Emerald-Hammer

“An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.”
- Jeff Cooper, Late 20th century philosopher

“Of course, evil is best overcome from a safe distance using the heaviest weapons available.”
- Zena Marley, 21st Century Philosopher

I’ve learnt a lot of history in my time since the guard, about the first great depression when the Stock Market Crashed, and the second, when the Banks crashed, of course we’re still living through the aftermath of that one. Even the lean green fightin’ machine got leaner in those days. After the government debated bailing out the financial system while all around them the banks sank and people’s savings disappeared into the deep blue. By the time they finished, there wasn’t a snowballs chance of making that ship sea-worthy again, and even the Air Force had to stop buying $150 hammers. The days of trillion dollar defence budgets were long gone.

Outside the barracks, Hummvees we should have scrapped twenty years ago rumble on, generating power for the base perimeter lights, and providing a flickering glow over the tent city we like to call Forward Base: Grande. KPR Signs hang over the PX, and the mud is trod down almost as hard as real tarmac.

Beyond the twin strands of razor wire and the dirt backed concrete blast shields, this red, dusty land used to be farmed, back before the banks forclosed on the mortgages, and then found themselves holding millions of acres of farmland they didn’t know what to do with. Since then, soil erosion had turned it into a dustbowl again.

The wind whipped it up, blinding and choking, most of the men are wearing Shemagh’s over their faces, and squint tokeep the sand out of their eyes. The Army doesn’t even issues Oakleys any more, not that they’ve been in poduction for nearly a generation. There’s not much demand for high-quality, high-price “designer” eye wear any more.

The gate guards pull apart the reinforced plastic barriers, and the long snouts of the twin Ma Deuces in pintles on the burnt out 1043’s raise in silent salute as we traipse out through the chicane of the crash barriers. Each man waits for the other to extend to the regulation distance before stepping out from behind the scarred concrete.

“So, wadda ya think it might be this time Jefe, coyotes, real coyotes or suicide bombers.”

“Shaddup, and keep your eyes open.”