#operation iraqi freedom | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

builder051 · 4 months

Text

Happy Christmas (war is over)

Chasing Ghosts

————————

WARNINGS: firstly, this is one of those stories that has practically no action, but there’s a ton of content in somebody’s head. It also has pretty much every trigger in the book, but 99% of them are tiny mentions. Actual tws for talk of graphic violence (war setting), mental health talk inc depression and short mention of eating disorders. Also emeto. Dirty jokes. Basically you know what comes with the territory.

—————————-

Steve’s done it again. He’s gone and made Christmas eve a merry affair. He can pretend it’s for all of their benefit, but the indulgence is purely his own.

Tasha’s in as decent a mood as she can, nursing only one cracked toenail from her final Nutcracker fill-in.

James, who never understood the pre-holiday excitement, now uses his political science textbook as a lap table. A childhood without Santa and a career granting as little leave as possible left him at an impasse. Floating around and forgetting the day of the week would cause him more stress than relaxation, so an intersession class it was. It felt like an unacknowledged compromise. His body would be home for break, but there’d be a plausible reason hime to hole up and keep his head down.

The speakers on the television emit a jumbled mix of Mannheim Steamroller and Irving Berlin. James has his aids turned low, but he’s still grateful Mariah Carey been excised from the playlist.

“That’s not a real Christmas song,” Steve had explained when he quickly thumbs-downed her song on the playlist. There had been a warm kind of silent agreement after that.

Wham!’s “Last Christmas” brought up more of a debate. “It’s, like, canon?” Steve had offered timidly.

“Only because it was written before you were born,” Tasha said with a laugh. She could’ve mentioned that none of them had come into the world yet by 1983, but with her choice phrasing, the statement seemed simultaneously very wise and very naive.

“It’s about sex,” James had added irritably, as if it was a fact he was reading aloud from his book. He wanted to open it up again. He’d stopped in the middle of a chapter, much to his disgruntlement.

“Everything’s about sex…” Tasha had sighed. “I mean. The Nutcracker’s a fucking pedophile…”

“We are not having a discussion about dirty fairy tales,” James stated with finality.

It took a moment for everyone to breathe, then the tension began to melt again, perhaps with help from the dancing flame atop Steve’s balsam scented candle.

Once it’s clear they all had both motivation and ability to keep peace, Steve goes into the kitchen to warm eggnog and pour out caramel popcorn. As he distributes the goodies back in the living room, he shoots James a look. “It’s, like, I added the rum to the whole thing…”

James hates it when Tasha takes her drinks and drugs home with her. He has a cold, uncharitable thought stashed at the back of his mind; if Tash dropped dead somewhere, anywhere, so long as it was out of the house, he wouldn’t be liable. Within the confines of the, apartment though… “Eh,” James shrugs. “Spirit of the season,” he grumbles. Then, to Tasha, “No crushed up pills or shit overnight, you hear?”

“Sure…” Tasha un-crams herself from the corner of the sofa and limps back toward the kitchen.

“I can get—“ Steve calls, half-rising from his seat.

“I got it…” Tasha digs in the fridge for a moment, then returns gripping a bag of unwashed celery stalks.

“Hey,” James starts to admonish.

“You said no dirty fairy tales, no sex songs, and no snorting Xanax.” Tasha holds the celery as if it were a club she’d use to hit him. “You haven’t outlawed anything else.” She wads her body cross legged against the arm of the sofa, pulls a stalk of celery from the bag, then uses it as an unnecessary swizzle stick for her eggnog.

James rolls his eyes. His desire to express irritation wraps around and consumes what could’ve been silence for Steve’s sake. L He can’t help himself, though. “Shit, Tasha. Why? Just, fucking why?”

Tasha looks down at the thick miniature tree garnishing her beverage. She holds it between finger and thumb, then moves her tongue seductively through the divet where the most eggnog and cinnamon have gathered. She points the dripping celery stalk at James. “You ever been sucked that good?”

“My god.” James shakes his head, which he hadn’t realized was throbbing. The movement set it off, maybe. Or his growing fury. “Sorry about her, Steve. If you don’t want to watch, we can just go to bed.”

“Oh,” Steve hesitates. “It’s ok.”

“See?” Tasha looks smugly at James. “I’m just offsetting calories,” she says, as if her intention wasn’t already clear.

“And I assume you’re just out of innuendos, too?” James means it to be a warning. He’s had a few sips of his own eggnog, though, and he hopes his vocal cords haven’t relaxed enough to edge his authoritative aggression down to something more like childish bickering.

“Never.” Tasha dips her celery again, licks off the eggnog, then holds it to her lip like a cigar.

“That’s… great.” James stands and starts chugging the rest of his eggnog. He raises his book and points it in the direction of the bedroom down the hall. He’ll be reading in bed if needs him.

