Free ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold by J Murison, Jeannie Michaud Page A

distracted me, the NAAFI van.  I left them to contemplate for a while.  Orders were shouted after me.  I came back with a carrier bag full of crisps and coffees in the cut off bottom of a box and of course a tea for Buff.  It looked like there had been a few heated arguments while I had been away.
     
    The young man looked to me, ‘they seem to have made up their minds.  What about you, still think it’s something we should consider.’  
     
    I shook my head, ‘no, now I’ve talked it out I can’t see how it’s not going to happen.’
     
    Buff spoke up, ‘so you think the government’s going to make us fight Jim.’
     
    ‘Aye Buff, looks like it.’
     
    He looked at Buff and back to me, ‘you don’t sound as though you’d like to.’
     
    ‘As a matter of fact I wouldn’t, no.’
     
    ‘You wouldn’t consider it an honour to die for your country if called to by your own government.’  He was getting a bit haughty now.
     
    ‘Fuck that shit.’
     
    ‘That’s terrible.’  He was shocked by my venomous reply.
     
    ‘Is it, I’ll tell you what, let’s put it to a vote, would anyone here like to go to war?’
     
    ‘Fuck that,’ was as polite as the answers got.
     
    ‘Shocked?’  I asked him.
     
    You would have thought I had slapped him, ‘yes, very.’ 
     
    ‘Are you man enough to listen to a few cold truths?’
     
    ‘Yes, I think so.’  He shrugged.
     
    ‘OK, tell me then have you ever been in a fight?  Not a punch up at a boozing match but an honest to god battle; with machine guns, rifles, grenades and shells going off all round you.’
     
    He shook his head, ‘No.’
     
    I lit up, ‘so you’ve never lain behind the sights of a machine gun and watched some poor little bastard who’s just shit himself with fear, come charging at you with a rifle in his hands because he’s been told to.  Because in his mind he has no other choice.  Now he knows he’s going to die, he does you know, then when your finger finally involuntary squeezes that trigger and believe me, it is involuntary.’  I took a deep drag, ‘I don’t think any normal human being could quite consciously squeeze that trigger for the first time.  Do you know what the saddest part about the whole thing is, do you?’  I shook my head, ‘No, well I’ll tell you; it’s not the little hole that appears on the man’s forehead, it’s not that.  It isn’t even seeing the man’s brains spray out behind him in a pretty pink mist, no it’s not that either.  Do you know what it is?’  I advanced on him, fists clenched, barely in control of myself.  He took an involuntary step back.  ‘Well do you?’  He shook his head a little light of panic sparkling in his eyes.
    ‘Well, I’ll tell you.  It’s the look of surprise on his face, can you believe that.  Now the man is running in front of a bloody machine gun petrified out of his wits with his own shit filling his boots, he knows he is going to die.  And when it happens he’s surprised, shocked, stunned, he can’t believe it’s actually happened, but it has.  He doesn’t want to believe it, he even tries to take another step, but he can’t.  And it’s all gone, his life, his hopes, his dreams, his family, it’s all gone just like that.’  I snapped my fingers under his nose.  He jumped, startled!  I turned away then swung back.
    ‘And for what, tell me that.’  I didn’t wait for an answer.  ‘Well I’ll tell ye, so some fat bastard somewhere can have a little more land, a little more money, a little more power.  No laddie any man who’s ever been in a fight of that nature and survives knows it just isn’t fucking worth it.’
     
    ‘Whoa Jim, ease doon.’  Buff’s hand clamped down on my shoulder and dragged me gently away.  It was as though that friendly hand acted as an earth.  I felt the anger drain away leaving me a little light headed and dizzy.  He guided me over to the nearest bed, sat me down, lit a fag