When Johnny Comes Marching Home Ch. 02

Continued from Chapter 1:

Trained to defend himself, an understatement, he'd make Matt Damon as Jason Bourne from Bourne Identity and Bourne Ultimatum look like an amateur and a sissy. Unlike those martial arts experts who only use their deadly force skills to defend themselves, he had a different agenda. With him a Navy Seal, a trained killer and assassin, he struck first and asked questions later. Unless he was a white cop in an all-white neighborhood, once he got out of the service, unless he worked as a SWAT officer, he'd never make it as a police officer in a minority neighborhood. Not that he was prejudiced, he wasn't. He just treated everyone the same, as hostile idiots. Only, unlike a Navy Seal, a police officer was trained to ask questions first and take deadly force measures last.

As someone who was in prison for a long time would have a difficult time making it on the outside world, someone like him would either die in country, become a mercenary soldier, work for an overseas defense contractor, or work for the CIA. He chose the latter over any of the former. Not wanting to go home, never wanting to go home, he preferred living in the Middle East. With him knowing the languages and dialects, following the traditions, and familiar with their customs, Pakistan was his home now. Yet, more than that, danger was his addictive drug of choice, not to mention, there was the money, lots and lots of money to be made for what he was ordered to do and paid very little to do before.

As if he was the Mike Tyson of hand to hand combat, he had never been in a fight that lasted more than a few seconds. The only fight that lasted more than a minute was when he found himself in barroom brawl after trying to save a woman from being gang raped. Armed only with a pool cue, as if he was Dalton played by Patrick Swayze in Road House, he disabled five men in quick order and sent them all to the hospital. It would have been more of a fair fight if one of them had a knife or a gun. Only, he was better armed with a pool cue, especially after he broke it in two and used them as Eskrima fighting sticks.

In the way that Sean Connery, as Lt. Col. Alan Caldwell, fought a much bigger man with just his thumb in The Presidio, John could hurt most men with just a stiff finger or a well-placed knuckle to a pressure point. One swift kick to the knee was enough to disable any man. Trained to end a fight, the last thing he wanted was a messy fist fight or an all-out brawl. If he really wanted the fight over quickly, he'd just kill the man or woman instead of disabling the man or woman. Only, unless he wanted to go to prison for murder, he wasn't about to kill anyone in a bar fight in Tennessee.

Chapter 2:

Ironically and unfairly treated, he was court martialed and dishonorably discharged from his beloved Navy Seals for conspiring with the enemy. He was even imprisoned briefly for being a traitor but was humanely released because of his severe injuries and his life threatening medical conditions. He hadn't conspired with the enemy and he wasn't a traitor.

He had to give the appearance to terrorists' organizations that he was on the side of Islam and an American fighting the war of Jihad. With the CIA not able to come to his rescue or to his defense without blowing his cover, he was left out there without a parachute or a net to catch his fall. Accustomed to be surrounded by and supported by his brothers-in-arms, now it was just him not only against the bad, mad, terrorist of the world but also against the United States government and military tribunal.

After beaten unconscious in his alley one night, when the EMT's saw his dog tags, they took him to the VA hospital. After awakening from his coma he was there for a new arm and a new leg. Making him whole again, what the military took away, they hoped to return.

Yet, disgraced and disillusioned, left on his own to die, it wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Then, even evicted from the VA hospital in the way that he was dishonorably discharge from the Navy, after they discovered who he was, he wandered the streets as a homeless man.

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

"Sir," said the nurse to the doctor in charge. "The patient has awakened from his coma."

Major Adams looked at his nurse blankly and with attitude.

"Patient? Which patient? I have several patients who are in comas," he said with impatience. "Give me a name."

As if afraid to say his name the nurse bit her lip.

"Chief Petty Officer Johnny E. Mercer," said the nurse. "The Navy Seal, Sir."

The doctor rolled his eyes.

"Oh, him," he said as if stabbing him in his back with a scalpel. He's no longer a Chief Petty Officer. He's no longer a Navy Seal. He's no longer in the military. And I no longer want him in my hospital. My hospital is only for heroes and not for traitors. Prepare the discharge papers for my signature," said Major Adams with a wave of his hand.

