This is a work of fiction with strong adult themes.
I have messaged with a few members and mentioned my effort to start a Patreon. The account is ready and loaded with lots of new content, but as it is new, it currently under review. Since I don't know how long that takes, I thought I would share a short story here that I have been working on about war and the bonds that are created in far off lands; and the loss that many experience as a result of war. For those of you who prefer more humorous stories, some of those are coming too.
Part 1/4
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We arrived worried about police capacity, police training, the legal system and how we might, possibly, if we were lucky, build a foundation for a modern society to emerge. We did not start out thinking about sharing toilets with people who refused to learn how to use them, so that each shit had to be prefaced by a wiping down of muddy footprints on the toilet seat, as most locals preferred to squat over the toilet than sit on it. They thought sitting was dirty. And let’s not discuss the distaste for toilet paper among some of the local workers with whom we sometimes shared bathroom and shower facilities on our little corner of the massive military base.
Perhaps worse than the living challenges, I was cynical about the work from the start. I needed money and this was a lot of money. As a former police trainer focused on weapons, munitions, safety and explosives, I was the ideal fit for the $350,000 a year contract they were offering. This was life-changing money, and if I completed my two years, I could walk away set for life, for my kids’ lives, with multiple rental properties under my name and a wad of cash to spare. I did not have high hopes, however, for our mission. It seemed a one in a million shot that a tribal culture would turn away from their clans and their traditions and embrace a life organized by outside institutions like courts, legislatures, or provincial governments – never mind a national government few recognized as legitimate.
People often talked about the religiosity of Afghans as a major hurdle. I never saw that as a hurdle. There was no real organized religious structure to what most people did day to day. There were family leaders, clan leaders, tribal leaders, that was the structure. Faith was an element that shaped family but authority, order, that was fundamentally a family and clan decision. Even religious interpretations were heavily influenced by what clan an imam might belong to, that was the framework. There was no single, coherent, enunciated view of religion that shaped traditions, it was really the other way around. Yet, we were in Afghanistan and we were asking people to yield their trust and their roles within their tribes, the anchors of their identity, and to adopt a national identity instead. Don’t listen to your elder, listen to your district administrator, don’t let your tribal council decide what should happen to a goat thief, listen to a judge hundreds of miles away. That was the shift and it seemed to me almost impossible to imagine how we would get there.
I stepped off the helicopter and First Lieutenant Dorado, the XO for the Provincial Reconstruction Team I would be supporting, was waiting. We were one of dozens of units sharing the massive base, one of the smallest parts in fact, charged with helping the provincial government establish its authority. I jumped off the helicopter, grabbed my backpack and stepped forward, “Lieutenant, good to meet you, I’m Nicholas Strayer, please call me Nick.”
“Great to meet you, Mr. Strayer. Welcome to FOB Salerno. Please, follow me,” he signaled with his head that I should jump into the armored vehicle waiting a few hundred feet from the landing zone. We drove towards a series of four identical buildings as he pointed out key, architecturally significant landmarks along the way.
“Right there, next to the APO – the post office - are Pizza Hut and Gloria Jean’s Coffee, both are pretty good if you’re tired of the DFAC food, but they’re not free. There’s also a TCBY that is usually stocked. They try over at the DFAC but it’s all brought in from Dubai or Pakistan and it can do a number on your guts,” he pointed to various doors on a single large building, signs taped to the windows but not much else distinguished one establishment from the other. It was the world’s strangest strip mall.
After a few hundred feet, he continued, “Here are the DFAC and the gym, facing one another. If you’re a runner, we don’t currently allow people to run around the perimeter without prior authorization, there are snipers outside the gate. Over there in that field we have a weekly vendor market, they sell pirated DVDs, gifts, jewelry, rugs, all sorts of shit – I mean gifts and shit – that you might want to take home to your family.”
