Teaser for In Liberty's Shadow

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Chapter 1-Carl Dies

     Carl sat on the sand dune facing the brown Gulf Coast water as it crashed into the beach. He loved it here. The majority of his childhood memories involved the beach. The rest were in the woods with his father while looking for deer. Carl stared into the horizon just above the choppy water and he began to cry. He was all alone far into Padre Island. He quit caring what people would think about him sitting alone on a sand dune crying like a child. He used his fingerprint to unlock a phone and began playing the video of his daughter laughing while he sprayed her with the water hose. A distant memory in moving picture format. What was once a typical Saturday for Carl and his family was now unattainable. He played the video two more times then he got up. He went to his pickup that was parked behind the dune and hopped into the bed.

     He carried everything he owned in his truck. He paid for it with his Veterans Administration disability payment. His retirement goes to his ex-wife Maya. Carl got tired of being out of work, unable to be around his family, and the horrors that plagued his sleeping mind. His wife constantly attacked him, accusing him of being a deadbeat father, even though every cent he doesn’t use to eat or live goes to her. Maya had not allowed Carl to see his daughter in 6 months. She refused until he had a place to live, but he would never get out of his financial hole as long as she kept taking all disposable income. Carl had just enough gas left in his truck for one final movement to a gas station, but where would he go, what would he pay with? His credit cards maxed out long ago. He was in a bottomless pit he could never climb out of. The hopelessness engulfed Carl more every day. 

     Carl reached into his green storage container he kept strapped into the back of the truck and pulled out a can of spaghetti. He reached back in and pulled out a small propane stove and put it together. He peeled off the paper label and popped the lid slightly. Carl lit the stove and placed the can directly on the burner. It only took one minute for steam to start coming from the partially opened lid. Carl switched off the stove and pulled out his trusty brown plastic ration spoon. He ate the dinner in a can with satisfaction. He had been rationing himself to one can per day. His self-discipline was always steadfast, yet he couldn’t take that demeanor and use it to keep his family together. He hated himself more every day. His dreams and desires had long since been buried in the depths of his being. Carl buried the can behind the back tire and rinsed off his spoon with a water bottle he pulled from the green box. 

     Carl went to the back seat of his Tacoma and opened up his backpack. Inside were seven full magazines of 5.56 ammunition for his AR-15. He had sold everything he owned except his truck and three firearms. He kept the 1911 that his grandfather carried in World War II, a .22 caliber revolver his father had helped him purchase when he was sixteen, and his rifle. He figured he would hold on to the tools of his profession. Carl retired from the U.S. Army in 2017 and had failed to integrate into society with any level of success. He was fired from multiple jobs for being either too efficient, too willing to work long hours, even without pay, and on one occasion for being habitually early. The owner of the business had told Carl several times not to arrive so early because it made everyone feel uncomfortable. Carl showed up early the next day but parked in a different parking lot while he listened to a podcast and ate his breakfast. The owner saw him and when Carl walked in on time, he was fired. 

     Carl felt there was no part of this society where he would ever again fit in. He spoke a different language culturally. Carl never grasped the concept of speaking like a normal person, and instead used the word fuck like a comma, and acronyms were always out of control. He often felt like his brain was broken. He was so entrenched in the rigors of military life, he had no idea how to be a civilian again. Carl had done nothing else but be a soldier his entire adult life. He raised his hand and swore allegiance to the constitution of the United States when he was eighteen and did so again several times when he reenlisted. When Carl turned thirty eight he realized he was not going to be able to stay in any longer. He reached twenty years and had failed to progress to the next rank and so it was time to retire. The rules against stagnation were brutal and would not bend. Carl went through the process of learning to be a civilian again in the form of short workshops given by the Army as part of its transition program. He was able to fake the funk for a few months, but every time he would get comfortable he would devolve back into his old habits of a harsh resting asshole face and morose sense of humor. 

     Carl continued to inspect the contents of his pack. He saw the .22 revolver and 1911 with 2 magazines placed in the pouches on the inside. His rifle was on the floorboard covered with his black hoodie. He had a twenty round box of .223 ammunition, and several other survival items he managed to gather over his camping years. He had a water purification straw, some iodine tablets, some parachute rope, a multi-tool, a fire starter, his collapsible entrenching tool as well as a green Army blanket he called his woobie.

