The Dog Days of September

It was 6:00 am. The hot light of another Bagdad summer’s day began striking David Abner’s face. This morning, like most of the mornings this summer, the young soldier was sickened from the heat. It seemed he could never escape it—there was no letting up here, ever. He knew later, when he wanted to sleep (if he really got the chance), it would reach 110 degrees by midday. It was almost inhuman. David lay on a rooftop with sweat continuing to build and drip from his shaven head down to his chin. David had stayed up the latter part of the night on top of the four-story apartment building overlooking an alleyway, waiting for his target to emerge from the building across the garbage-filled passage. Before taking this position, his U.S. Army Ranger team had to scout the neighborhood, setting up various positions to kill their prey. Intelligence pinpointed the target staying at the safe house apartment on the second floor this Saturday night, visiting a wife and children. There were only two entrances to the building, so two other snipers were positioned on the other side of the street. The nineteen-year-old was the first shooter of the team, the best marksman of this elite sniper team, the best hunter of the best team the U.S. Army Rangers had on the ground in Iraq. Under the cover of darkness, his team had decided that the top of this building would give him the best field of vision to shoot the target. David climbed up the side of the worn building in the middle of the slum, which was a hot bed of al-Qaida activity, and positioned himself so that he had a direct shot at the door across the street. He had lay there, motionless, for hours, undetected by the occupants of the apartments below, on the hot, metal roof, dressed in full battle gear, his M-24 by his side. The rifle was similar to the gun that he hunted with back home—first with his dad and later with his uncle—a Remington 700, except this one had an amazing sniper scope on it. Back home, hunting deer, aiming the rifle for the perfect shot, was something you practiced with whatever scope you had on the gun. It was part of the sport—learning and developing your technique in scoping the prey. Here, there was no sport in this hunt, for the prey could shoot back. The scope was critical, because the first shot had to count. This scope and this gun had never failed David. During these forays, David often lost tract of the days. Lying prostrate for hours, David would use the time to think deeply, contemplate things, like he used when he sat on the front porch of his dad’s hunting cabin back home in the cold mountain air. As a teenager at home, David for the most part, was very depressed, traumatized by the sudden loss of his father at the World Trade Center and the aftermath that involved a lack of closure in finding his remains, until one day when they had discovered his arm—just his arm—and the absurd funeral that had made David a star in an unwanted media circus. For the rest of his time between then and joining the U.S. Army, he was the poor child of the “Fallen Angel” of the World Trade Center wherever he went. People, whether they were his friends, his family, teachers, or even strangers, were always nice and conciliatory, too nice, a little phony at times. His mother had her own issues, and although she had tried to support him, she kind of got wrapped up in her own grief and notoriety, building a cocoon around herself, no longer able to converse with him. By the time he was a senior in high school, he craved the solitude of the woods that was the best part of deer hunting. He liked to be by himself. In the cold air, smoking a joint and drinking some blueberry brandy to stay warm, sitting on the Adirondack chair at the cabin, he felt relaxed. It was the only time he experienced some happiness, some peace. But here, it was so different, for the tepid heat made him very angry and tense all the time. David was a warrior consumed with hatred for his enemies, and as his tour continued, the heat exasperated his revulsion for the culture and the people who were responsible for his father’s death. Today, lying in wait for hours for a man who had masterminded the death of scores of his comrades, both the heat and his anger were very bad, the worst yet in his tour of duty. The day was September 11, 2005. The sun had now broken the horizon. The sniper lifted up and looked down at the alley. It was quiet. He lay back down and began to think again. David knew he was in Iraq solely to get revenge against all of the murderers of his father, the ones who ruined his family’s life and robbed him of his father and his childhood. On the surface, he hid his hatred and anger well. He was as focused and patriotic as the other soldiers stationed there, performing a job that they had volunteered to get done. David had even proven himself to be the best among the best. So far, in little more than a year, he had killed over forty terrorists, but to him, it was not enough. David never expressed these thoughts to anyone, but the vengeance he sought controlled his thinking and his life. When in the field, he had two missions: (1) to conduct himself by the orders he was given by his superiors and (2) to kill every Arab who could one day come to New York to murder his people.