L. P.

It's zero-three-thirty and Whitley's finally comfortale under the half-moon lighting their terrain after temps in the 90s sweated 'em out in their 'grunt gear.'
He leans into Koch's ear and whispers, "They're eating watermelon, watchin' baseball and barbecuing back home, right about now, 'Cola.'"


Without interrupting his infrared scoping pattern of of the foothills and horizon, Koch smiles, replying in his parched whisper, "Maybe if we're good we can barbecue a goat, tonight," and the two stifle a laugh


There's no breeze, and the whispers drown into the desert's silence, a disquieting stillness that makes Whitley think he's hearing as well as feeling his own heartbeat.


He's in Koch's ear again, "Looks like no firefight or fireworks for us tonight."


Koch absorbs the comment, feeling his listening post assignment... the desert's dead calm, his uniform, equipment--even Whitley--are meant to attach this 4th of July to each one before it, including Gettysburg's, and it fills the 19-year old corporal with a sense of pride that he has sewn 2010's fourth of July into the fabric of his country's histo...his inner calm shatters, intruded upon as he goes rigid reacting to the scope's internal red glow from three blacked-out rebels' jeeps 1000 yards and 20-degrees ESE of their fightin' hole.