     Lastly was his gurkha blade his former father in law had given him before dying. He carried it in Afghanistan both times and in Iraq. He had never needed to pull it out for anything other than cutting open an MRE box. Now it just sat in his pack. He kept the issued knife he received thanks to the unlimited budget his unit had in Iraq. Everyone received a two hundred dollar knife from a name brand. The blade popped out when you pushed a button on the side, and was illegal in some states, unless you were on active duty. Luckily Texas wasn’t so strict on blades. Carl quit looking over his equipment. He gave up. His day always involved inventorying his stuff and making sure he didn’t lose anything over night as he slept. 

     Carl decided today would be the day. He was going to swim in the ocean, think about his life, his daughter, his failed marriage and then he would place his 1911 to his head and end it. He had no desire to be on this trip anymore. America was burning from riots; racial tension permeated the national psyche again like it did in the 1960s. Carl and his fellow soldiers were insulated to the racial tensions for the most part. The military in general does a good job of making sure everyone understands where they belong, what they deserve, and that the melanin count of one’s skin is an utterly useless quantifier. Everyone knows their place, and they do their job. Civilian life was full of people looking out for themselves and vying for position. 

     Carl was just tired of it; tired of not seeing his daughter, tired of being a failed father and husband. Tired of being isolated in a populace he once swore to die for. Carl put his headphones on and continued listening to a book he downloaded. A history of America called Conceived in Liberty. He often listened to this history not taught to him in school in an attempt to reconcile how he felt now with how used to feel. His eyes glazed over in the familiar fashion his wife had been familiar with. Carl was deep in thought, enslaved to another memory that would need to play out before he would be able to snap out of it. 

     Carl was back in Afghanistan. He was manning the operations center with his section. Not only was Carl in charge of the perimeter defense, he planned all the indirect fires for all operations. His Lieutenant had been injured and sent to Germany two weeks earlier and he had been forced to take over his duties and as well as his previous duties on top of that. He was talking on his handheld radio with one of the perimeter defense positions. It was a pit dug into the corner of the base, on top of a hill, overlooking a cemetery. The local populace would gather there sometimes to visit dead loved ones. It was common but drove the perimeter security crazy. This day though, they were armed and seemed to be wary of the guards on the other side of the barrier. The barriers were large baskets full of dirt that helped create a dense space between bullets and body. 

     Carl heard the firefight unfold before he could receive an update from the guards. He asked for a situation report several times with no answer. That was not good. He could still hear the sound of the M240 machine gun firing at its maximum rate of fire. Carl put his helmet on and grabbed his rifle from the rack next to the entrance. He ran out to his vehicle and started it without even waiting for the glow plugs to heat up. He began driving fast and borderline reckless toward the fighting position. Sergeant Halfapple was now in charge of the operations center and was still actively calling on the radio. The commander had not shown up yet so Halfapple began a full sprint towards the commander’s tent. Carl could see Halfapple running towards the sleeping area. Carl looked back onto the front of the vehicle dodging uneven ground trying to not bounce himself out of the seat. Just then he heard a zing sound over his head and then he heard the sound of a rocket impacting. He looked towards where Halfapple had been running and only saw dirt and dust kicked up by the impact. 

     Carl arrived at the guard point, putting what just happened aside for the more immediate concern. He jumped in with the guys and saw one laying on the ground. He couldn’t remember his name off the top of his head, but the gunner was still unloading with this machine gun. He knelt down and began checking for wounds. He asked the soldier to let him know if anything was wrong, but he received no response. He found the wound near his collarbone, just above where the armor stopped. He was not able to find a pulse. PFC Vallejo was dead already. He stood up and patted the gunner on the shoulder. 

     “Keep your rate of fire under control!” Carl said.

     In the heat of battle it became easy to forget minor aspects of training. When you were being shot at, it was very easy to forget weapons discipline and just start spraying. Carl got the gunner under control, helped him with a reload and barrel change and handed him the radio. 

