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Edited on Sun Nov-05-06 11:35 PM by blue_in_a_red_state
My cousin wrote this story and wanted to get it out there before the election...since he's not very web-savvy (is used to reading but not posting), I'm doing him a favor by posting it. Enjoy! Feedback is appreciated--I'll be sending him comments via e-mail!
DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY
What our leaders are lacking (c)
By Chaz Man
Sergeant Kellie landed with many others in what was to be a nonstop flight back home. The place the aircraft now stood looked like a deserted military base. Dirty old buses with license plates and other markings removed or painted over pulled alongside the aircraft. They were told to move to the buses while the aircraft was checked out for a possible mechanical problem. The buses took them to an old military base that looked like a relic from the cold war. At one point during the drive a decomposed body was seen in the distance.
A sense of fearful alertness was brewing up within Sergeant Kellie. He could see it in the others as well. Whispers were exchanged. He had heard rumors of secret flights taking people to undisclosed prisons but brushed it off as ridiculous, not in America. He now knew what had happened.
He had gotten into trouble when he asked the Vice President a question during the VP’s brief stop at Kellie’s battalion. He could see the heated conversation with the Vice President’s aides and his Commanders afterwards. The only thing that Kellie could read on the lips of the Aides were, “sympathizing terrorist bastard”. Kellie was tired of seeing men killed and maimed. He was just trying to protect his men; three had been killed in the past month. He wanted to enlighten the Vice President about what was really going on. He thought that the Vice President was in the dark and would take care of things if someone would only stand up and tell him the truth.
Late that night he was given a note that said he needed to fly home right away. He now knows that it was only a ploy. He was told that he didn’t need to pack anything, as there were people ready to do that for him. He didn’t know that his troops were told the next morning that their sergeant went out on a last minute patrol and was blown to pieces.
When he arrived at the airport he was told that he would be flying out that night with security people and was not allowed to talk to anyone. Given an iPod for entertainment he boarded an unmarked plane with many others that night; all in civilian clothing.
The old base was surrounded by barbwire with heavily armed guards in strange uniforms. There were neither flags flying at this base nor were their any signs designating its name or place. “This was an emergency landing”, the pilot had said, “it shouldn’t take long to fix the problem.” The atmosphere on the bus was quiet as they all fixed their eyes on the aberration that appeared in front of them.
Standing in front of their buses was a heavenly tattooed soldier in an old Soviet Block uniform carrying a large gnarled stick that looked like it came from a medieval battlefield. Suddenly, troops came running from the surrounding buildings with wildly barking dogs and AK- 47 rifles. Every one of them was screaming in poor English “Get Outs, Get Outs you pieces of shits! Leave everything on bus! Move to painted footprints; now pigs”. In front of the buses were several rows of yellow footprints properly painted to put people at attention in four neat rows. No one had time to look around or try to make sense of what was going on. Not since Marine Corp Boot Camp had anything like this happen to Sergeant Kellie.
The shocking impact was brilliantly applied to the unsuspecting victims of democratic governments gone crazy. As soon as everyone was off the buses, the buses drove away with the group’s last possessions. “Bloody hell,” someone in the back row exclaimed with a clear English accent. What followed was the hollow sound of blunt force on a chest cavity and the thud of someone hitting the ground. Those standing next to the wounded man tried to help him but were severely beaten with thick wooden sticks. In perfect English the soldier in charge snapped, “No one will talk or move unless someone tells you to, is that understood!”
The leader with his large gnarled stick came to the front of the formation and stood with his feet apart leaning slightly forward on his stick. His face was pocked as if from some disease. “You are no longer soldiers or citizens of your former countries, you are prisoners,” he said. “If you try to escape you will be skinned alive and left for the ants. I assure you that the bodies of those who disobeyed me in the past can still be seen from outside the wire”.
“You will work in the mine in dim light using primitive tools. You will work harder than you ever thought possible in your life, and if you don’t, you won’t eat. The only reason that you will need a doctor is when we want to keep you alive for more torture. You are terrorists; you have no mama, papa, or country. Your former families are burying you this week. So you see pigs, you are dead to the world."
"You will be punished like a stray dog if you break the smallest rule. You will not talk to each other or anyone in this camp unless we give you permission and that will be seldom. You are enemies of your state, pigs, and you no longer exist. Where you are is not of your concern, for your soul belongs to me until I give it back to you dead. Perhaps your god can do something for you then, but don’t count on it."
"There will be no socializing for any reason. There will be no god damn religious activities or demonstration of any kind and that includes being seen praying in any capacity. You will always keep your head down. You will not touch or look at other prisoners, except to throw their bodies into the crematorium. You will see many people come in here, but you will never see anyone leave, unless it’s in pieces to feed the hogs, or up the chimney. You are the enemy of the world, you sympathized with terrorists, and therefore you have lost all rights and are nothing but pigs ready for the slaughter. I look forward to meeting each and every one of you."
With that he pointed to a woman standing in the second row. Without a word his goons grabbed and pulled her about twenty yards from the formation. They ripped her clothes off and took turns beating her with pipes and short wooden sticks in front of already shocked group. The screaming and the sounds of crushing bones were almost impossible to bear. She was soon dead. “That piece of scum was lucky,” said the Leader in a matter-of-fact voice. “We want you to talk first”. A young man collapsed behind Kellie and was dragged out of the formation and also stripped and beaten; only he was not dead when they finished. They dragged him into a nearby building. That night, the unbearable sounds of people being tortured were a Constant refrain
The terror had been applied so quickly that no one could focus long enough on anything to try to make since of anything that was happening; only sock and self-preservation ruled. All through the night, Kellie and his group were stripped of their hair, clothing, watches, rings and anything else that could allow them to maintain any sense of identity. Picks axes and old bloody coveralls were issued to each person along with a wooden bowl.
The next morning, hungry and tired, they were marched past the sickly sight of a young man horribly tortured. His legs and arms were broken and turned in unnatural position. An IV protruded from one of the mangled limbs. He was still moaning with periodic elevations in his voice as the red ants meticulously made their progress.
On a balcony not far away, two well-dressed men in civilian clothes were having coffee. “Well Slava, I need to leave; hay, the food was great. Where did you find a chief in this backward land?” “It just so happen James, that one of items you sent last month was graduate from fancy chief school in Paris. After few days, she was very willing to take job,” he said with a smirk. James reached over the table and took another roll, “Let me know if there are any problems with this new batch. I don’t want to be blindsided by some bleeding heart congressman while I am testifying that none of this exists. Oh, and make sure you send me those confessions you got from that last bunch we had Saturday. Gotta go, da svidanya.”
A week later, Amanda walked into her high school for the first time since her dad’s funeral. The coffin had been closed during the service; she wished she could have seen him one last time. The school was decorated in red, white, and blue with posters demonstrating the schools support of the troops fighting terrorism around the world. The pep rally was full of patriotic marching music and local dignitaries. After the school principal and mayor had finished their long-winded speeches about their relationship with the former student now local hero, Amanda’s time was coming up.
Amanda was uncomfortable with the speech she was to give. She was told that she had to read it; “it was the right thing to do,” the Mayor had said. After hearing all the glories of her government pronounced and the duties of its citizens to protect it from terrorists were exhausted, she was finally called. With trembling hands she picked up her written speech as her name was called. “And now,” the Mayor said, “let’s give a warm applause to a real daughter of freedom, Ms. Amanda Kellie”.
In the year 2000, this story would have been sheer nonsense. Today, however, one hopes it’s an exaggeration. But we live with the fact that today, any one of us can disappear; it’s called the Patriot Act.
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