Wounded Iraqi Cook

From Sgt Zeno

Sun, 28 May 1995

As I sit here pulling my pud (yet again), dipping some Skoal wintergreen, and wondering if I can afford my next mortgage payment, I feel compelled to share another Gulf War story. My frosty mug containing Icehouse beer beckons, and I take a strong hard pull.

ObHomerSimpson: Mmmmm.....Duff Beer.

Well, I'm not sure how to compose this piece. Hell, maybe I'll run out and molest a dead horse to get up the gumption. But it's much too humid outside for that.

Have you ever noticed that? The urge to run out and rape someone (or something) seems to be inversely proportional to the humidity. Humid days just aren't for strenuous and heinous acts of vehement sexuality. It calls for a nice day with a cool breeze rolling in off the bay for me to get out there and really do some good anal invading. Maybe I'll make it a point to actually make an excursion on the next sweltering hot date to go out and be blatantly obtuse about getting some skank. I wonder if I'll enjoy it as much.

But I digress [following in the footsteps of many a good a.t story teller].

Today I am here to tell you about the wounded Iraqi cook. Unfortunately, I cannot take full credit (nor responsibility) for this little number. I must trust my old battle buddy's integrity on this little story about a man who served the wrong nation in a war that was unwinnable.

[Flashback to 1990, Germany] Maverick and I were good buddies. I was a tank driver for the battalion, and he was one of the medics who supported us. We were both married to German nationals at the time (I, however, am no longer... congratulatory notes are welcome), and we both happened to be rather tasteless individuals. I liked to bite off the heads of frogs during field exercises (another story for the telling), and he liked to see how many times he could catch crabs and itch away at them without any body parts falling off.

Strangely enough, we were both sent to th Primary Leadership Development Course at the same time and were volunteered (?) to be battle buddies. This consisted of us living together in the cramped quarters of a pup tent smaller than the woodshed that grampaw used to take you to for those *special* outings you used to have.

We would stay up at night smoking Swisher Sweets and talking about which of the females in the platoon wanted to sneak into our sleeping bag and screw our brains out. [This now brings up the memory of a German national in a park in Munich, her butthole, and an Africola bottle.]

Anyway, you get the jist of how Maverick and I became close battle buddies.

Well, we both deployed to Saudi Arabia (and all of the Southwest Asia countries involved) at the same time. Fearing for our lives, but eventually adopting a black sense of humor about it all, we complied with our government's desires. While I was out in the desert looking at the possibilities of squicking corpses in the sun, he was doing his job as a Combat Medic. You know, treating all of us we-do-more-before-nine-a.m.-than-most-people-do-all-day soldiers. Dealing with: "I have a headache." "I've got diarrhea." "My pussy hurts." "I've got this problem..." "Give me some of that alcoholic cough medicine."

Well, anyway, Maverick is sitting there in his Humvee one night in the desert in a secure perimeter, and this Iraqi enters the area. Nobody actually realizes that the poor sot is actually there. He walks right over the birm through the great Army security we have, and he starts knocking on the sides of vehicles trying to surrender to somebody. Everyone is inside their tank or truck just snoring away.

"Hey, Sergeant Nighbert, what the hell was that noise?"
"Huh....what?....go back to sleep."

This guy is trying to surrender to one of us or something, and everyone is sleeping through it. Nobody seems to want to take charge of this Iraqi who just defected from his army and brazenly crossed the lines into enemy territory. But finally, some mechanic in his track decides to see who the hell is banging on his vehicle at 2 in the morning.

Lo and behold, here is this dishevelled Iraqi cook standing in the darkness (well, actually, he now has the piercing beam of a flashlight blinding him), with torn pantlegs and bloodstains up and down his body [much to the horror of all of you at fans, I'm sure].

I'm not sure whether he had any ESL capabilities or not (English as a Second Language). But he was in serious need of medical attention. From the looks of things, this guy has a serious shrapnel wound to the groin.

Maverick is called into action (hoo-ah). It seems that this little towel-headed camel jockey has gotten a serious case of grenade-explosion-too-close-to-the-choad (a wound that would make Mao Tse Tung proud). Now is the time for action.

Don't take anything as fact from here on out. I only heard this from Maverick's mouth. Maybe I remember it incorrectly. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm black, maybe I'm white. Whatever the case. Maverick has the divine pleasure of treating this poor testicle-deprived sod.

This guy has a flap of skin shredded from his inner thigh. It's still there, but only connected by an inch of flesh. It's a sort of doggie door for the sand fleas to enter into his musculo-skeletal structure in a place that only the Great Prophet of Glub would know the proper course of action for. But as they say "It's only a flesh wound."

The part that you and I want to know about is the damage to the jewel case. Yes, our buddy Abdul has received the high esteemed honor of having his testicle sack ripped open by a hot piece of sharp metal, and part of it is lodged somewhere up near the gonads.

Maverick (the self-proclaimed modern day Marquis de Sade) goes right to work on the guy's future family. He lays the cook downon a mat in the sand, and by the light of the moon and a flashlight, extracts said piece of hot, sharp shrapnel from the wound. (Here is truly a good piece for the trophy case.) The dude is moaning in pain; Maverick gives him some Motrin or something (saving the morphine for any American who might need it more).

Some flesh will have to be cut away before the wound can be properly closed. Because, unfortunately for Abdual and fortunately for a.t'ers, he has developed gangrene over the past few days. I don't know what happened to Mr. Al-azim's little sperm-producing ball bearings, maybe he kept one or two. But he was sewed up without painkiller. Had some field dressing wrapped around his crotch. And was sent to the field trains to the MPs for processing into a camp somewhere. Maybe Ty stole his wallet or something (which he was known to do at those prisoner camps). Maybe Glub was there and intervened, saving him for a higher purpose. I do know that he did survive this episode of war and moved on to a life without children. I just hope that someday, he will tell one of us the epilogue of his war experiences.

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At the funeral parlor: "Well, we can eat your mother's body. And if you feel guilty about it later, we can dig a grave and throw up in it." -Monty Python's Flying Circus
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