I Can See The World From Here

The next iteration is called up and I make my way to an open firing lane, rifle in hand. The range personnel take a few minutes fiddling around in the tower before issuing the first command. As the loudspeakers reverberate throughout the field, I settle into a good prone supported position, my rifle nestled comfortably on top of the provided sandbags, the stock in the pocket of my shoulder.

The targets pop up, allowing me to prepare for the test ahead. They're made of green plastic and shaped somewhat to resemble the upper half of a human. From where I'm positioned, I can make out faint details on the closest silhouette. It's wearing a helmet and holding a rifle in the ready position. The helmet rests just above its eyes, obscuring them from view.

The targets drop down and the command is given to lock and load the first magazine. The tower calls out the beginning of the first firing table. I switch my weapon from 'safe' to 'semi' and watch my lane. A silhouette pops up a hundred meters away.

I move my finger down to the trigger and I breathe in.

The military teaches to not pull the trigger, but rather to squeeze it. Every shot should always come as a surprise. Anticipation causes the body to involuntarily tense up the moment before the shot is made. This, in turn, causes the rifle to shift, resulting in an inaccurate shot.

When I first started, that was a common mistake that I used to make. Before serving in the military, I had never once picked up a firearm. Growing up near the city, sports like hunting and fishing seemed like an exotic pastime, only done by those who lived out in the country or had a lot of money. In addition, the idea of killing another living creature for entertainment seemed decidedly cruel.

Upon becoming a soldier, one of the tenants that was drilled into me was the importance of being able to shoot down your enemies. It's one of the basic soldier skills like land navigation and radio communication. They're reinforced because in situations of complete turmoil, where formalities like rank and position don't matter, everyone needs to be a soldier. Everyone needs to be able to shoot down their enemy.

Now, after years of practice, rifle marksmanship seems like second nature.

I exhale. At the bottom of my breath, I start putting pressure on the trigger. It happens in an instant, but I'm so focused on my surroundings, my rifle, my breathing, that it feels like minutes. There's a small recoil from the weapon and a hot bullet casing falls to the ground. I lose my sight picture for a moment, but my eyes are trained on my target. The green rifleman shudders, then drops down.

When my family heard about my unit's deployment, most of them managed to take it in stride. I made the announcement during dinner. My dad merely gave a nod of approval before resuming eating.

My mom, on the other hand, fretted for weeks. At first, she tried to convince me to abandon my obligation. "It's too dangerous out there," she would say. After I made clear my resolution, she made it a point to pray for my safety every day. A week before we mobilized, my mom gave me a gold chain and coin. Etched on it, there was a picture of a man carrying a child on his back encircled by the words "Saint Christopher Protect Us".

According to legend, Offero was a giant of a man, reaching seven feet five inches. Immensely proud of his strength, he had taken it upon himself to serve the greatest king of all time. The man searched numerous countries, serving various different rulers and at one point, even served the devil. Eventually, he came to realize that the Lord was the greatest king of all.

Not knowing how to serve Christ, the man consulted a hermit who told him that bearing travelers across a dangerous river would please the Lord. One day, a while after he had begun performing this task, a child approached Offero and asked for his help in crossing the river. The giant obliged and started to ford the river with the child on his shoulders. Part way through, the river became swollen and the child started to weigh heavily upon him, so much so that Offero felt like he would sink. He managed to reach the other side of the river, but only after great difficulty.

Offero told the child, "You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were."

"You wished to serve me and I have chosen you as my servant. You did not bear the whole world, but the king of the whole world," the child responded, before vanishing.

I never really understood the appeal of my mother's religion nor her devotion to it. There's always so much ritual and ceremony involved in their worship, as if one couldn't just directly talk to God. Only after going through the right steps and enduring many trials does one gain that privilege and even then, only a chosen few are immortalized in parables and stained glass memorials. For Offero, it was only after he had been martyred and died a horrible death did the church bestow him with the mantle of 'Saint Christopher.'