In less than five minutes we were at the barracks, four identical cinder block buildings with a fifth placed perpendicular to the first four. “To your left are the latrines and showers, they are shared, you need to bring your own toiletries in and out each time. We do provide toilet paper, of course. To your right are the barracks. Soldiers share four to a room, officers two to a room. You and a few command-level officers have a room to yourself. Every room has its own heating and cooling unit on the wall and a small beverage fridge but no running water. There are water bottle packs for drinking at the entrance to each barracks building. You can buy an electric kettle in the PX but no other cooking implements are allowed. We set you up with a bunch of local carpets, a desk, some furniture and a twin bed, hopefully you brought bedding, if not the PX stocks some items. Please let me know if you need anything in terms of furnishings and we’ll do what we can,” he stood at the door as a Private, Private First Class Redding by his tags, delivered my luggage into my room, an unpainted cinderblock space about twenty by twenty feet with a corrugated steel roof, insulated and protected from above by nearly ten inches of sand and rocks, meant to help protect against the stray mortar. The rooms were all joined by a single hallway down the middle with a mirror setup on the other side of the hall. In all, each barracks building had about forty rooms.
“Thanks again, Lieutenant,” I held out my hand. He shook it, nodded and walked away.
“Where can I put this?” the young Private asked, still holding both of my large bags in his hands and a heavy rucksack on his back.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” I said and went to help him. “There is fine, I will unpack into the wardrobe later.”
“No problem, that’s what I’m here for,” the Private spoke cheerfully and smiled. “I’m Ryan, by the way.”
He looked young, maybe 19 or 20, he was thin, handsome and his eyes were open and sincere in a classic midwestern way. “Nick, nice to meet you,” I replied, shaking his hand and gently squeezing his arm. “Where you from? Minnesota?”
He grinned, his smile was broad, well cared for, and it lit up his face. “Close, I’m from South Dakota, most of us are from there, this unit was tagged to support the PRT and we came as a cluster.”
“So, you’re all National Guard?” I asked.
He nodded and looked around, “Shit, Nick, you’re lucky. Only the Commander and the three civilian leads for the PRT have a room to themselves, they’re over in Barracks A. It sucks having no privacy. You have to sneak around –“
He stopped himself and looked sheepishly at the floor. I smiled, “You don’t have to edit on my account, you were going to say something about beating off, I imagine?”
He laughed heartily, he seemed both nervous and relieved to have been found out. “Yeah, the showers have stalls but all they have are curtains and if you take too long people just pull the curtain back and stare at you until you finish showering, and in my barracks, well, there’s four of us sleeping a few feet apart. Between the smell of boot rot and sweat, it’s not great.”
“You’re always welcome to come here for a little you time, I really don’t mind,” I said, winking at him.
Ryan smiled and sat down on top of the small desk near the single clerestory window, too high up to see in or out, but it was great to get a bit of natural light. He looked like a recruitment poster bathed in that mid-morning glow. He took off his head cover and set it next to him as he ran his hand through the most beautiful blond hair I had seen, other than Chris Hemsworth. I imagined he was due for a trim but hoped he would hold out for as long as possible as it suited him to keep it long. I turned around and laid my bags on the floor, opened them and began to organize where I would store my things.
“That’s a nice offer, are you sure? You have to be careful what you say around here,” he seemed to be warning me.
“Lots of conservative soldiers?” I asked as I moved my non-training clothes into the metal dresser and wardrobe lined up on the other side of the room. I figured the tactical apparel I could store in the suitcase or in a Pelican case near my bed.
Ryan laughed, “Sure, there’s that, but the bigger problem is that once you make an offer, people take you up on it.”
As he finished speaking, I heard a distinctive banging on metal, as if someone were knocking on my door which happened to be made of steel. I was about to walk over to open it when I heard it again, it was coming from behind me. I turned around and Ryan had pulled out a stunning pink cock that was already hard. His legs were spread open, and he was slapping it against the surface of the desk.
I have messaged with a few members and mentioned my effort to start a Patreon. The account is ready and loaded with lots of new content, but as it is new, it currently under review. Since I don't know how long that takes, I thought I would share a short story here that I have been working on about war and the bonds that are created in far off lands; and the loss that many experience as a result of war. For those of you who prefer more humorous stories, some of those are coming too.
