Cemetery Street by John Zunski (free ebook reader for ipad .txt) 📕

are call yarmulkes – the asshole don’t know the difference between a Jew and an Arab. And this clown is my squad’s explosives guy. Go figure!


Shannie, September, 3rd, 1990

Goddamn it girl, you don’t know how good it feels to get a letter from home. Thanks for writing! It’s cool to know that home folks are behind us. It means a million! I can picture the yellow ribbon on the elm tree in your yard. It makes me feel what I’m part of is almost worth the aggravation.
To answer your question, I don’t know how much I can tell you. If a censor gets hold of one of my letters, at the least it’s gonna be all blacked out. And I may get a nice visit from some counter-intelligence goon. I don’t want my life being any more miserable than it already is. I think I can tell you this much, we’re setting up base about 5 clicks Northwest of King Fahd. The base is nothing but a tent city that the yahoos in our outfit dubbed Fort Camel. Camp Eagle II is its official name. I don’t know why it’s II. Someone said there was a Camp Eagle back in Vietnam. Your guess is as good as mine.
Besides drinking water and pissing all we do is train, train, train. Our immediate job is basically providing ground coverage for Fahd if Saddam decides to visit. What I don’t get is if that crazy fuck wanted, he could dance to Dhahran or Riyadh. We don’t have much on the ground and he’s gotta know it. I figure he’s gotta know we have a lot of shooters in the air, he knows we can make them bleed, but ain’t no way we could stop him. Not now! Not with so few troops on the ground! Like I said, if he wanted it, he could have Riyadh. I don’t think he wants it, that’s my gut feeling. I hope it’s right. I hope the asshole stays put. I’m telling you it’s sobering knowing there ain’t anything but a few hundred miles of sand, a bunch of camels, some scorpions and a few Saudi National Guard units between his tanks and us. Although, it helps being this close to Fahd and seeing the never-ending train of transports land. With every transport we grow a little bit stronger. It’s kinda reassuring.

Count

PS. You have my word, soon as anything happens I let you know.


Shannie, September 8th, 1990

We’re on the move. Today we husbanded up with our birds. I never thought I’d miss the sight of a Blackhawk. Go figure!. Rumor has it that tomorrow we’re heading up towards the Kuwait border. We’re nervous, but it beats the hell out standing around Fort Camel with our puds in our hand sweating out chicken-shit details. We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing, scuttlebutt has it were going to be part of a covering force near the border. Don’t shit your pants if you don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks. I kinda figure we’ll be completely in the sticks. It’s fucked up to think that Fort Camel is like a city compared to where we’re going.

Count

PS. Maybe you’ll see me on CNN!


Shannie, September 10th, 1990

What a difference a day makes! It’s night, and there’s actually a chill in the air. I’m ‘Up North’ at a place the apache pilots call Camp Hell. The pilot’s say we’re about 50 or so miles from Kuwait. Our battalion is garrisoning a FOB – army talk for a forward base – near a town called An Nuriya - General Peay dubbed it Bastonge. Wouldn’t James’ Grandfather get a kick out of that? I already figured you want to know why it’s called Bastonge. Like the Belgium town, An Nuriya is an important road junction. If the Iraqi’s come after Dhahran or Riyadh they’ll need An Nuriya. We’d probably have orders to hold it at all costs. Say what you will about Peay, he’s knows how to motivate. I think he’s clever for invoking ghosts of campaigns past. Tradition creates high expectations.
What a night! I’ve just got back into camp. A few of us spent some free time on the dunes outside of town. We found a spot on a side of a dune and watched the heavens. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. The night is so dark; it’s the blackest black I ever saw. And piercing the blackness is the starlight, they’re the whitest white I ever seen. Like lasers, they burn brilliant holes in the darkness. It’s insane, in a good way! Back home, I never could make out constellations, here you can’t miss them. Their sight is as liberating as the daytime heat is oppressive. It feels like a different planet up here. I can’t explain how different it is than Dhahran. Even the sand is different. Back at Fort Camel, it is flat and white, kinda like at the shore. Up here the sand is yellow, coarse, and it rolls into dune after dune. They kinda remind me of waves on an ocean, only bigger. According to our topo maps they’re anywhere from 150 to 1000 feet high. I bet Beyford could fit on the side of some of the bigger dunes. On the flight up, from the helicopter, the dunes were an overwhelming site. You got the feeling they were somehow alive, liquid, like water, but much tackier, much slower, plodding. A captain on board said it best, he called the sight sublime.
I feel lucky to be one of the first grunts to be up here. As of the present, you can have a bit a privacy. After Fort Camel, this place is heaven. It’s obvious that ain’t going to last, so I’m enjoying it while I can, just as long as Saddam and his rat bastards don’t come over the border.
In a weird way, I’m kinda relieved to be up north. If we have to fight, I’m glad to catch sight of the battlefield before the fight. I don’t know how to describe it to you other than it’s sorta like being a boxer who walks the ring before the fight, you know, to get a feel.
There’s a lot of work to be done, by the time you read this, the rest of my Brigade will be in Saudi, if not already at Bastonge. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write, there’s a lot to do. I’m sure we’ll be training our asses off. I promise that when I get a minute and have the energy I’ll pen you another letter. Keep writing. Letter’s from home are better than gold. More inspiring than the heavens at night.