The Navy nurse saluted her commanding officer.

"Yes, Sir," said the nurse turning on her heels to ready the paperwork for discharge.

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

After he had saved them all from an ambush and certain death, if only his mind and memory were intact, he could have called one of his buddies to come help him and to save him from himself. Only, he didn't even know his own identity, never mind the identity of any of his buddies or even where to find any of them. Unable to even remember their names, he couldn't remember anything. There was so much that he was unable to remember.

Had he contacted one of brothers-in-arms, they would have given him a place to stay, cleaned him up, sobered him, and found him a job. Never leaving any man behind, that's what buddies did for one another. Depending on each man to have the other's back, they looked out for one another and took care of one another. Just as he'd do that for them, if he could, he was one of them and would be for the rest of his life.

The truth was, at the time an IED, improvised explosive device, nearly took his life when he was detached from the Seals and working deep undercover in Pakistan for the CIA. He knew if caught, leaving him hanging out to dry, the CIA would disavow his mission and his reason for being there. He knew if caught, the Seals would deem him a deserter and a traitor.

The Seals would take him in for questioning and interrogation but al-Qaida would shoot him on sight for all that he knew about their organization. Should he be exposed, with him not supposed to be in Pakistan looking for Osama bin Laden at the time, whatever else he was hired to do was a feigned, foreign policy embarrassment to his government. Under the auspices of the CIA, his government knew he was there as special ops.

Only because he was so big, so tall, so strong, and so well built, compared to the other Pakistanis people, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Head and shoulders taller than them, he looked like a giant walking through a crowd of dwarfs. As much as his height worked against him, his height worked in his favor too. Even the CIA wouldn't be so obvious to send a giant man, a spy pretending to be one of them. That would be too obvious and too easy to detect. Besides, Osama bin Laden himself was 6'5" tall too.

At 6'5" tall and 260 pounds, he was Cam Newton fast too. Even with sixty pounds of gear strapped to his back, he could run the 40-yard dash faster than most men could flee. Never totally trusted, even though he spoke their languages, he didn't belong there and was deemed suspicious because he was an American. He was deemed a spy and an interloper invading their land. Even though he was suspected of being CIA, there was no proof that he was.

He spoke other languages too. He spoke Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, and Balochi, as if he was born there. Having an ear for languages, when in Iraq, he also spoke Kurdish and Arabic, and Pashto, and Dari when in Afghanistan. With him having the intelligence, the will, and the Navy Seal training behind him, he was a one-man spy network. He had no shortage of espionage equipment given him by the CIA. With his credentials suspended from his neck and a windbreaker with PRESS written on his back in big, bold letters, he carried a camera instead of a gun. His cover was that of a foreign press reporter working for United Press International.

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

A man's man, a manly man, and a macho man, he was a good man wrapped in the body of a killer and a trained assassin. Typically, nothing more than a blink of an eye, a shadow, or a ghost, unless he wanted to be seen and/or noticed, no one ever saw him coming. He was just there. Even though he was always there watching, looking, and recording, when it was time for him to make his appearance known, he just appeared as if out of nowhere.

Typically, if someone did see him coming, Rambo on steroids, he was the last thing they saw before they died. Just like that with gun, a knife, an improvised weapon, or bare hands, he'd snuff the life out of his victim before they could even raise their hands to defend themselves and/or before they could make a sound to alert someone. With the deadly force over before it even began, just like that, the violent, physical confrontation was over.

All black and white to him with no room and no time for color, interpretation, or speculation, he had no patience with bullies and no sense of humor when it came to right, wrong, and honor. There was nothing funny about doing the right thing. There was no reason and no explanation why someone would do the wrong thing. There was just the honorable thing to do, the right thing to do, and he always took the high road over the low road.

