JiG Voices: Sometimes It’s Easy

I asked Staff Sergeant Big Tobacco, the soldier who wrote a piece for the Mrs. Lieutenant blog, to help Jews in Green kick off its JiG Voices series. He generously took the time while in theater to scribe the following piece for us.

I ask all to consider written, video, or audio submissions for this effort. I had emailed the Jewish Lay Leaders listserv, and I believe it was passed around the chaplains listserv as well, but ultimately, I’d like to provide all portions of this web series to both the Library of Congress and the National Museum of American Jewish History, to help preserve Jewish American voices from the Global War on Terror.

“Sometimes it’s Easy”

I’m sweating. My body is a fortress. OITV armored vest, camelback, assault pack, a rifle with a million Gucci attachments. Magazines loaded. Equipment checked. Batteries in. CCOs turned on so the red dot in the middle of that site will gleam in the desert sun like a deadly jewel. We are ready.

“Door on left!” I shout. “Number one man going in!”

“Gotcha covered,” my team screams back.

I rock back and blast forward, doing my buttonhook in through the door, getting the hell out of the fatal funnel. Target in front of me. I put four rounds center mass.

“Room clear! One target down. Number one coming out,” I call to the men outside.

“Come out!”

I shoot through the doorway and take a knee on the far side of the building.

“I’m set! Contact! I yell. One fifty meters. Covering!”

I fire several controlled pairs downrange.

“Two and three,” I call back to my team. “Move to the vehicle on the right!”

“Cover!” they yell.

“Got you covered, move!”

The two sprint one at a time to a vehicle twenty meters to my right. When they reach the vehicle, they take cover and fire on my targets.

“Bee Tee! Move to our location!” they cry when the targets go down.

“Moving!”

We continue this leapfrog for the next five minutes. I go through five magazines. At the end, my finger is aching from pulling the trigger and my body is slick with sweat. It seems like I can’t drink enough water.

My platoon, who was watching the exercise from the bleachers, cheers as my team comes off the range. I can’t light a cigar, range safety rules don’t allow it, but I do put one in my mouth.

“And that, my friends,” I say to my platoon, “is how you do that!”

I watch my platoon go through the exercise. They aren’t bad for a bunch of headquarters guys. They are motivated, although a bit less aggressive than the other line infantry platoons. But everyone makes it through safely. We clear the range and move out on foot to the dining facility for lunch.

I’m feeling good. My soldiers enjoyed the training. I feel loose, limber, sharp. My body, my weapon and my armor have become an extension of my core.

I dream of a steak and a baked potato as we walk down the road toward the dining facility. I look at my watch. It’s 1245 and chow closes at 1300. My men drop their gear outside the chow hall. I stay with their gear and wait while they eat. The soldiers always go first.

One of my soldiers comes out to relieve me. I wash my hands and walk into the dining facility. I grab a plate and head to the main line for my lunch.

One single contractor is left behind the serving line. He smiles at me as I look under the glass at the food. There isn’t much left.

“What do you have?” I ask.

He replies in the thick accent that all dining facility contractors seem to possess: “We have pork chops and some cheeseburgers are left.”

I shake my head. “What else?”

“Ham sandwiches and we also have grilled cheese.”

“I’ll make a PB&J, dude.”

I take some yogurt from a bin along with some bread and packets of peanut butter. I sit down next to Sergeant Speakerphone [OPSEC], one of the team leaders in my platoon.

“Eating light?” Sergeant Speakerphone asks. I can see that he is eating a piece of chicken with some mashed potatoes.

“Naa, dude. It just sucks being Jewish sometimes. It sucks being in charge sometimes too. I’ll live.”

“Why didn’ja eat?” he says, his Joisey accent accentuating the question.

“All they had was pork or cheeseburgers.”

“Well, it sucks to be you, sergeant. You should be a Catholic, then you could eat whatever you want.”

“Naa, I like oral sex too much. I ain’t feeling that whole mortal sin thing.”

Sergeant Speakerphone laughs, he’s about to counter, probably with a priest-alterboy joke when my cell phone rings.

“Sergeant Tobacco,” I answer.

It’s my lieutenant. He asks me come to his tent immediately because he needs to talk to me about some vehicle problems.

“Sir, can’t we talk over the phone?”

“No, I have to be at a meeting in an hour.”

“Roger, Sir.”

I hang up. Sergeant Speakerphone looks at me quizzically.

“Ell Tee needs me to brief him on the Hummers, probably Charley Six and that whole washer jug problem,” I explain.

“In person?” Sergeant Speakerphone says. “You didn’t put oil in the windshield washer jug, third platoon did. That’s kind of fucked up that he wants you to come to him. You should call him back and tell him you just got off the range and you’re eating.

“Yeah,” I agree. “You want to hear something even more fucked up? First, I’m going to go back to my cot and take a nap. Ah hell, that didn’t fill me up at all. I’m still hungry.”

Sergeant Speakerphone laughs as I get up and dump my plate in the trash. I gear up and walk back to my tent. I pause at the flap. Do I really want to take a nap and piss my lieutenant off even if he was being a schmuck?

I drop my gear on my cot and walk over to his tent.

“Sir?” I ask as I enter.

We argue for the next half hour regarding the fine points of vehicle repair, a subject that neither one of us as infantryman really understands. But we eventually come to the agreement that the vehicle can’t be repaired at unit level and needs to be sent to a higher level of maintenance. This will insure that we become the laughing stock of the battalion when the rear-area mechanics remove engine oil from the windshield washer system.

I leave my lieutenant’s tent and step outside. It’s only 1330 and my day is already at SUCKCON 1.

I notice my supply sergeant walking by and he waves at me: “Hey, Bee Tee, did you get your present yet?”

“What present?” I ask.

“Look on your cot. Sergeant Speakerphone called me and said you needed some cheering up.”

I walk back to my tent. When I open the flap, there is a box of Kosher MREs on my bed.

Sometimes it’s not so bad being Jewish. Sometimes, if you have the respect and admiration of your men, being in charge isn’t so bad either.

BT