Memories of War “Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But hell remember with advantages. What feats he did that day.” And so he does... again and again and again and again. And he wishes he didn’t. Countless hours spent staring, thinking, mulling over events and faces, names and places... ...I’m caught in an all-shredding cloud spewing dust, grit, copper and flame. No noise – just a punch in the guts that lifts me, then changes its mind and drops me; unscathed. Zip... Snap... Snap... Ping. Single rounds; fired with calculated deliberation by a man – much like me – focused only on the control of his breathing, while he draws a bead on my head and, with sweaty finger, takes up the slack on the trigger. A thump on the head from a Rifleman riding top-cover behind me. A target indication, “Muzzle flashes... 3 o’clock!” Lines of green tracer arc towards me zapping and buzzing like demented bees while I crouch low in the open cupola. I feel again that self-loathing sense of uselessness as my GPMG* grunts, burps then jams; choked by the cloying convoy dust; willing only to spit out single shots as raw red fingers grapple with the red-hot gas plug. Looking down at my hands now... I feel again the warm, slippery sensation as I rip and wrench through tattered clothing to apply tourniquets, and use fingers and fists to punch and push ‘HemCon’* into ragged spurting holes. I feel the lack of resistance as I place my hand on where a man’s chest should be as he lies, sealed in a black plastic bag, under a union flag. I feel my breath catch in a silent hugging embrace where men cry and hold and clench and search each other’s eyes for meaning. I hear the melancholic bugle provide formality and ceremonial approval, then a verse from Abide with Me carried on an evening breeze. I see the crumbling, fizzing brickwork on a tracer-riddled minaret; the burning white car with burning steering wheel joined by welded burning hands to blackened burning body; the eviscerating flash of a UGL* grenade as it hits its mark and three men are reduced to smouldering lumps; the smudged smears of deep red on boots and trouser legs and hands and faces, and the rusty-brown encrusted residue left under finger nails – even after washing. Damned spot! Whose is this? How can I eat with these hands? Names, names, names – some ready on the tip of my tongue; some permanently reverberating between my ears; some I struggle to recall; some attached to faces; some I didn’t know... till afterwards. Too many names. Too many faces, and places... always hot, always sticky, always dusty; sometimes daylight, sometimes night; an alley, a junction, a mosquito-plagued ditch, a front-room, a stair-well, a roof-top, a shrapnel riddled portaloo, the briefing room, the cook house, my bed. Some more vividly recalled than others. Some accompanied by sounds: radio chatter, armoured tracks, deep thumping bangs, staccato orders, whines and whistles of incoming mortars or rockets, speakers playing Kings of Leon, the belch and rattle of machine-gun prattle, the whizz and ping of zipping, zapping molten metal. And the tastes and smells... the acrid, searing smells. Cordite. Salt from sweat and dust. Human waste and rotting vegetables. Diesel. Cigarette smoke. Iron. Burning plastic. Watermelon. A catalogue of frozen tableaux and sensory collages. But where did the laughter go? Where are the fond remembrances? Are these the feats to tell with advantages? Where are the friends I lived and fought with? We laughed through these experiences. We cried through these experiences. We drank tea and played chess. We loved. I lived! Why does only this ?
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:16:17 +0000
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