The Severance by Elliott Sawyer Read Free Book Online

like a dead man.
    But sleep eluded him, as his mind turned over thoughts of Jessica, his wife, the platoon, and The Severance, the latest of Jake’s transgressions. His guys, a 21st century “Dirty Dozen,” took precedence in his troubled musings. Joe, Bena, SFC McBride, Ramirez. He remembered Ramirez’s excuse that he had never been a junkie, that he had always used cocaine “just to get by.” He had whined to Jake, “I never had enough hours in the day; that’s why I went from coffee to Adderall to cocaine.”
    The Kodiak platoon had been built from the ground up upon a unique kind of soldier. DUI, drug abuse, fighting, and insubordination were just a few of the basic prerequisites to get into the Kodiaks. Out of an 800-man battalion, only about 22 could be mustered. The Battalion Sergeant Major referred to them as “semi-useful” manpower. Kodiak soldiers were able-bodied and intelligent, for the most part, but none of them had a future in the Army. Each of the soldiers had been offered the same deal: do a year in the Kodiaks and get a general discharge and partial veterans benefits.
    Screw-ups. They were all screw-ups. And yet Ramirez had turned into an outstanding medic, always trying to save everyone, even when it was hopeless. Like Peter Harris—Corporal Peter Harris. Ramirez was probably the last person the mortally wounded soldier ever saw.
    Jake lay on his back staring at the ceiling, trying to wash his mind clear.
    • • •
    When Jake and his platoon were sent to a combat outpost just outside the tiny village of Narizah, a scant five kilometers from the Pakistan border, it was universally accepted as the worst place in Afghanistan to be in combat. The sum total of the outpost was two poorly constructed pinewood shacks surrounded by a labyrinth of sandbags and Hesco Bastion barriers. Narizah was decidedly pro-Taliban, so much so that the platoon permanently stationed there rarely ventured inside the village limits and was perfectly content to remain in the squalor of their outpost.
    One of the least enjoyable aspects of being in the Kodiak Platoon was being tasked to relieve units stationed in outposts, so they could rotate back to Salerno for rest and refit. It usually meant four days of living out of a duffel bag, eating awful food. On top of a general mission schedule, the platoon went on at least one of these relief missions a month. It was generally accepted that since Jake’s men were based out of Salerno, they lived an easy life, but the fact was that they rarely got to enjoy the comforts of the large Forward Operating Base. They were constantly out on convoys, foot patrols, and air assault missions. No one spent more hours outside the wire.
    The lieutenant in charge of the Narizah outpost barely spoke five words to Jake before boarding the helicopter that had just carried Jake there. The lieutenant had been so excited to be going back to running water and food that he’d forgotten to mention all the suspicious vehicle movement and foot traffic that had been ongoing in the area for the past week.
    Jake’s men got down to the business of securing the tiny outpost. Sergeant McBride, disgusted by the filth, ordered the entire position cleaned out. All the rotting food and other garbage were piled up about 700 meters outside the outpost and burned. The black smoke plume could be seen for miles.
    McBride stood on the perimeter wall of the compound, surveying the massive fire, rubbing his hands together and nodding ever so slightly in approval.
    “Perhaps just a bit excessive,” Jake said, joining his platoon sergeant.
    “Excessive filth. Excessive fire,” McBride said, shrugging his shoulders.
    The day dragged on and night fell at last. Each of the four corner guard towers was manned with two soldiers, each on one-hour shifts. The rest of the soldiers were bedded down in the larger of the two pinewood shacks, with the exception of Benakowsky, who was put up in the smaller command-post shack