Much like the Nike logo, he just did it and shut up about it. Not a complainer, he did what he had to do and needed to do to survive while protecting his buddies and his country. He didn't have time for jokes or the stomach for laughter. Never bragging or telling anyone what he did or had done, making himself invisible in mind, body, and spirit, ever vigilant for a threat of an attack, he remained in the background. He was too somber of a man to be acting stupid, making a fool of himself, and making a mistake of laughing out loud and not taking his perilous situation serious. Those who embarrassed themselves were clowns and he didn't like clowns unless they were professional clowns at the circus.

For those who were unfamiliar with his background, with him preferring not to be bothered or even seen, never mind spoken to, he was a man best left alone to his bad self. When he gave you that long, dog-eyed stare, with him instantly, immediately, and unpredictably striking out as if he was a human cobra, best you back off and get away from him. With him now always talking himself as if the voices in his head were real, he always seemed to have a lot on his mind. Yet, now a shell of himself, he still had his big, bad attitude, his anger, and his rage that saved him from would be aggressors on the dangerous city streets. Those he couldn't frighten away with his big, booming voice; he could still disable with his mad fighting skills.

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

Johnny was homeless and lived on the street in a back alley behind a pizza parlor. He lived there because every night before closing, they tossed out the burned pizza that they left too long in the oven or the pizza that someone ordered and didn't claim. With them now knowing that he lived there, instead of tossing their burnt pizzas in the dumpster, they walked across the alley and presented him with their scraps in a pizza box. Then, once they got to know him, with him seemingly guarding the back of their business and with him a disabled veteran, the pizza parlor owner repaid his service with fresh pizzas, soft drinks, water, coffee, and even a few dollars taped to the inside cover of the box. On those cold, rainy days when there were few customers in the pizza parlor, as long as he entered from the back and took the last table, he was even allowed to eat his food in the restaurant.

He lived there because strategically, as if he was still sitting in an idling Humvee, a safe space, his spot was right in the middle of the alley with a dumpster positioned on either side of him. Actually with the metal of the dumpster thicker, the dumpsters provided more armored protection than his thin Humvee doors. The dumpster could take a small caliber bullet with just a dent. As if an afterthought, until the Pentagon and Congress were embarrassed by unnecessary deaths and injuries of GI's, the new Humvees were refitted with heavy bulletproof armor, something they should have had all along.

The Seals are now given armor plating too but sometimes, depending on the weather and the terrain, too hot and heavy to lug around, they routinely left the armor plating behind. Guaranteed to take one center hit from an AK-47, the only problem with that was that fire from an AK-47 was usually in short bursts and not one shot at a time. Their helmets were manufactured to deflect a small caliber bullet and/or a piece of shrapnel that would otherwise pierce their skull, but sometimes their gear weighed them down. Besides their gun and their ammo, water stored in a camel back canteen instead of noisy plastic bottles, was their most precious commodity.

With his back up against the wall, protected from the element of surprise from a rear attack he sat in the way that Wild Bill Hickok sat when playing poker at a poker table. Protected from the wind and held in place by a heavy discarded car battery, he put some thick cardboard between the dumpsters to shelter him from the sun and the rain. Whenever he wanted to be, he was hidden from view until someone was right on top of him. Whenever he wanted to be, even going as far as disguising himself as a brick wall, by painting his face and clothes the color of brick and mortar, he was invisible to anyone walking by him.

He'd breakdown his house once a week when the dump truck emptied his dumpsters. Able to squeeze themselves in spots as narrow as a quarter, every time they moved the dumpsters, the roaches would run out of their hiding spots behind the wheels or from tiny cracks in the mortar of the brick wall. Before he had a daily diet of pizza, pulling off their legs and sprinkling them with salt or sugar packets that he stole from restaurants, he sometimes snacked on germy cockroaches for protein and sustenance to survive. He liked the hard crunching sound of his teeth breaking their shells before the guts of them oozed out on his tongue, in his mouth, and down his throat. A bitter, nutty taste, eating dirty cockroaches, was better than going hungry and starving to death.

With the space between the dumpster and the brick wall giving him a bird's-eye view, not only could he see whoever was coming but also, as long as he turned his right ear to the sound, he could hear them coming too. Protected by cardboard, trash bags, and dirty blankets, accustomed to making himself invisible in the desert, in the forest, and in the jungle, he was easily able to make himself invisible in a darkened alley. Preferring always to have the element of surprise on his side, he never wanted anyone to see him coming.