Though I don't share the same convictions as my mother, I like the thought behind the gift. It's against uniform regulations to wear any kind of necklaces but dog tags, so I keep it tucked away under my shirt and I never take it off. Even should St. Christopher fail to protect me, it's comforting to know that I have at least my mother's love.

I lead my platoon through a small set of buildings aptly named the 'Combat Village' by whoever set it up. The structures are less like buildings and more like conexes stacked on top of each other. There's a handful of these scattered about, each of varying dimensions, the tallest sitting prominently at the center. This one has the word 'mosque' spray painted on the side while others have a mess of graffiti, a litany of words and random symbols. A couple of gutted cars decorate the grounds, adding to the military expedient ambiance and presumably mirroring actual war torn towns.

I have the soldiers set up a perimeter around the makeshift village while myself and the sergeants meet the training cadre by one of the cars. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms later in the afternoon and far in the background, a cumulonimbus cloud looms towards us. It's close enough to threaten us, but not so much so, that it would cancel this exercise.

The purpose of this training, the cadre explains, is to increase our sensitivity to other cultures, especially that of the country we're deploying to. The military has figured out that we've been sending soldiers overseas with very little knowledge on societies other than their own. It must have seemed like a trivial fact at first, but now it has ended up costing the government in diplomatic scandals. My platoon sergeant, SFC Hawkins, scoffs.

"Do you have something to add, sergeant?" I ask him.

"No, sir," he responds. He passes it off as a cough.

The rest of the morning is spent learning the customs and courtesies of the local people. When sitting down, never show the soles of your feet. Always eat what's offered to you. Never ever defile a mosque. Though the instructors have all been in country and are all knowledgeable, none of them seem to have any real insight on the culture.

We take a break for lunch and the platoon scatters to various parts of the village. Many of the soldiers gather around SFC Hawkins. With a wad of chewing tobacco protruding from his inner lip, he's leaned up against one of the buildings. A large 'Allahu Akhbar' is scrawled behind him. While everyone else is digging into their meal kits, the sergeant is regaling them with stories of his experience overseas. This isn't Hawkins' first deployment. He was there before, at the height of the war, when all the real fighting was happening.

"What's the worst part of being over there, sergeant?" one of the corporals asks.

The people, Hawkins gestures dismissively. They don't believe in taking regular showers and they get to be smelling so bad that he could smell them even before he reached the villages. When he finally got to them, they turned out to be ungrateful little shits. They screamed and they hurled rocks at him. And we're the heathens! They're undeserving of our time and protection, he growls.

He spits onto the ground as if to emphasize his point. It's murky and brown from the dip.

I want to stop Hawkins. His xenophobic grumblings ruin the point of this training, but I hesitate. I'm about as young as the newest privates in my platoon and probably just as inexperienced. I've never been out of the country before, let alone to a place where there's a very real possibility of dying. Even though the rational part of me senses his lack of understanding, another part of me needs to hear what he has to say. Frightened and unsure, it takes solace in the light the sergeant is shining on our situation. It doesn't matter that the light is dim and yellow.

Before he can say any more, a resounding thunderclap cuts Hawkins short, signaling the approach of the impending storm. Dark rain clouds tower precariously in the sky. They're about to crash down on us at any moment.

The cadre cancel training for the rest of the day. Safety precautions, they reason.

Esha lived a couple of blocks from where I did. It was our daily ritual to walk to and from school together. On this particular day, it was raining rather hard. She took extra care to keep her hands in her pockets. Both hands were decorated with intricate brown designs and though henna doesn't wash off so easily, she wanted to ensure it stayed on for as long as possible.

Just a few hours prior, she was proudly displaying the henna dye and explaining its significance to our friends and classmates. Her sister was getting married and in their culture, mehndi parties are held before the ceremony to apply the tattoos. The art of henna was used mainly to convey feelings of love. The deeper the henna stained, the stronger the couple's love was.

When we reached her house, toilet paper was strewn about the property, hung like bastardized party decor. The trash can was tipped over and its contents covered the front lawn. Angry slurs were spray painted in red onto the front of her house. The words screamed, "Go back to where you came from!"

