Small moments

There have been several small moments throughout with deployment that I will never forget:

One night on a patrol we stopped to see a family that we frequently visit. The eldest son had a large cut on his forearm (which he explained was sustained in a knife fight) and our medic cleaned and bandaged his wound. As we said our goodbyes and turned to leave, one of the young girls (a daughter of maybe 12) called out, “Hey Meesta!” Staff Sergeant Baldwin turned and asked “Yes?” She looked at him and smiled, stating simply, “I love you.”

Awhile back, Rafudi (one of my favorites as many of you know) told me a rather large lie. Somehow he thought it would be funny to convince me that his parents had been killed by insurgents. When, after several days of anguish, I came to find that he was merely joking, I was understandably upset with him. I made it a point to let my leadership know that the next time we spotted Rafudi while on patrol, I needed to stop and have a serious talk with him.

A few days later I saw him and several of the other kids swimming on the other side of a canal as we made our way down the road. After seeing us the kids swam the 50 ft. across the canal to get to our side. Of course all of the children (except for Elmo, thank god) were sporting their birthday suits. I tried to chastise Rafudi, and even used his full first name (and would have included his middle name if I had known it!). But it was difficult to keep a straight face as ten stark naked kids ran along side the vehicle, stopping only now and then to turn a cartwheel or two. Having lost my resolve to be stern with him, I said goodbye and accelerated away, leaving a pack of naked, dust covered kids behind me. We drove to the main road and made a few left turns which put our convoy on the opposite side of the canal a few hundred meters away. Seeing that we were not yet out of range, all of the children jumped in the water and swam back across the canal. They ran the two hundred meters (still buck naked and covered from head to toe in dirt of course) and arrived at the road smiling and waving as we passed by.

During the Constitutional referendum we walked through a small town late at night looking for a village leader. Accepting that we had no idea where we were going, we went to the nearest house, waking up its occupants, to ask for directions. The mother of the house sent her five year old son to show us the way. After we reached the man’s home, myself and Sgt. G thanked the boy and offered to walk him safely home. It was very dark outside as we walked him back and the boy asked us if we had a flashlight to help him see where he was going. Sgt. G offered a solution by unhooking his night vision monocle from his helmet and handing it to the child. The boy held the scope up to one eye and began walking forward. You could tell that he was having a difficult time with depth perception as he zigzagged down the canal road. Not wanting him to trip and fall, Sgt. G gently grabbed the back of the kids T-shirt to steady him as we walked forward. To fully picture this moment you need to know a little bit about G. He is roughly 6 ft 7 and 260 lbs. The man is a beast. I’ll never forget the sight of this giant of a man carefully guiding a tiny boy down the road.

(There are several less savory memories which I’ll have to describe later. My commander [the editor] is bound to read this post and I’d prefer not to incur his wrath.)