Part 1/4
_________________________________________________
Shot of Whiskey Ch 1: Arrival Debrief
The day I arrived on the massive Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan I had very low expectations and was still somehow deeply disappointed, at least that was my impression on the landing strip. I had transited through the same orientation given to all civilians at the massive training facility at Bagram and was somewhat prepared for life on the facility in the southeastern edge of Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, but the real thing had smells and dust and ants and other things that tried desperately to crawl into your boots while you just stood there under a relentlessly hot sun. There was no slide for that in the training sessions.We arrived worried about police capacity, police training, the legal system and how we might, possibly, if we were lucky, build a foundation for a modern society to emerge. We did not start out thinking about sharing toilets with people who refused to learn how to use them, so that each shit had to be prefaced by a wiping down of muddy footprints on the toilet seat, as most locals preferred to squat over the toilet than sit on it. They thought sitting was dirty. And let’s not discuss the distaste for toilet paper among some of the local workers with whom we sometimes shared bathroom and shower facilities on our little corner of the massive military base.
Perhaps worse than the living challenges, I was cynical about the work from the start. I needed money and this was a lot of money. As a former police trainer focused on weapons, munitions, safety and explosives, I was the ideal fit for the $350,000 a year contract they were offering. This was life-changing money, and if I completed my two years, I could walk away set for life, for my kids’ lives, with multiple rental properties under my name and a wad of cash to spare. I did not have high hopes, however, for our mission. It seemed a one in a million shot that a tribal culture would turn away from their clans and their traditions and embrace a life organized by outside institutions like courts, legislatures, or provincial governments – never mind a national government few recognized as legitimate.
People often talked about the religiosity of Afghans as a major hurdle. I never saw that as a hurdle. There was no real organized religious structure to what most people did day to day. There were family leaders, clan leaders, tribal leaders, that was the structure. Faith was an element that shaped family but authority, order, that was fundamentally a family and clan decision. Even religious interpretations were heavily influenced by what clan an imam might belong to, that was the framework. There was no single, coherent, enunciated view of religion that shaped traditions, it was really the other way around. Yet, we were in Afghanistan and we were asking people to yield their trust and their roles within their tribes, the anchors of their identity, and to adopt a national identity instead. Don’t listen to your elder, listen to your district administrator, don’t let your tribal council decide what should happen to a goat thief, listen to a judge hundreds of miles away. That was the shift and it seemed to me almost impossible to imagine how we would get there.
I stepped off the helicopter and First Lieutenant Dorado, the XO for the Provincial Reconstruction Team I would be supporting, was waiting. We were one of dozens of units sharing the massive base, one of the smallest parts in fact, charged with helping the provincial government establish its authority. I jumped off the helicopter, grabbed my backpack and stepped forward, “Lieutenant, good to meet you, I’m Nicholas Strayer, please call me Nick.”
“Great to meet you, Mr. Strayer. Welcome to FOB Salerno. Please, follow me,” he signaled with his head that I should jump into the armored vehicle waiting a few hundred feet from the landing zone. We drove towards a series of four identical buildings as he pointed out key, architecturally significant landmarks along the way.
“Right there, next to the APO – the post office - are Pizza Hut and Gloria Jean’s Coffee, both are pretty good if you’re tired of the DFAC food, but they’re not free. There’s also a TCBY that is usually stocked. They try over at the DFAC but it’s all brought in from Dubai or Pakistan and it can do a number on your guts,” he pointed to various doors on a single large building, signs taped to the windows but not much else distinguished one establishment from the other. It was the world’s strangest strip mall.
After a few hundred feet, he continued, “Here are the DFAC and the gym, facing one another. If you’re a runner, we don’t currently allow people to run around the perimeter without prior authorization, there are snipers outside the gate. Over there in that field we have a weekly vendor market, they sell pirated DVDs, gifts, jewelry, rugs, all sorts of shit – I mean gifts and shit – that you might want to take home to your family.”