Our nation had been the victim of a major terrorist attack, the worst in our history. Two commercial airplanes had been hijacked and put on a crash course into the site of an international trade center, twin towers that stood prominently in the skyline of one of our major cities. I remember washing my hands in the restroom when it was announced over the intercom. The administrators promptly cancelled class that day and sent all of us home. Every channel on cable covered the attack, even the ones that didn't normally do the news. I could only watch in disbelief as the buildings went up in smoke.

The mastermind was a religious radical. In a video he posted on the internet, claiming responsibility for the attack, he cited various motives: our presence in one country, our alliance with another, our financial holdings across the globe. His speech was well-thought out, very calculated, but I still didn't understand. Were those really his reasons for causing all of this madness?

That year saw a sharp increase in feelings of nationalistic pride. It was an emotion intermingled with anger and despair. A lot of people enlisted in the military and recruiters were only too happy to accept them. Some joined so that they would never have to see another attack like that again. They wanted to defend their families and their homes. Others wanted to see action. For them, it was a crusade. They wanted those responsible for their pain brought to justice.

On the news, they reported on a man who had slaughtered an entire family. The report mentioned the victims were from the same country as the radical but didn't go into further details. It didn't say how old the kids were or what school they attended. It didn't say what the parents did for a living. "This is the country I believe in! This is what I stand for!" the man roared as the police took him away.

Some of Esha's neighbors surveyed the damage from their yards. They watched us as we moved towards the house, but made no effort to offer any help or consolation. Her neighbors merely observed. They might have been scared or angry or secretly smug, but the worst, I found myself thinking, would be if they just didn't care.

I couldn't see Esha's tears as she ran inside, but they were in her trembling voice. They were in the raindrops that rolled off her painted hands.

The town we've been sent to patrol was the site of a major battle in the war. It ended in an air strike from our side. During the mission brief, they tell us our primary task is to make contact with the locals and help them out as needed. The commander's intent is to ensure our military maintains its presence in the area. The whole situation seems ironic, but I keep these thoughts to myself. These are my orders and it's not my place to question them.

We're sent to visit a mosque near the center of the town. It's painted a pristine white like the rest of the buildings and would have been otherwise indistinguishable if it wasn't for the large gold-topped spire adjoining it. It's also one of the few buildings that haven't been touched by the air strike.

Somewhere above us, a gunman is watching. His rifle is perched on a window sill, waiting for its moment while its owner decides on his target. Does he see us or are we just silhouettes to him? Are our helmets covering our eyes?

As my platoon continues its patrol, the townspeople are trying to salvage their lives as best they can. I stop to talk one of them, to see if he needs any help. He refuses emphatically as the people around us cast us wary glances. They keep their distance and look as if they'd rather have nothing to do with this war, with its soldiers and fanatics. They probably just want to get on with their lives.

The gunman puts pressure on the trigger. Does the shot surprise him?

The street erupts into a cacophony of screams and gunfire. Hawkins' voice cuts through the din. He barks out orders to the squad leaders and the platoon begins their assault.

I hear Hawkins call out for me, but I don't answer back. I don't give out any commands nor do I raise my weapon. My eyes are fixed ahead of me on the boy lying face down in the street.

Growing up, I believed that God lived in the sky and that the weather was his way of expressing emotions. When God was angry, the sky would darken and the weather would become very violent. Tornadoes, blizzards, and the like were ways of punishing His foolish children. When it was nice and temperate, God was happy. On those days, He would watch us from the clouds, smiling.

Where I lived, it rained for almost all of the year. When it wasn't raining, the weather was beautiful. On the especially clear days, the nearby mountain loomed in the background. It was easy to pass over it during my daily routine, but when the omnipresent clouds broke for the first time in a long time, the mountain would always become a breathtaking sight. Those kinds of days didn't occur too often and the scenery was almost always gray. I took that to mean that God was constantly depressed. Of what, I wasn't sure.

