Entering

The captain walked to the back of the hovel. “All secure, Sergeant?” “Yes, sir.” “Report!” “3 of ours KIA, 2 WIA, 4 natives wasted. We breached as planned. No resistance; till we found the old man in the back bedroom. He started firing; caught us by surprise. Number One, WIA, was the first man; lost an ankle. The next three caught rounds in the face; killed instantly. Including the Louie. Fifth, a knee. Sixth, Tom, got him. The men wanted some payback and wasted 3 other ragheads.” “Very well. Get the wounded back to base fast. Load the dead. Search for weapons and contraband. Back to base for replacements. And, get an new interpreter. Can’t believe we hit the wrong address again.” The captain went over and took a shiny new Colt 1911 from the dead old man’s hand.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . .” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The captain wondered what it would be like at home if this was done. Result would be the same. Resistance? Can’t afford to lose three men in security operations. This adventure would end quickly. No way 100,000 Americans could police millions of ragheads. Be the same at home. Anyone’s home. Maybe next time they’d just go for a ride around town and back to base. He had family he wanted to go home to. They all had family they wanted to home to. Even the ragheads had family they wanted to go home to. Damn politicians!

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Jan-16 @ 22:02