Fastball
Fastball As written by Joseph Raszagal
~ ~ ~
It's funny how old memories tend to resurface at the most inopportune of times. I used to pitch for my high school's baseball team. Everyone always told me that despite being a fox, my throwing arm would take me all the way to the pros. Naturally, it didn't, what with the major league teams all consisting of stronger wolves and bears, but that doesn't change the fact that I was still in top form today. I had to be.
After all, grenades don't throw themselves.
Honestly, I thought it would be a lot harder, using my childhood talent to take a life, but it really wasn't. If anything, it was more like an instinctual reaction. But I guess that's what the army does to you. The things that you're forced to do just can't be defined as either good or evil anymore. Everything you do comes in the form of a reaction and the ones who react the fastest are the ones who live the longest. I watched as two Vaani soldiers took shelter behind an overturned supply truck and immediately knew what to do. I took a frag from my belt, pulled the pin, waited three seconds, and then let it fly. In what looked like slow motion, it sailed in a perfect arc right over top of the truck and landed some two or three yards behind them.
If they screamed, and God I hope they didn't, I couldn't hear them.
After that, I got up and did the sensible thing. I sought shelter just like they had.
The funny thing about being stuck smack-dab in the middle of a firefight is the fact that no matter how safe you might feel, you never are. What looks like flies buzzing around your head and through your peripheral vision might actually be bullets. The guy squatting down next to you with the butt of his guns shoved halfway up his nose so he can steady his aim may not even need to aim at all anymore. I've turned around more than a few times to see the face of a friend and comrade covered in a sheet of blood, their eyes glazed over and half-lidded. What with all of the noise going on, it's almost impossible to tell when someone even a foot away from you has been hit. Every once in a while they'll make a sort of gurgling sound like they're drowning or something, but trust me, once you hear that you'll start praying to find the surprise casualties as opposed to watching them happen halfway through.
It's scary, disgusting thoughts like those that keep you on your toes while you're in the thick of it. As I dove for cover behind a semi-fallen pile of sandbags and a body that I hoped I didn't recognize, I thought about how much I didn't want to die. Then I thought about those two Vaani grunts that I'd just blown to bits and wondered if they'd thought the same thing. They had to, right? I mean, no one wants to die. We're all prepared for it out here, but being prepared for death and actually accepting it are two totally different animals.
And there I go again, thinking too hard about it. I always forget that soldiers like myself aren't trained to think, we're trained to fight... trained to react.
Death is just what happens when you don't react fast enough, when you swing the bat too late. Heh, when you get right down to it, war is kind of like the ultimate baseball game. The only difference is that it's one strike and you're out. Well, alright, I suppose that's not the only difference. The other major factor that sets the two apart is that in a baseball game at least one of the teams participating wins in the end. In a war, everybody loses.
I would know, I'm on the side that all of the television and radio stations claims is winning.
But, like I said, that's a lie. One of the biggest, fattest lies ever told. Just ask the rest of my platoon, they'll set you straight. Despite the bullet in his brain, is Andrew still a winner? Is either half of Sergeant McKinley a winner, an enemy RPG having forcefully taught him one last lesson in long, long division? How about the Campbell brothers, the nicest pair of badgers I've ever met, are they winners? Sure, they drove their jeep over a mine and had their intestines rearranged in midair, but that's just a minor detail, right?
What about me, am I a winner?
The sad truth is that with the right amount of adrenaline pumping through your veins, sometimes you start to think so. Sometimes you forget that winning is literally impossible. I forgot and just look at me now. Right on the other side of that pile of sandbags that I dove behind was a young Vaani soldier. He'd been crouched down, waiting to strike, and I'd flopped to the ground right beside him. I saw his long, feline tail twitch through the corner of my eye, but as I scrambled for my sidearm I didn't see the butt of his imported Soviet AK-47 flying at my chin.
All of that tough talk about reflexes and reactions and yet I was too slow. Son of a bitch.
So, here I am now, staring down the cold steel barrel of this young cougar's assault rifle with a paw pressed to my mangled face. I'd like to hate him for what he's about to do, for the things that he's probably done, but I know deep down in my heart that I can't. He's fighting for something that he believes in and I can't really begrudge him for that. In fact, I suppose I'm a little jealous of him. The entire time I've been here I've done nothing but question myself and everything that I believe in. This young man, though, this kid; he knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's fighting for.
He thinks he's a winner.
Well, whether or not he really is, I hope he's able to go to his grave still thinking that. I hope he never grows as jaded and angry as I have. Besides, for all I know he's been fighting for the right cause the entire time. If that's the case, then more power to him.
"What's taking you so long, kid? You've got me right where you want me. Show me your fastball."
- Marcus Mikael Lorelei, Private First Class, 1st Cavalry