At my mother's urging, I would pray the rosary every day. It consisted mostly of reciting Hail Marys, punctuated by the occasional Our Father. It was all very tedious, but I kept at it in hopes of receiving His divine guidance. I thought that maybe at the end of my prayers a beam of light would shine down on me and then I would know how I could make God happy again.

In situations like this, I had always thought there would be a struggle, a 'do I fight or save the boy?' kind of moment. The world would freeze as I contemplate every aspect of this life-altering decision.

There's nothing.

My body starts running as if by someone else's will. My instincts as a soldier tell me the boy is a lost cause, that I should fight the enemy at hand, but before I know it, I'm out in the street, breaking away from the group.

"LT!" someone calls out from behind me.

A thud knocks me over and the force of the impact leaves me breathless. For a second, everything pauses, but I'm so close to the child, it passes by without a thought. He's just a few feet away.

Pushing off the ground, I close the distance between us. I scoop him up and continue running. He is cumbersome in my arms. There's a slickness to his body and he almost escapes my grip, but I don't dare let go.

I duck into a dilapidated building. Rubble and remnants of furniture litter the floor. A family probably once lived here, but it's abandoned now. It's hard to tell how recently with the amount of dust covering the place. Half of the structure is caved in, exposing us to other broken homes. This place probably isn't safe, but it's better than the openness of the street.

I take cover behind a wall. As I wait with bated breath, the adrenaline begins to wear off and I become aware of the tiredness that's resonating throughout my body. It soon becomes too hard to crouch. My muscles don't complain; they just give out. I drop against the wall and my legs sprawl out.

Red is smeared all over my uniform and paints most of the child's body. It's a terrible red, viscous and hot. It pools and spreads beneath us, standing out in stark contrast to the white walls and the dusty rubble. I shake the boy gently, asking him to wake up, telling him to open his eyes. It's no use; he's no longer breathing.

There's a dull pain emanating from somewhere on my body, but I can't tell from where. All of my senses are being pervaded by an overwhelming heaviness. More than just my body armor and my rifle, more than just the child laying limp in my lap, it's a weight that drags down on my very soul. I have a moment of clarity and it frightens me.

"Dear God... Please..."

Bullets collide around us, unforgiving in their trajectory. I'm losing focus and it's becoming harder to think. I try to hold on to the child's tiny frame, but there's no feeling in my arms. As I slump further into the ground, I gaze out of the broken roof and into the horizon.

Silently cursing her tempered stamina, I began pedaling uphill to catch up to her. For any normal human being, that was easier said than done. Danica was an experienced bicyclist whereas I was not. She weaved in and out of traffic, vehicular and pedestrian alike; she effortlessly glided up and down hills; she flowed from a complete stop to full speed without breaking a sweat. I couldn’t even use hand signals without risking toppling over.

It didn't help that today was the last day of Philly's Independence Day festivities. While the city had blocked off the main roads from cars, people filled the streets in their stead. They were there for the food trucks and the free stuff and the huge concert and the sunny weather. If I wasn't completely focused on not losing my sister, I would've found some shade and done some people watching.

Instead, Danica led me down a back street to avoid the crowds. The passage was narrow and I had to slow down more than once to avoid crashing into random objects. "I think I have the perfect place!" she yelled back to me over her shoulder.

I was too out of breath to give back a proper reply. I pedaled on silently, keeping one eye on my sister. I had the other eye take in some of Philly's scenery.

We biked past a scenic waterfront and under historic railroad tracks. Boathouses belonging to various famous organizations lined the river. There were a few boats scattered about the water, waiting for the fireworks to start.

Danica led us down the parkway and up a rather steep hill. I groaned inwardly as I pedaled after her. We made our the crest and after deciding on the best spot, we plopped down on our blanket and waited for the show to start.

I didn't realize what an amazing vantage point we had until the fireworks started. The display let off directly behind the art museum. When the explosions lit up the sky, the cityscape became breathtaking.

"Wow! This spot really was a good find!" I told her as I scrolled through the past hour's work. "But maybe next time we can drive here? My legs are killing me!"