The boy lay on the ground, clutching at the fresh bullet wound in his ankle. Never again would he be able to run; perhaps he would be lucky even to walk with a limp.  The soldiers left him thier after arguing amongst themselves over what they should have done with him, having made sure to take away the AK-47 rifle he had received from his uncle. The boy did not cry, for it is the nature of The Struggle to give and receive wounds, to slay the infidels that were raping the honour of his homeland.

As the soldiers walked away, he began crawling back to the part of town he had come from. Perhaps he would receive assistance from his family, or if not, perhaps he himself would be shot by one of the rival gangs that might see him as a coward for not having fought to the death. 

Captain John F. Randall, a ten year Army veteran, never was one to grumble about his assigned duties. Well, at least not in front of his soldiers. But today, he once again found himself in the thick of action - another round whizzed by his ear and riccochetted somewhere.

"Cranmer, can you possibly find it in your heart to direct some fire on these positions … here and here…"

Randall marked the positions with a stylus on his Command Post Hardened Tablet computer… "at G-6…? We are really hemmed in here by these sniper teams. There are also some mobiles with RPGs in the vicinity, so we cannot risk sending in any vehicles."

"Roger, sir. We are setting up a bracket on those positions"… came the crisp reply over the earbud built into his helmet.

Randall thought to himself, … Now where are those rocket jockeys when you need them … thinking of the Apache teams that were supposed to be providing him with air support. But he had remembered at the Division Commander’s briefing that morning that Air Cavalry was supporting the drive northward toward the Sadr Brigade’s holdouts.

No such luck today, he groaned under his breath.

 
Mustafa Al-Sidari arrived at Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he had been working as a records clerk for a little over a year. Fortunately, he had been able to get priviledged parking near the entrance to his work area… each year, the pain in his leg had gotten progressively worse. Every step made him wince, whenever he had to put his weight on the prosthetic device that served as his knee and lower leg and left foot. It was an ill-fitted device, and yet he had considered himself lucky to have gotten it. 

A long time ago, he had been the fastest boy in his town; his uncle would tell him many times that he could have played a sport very well, given the chance. 

Aside from stopping work for a few minutes periodically every day to pray toward Mecca, he was otherwise a model worker, and courteous to everyone he had dealings with. Yet he never allowed himself to become friendly with the other staff. It was just business. In fact, only the keenest eye might have noticed how his countenance was lifted up one morning when going over the patient register.

 

Confusion had reigned for a few minutes as a flurried salvo of artillery rounds impacted around the building; a few partisans had rushed out screaming and somebody had managed to lob an improvised explosive device at the American soldiers. Fortunately, it blew up in mid-trajectory, only hitting a one unlucky man with whatever shrapnel payload it had.

"Fire in the hole! That means stop and drop, you stupid idiot!!" Randall yanked down on the young private’s helmet to illustrate his point. "Don’t think that this is some idiot video game that you can play and expect to respawn when you get hit. This is for keeps! Serjeant Campbell, perhaps some remedial training is in order. For either you, or this sorry excuse of a soldier. You’d best sort out who needs what training, understood?"

"Hooah, sir!" came the reply from Campbell. 

The private nodded sheepishly.

"Gawd, with morons like this, who needs to worry about the enemy… Morris, see if Charlie Squad needs a medevac call… Shumway, Gordon, and Pike: take your fire teams and flank the building that just went poof. Eliminate any resistance you see there."

Al-Sidari spent much of the day double checking the records. If nothing else, he was a very meticulous worker. He had made a note of the patient in Room 404, a certain Army officer that was being treated for one of the many strange new illnesses that were cropping up in the soldiers that had come back from Gulf War II, now in its twelfth year.

He retrieved a keycard he had encoded a few weeks ago.  The pharmacy was supposed to have changed the codes on a weekly basis, but they were too swamped with work to keep up on details like that. So many veterans and soldiers kept the system relatively flooded. Who would pay any attention to an extra order of potent sedatives?

Al-Sidari told his supervisor that he would be taking a longer lunch than usual, and headed off to the hospital pharmacy.

Randall brought the rest of his platoon to secure the remains of the building; the fire teams had killed off the RPG and an assortment of men and boys that had been guarding a cache of weapons and supplies with thier very lives.  Randall lit a cigarette from a pack he had removed from one of the corpses…

"I really need to quit this accursed habit" he said to nobody in particular. As he drew a puff, he felt an explosive kick radiating through his rib cage; the Hardened Tablet computer he was carrying fell free from its mounting on his web belt, and landed with a solid clunk, followed a half second later by Captain Randall.

All he heard for the next several minutes was the commotion of a pop-pop-pop of a lone AK-47, and soldiers screaming for fire at such-and-such direction.

Randall looked up at the shop accross the plaza, where he saw something like a ten-year old boy with a gun running for cover…

He got up and shook off assistance from one of the medics. "For crying out loud, why do ya think we spend $50,000 on each of these vests? Just because they look pretty?"

That got a nervous laugh from some of the men around him… it was only this spring that they had finally gotten the upgraded body armor they had long needed. So many of thier comrades had fallen to enemy fire for lack of any decent body armor.

"Clarke, get a team behind that shop and cover any exits. I saw a young fella with a rifle run inside. Longfoot, Nichols, Swanson… grab yer gear and come with me."

Al-Sidari made his way to Room 404 and checked the name plate on the door.

He had found his man. Retreiving a syringe and the small bottle from the overcoat he had "appropriated" just a few minutes before, he prepared the injection. As he reached for the IV access port, the emaciated man looked up into his eyes… was there a glimmer of recognition?

Randall leveled his M-16 at the boy, and ordered him to drop his weapon; the boy did not respond, other than to level his weapon back at the American.

"Drop your weapon NOW." The boy clicked his trigger repeatedly, but nothing happened. In a blur, the other soldiers fell upon the boy, and beat him mercilessly with thier weapons.  Randall picked up the AK-47 and ordered his men to stop.

He ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber of the AK-47. Eyeing the dozen or so rounds remaining in the clip, he said softly: "I guess we got lucky."

"So, what should we do, Cap? Should we ‘DX’ him and toss him out with the others?"

"There’s no room for any kids at the detention center… and killing him would be a bit too much… I have a boy at home about his age."

"Nichols, secure this AK-47." Randall tossed the weapon to Sergeant Nichols, and put the magazine into an empty ammo pouch on his web belt.

"Gahh, I suppose we will let him go, but first…"

Randall reached for his 9mm pistol, and shot the boy in the ankle. The boy shrieked in pain, but fought to suppress his tears.

"It’s a minor wound, kid. It’s to keep you out of the fight for a while. Do something useful with your life instead of listening to your insane mullahs. Maybe you will amount to something. Inshallah*."

Al-Sidari walked away from the dying man that had been Major John F. Randall, retired. Al-Sidari wore a smile, a genuine smile for the first time in many years. It was only a minor part of his Struggle, but still a victory.

He was no doctor, as Randall might have thought. Looking back at the dying officer, he merely said: "I guess you got lucky, Major Randall. I am sorry that you could not have led a better life, but you’ll feel better in a while… Inshallah." 

*Inshallah = "if God (Allah) is willing".