The War After Armageddon

Harris had resolved to get five hours of sleep. To keep himself alert. But the night dragged on. No matter how willing he was to delegate authority, there were issues only the commanding general could resolve and others that demanded his emphasis. The 1st Cavalry Division commander wanted to relieve one of his brigade commanders just hours before the division was scheduled to come ashore. A medium-tonnage transport ship loaded with old Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and critical spare parts had been hit by multiple kamikaze drones and sunk. Artillery units were expending 155mm HE rounds at twice the projected rate. He had to review and sign off on the daily summary of events before it could go to Cyprus, to his next-higher headquarters, Holy Land Command, HOLCOM or, as the troops had instantly nicknamed it, “Hokum.” With HOLCOM’s embellishments — and deletions — it would go to Washington. If comms were up.

Harris had taken the document into the room designated as his office, where the staff had set up a cot for him. Sending his aide to collect any global intelligence summaries that had made it through the jamming, the general sat down, put on his reading glasses, and labored over the document.

The work was painful. He had to bring the text irritatingly close to his face. His eyes burned. The docs said it was a result of the corrosive fumes he’d been exposed to in the Nigeria campaign, and they warned him “not to put undue stress on your eyes.” But a general had to read. When he asked about the future, the military doctors sought to avoid telling him what he already knew: Before he reached age sixty, he’d be blind. Sarah’s brother, a civilian ophthamalogist, had told him the truth.

Perhaps he should’ve retired already, Harris thought. But he was vain enough to believe that he was the best man to fight this last campaign, to stand up to the madness rising around them all.

Sarah had taken the verdict on his future better than he had. At least outwardly. He often wondered what she felt inside about the prospect of a blind, aging husband. Anyway, he loved her. And wished he had a better future to offer her.

If he had received one great blessing in his life, it was Sarah. He loved his daughters dearly. But what he felt for his wife soared beyond the emotions he felt for any other living thing.

After the girls, only the Army came close.

He hated to think of the incompetencies that would come with the loss of vision. No more camping in the Tetons or Cascades. He wouldn’t even be able to get in a car and drive down for a newspaper. Worst of all, the black wall would keep him from looking at the woman he loved. And he had always loved to look at her, from the moment he first saw her: a redhead in a pale-blue blouse, eating strawberry ice cream.

By the light of two field lamps, Harris corrected the draft document. The casualty figures made him pause. Not least because he knew they would be even higher the following day.

Was that priest at Megiddo included in the KIA column? Or had his death come too late to make the count?

Harris initialed the report and gave himself a moment to think about the priest and his sacrifice. His thoughts were such that it would not have done to mention them to anyone aloud. Not now. When everyone played politics for God and spied for Jesus. But he longed to talk to someone — he realized he would have to be careful not to take up too much of Monk Morris’s time with bullshitting.

Harris couldn’t get the priest out of his head. For all the wrong reasons.

It struck him that, when all was said and done, the priest had been a suicide bomber. On the side of the angels, but, nonetheless, a suicide bomber. Deserving of the Medal of Honor he couldn’t receive in the current political climate. Magnificently heroic. Self-sacrificing. Admirable. And a suicide bomber.

What else could you call it? Oh, he’d limited himself to a military target. And his sacrifice had saved many lives. Given. But how different the thing looked when the man with the bomb, rushing to his death, was one of your own.

Harris never succumbed to the notion that all men were alike. The Jihadis were barbarians. But based on the initial reports from the Jerusalem Front, he wasn’t sure the MOBIC troops were much better. It had been bad enough when the militant fanatics had been on one side only. Now, the fanatical excesses and threats in which Islamic extremists had indulged over the decades had finally provoked a like response. To Harris, the war in which he was leading the U.S. Army’s remnants made no geopolitical sense. It wasn’t like the Nigeria Intervention. It was a massive crime of passion.

But his role was to fight his country’s war, no matter what he thought of it. And to ensure that America’s Army survived, however starved and battered.