“Sure, yeah.” Steve nods to James, still playing it cool. His desire not to take sides is beginning to freeze him, though. The robotic head tilt. The canned laughter.

James has his last gulp of eggnog in his mouth, and he’s trying to decide whether to put his mug in the sink or whether to take it with him to make the flight to the bedroom quicker. It ends up not mattering, though. Steve says something, and James’s mug cracks in two as it hits the floor.

“Maybe I should’ve made you a bloody mary.”

It’s a joke. It’s nothing to do with James. It’s about the stupid celery sticks. It’s one of Steve’s weaker attempts to clear the air.

James slaps his hand over his mouth to keep more than just eggnog from spilling back up. His vision goes shiny around the edges. He can’t see a thing…

James barely makes out olive green fatigues. The pixilated beige that actually served as camouflage was perpetually in the laundry. Off time was marked with untucked white t shirts and dark trousers with the cuffs rolled up and waistbands rolled down.

James he hears the laughter. Smells the booze. Tastes the extra sugar and food dye that taint what would’ve been perfectly good sugar cookies. The falseness of the holiday spirit mingles with the flavor of grocery-store frosting and sets an ache in his teeth.

“Hey, you shot me!”

James jumped and whipped his head around. Active shooter? Immediate evacuation?

It was a kid, completely plastered and stumbling. He was probably early in his tour and still unfamiliar with the hazy line between gallows humor and the taboo. James should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt. Should have swallowed his anger and ruined only his own holiday.

The spitball soaked in lake red #40 had stuck in the center of the kid’s chest, sending brightly colored dribbles all down his front. The expansion of the stain was far too pale and pinkish to mistake for actual blood, but the kid played it like a fool.

“Oh you fucker! I’m dying! You killed me!”

James, khaki-clad and with seven minutes remaining on his shift, grabbed the kid by the shoulders of his shirt and pinned him against a tent pole.

James doesn’t remember his exact words. They were probably along the lines of “you ever taken a real bullet before?” Then he’d wielded a fist and clocked him in the throat.

The kid fell to the side, gasping, but James’s grip held him upright. Somebody came up from behind and tried yanking James off the kid, but he backhanded whoever it was without turning his head.

“Friendly fire! It was just a stupid—Just a—“

The voice came out slurred and muffled. The back of James’s hand was sticky with blood and stinging around the knuckles. He’d definitely caught teeth.

Then the kid laughed. He peeked over James’s shoulder and offered his attacker-cum-defender a peace pact and a couple more Budweiser. “Beer’s all I got, but with your lip all fucked up, call it a bloody mary—“

James could’ve murdered them both. Really, truly killed them. His weapon was holstered on his hip. His right hand was already heading that direction. He didn’t need to hear this shit. These dumbasses didn’t need to be among the ranks of America’s finest, not with these stupid, drunken jokes. A bloody lip was nothing. Nothing to watching a fellow soldier explode and suddenly having a face full of lacerated brain matter. James had learned hard and early that alcohol is less a mask and more a mirror.

A buddy from James’s platoon mistook the assault as 2 on 1 with James as the target. A rough reminder to punch his timecard before he punched another soldier broke James’s bubble of violent thought. He wiped his bloody hand across the spitball stain on the kid’s chest, then walked away to do his proper duty.

No one reported him, it being Christmas eve and all. Assault, fighting, taking action in rage, cheating the Army out of seven minutes’ good labor… James could be reprimanded for any and all of them. Probably should be. Residual anger bubbled in James’s gut, creating an excess of bile seeping up from the back of his tongue.

He can’t remember how much time had passed, but eventually James heard someone shuffling around outside his tent. Then there was retching.

James’s mouth filled with saliva. He couldn’t swallow. He could barely move. Using every reserve of energy he had, James grasped the tent’s entrance flap and vomited heavily into the sand. He barely caught a breath before retching violently again.

Multiple minutes passed before James could get a grip on himself. He wanted to cry; he was glad to be expelling something other than tears.

Eventually the other unfortunate soul trudged around the corner and headed to the next bunkhouse over from Jame’s. It was the stupid kid, still wearing the shirt soiled with koolaid and blood and now sick. James swept tent’s the canvas cover back over himself. He wouldn’t be able to stand eye contact. One or the other would be eating a bullet this time. Only this time, James’s weapon was stored securely beside his cot.

James is largely unaware of Steve easing him onto his knees. He catches a glimpse of Tasha’s feet, then her hands as she pulls shards of china from the carpet.

“It’s ok,” Steve’s voice intones. “You’re here. You’re safe.”

