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Getting Through : Creative Writing
Row, row , row. your boat | from dan - Friday, March 25, 2005
accessed 1651 times Next thing I know this guy is pounding on the bathroom door for me to get him a gun. I’m naked, in the tub, so of course I have gun Days here can be dreary. We live in a world of mad bursts of adrenaline, followed by utter stillness. The highs and lows of a war zone are incomparable. Every run however short has the potential to be an ambush. Every car that gets along side a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (vbied). Every stop in traffic a set up, every cell phone a sitrep on our location. One can never be too paranoid. If you are too aggressive and it turns out you are wrong you are alive. If you are too lax and you are wrong you are dead, or worse, your principle is dead. No greater fear for a shooter out here that to lose a principle.
So you sit around all day waiting for the worst. If it is a busy day you are in and out of danger zones escorting a client to and from meeting etc. the roads out here hold many dangers and not all from insurgents. The locals don’t look in their mirrors and don’t care much for the rules of the road. We keep none of the rules and the army drives around with a big stick and shoots anything that appears to be potentially dangerous. This means that if humvee convoy cuts in front of you on the road to the air port from a side alley and you are doing 65 miles an hour if you don’t slam on the brakes and let them in not starting the car till they are about 100 meters down the road they will shoot you. They have a hand up and that means stop. If you don’t stop you get lit up. And once the shooting starts it doesn’t usually stop till the threat is eliminated.
The Italians found this out the hard way. They got the fist to stop and didn’t. Their mistake was to have guys from Rome doing it and not guys that know the roads. If you stay off the road for a week you don’t know the rules. They change and you have to adapt. See what the locals are doing. See if the soldiers are shooting at you from 50 instead of hundred yards. Which curds are nervous and if this new group of foreign legion guys in the Toyotas understands that we are friendlies. It is a dynamic environment and mad max would feel right a t home. \I drove down a street today going the wrong way for over a mile. In heavy moving traffic. They were doing about 40 and I was doing about the same. Flashed the headlights on and off and just weaved in and out. Bad part of town and we didn’t want to risk going around the block. Thought a car might be following us too.
Sooo there I was coming off of a day like that. Driving like the devil one moment then getting to the international zone and driving like a proper chauffer. Get back home and at about eleven while sitting in my room relaxing watching a DVD I hear “bap” one shot is not even worth thinking about as every one has guns in this country and you hear shots all the time. A second or two later we hear “braaaaaap” three round burst. This is close too. So at this my roommate and I perk up a bit and hit the pause button. Then we hear the full on “ bap bap bap braaaaab braaaarp “ now it is interesting so into our kit and off and running to the gates.
Get out there and start talking to our Jordanian guards. Ask where it is coming from and is it us. The guard, we fight. That is the way of it. If shit happens they will stand behind the barricade and shoot back but they are sure as hell not going to go out on the street and investigate. That is the gringo’s job. After clearing the corner and moving on down it turns out to be the cops down the street responding to a car that didn’t feel like slowing down for the checkpoint. People take checkpoints seriously here as you can see. The first one was a warning and it progressed from there.
Back inside and to the movie. But it did remind me of the last time I responded to that corner and it’s weekly little battle. I was sitting in me tub, having a scrub. Paying special attention to me toes. And mid way thru “row row row your boat” I hear a not so gently, similar volley of fire coming from down the bloody stream, only this time it was multi directional. Next thing I know this guy is pounding on the bathroom door for me to get him a gun. I’m naked in the tub so of course I have gun but he is working out at my house and live across the street. So unlock the bathroom and run to my room pistol in hand and little else. Throw him my rifle and throw on my body armour and ammunition vest. Jump into my boots and go back to the bathroom for me towel. So clad in a towel and boots him with my rifle me with me pistol and the ammo for both we clear the street down to the same corner a block away and assess the situation again. Savages were attacking the neighboring compound and were beaten back.
There isn’t much protocol for getting involved in an other man’s gunfight but the general rule is don’t. Who is shooting at whom? Who cares? Are they shooting at us? That is the important question. You sure as hell can’t run over there shooting. Then every one is shooting at you. So they stopped shooting and I got back in me tub. Had to start all over too as the water had lost it’s proper warmth. Had to wait for the tanks on the roof to fill back up and then for the heater to heat it all again… Not a pleasant waiting experience.
So ends yet another week of fun and anticlimax. Oh joy. And they wonder why I get speeding tickets back home. Big open road……… I don’t see what I did wrong. I was even on the right side of the road and you should be happy I didn’t consider you a threat when you swooped up on my convoy with those flashing lights and aggressive tailing. That meets all my rules of engagement I could have lit you up …… officer. |
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Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from xolox
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - 11:44
(Agree/Disagree?)
