Kaboom by Matthew Gallagher Page A

sides of the entryway. Sergeant Axel and Specialist Big Ern leaned against a Humvee parked at the gate, while Private Das Boot sat up in the vehicle’s gunner’s cupola, diligently manning a long-barreled 50-caliber machine gun. His long legs forced the tops of his knees out of the hatch, and he compensated by bending his back forward, hunching over the weapon. This had not gone unnoticed by the other two Gravediggers.
    â€œHe looks like a crawdad in a tree up there, doesn’t he, sir?” Specialist Big Ern said, using an Appalachian analogy I was unfamiliar with.
    â€œUhh, sure, absolutely,” I said. “How’s it going down here?”
    Sergeant Axel, still laughing about Specialist Big Ern’s Carolina slang, said, “We’re good, LT. No visitors since Colonel Mohammed, Boss Johnson, and all of the other sheiks left a few hours ago.”

    â€œRight on. How much longer until the next shift comes on?”
    Sergeant Axel checked his watch. “One more hour,” he said. “One more glorious hour with Big Ern and the Big Soviet here!”
    Private Das Boot snorted from above us, offended, as he always was when called a Russian. “I am German and American,” he said. “Both sides of me hate the Russians.”
    â€œNot as much as you hate the Turks, though. Right, Das Boot?” asked Specialist Big Ern. “Remember what Staff Sergeant Boondock taught us about embracing the hate!” He then threw the revolution fist—recently rechristened in Staff Sergeant Boondock’s section as the hate fist—straight into the air. It was common to see said hate fist during fragos, early mornings, and long, unending nights.
    Private Das Boot gave this some serious thought. “Hmm. I do not know,” he said. “That’s tough. I guess they are the same?”
    â€œWhat about the Estonians?” I asked. It was an honest question, as I was genuinely unfamiliar with Germany’s relationship with its Baltic neighbor. Unfortunately, my history question would have to be answered another day, as bringing up the Stones led to another hot topic for my soldiers.
    â€œI know I love that female Stone,” Private Das Boot said, a grin spreading lustfully across his face. “There is nothing hotter than a beautiful woman with a gun.”
    â€œGet it!” Sergeant Axel yelled, encouraging our young soldier’s fantasy. “Get after it, Das Boot, like the dirty Kraut you are!” Despite his front, Private Das Boot had still been too shy even to talk to the female Estonian soldier who occasionally dropped by our combat outpost. Everyone in the platoon figured he had an in being a fellow Euro and all, but none of us had any experience with Estonian women, either, so no one was too confident with that scheme. He kept saying he would give her his MySpace profile link, but such a prolific step in relationship development had yet to occur.
    I checked my watch and realized I’d been gone from the TOC for more than two hours; consequently, I told Sergeant Axel to radio me if they needed anything and headed back into the combat outpost away from the pale moon and into a bastion of artificial heat. In the TOC, the three Headquarters platoon NCOs sat around playing cards, their Hottest Latinas debate apparently settled. “Everything okay out there, sir?” one of them asked. “No need to sound the alarms for the Alamo Drill?”
    I shook my head and reached for the coffee pot. “Just another quiet night,” I said. “Nothing doing.”

MOHAMMED THE GHOST
    It was the day after the great red dust storms ended, a little more than a week after our squadron lost its first soldier to a deep buried IED in the farmlands west of Saba al-Bor. I lay in bed, staring at the wall from the top bunk, basking in the rarest of days—one in which I could sleep in. I thought about nothing and how awesome it was to think about nothing