“I’m fine,” James splutters. It’s an automatic response; both Steve and Tasha know to take no stock in it. James breathes in the balsam scented air. He separates the tastes of cream and bile and rum. He shakily wipes at his nose and mouth. James’s hand comes away sticky and red-streaked. It’s nothing major; a scrape or pressure sore releasing more bodily fluid to add to the mess. He swallows experimentally, and harsh, stinging reflux makes him gag all over again.

“Alright.” Steve pats James’s shoulder. “Want to try the bathroom?”

James presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He shakes his head, but the meaning of the question hasn’t yet penetrated. He has half a mind to stick his fingers down his throat. James squints into the mess of sick he’s made on the living room floor, and there, plainly, is the thin bloody rivulet that’s departed his body.

His spirit must be dead. Or maybe his body. James has to have passed into some dimensional void where injury starts to mean nothing. Flashes of hopelessness displace James’s blurry vision again. Playing fast and loose with his benzos fresh out of the VA. Tasha missing her graduation party to receive CPR whilst en route to get her stomach pumped. Headphones blaring death metal into his ears as he passed the car in the driveway, then stood gaping as the foster dad jumped out of the driver’s side and zipping his pants while a girl from his school tore in the other direction, her skirt tucked into her underwear.

It’s too much. It’s going to crush him. James can’t feel his body. He can’t feel his face. He wonders if he’s been dosed with Haldol. Is his brain going to shut off too? Should it? Would that give him blessed relief at last?

It’s only when Steve shifts James’s head more securely onto his shoulder that he realizes tears are pouring from his eyes. He never does this. It’s just making more mess.

“It’s probably a migraine,” Tasha supplies. There’s a shrug written in her tone.

“James?” Steve probes. “How are you feeling?”

Worse than dead doesn’t seem like an appropriate response. James settles with, “I don’t know.”

It’s true enough. James’s life has been wrought with obstacles, with pain, with too much knowledge, too much experience, too much feeling. He’s fucked. Completely. He was battle worn before he’d left for his first deployment.

And now he’s left with, what exactly? An overly doting boyfriend. An obnoxious little sister. A candle that has no right to smell so good. Kate Smith’s voice warbling about silver bells. The fuck do bells have to do with Christmas, anyway?

Nothing. They have no more importance than political science, demented ballets, or songs about sex.

As James lets Steve help him to his feet, he tries to let go. The more sick, the more tears, the better. James sniffles, and something hot and metallic flows from his sinus cavity down his throat. He coughs, and his tight muscles relax by half a degree.

A migraine. A nosebleed. A flashback. The cause is no longer important. It’s how he’s going to go on afterward.

#sickfic #marvel #mcu #fanfic #emeto #captain america #fanfiction #chasing ghosts #steve rogers #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #christmas #flashback #headache #violence #operation iraqi freedom #alcohol #ed tw

6 notes · View notes

chloes-history-corner · 1 year

Text

Post Sept 11 US

I want to start a series of posts on US in the turn of the century. I think America's invasion of Iraq describes much of the current political landscape and, at least in my experience as someone who was young and impressionable in the early 2000s, so many things about US politics was hidden from public education (unsurprisingly). For that reason, however, I think it's very useful to have ongoing discussion and evaluation of that history. Once I started doing my own research into this history, I discovered tons of information - first hand accounts, collations of reports, journalistic publications - that described a situation beyond even my cynical expectations. During the Trump "presidency," I assumed that term was the most incompetent American leadership has yet been in modern history. While I think that may still be true, an investigation of the Iraq War years reveals an administration barely more coherent, and possibly more evil. That said, my next 'x' number of posts will be concerning the Iraq War. I'll attempt to start at the beginning, and take us through the war years - hopefully providing a useful collection of historical anecdotes you can use to expand your own context and begin your own journey into this wild clusterfuck of a time. Introduction out of the way, I'll keep the content of this post short by attempting to summarize the Bush Admin's internal reaction to 9/11, and provide some cursory context of pre-9/11 sentiment.

As you can imagine, this topic will involve these three individuals (and many more) quite often. From left to right you see: Donald Rumsfeld, Bush's SecDef and general sleazebag; George W Bush, the President from 2000-2009, and completely useless for nearly all of that span; and Dick Cheyney, Vice President and former Rumsfeld protegee turned aimless war hawk.

First, some light background: The Gulf War. I want to start of by mentioning one of the many failings of my public education - essentially no mention of the Gulf War at all. You'll see why it went unmentioned as we go.

The Gulf War was born primarily out of the US' foreign policy from the Cold War. As an extremely brief summary, one of the US' primary strategies for combating Soviet interests was global resource control and manipulation. The actual tactical implementation of this broad strategy varied case-by-case, but in the Middle East, the US sought to control oil production and distribution through trade agreements, coercion, and hostile covert operations.

