberating her breasts

every time we went to the field.

Some pimple-faced private would retrieve her bra

for display in the berthing tent.

Marines quietly jerked off in their sleeping bags

to visions of her bouncing like a go-go dancer

beneath regulation camouflage.

At the club, she wore combat boots, 

vinyl leggings, 

tube tops that thrust her front-and-center 

of every conversation.

Guys took shots from between her thighs

while you imagined her naked and sweaty

pouring tequila over lickerish nipples.

Half the platoon claimed to have slept with her,

which you suspected was half-true.

And when she approached in the Company office,

slid her manicured nails into your crotch 

and declared,

        "Tonight,"

all you could muster was a timid,

        "No, thanks."

Not because you didn't want her.

Something in you refused

        to be owned

                or compromised

                        except on your terms.

Se recoiled,

desire hardening into anger.

By morning, Lindsay filed a grievance 

with the Master Sergeant 

accusing

        you

of sexually assaulting

        her

Master Sergeant believed you.

She was reassigned.

And you limped away looking over your shoulder.

The Second Marine Division

was weeks from deploying to war.

You already learned

that a man's throat can be slit,

his round edges carved straight,

without a shot fired.

Corpses

 

            Outside Kuwait City (1991)

We came upon them midday,

in a rush for shelter from the petrol rain: 

        three corpses upright 

        in an armored personnel carrier,

        as crisp as dime-store cigars,

        their boots melted into the floorboard.

Oil fires illuminated a blast zone 

surrounding the vehicle,

casting a perverse half-light

over the living and dead.

Some Marines took pictures with the corpses,

souvenirs for the living back home.

We cracked jokes to steady our nerves.

I kept watch through the scorched steel turret,

frightened less by the dead

than the unseen.

Grandfather came to mind,

lying embalmed in a casket in Enid, Oklahoma.

I was sixteen when he died.

The mortician overdid Grandpa's makeup,

which cracked like desert topsoil 

at the hairline.

I half-expected him to rise up

and scold the adults

for displaying him that way.

Someone passed around the photographs.

The laughter stopped.

Thunder from approaching artillery

rattled our reprieve.

We shouldered our packs

and stepped into the poison rain.

A boot private from Encinitas, California,

glanced back as a helmet

tumbled from the carrier.

"Sucks to be them," he said. 

**First published in As You Were literary magazine

and second-place winner of the 2023 Col. Darren L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards.

**Illustration by Morgane Xenos

PsyOps Theater (Desert Storm)

Dear American Soldier, are you prepared to die for a barrel of oil?
Dear Iraqi Soldier, we are a Multinational Force with overwhelming air superiority.
Would you like to be one of the cripples who are only lamented in the charity ceremonies?
We want you to know the truth! It is the actions of Saddam Hussein which have forced the world to war with Iraq.
You know you cannot win against our fearsome troops and the invincible best friend of Allah.
We have no desire to harm innocent people, but Saddam is leading you to certain death.
Put down your bombs. Demand to go home. You are weary of sand and sun and sweat on your body from senseless aggression.
Resistance is purposeless. The outcome is inevitable. Kuwait will be free from Saddam’s aggression.
You are secretly admiring the great leader, Saddam Hussein, and asking yourself, “Why am I here?”
Your fellow soldiers along the entire front have either surrendered or were killed by our bombs.
How do you like our Arab lands where you cannot get a Kentucky Fry Big Mac to eat and you are always missing your half-naked, immoral sweetheart back home.
Save yourselves and head toward the Saudi border where you will be welcomed as a brother.
Your American president is losing allies.  He is like the stupid fox that enters into the house of the clever fox.
To seek refuge safely, remove the magazine from your weapon, raise both arms above your head and approach our forces slowly.
Your Arab allies will turn their weapons against U.S. soldiers instead of Iraqis.
If you do this you will not die.
Why be dead for your president’s dumb mistake?