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

Unlikeable and unapproachable, he'd definitely get the job done but no one would hire someone like him, not even at the lowly car wash. Too much of a physical and emotional mess, he was too angry. He was too mean and too nasty. With time no longer on his side, he didn't have time to be nice.

He no longer wanted to be polite or accommodating. He no longer followed rules imposed upon him by others, those who were lesser than him. Rules were for sissies and for dependent men who didn't know how to make their own way in the world and who didn't know how to survive on their own. He didn't need any damn rules. He had his own rules and his own code of ethics that he lived by and would die by. Done with all of that, he already knew everything he needed to know about everything and everyone.

Angry from undiagnosed anger issues, he was easy to rile to a rage from untreated post-traumatic stress. He was too much of a head case to be around fallible, wishy-washy, and weak-kneed people. Those who didn't understand the sacrifices he made on their behalf to protect them and to keep them safe from terrorists' harm weren't his friends and could never be his friends. As long as he had himself, he didn't need any friends. Friends were just baggage. Now a lone wolf who'd rather go it alone than in a team, he didn't need anyone. A loner, he didn't trust anyone, which is why the CIA hired someone like him, Chief Petty Officer, John E. Mercer, to track the movements of terrorists in Pakistan in the first place.

He had a friend, an Army Ranger turned Delta Force who had recently died in combat. Every time he saw him in the field or ran into him in a bar, his friend had the same standing joke. In the way that trappers used to club baby seals for their pelts, the joke was that every time the trappers saw a herd of baby seals, they'd yell out from their ships.

"Baby seals! Baby seals! Baby seals!"

Thinking it was funny, his friend would use his hand to make a tomahawk motion with his arm and hand.

"Navy Seal. Navy Seal. Navy Seal."

*** MadMadMadMaxine ***

"Thank you for your service," rang empty whenever someone mindlessly said that to him when seeing his dog tags hanging from his neck. To him, that phrase sounded too much like, "Thank you and have a nice day."

He'd give them a stern look that made them afraid.

"Thank you for my service?" Just as angry as he was violent, that's all he needed to hear to react. "Are you my CO? You're not my CO. What the fuck do you know about my service? You have no idea the Hell I've been through. Fuck you! Fuck off! Get the fuck outta here with you thanking me for my service. Asshole!"

Usually those who thanked him for his service never served a day in the military. With most people having never been in a tough jam, they didn't know how to do without or how to fight with their backs against the wall. They didn't know how to survive without food, water, and/or shelter. They didn't know how to make do without their lattes, their donuts, their double cheeseburgers with fries, their cell phones, and their big screen TV's.

They didn't know anything about kill or be killed. If they faced an armed assassin, unable to disarm their would be killer, with them all just victims, calves to the slaughter, they'd die. They didn't know how to confront force with force. They'd rather die than to fight and kill someone. Armed with just a spoon, a fork, or a pen, he didn't have to think about killing someone, he just killed them. Those who didn't know how to survive would rather die of starvation than to eat a bug, especially a big, nasty, dirty, germ infested cockroach. He had eaten worse than that in the desert and in the jungle.

With all of the tight squeezes he had been in, most times he didn't have the luxury of time to think, to assess, and/or to plan his next move. Relying on his training to keep him safe and to keep him alive, he just reacted. Trained to kill, he did what was he was trained to do and what came naturally. Unable to keep count, he lost count years ago of how many men, women, and children he had killed. When in the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan, with him a trained killing machine and watching their back, his mission was to defend his country and keep his brothers in arms safe from harm.

Now, with his physical strength gone and his brain a clouded mess, all he had left was his internal strength and his never ending fortitude to fight. Never surrendering and never giving up hope, his biggest battle was trying to remember. The first time feeling so helpless with him helplessly locked inside of his own mind, he couldn't remember shit. He knew he was trained. He knew he could fight. He knew he was special. Other than his name, social security number, and blood type, he just couldn't remember who in the Hell he was.