I could write books about the Gulf War (and many have), but in short: As part of America's Cold War operations in the Middle East, their covert operations were particularly brutal and led to very lopsided trade agreements for oil with Iran and Kuwait, and also to the arms provisioning of the Taliban who, at the time, were fighting the Soviets occupying Iraq (a conflict the US cherished). In Iran, the CIA - and the OPC in particular - essentially gave themselves an accountability-free playground. In the early '50s, an anti-imperial politician named Mohammad Mosaddegh took power in Iran and immediately nationalized Iran's oil production, effectively shutting the West off from Iranian oil completely.

The Western powers obviously couldn't tolerate what they considered to be an upstart, "Third World" nation, self-governing in a way that didn't cater to Western interests. So, the CIA quickly sent over perhaps their least competent (and most confident) intelligence operative - Kermit Roosevelt Jr. - who had successfully lobbied for an American intervention into Iranian politics; a coup of Mosaddegh's government. After several comically unsuccessful attempts (which I encourage you to read about), Kermit finally succeeded. Mosaddegh's government collapsed, and the US and Britain installed a pro-Western PM in his place, Reza Pahlavi. The new government swiftly reversed many of Mosaddegh's policies in favor of new legislation, particularly national oil legislation. The new oil deal re-privatized Iranian oil, owned partially by Iranian companies and mostly by Western oil companies (like BP, the company Mosaddegh had removed with oil nationalization). All this to say that the US (and Britain) practically through money into the Iranian shredder until the situation worked out in their favor. Considering their GDP, such massive final investiture meant virtually nothing for the Western powers, and this attitude would largely inform the West's diplomatic strategy in the Middle East going forward. Regrouping to the topic of Iraq: In 1979, Pahlavi's government was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution. Saddam Hussein, who was and had been the Iraqi President, supported this revolution because Iraq and Iran had been constantly engaged in border disputes. Saddam supposed that a revolution would weaken Iran and make it easier to achieve the territory gains he'd been attempting for years. Instead, the new Iranian government was less predictable than Saddam had hoped. The new Iranian leader quickly called for a broader Islamic Revolution, and encouraged revolutionary activity in Iraq throughout the early part of the decade. Very long story short (I highly recommend reading more on this topic) the antagonism between Iran and Iraq spill over into open military conflict, and Iraq decides to invade in September of 1980 and fought a brutal and chaotic war involving multiple Geneva violations. In the end, despite Iraqi propagandist claims, the war was extremely unrewarding for both parties. Both Iran and Iraq exited the war billions of dollars poorer with suffering domestic infrastructure and belligerent populations.

There's more to say on this in a later post, but for our immediate understanding: Saddam needed money badly after the war, and looked to the West, who had been historically supportive of his government (the West considered Iraq to be an important regional counter to the Iranian revolutionary spirit). America, however, after bankrolling Iraq during the war against Iran, was desperately attempting to distance itself from the situation and take a posture of the patriarchal mediator. This happened for a lot of reasons, but a major one being that Saudi Arabia and Israel were becoming nervous about the Middle East, and the US considered them crucial allies and would not risk disturbing them. So, left to his own devices, Saddam panicked.

Part of the reason for invading Iran was to seize Iranian oil production and boost the Iraqi economy. This wan not achieved during the invasion, but Saddam saw another opportunity. Directly to Iraq's south lies Kuwait - a small but prosperous nation, rich in oil and poor in arms. Thinking (barely) on his feet, Saddam decides to invade Kuwait in an attempt to make back his losses from his Iranian invasion by seizing and selling Kuwaiti oil.

I mentioned earlier that the US was very nervous about more conflict in the Middle East, and in the early 90s began running war games simulating a defense of Saudi Arabia from a hostile Iraq. The determination was that such a campaign would be extremely costly and very difficult to justify to the American public, and this conclusion heavily informed the H.W. Bush Administration in the year Saddam chose to invade Kuwait.

I think it's important to note the dramatic change in direct American intervention into the Middle East with H.W.'s administration. During the Cold War, the US had a more passive stance - choosing proxy wars and clandestine campaigns over direct military commitments. In the 90s however, everything seemed to change.

Saddam's invasion of Kuwait begins on August 2, 1990. The next day, President Bush Sr. was on television declaring his committed opposition to Iraq's aggression. Less than after the war in Kuwait began, American fighter squadrons have landed in Saudi Arabia, the first of many American military assets to be deployed in the conflict, and a dire foreshadowing of the beginning of the Gulf War in January '91.

My next post will focus entirely on the Gulf War, and mostly the American shift in attitude towards Saddam and the idea of direct military engagement in Middle Eastern society. Thank you for reading! Please look forward to my next post.

#us history #american history #political history #middle east #gulf war #operation iraqi freedom #desert storm

6 notes · View notes