     “Keep this on and next to your ear,” Carl yelled. “Shift your fire to the right, I am going to head down and hand them a surprise.” 

     Carl could see the AK-47s popping up over the barrier while the insurgents fired blindly into the compound. They had not managed to breach yet, although it was only a matter of time before the operations base was full of men in white nightgowns with rifles running around. Carl looked into the ammo pile and grabbed two grenades. He ran to the left of the gunner and sprinted fifty feet to the barriers. He pulled the pin on one grenade, but kept the spoon held tight. He released the spoon and counted to two. He then granny tossed the grenade up gently over the barrier so that it landed just on the other side. He dropped down and put his hands over his ears and opened his mouth to help with the overpressure. The grenade exploded with a thunderous force. He could hear the cries of agony on the other side of the barrier, but he could still see AK fire from over his head. 

     Carl looked at the other grenade and pulled it into his chest. He remained down and crawled over 5 feet so that he was under the AK fire. He did the same thing, this time holding the grenade until the break in fire. He released the spoon, counted to two, and then lobbed the metal baseball sized object over the barrier again. This time when the explosion happened he was not ready and the overpressure dazed him for a moment. Carl could not hear any moans, but the AK fire seemed to have stopped. He stood up and sprinted back to the gunner’s location. The gunner had stopped firing. He grabbed the radio and called up to the operations center. 

     “No reports from other locations. It seems to have been limited to that corner of the FOB,'' was the answer he received when he asked for an update. 

     Carl went back to his vehicle to begin organizing a squad to go out and clean up the mess outside the perimeter. Carl arrived at the operations center and remembered Halfapple. The radio operator said the medics were at the sleeping area working on a casualty but the name hadn’t made it up to the ops yet. Carl knew who it was. He went back to his vehicle and drove towards the sleep area. He could see the medic working on Halfapple, tourniquets on both legs and a pressure bandage on his neck. Halfapple was unconscious and his eyes were rolled back, but open. He looked dead. Huong, the medic for his unit, was a small female who was hard as nails. She had previous tours with units that had seen some heavy fighting but was transferred to their unit because one of the soldiers in the last unit had gotten grabby. She had treated these types of wounds before, but the damage was too severe. Huong just looked up and shook her head left to right. 

     Carl sunk to the ground. He had never expected to deal with the loss of one of his men. He had only had one goal. It wasn't to win the war, or be a hero. His one and only goal was to keep everyone alive and bring them home. He had now failed at that. Carl shivered slightly as he entered back into the present day. Carl usually talked to himself when he was lonely and he had been lonely for a very long time. He slowly came back to real time. Hate and grief heavy on his chest.

     He announced to himself in a steadfast tone, “Tonight is the night. Tonight I will do it.” 

     Carl spent the rest of the day in his short shorts sitting on a chair out near the water. No sunscreen, no shade, just soaking it all in. He smelled the salt in the air and he loved it. South Texas was his home and now he would die here. He knew having that choice was one of the few freedoms anyone really had. His friend Halfapple never got that choice. He just took it all in for the final time. That night he sat next to a fire he built. There weren’t supposed to be fires on the beach, but when you know your time of death, the details of law tend to become pointless. Carl had not eaten since his breakfast of spaghetti from a can. His stomach growled at him but he ignored it. He grabbed his bottle of southern comfort, took a long pull and then stood up. He put on his tactical rig, shouldered his pack, put on his Texas flag shirt and a pair of old Army Combat Uniform pants and his blouse over his shirt. It was not a uniform in regulations, but he would die in this uniform. The uniform he was wearing when Halfapple died had been in a trash bag. It had been washed and put away. He never wore it again until tonight. 

     “Don’t be a pussy,” he said to himself, reciting one of his rules he lived by. 

     He sat next to the fire, and allowed himself to feel. He allowed the barrier between his emotions and his existence to dissolve. He fought the tears but they came. He pulled out the 1911 which was holstered on his plate carrier and pulled the slide back to load a bullet into the chamber. He placed the barrel in his mouth, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.