At Qadisiyyah, Khalid, the great Islamic leader, defeated the Sassanids or Persians in 636 AD leading to the conquest of Persia by Islam Recently there was a battle between ISIS and the Iraqis in the same place.
Firing the Kord 12.7 heavy machine gun
In the back of the Toyota was powerful
Especially in the dark
The muzzle flash half a meter long
He was an instrument of the Divine
Blessed be his name
The brothers were crossing the same red orange soil
Where Khalid defeated the Sassinids
Down that long road that led to Bagdad
Everything was so pure, so clean
No thoughts of that skinny sickly man, his father
Or mother’s tears and wailing
The swollen bodies left in ditches
All the innocent dead
Just the wind and the dust
Hands on the trigger, the road unwinding like a rope
Two f-18s sliding through the sky at twilight
All the displays lit
Coming on the convoy from behind
Missiles locked and launched, hostiles hit
Another pass, two more flashes
Back to the carrier, 10 out of 10
He opened the eye that could see
Noticed the stars burning like a river in the skies
A sickle moon setting
Faded into a dream state for a while
Images of a boy running through the ocean surf towards….
Then the pain tore him back
The heavy gun lying across his legs and belly
Something wrong with his right arm
But he could move the left
Wiped crusted red from his eye, called out to his brothers
Just silence and the wind
Moved his left hand to the trigger grip of the heavy gun
Could still traverse a little bit
Clicked off the safety and squeezed
The gun roared with a spout of flame
Now let them come
The drone jockey was bored
Waiting to go to the bar
He’d texted Jess and she’d said maybe, maybe…
Ops guy on the headset said activity on the road
So he flew the drone down to the still smoking ruin of trucks
Sure enough, movement and a muzzle flash
Target acquired and Hellfire away
Get some
Screen went white
More bad guys blown and gone
The blast uncovered part of an inscribed stone slab
The writing could have been Persian or Babylonian or…
Might have been about a battle or a grave, we’ll never know
The carrion eaters began to come
And the red orange dust slid across
The road.