January 20, 2005

He still isn’t old enough to have a beer, but in his two decades of life, the young Marine is already about to complete his second tour in Iraq. To the combat-hardened veteran, it seems like yesterday that he was traipsing through an alder patch with his Labrador and shotgun in the hamlet of Warren, Maine, where he grew up. Now and then, he wonders how he so quickly went from hunting partridge off of Patterson Mill Road to hunting men along Haifa Street.

The Leatherneck, however, like so many of his brothers, is an anomaly made of twisted steel and licorice. A cold-blooded killer who doesn’t have time for regret, he loves giving cherry licorice whips to the Iraqi children who come out of their homes to watch the Marines on patrol. Their big, brown eyes remind him of his kid sister’s eyes, whom he hasn’t seen in—in a long time. In the small part of his heart that will always remain innocent, he yearns to again hear the gleeful laughs of his siblings as they chase the family Lab around the yard that overlooks Crawford Pond.

He is usually happy. Two things in particular make him smile: receiving letters and packages from home, and listening to the continual banter of his brother Marines.

But today he is confused, though not surprised. In a package from home were several American newspapers. Each told stories of how the Iraqis hated the Americans and how car bombs and terrorists were likely to destroy the upcoming election and even lose the war. He wonders why the news doesn’t report all the good things that are happening in Iraq now that Saddam is in prison and how so many Iraqis come up to them and thank them.

“Hey, Land Shark,” he says to his friend, calling him by his nickname. “It says here we are losing the war. This Senator Boxer chick says we suck.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe that newspaper and Senator Boxer should tell that to all the dead terrorists we did last night, right man?” Land Shark replies.

“Mmmm,” comes the nodded reply. “Hey, you’re from California. When we get back to the world, maybe you should knock on her door, tell her you’re delivering a love note from Saddam, and then bite her head off when she opens it.”

“Nah. Why should I soil my beautiful teeth?” Land Shark smiles back, revealing the grin of a movie star, which miraculously remains intact despite the horrific scar running from the Marine’s right eyebrow down across his nose to the tip of his chin. Shrapnel tends to leave calling cards like that. Land Shark hopes the chicks will dig it when he gets back to the world. (Land Shark had been worried that his sister’s high school graduation gift to him, a teeth-whitening session from BriteSmile, was going to be ruined.)

The Marine folds up the newspaper and picks up his rifle as he watches his unit begin to make final preparations for tonight’s patrol. His “company gunny” is walking around reminding the Marines to make sure they each have an extra tourniquet in the right cargo pocket of their trousers.

In his mind’s eye, for a moment he is back in high school, holding Kathy’s hand during lunch. His beautiful girlfriend, he knows, is still waiting for him back in Warren. When he gets out of the Corps, they will marry and he will become a lobsterman.

As he slips on his flak jacket and checks to see if the package of licorice is still in the jacket’s left pocket, the Marine doesn’t know that she will wait forever, for he won’t be returning from tonight’s patrol.

Bob Newman