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It's March 18th, 2003 and Brad Colbert is in Kuwait. He spends his days preparing for the upcoming mission. Training with the Humvees, looking over the maps, figuring out strategies, anticipating, getting ready to get some.
The 18th is a Sunday. A few of the guys are attending services, some guy from Alpha even tries to drag Ray along. Takes Ray's "Yes, I'd love to attend your ritualistic Christ worship and abolish any sense of individualism I may have retained" as an invitation. He's new; hasn't learned to ignore everything out of Ray's mouth yet. It makes for an amusing ten minutes.
It's March 18th, 2003, so it must be Purim. Brad knows this, because he's got the Hebrew calendar running through his head along with the Gregorian one, a product of twelve straight hours of being on watch with nothing to do but draw figures in the sand. Hadn't thought about it in years but something about having his brain on constant alert kicked an old habit into gear and now he can't make it shut the hell up again. One of the many things no one in his platoon will ever, ever find out about.
When Brad was little he used to help his grandmother bake hammentashen. She was the only one in the family who ever cooked anything and she usually came to stay for the holidays. She was probably the reason his parents made a bigger deal about Purim than any of the other Jewish parents he knew.
Brad can remember the rattlers his dad used to buy for him. On Purim mornings, his father would crouch beside him at the synagogue's entrance, just before the Megillah was read, and tell him: "Don't forget: make lots of noise as soon as you hear Haman's name." Every year, as far back as Brad can remember.
Brad never really got the point of Purim as a kid. The food was good (the food was always good), but the rest of it had seemed rather pointless. In highschool he used to explain it to his friends as the Jewish version of Halloween. Today, he understands standing up tall and fighting, yelling, blowing shit up and not stopping until you can't lift your eyelids anymore. In the face of evil, it's the only possible response.
*
It's April 17th, the first day of Passover, eleven days after Baghdad is officially occupied by coalition forces. Brad doesn't dwell on the holidays; he doesn't believe in much of anything anymore and certainly not in what is, according to Ray, the result of dietary advice given by a talking snake to a couple of nudists.
The ancient Jews had it simple. Frogs, blood, killing of firstborns; when that shit happens to the bad guys you know you're in the right. This place is close enough to where all that biblical shit went down but three thousand years later things are a little muddier, a little more human.
Brad refuses to draw the stupid parallels. Liberation, occupation, parting of the red fucking sea, it's all ancient magic tricks and fantasies people tell themselves to feel better.
He believes in freedom, in bravery, in being strong and standing up for your country, your people, your home. He's probably going to keep fighting for those things for as long as he lives and a lot of shit's going to happen between now and then that he's going to have to fucking deal with.
He's got a patrol in twenty minutes. All this spare time on his hands isn't doing him any good (isn't doing any of them any good). Brad picks up his Kevlar and finishes his glass of water and fucking refuses to draw any retarded fucking parallels.
*
It's June 6th and Brad is thirteen years old, standing in the synagogue he's attended three times a year since he can remember, reading out syllables he can't really pronounce, forming words he doesn't really understand. Nervous and sweaty under the lights, he's praying to any kind of deity for the ability to get through this part okay and for that cute girl who just transferred to his school, whom his parents saw fit to invite in a clear violation of all human decency, to not end up thinking he's a total idiot.
He's still got the aftertaste of his birthday cake (peaches and vanilla) on his tongue as he opens his eyes. It's dark and quiet, except for Person's voice (guy's been on watch since 0300, the back of his mind supplies) like a steady train rattling off in the distance.
It's June 6th, the end of the Omer count, the first day of Shavuot. Brad doesn't want to remember this shit but his brain is lagging behind, still stuck on that picture of twelve-year-old Karen surrounded by his relatives in fancy dresses and yarmulkes.
On Passover, the Jewish people were liberated; on Shavuot they received the commandments and became a nation under God. Moses spent forty days up on a mountain before coming back with a single, perfect, universal solution. It's been thirty-six days since the president Brad voted for stood on a deck and declared the mission accomplished.
Brad sits up in his his grave, rubs at his eyes and takes a deep breath before getting up. It's his turn to relieve Ray.
*
It's Thursday, August 7th, 2003 and Brad's back stateside. It's his first week back and Karen and Ben throw a dinner party in his honor. His folks show up, and so do a lot of people he grew up or went to school with.
Brad hasn't seen some of these fuckers in years and it feels fucking fantastic to be home again. The beer tastes better than he remembers, the burgers smell like heaven.
It's August 7th, so it's a day of mourning and fasting and sadness, the Ninth of Av. A holiday so esoteric Brad hasn't given it a thought since Hebrew school, but his brain is still keeping count, apparently.
On the news (American news, finally) they're talking about the bombings in Baghdad. The casualties are diplomats and negotiators and some poor fucks who were only there to guard the embassy.
Brad believes in doing his job right, in being the best goddamn Marine he can be (the best there fucking is), but it's Tisha B'Av and he's just come back from a war that should have been over ages ago and it feels like Brad hasn't really believed in anything in a very long time.
He doesn't know how he could have missed it -- someone must have mentioned it to him in a letter, probably more than once -- but when Karen takes him upstairs he's shocked to realize the unofficial storage room's been converted into a nursery. He stands in the doorway as Karen turns the lights on and picks up her newborn. The baby clings to Karen's arm, opens her mouth to cry and then pauses, comically, and closes it again without so much as a gurgle.
It's another thing Brad will never mention to anyone who's ever worn dog tags, but leaning against that doorframe, looking into that bright pink room, he finds himself believing in a whole lot of things he won't admit to.