Social Short Story – Duel
Photo credit: hamper from morguefile.com
John Klenzie celebrated his twenty fourth birthday on the remote Iraqi soil just three days ago. He had volunteered to serve in US Forces, encouraged by his father. Michael Klenzie who was a Baptist pastor in New York. Nearly one third of the members of his local church community had died on September 11th. He witnessed the great tragedy of their families. And the memory of the two air jets as fire hawks falling from hell, piercing and smashing to dust and fire the twin towers, never left his mind and eyes…
Qusai Abu Salam lost his father at the battle front against Iran. He was just twelve when his family bread winner succumbed to the wounds in his chest. His body was torn apart by a fragment of a US made missile, gambled to Tehran in what was called Iran Gate, in the underworld of black diplomacy… Like many Iraqis, his family suffered poverty and the misery of a war-based economy that fell apart after a ten year war against the Ayatollah regime of Teheran.. May be he didn’t know that the Saddam phraseology of panarabism was nothing but a cover of the shield required by the western allies… a shield to protect the oil wells of Arabia and other aspects of the game.. Before the successive wars that culminated with the US invasion, Iraq had been a flourishing country with a national unity, despite the ethnic variety of Kurds, Sunnis , Shiites, and others, a secular government that despite the mistakes, guaranteed a fair share with the necessary dignity to all , and a pretty mighty army in that area. Iraqi forces were considered strong by all neighbors. The country had a very enlightened elite, scientists, intellectuals, artists, and poets made the glory of the nation….
Now all that has collapsed, poverty and chaos prevailed. The twenty four year old boy caught in the middle of what Saddam called the “Mother of Wars” took the gun and held the flag that was edited with the historical slogan “Allahou Akbar”, the God Almighty… And there the clash and the fuel of cultural hostilities. He didn’t bother of the media chats on conservationism, theories elaborated in remote lands by Paul Wolfovitz and others…
It was John’s second patrol. During an ambush he faced Ahmed. Both aimed at each other just the way they trained.
Maybe it was the fact they made an identical move lifting their machine guns or maybe that they were similar in age and rather rookie soldiers. Nevertheless, they both hesitated.
Streams of thoughts flowed through their minds with light speed.
I am proud of you, my son, John’s father’s words flashed in his mind. Men should not avoid the military service. Christians are fighters! Although the Bible says our war is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces, I believe you’ve made a right choice. Just remember! You don’t go there to avenge your fellow Americans, but to bring peace and democracy, to remove Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction.
They ruined the country, thought Qusai. neither did he think of his government’s propaganda and ideology of Ba’athism.. and the common threat of the colonial enemy.. petrol pumped from the entrails of his land to end in car engines in new york, in Sydney or in London didn’t mean much for the poor boy either…life was precious.. the instinct of survival, however was being stifled by the horrors of blood and fire that accompanied his days since childhood.
I need to protect my aging mother and two sisters, must keep them away from the coming hell of fire falling with the Tomahawk and the stinger. I could perhaps desert the army, cross the desert to neighboring Jordan, yet it would blame my honour. It’s the most important for an Arab.. and the shame of cowardice would accompany my descendent or would I hold my fate and the shroud on my shoulders and face the torrent of bullets coming with the invasion…
They fired simultaneously. Bullets didn’t carry neither freedom nor God’s peace. John’s father made the same mistake misinterpreting the Bible that crusaders made nine hundred years ago…
__END__
