Storytelling for Week 3: A Lethal Detour

A Lethal Detour

    After finishing up a contracted operation from the United States Army back in 2006, my Blackwater Team, a private military contracting company, and I were to rendezvous back at the regional operation base 100 miles from our previous target in a small Afghani town.  We completed our mission successfully but my team suffered heavy causalities back at our mission to eliminate a local chief and also lost several of our SUV's to IED's (Improvised explosive devices) on the road.  The trip back that we were on would take a couple days due to problems with locals and poor road conditions.  We rode with poor spirits through this lawless countryside and found an seemingly safe place where we could treat our wounded and rest.  The area we were in was rocky and mountainous, and contained many caves and crevices.  I rounded up a six man team of my remaining healthy men with me to see if the locals were friendly.  While we didn't have food, we did have some good vodka  one of my men had procured from our previous mission to give as a good-willed gesture.  Also most of our larger .308 and .223 rounds were gone, so all we had were our Beretta side arms. We trekked up the nearby mountain with the little ammo we had and eventually stumbled across a vacant village with its back a huge sheer cliff.  After scouting a bit, we decided to make ourselves at home in the house at the back of this abandoned village right next to the cliff.  

     Not much time had passed when we heard a commotion outside.  We stepped out of the house to see several run-down trucks full of at least 20 or 30 armed men.  While we were not wearing U.S. troop gear, we definitely looked like we didn't belong in the mountains of Afghanistan.  Finally noticing us, the obvious leader of their band yelled out in broken English, "Who are you and what brings you to our camp?  You are not American soldiers but do you bring us trouble?"  Since I was in charge, I carefully spoke out, trying to avoid conflict since we were out-manned and outgunned:  "We are private contractors, not part of the U.S. forces and we just seek shelter and rest."  Their leader's eyes blazed with hate and said, "You people are just as bad as they, but I am not going to do anything, however, where are the rest of your men, are they close?"  Knowing that he would hunt down the rest of our injured group, I said, "It's just us, we're a small group and the others with us died from a roadside bomb."  After a silence that seemed to last forever, he lifted up his AK-47 and gunned down two of my men instantly.  We fled inside and watched as he mercilessly destroyed the remains of the two men.  Since the house we were in was backed by the cliff, we had to make due and hold out.  Their leader laughed, blockaded us in, and set up some of his men to make sure we didn't try anything, knowing we couldn't escape but not wanting to lose any men trying to get us out. 

(An Afghan soldier in Loi Kalay,  Websource: Vanity Fair)

     We waited for a while, posted up taking guard shifts, glancing outside to make sure they didn't try to advance.  As night fell, the two men on shift noticed movement outside and quick as a flash, the two of them were consecutively sniped by someone using an old Russian Dragunov sniper rifle.  After hearing the rifle shots and hearing my comrades' bodies hit the floor, I quickly realized the futility of our predicament.  Knowing that their leader was probably nearby, I shouted out as loudly as I could, "We are beaten and you could kill us, but if you spare us we can pay you handsomely in U.S. dollars and we even originally brought you a gift of good Russian vodka."  I opened the door a tiny bit and managed to roll out the couple bottles of vodka we had.  After what seemed like an eternity, we heard a voice from the dark, "Is that all you have?  Throw out the rest of what you have and we'll consider."  After throwing out what we had left, we waited in silence and after some time had passed, we heard the sounds of carousing and the majority of their men began drinking the spirits we had given them.  We glanced out the window and saw most of the guards had gone leaving only a boy too young to drink with his gun trained on the house.  

     Waiting until most of them fell into a drunken stupor, we quickly rushed and overpowered the inexperienced boy guarding us, knocking him out and taking his gun.  We stole our way to where most of the men were passed out from drinking.  We quickly pulled out our knives and began to quietly kill all of the men.  The last one we came across, their leader, was my target so I could enact revenge but against the urging of my men, I decided to not kill him but instead blind him so he could live out the remainder of his days useless.  As I slashed his eyes, he began to scream out in agony and realized his mistake in letting down his guard.  We left him there and made our way back down the mountain to the rest of our team.  At the sight of us, they were filled noticed our missing members and the pitiful state we were in.  We quickly packed things up and headed on our way, leaving that miserable mountain behind. 

Author's Note:  For this storytelling week, I used The Land of the Cyclopes, Prisoners of the Cyclops, and The Cyclops Defeated from Homer's Odyssey.  If you haven't read the original it is essentially Odysseus and his men are trapped by a cyclops in a cave where they are slowly being eaten.  After some time, they trick the cyclops into getting drunk and while he is asleep, they blind him.  They use the cyclops disadvantage of no sight to sneak out but in Odysseus's pride, he reveals his name to the cyclops, who in turn gets his father Poseidon to curse them so they won't return home safely.  I decided to use the idea of private military contractors in Afghanistan because I had just recently watched a Vice piece on their practices in Afghanistan and Odysseus's actions and relation to Agamemnon from both the Iliad and this made decide to use this parallel.  I tried to keep a majority of the story similar to the original but there are some major differences.  In the original, there is only one cyclops, Polyphemus, that Odysseus deals with instead of a group of soldiers.  Also, I decided to omit the play on words Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is Nobody.  I tried to make something like that work but I couldn't make it fit.  There are of course other differences but I felt like those were the major ones that would diverge my telling from the original.

Bibliography:  "The Land of the Cyclopes," "Prisoners of the Cyclops," and "The Cyclops Defeated" translated by Tony Kline, from Homer's The Odyssey (2002).  Web source:  Homer's Odyssey