Count

PS. Thanks for listening to my pissing and moaning.


Shannie, September 25th, 1990

Looking for a new place? Have I found a house for you! It’s in a quaint little place called Qaryat al Ulya, we call it Oasis cause of their being one about five or so clicks to the southwest. Housing’s cheap, and there’s plenty of them. This place is just like the Jersey shore, without the fancy houses, boardwalk, or the ocean. Qaryat al Ulya is an abandoned town, the fanbelts left long before Saddam ever thought of invading Kuwait. Now it’s 101st territory – another FOB. Besides covering, we’re using the town training for house to house combat. Fun shit.
Speaking of shit, get a load of this, and you thought flies are disgusting, you should see these dung beetles! They’re the most sickening creatures known to mankind. Arabs hijack jetliners, dung beetles hijack shit. They’re the kind of creature Steve Lucas would have as a pet. Come to think of it, if you’d put that pissant in an armor shell, he’d look like one. The dung beetles are starting to be a problem. Out in the desert, we don’t have the most modern facilities. So when nature calls, you answer wherever you can. You dig a cat hole and throw a little dirt on top when you’re done. No sooner than you’re done, these dung beetles appear, dig the dirt up and roll the crap away. If it weren’t so sick, it would be funny. Because of the dung beetles, our Lieutenant’s worried about sanitation. Now we have orders to dig two-foot deep catholes to do our business in and pound ‘em shut when we’re finished. Gives a new meaning to pounding sand! You’ve always said the army’s goal is to tell you how and when to take a dump.
And then if the dung beetles weren’t enough, outside town, next to this old airstrip, a patrol I was on came across a bunch of these mounds in the sand. At first no one thought anything of them, I figured ‘em for little dunes or something. That’s until someone walked over one, the poor bastard heard a crack a second before he sunk up to his knees in some soft fleshy gunk. He looks down and sees a bunch of scorpions and shit swarming out of the mound and over his boots and up his legs. Fucker screamed like a banshee, like Morrison when he’s pissed. To make a long story short, he sunk into the guts of some dead animal, probably a camel. At least that’s what we think, really couldn’t tell, it was way too rotted. So we go about digging into the rest of these mounds and inside every one of ‘em there’s a rotting camel or goat or something. At home, I lived on a cemetery, here I’m bivouacked next to an animal graveyard. Well that’s not quite what it is, we found out that it’s a dying ground. Get this, when the fanbelts’ animals get sick, instead of putting them down, they bring them out here, tie their legs together, and let ‘em die. And then they let the wind take care of burying them.
Since we have an unlimited supply of scorpions, we hold scorpion fights for shits and giggles. Each squad has a scorpion, we throw him in a jar with another squad’s, shake the jar; this gets ‘em good and pissed, and then we bet on ‘em when they start fighting. To tell you the truth, I’m better at betting on football, and you know how bad I’m at that. Till next time.

Count

PS. Oasis is a revolting place, it kinda reminds me of Wildwood during senior week.


Shannie, October 10th, 1990

Got your care package. Thanks a million! I hung the picture of you and Diane in my tent back here at Fort Camel. Yep you read me right, for the time being, we’re back in Dhahran, Good old King Fucking Fahd, Camp Eagle II, Tent City, who’d thing that one place could have so many names. It’s all too confusing. Anyway, you guys’ picture gets many compliments. Everyone wants to know how my girlfriend looks so young having a daughter your age. I tell them she has great genes. They tell me, no shit; she looks great in jeans. I tell ‘em back that it’s ‘cause I’m a great jean mechanic, that it takes skilled hands to maintain such a masterpiece.
It looks like division is getting into the habit of rotating the brigades between Bastonge, Oasis, and Dhahran every fifteen days or so. I guess it’s supposed to keep us on our toes. Whatever. All I know is despite the ‘luxuries’ we have here at Fort Camel, I’d rather be up north. Brass’ logic is to bring us back to Camel to refit and relax. What a crock of shit! Sure we have electricity, showers, cots but we also have loads of chicken shit details. Not to mention we’re missile fodder back here.