In less than five minutes we were at the barracks, four identical cinder block buildings with a fifth placed perpendicular to the first four. “To your left are the latrines and showers, they are shared, you need to bring your own toiletries in and out each time. We do provide toilet paper, of course. To your right are the barracks. Soldiers share four to a room, officers two to a room. You and a few command-level officers have a room to yourself. Every room has its own heating and cooling unit on the wall and a small beverage fridge but no running water. There are water bottle packs for drinking at the entrance to each barracks building. You can buy an electric kettle in the PX but no other cooking implements are allowed. We set you up with a bunch of local carpets, a desk, some furniture and a twin bed, hopefully you brought bedding, if not the PX stocks some items. Please let me know if you need anything in terms of furnishings and we’ll do what we can,” he stood at the door as a Private, Private First Class Redding by his tags, delivered my luggage into my room, an unpainted cinderblock space about twenty by twenty feet with a corrugated steel roof, insulated and protected from above by nearly ten inches of sand and rocks, meant to help protect against the stray mortar. The rooms were all joined by a single hallway down the middle with a mirror setup on the other side of the hall. In all, each barracks building had about forty rooms.
“Thanks again, Lieutenant,” I held out my hand. He shook it, nodded and walked away.
“Where can I put this?” the young Private asked, still holding both of my large bags in his hands and a heavy rucksack on his back.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” I said and went to help him. “There is fine, I will unpack into the wardrobe later.”
“No problem, that’s what I’m here for,” the Private spoke cheerfully and smiled. “I’m Ryan, by the way.”
He looked young, maybe 19 or 20, he was thin, handsome and his eyes were open and sincere in a classic midwestern way. “Nick, nice to meet you,” I replied, shaking his hand and gently squeezing his arm. “Where you from? Minnesota?”
He grinned, his smile was broad, well cared for, and it lit up his face. “Close, I’m from South Dakota, most of us are from there, this unit was tagged to support the PRT and we came as a cluster.”
“So, you’re all National Guard?” I asked.
He nodded and looked around, “Shit, Nick, you’re lucky. Only the Commander and the three civilian leads for the PRT have a room to themselves, they’re over in Barracks A. It sucks having no privacy. You have to sneak around –“
He stopped himself and looked sheepishly at the floor. I smiled, “You don’t have to edit on my account, you were going to say something about beating off, I imagine?”
He laughed heartily, he seemed both nervous and relieved to have been found out. “Yeah, the showers have stalls but all they have are curtains and if you take too long people just pull the curtain back and stare at you until you finish showering, and in my barracks, well, there’s four of us sleeping a few feet apart. Between the smell of boot rot and sweat, it’s not great.”
“You’re always welcome to come here for a little you time, I really don’t mind,” I said, winking at him.
Ryan smiled and sat down on top of the small desk near the single clerestory window, too high up to see in or out, but it was great to get a bit of natural light. He looked like a recruitment poster bathed in that mid-morning glow. He took off his head cover and set it next to him as he ran his hand through the most beautiful blond hair I had seen, other than Chris Hemsworth. I imagined he was due for a trim but hoped he would hold out for as long as possible as it suited him to keep it long. I turned around and laid my bags on the floor, opened them and began to organize where I would store my things.
“That’s a nice offer, are you sure? You have to be careful what you say around here,” he seemed to be warning me.
“Lots of conservative soldiers?” I asked as I moved my non-training clothes into the metal dresser and wardrobe lined up on the other side of the room. I figured the tactical apparel I could store in the suitcase or in a Pelican case near my bed.
Ryan laughed, “Sure, there’s that, but the bigger problem is that once you make an offer, people take you up on it.”
As he finished speaking, I heard a distinctive banging on metal, as if someone were knocking on my door which happened to be made of steel. I was about to walk over to open it when I heard it again, it was coming from behind me. I turned around and Ryan had pulled out a stunning pink cock that was already hard. His legs were spread open, and he was slapping it against the surface of the desk.