Hey Dan, when can we expect a new chapter, installment, short story or whatever it is you call them?
(reply to this comment)
| | | | from roughneck
Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 23:17
(Agree/Disagree?)
Well done, mate. Your story puts me in mind of a McNab's work - and he's made good money at writing. It's certainly something to think about, IMO you've certainly got the knack for telling a story. Keep it up!
(reply to this comment)
|  From geo
Sunday, April 03, 2005, 15:51
(Agree/Disagree?)
Yeah probably not someone I'd want to imitate. B20 was a good example of exactly how not to plan and execute a mission, it was amateur at best and their E & R plan was a joke. It seems that getting your name on the news for screwing up real bad is just part of the formula needed to get that million dollar book deal, think Jessica Lynch.(reply to this comment) |
| | From roughneck
Monday, April 04, 2005, 09:58
(Agree/Disagree?)
Uh, for starters, I didn't say "get captured by a bunch of towelhead eye-wrackies, get tortured for a few months, then write a book about it", did I? Read my comment again if you're still not 100% sure. :)
Also, McNab's written more than one book besides Bravo Two Zero, both Fiction and Non-, y' know. Additionally, I don't remember it being McNab's personal fault that things happened the way they did in the book you mention, so why pick on him? The reason he's famous beyond his first novel is that he writes well (I happen to think so anyway), not that he fucked up.
What I did, however, was imply that McNab had done well parlaying his special forces experiences into literature, and encourged Dan to look into doing likewise. Quit pissing on his parade already. :) (reply to this comment) |
| | From Baxter
Thursday, April 07, 2005, 05:50
(Agree/Disagree?)
McNab is full of crap. Apparently most of his writing is done by his editor, and in any case he just goes through the same scenario in a different environment. Freddy Forsythe and Alistair Maclean have been doing the same thing better for decades. All his experience as a bad-ass hasn't really done anything for his originality. Anyway, what's the deal with his 'need for anonymity'? If the provos wanted to find him, do you honestly think that covering his eyes in a couple of photos is gonna keep him incognito? It's a scam and it's gotten old fast. Both Peter Radcliffe and Michael Asher said the bloke was talking outta his arse. (reply to this comment) |
| | From roughneck
Friday, April 08, 2005, 10:52
(Agree/Disagree?)
Gawd, yet again an Army man shows up for a piss! :) Get it through your heads guys: I'm not endorsing McNab the man here. OK, so I happened to enjoy his books, but that isn't actually relevant except to say that he's got fans, and he's an ex-military writer. If he's got an editor, great! Which author doesn't?
What I am saying, on the other hand, is that Dan's got style, authenticity and a saleable subject. -Meaning he has a chance at writing if and when he's done soldiering. In case my meaning is *still* not clear I shall lay this strategy out point by point a la Slashdot:
1: Write story(ies) utilising military experience
2a: Get published
2b: Repeat steps 1-2a as necessary
3: Profit!!
If you'd prefer, I can scribble out Andy McNab's name and pencil in someone else's in the my comments, for my point stays precisely the same. - Only I happen to think Dan's narrative style is closer to McNab's than Forsythe's or Maclean's. Please tell me you get this if nothing else, preferably without tediously pointing out to me Yet Again what a scam/fuckup/fraud/etc Andy McNab is.
For the record, I'm much less cheesed off about this whole thing than (in rereading I notice) I sound. :)(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | From geo
Monday, April 04, 2005, 19:43
(Agree/Disagree?)
well not so much about the guy, I’m talking more about the mission specifically the planning or lack of detailed planning especially with regard to environmental factors and alternate courses of action during egress. There is no question that individually they all preformed outstandingly, though ultimately they failed their mission at the cost of three men’s lives with four of them captured and only one making it to Syria. While I agree it can be hard to judge war its absolutely necessary to be critical especially when failure can be fatal and result in national level consequence.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | from xolox
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 09:27
(Agree/Disagree?)
I like the end, the way you made it all gear toward that last word that puts it all into context. A little work on the grammar?
(reply to this comment)
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From Lola_
Tuesday, April 12, 2005, 22:41
(Agree/Disagree?)
As my favortie English Professor always said, "Don't read literature as you would an essay. Unlike a scientific paper, in a story it's not about correct or incorrect but about enhancing the image the author is trying to create". Though I usually do get ticked off by bad spelling etc, in this case the story is a brief glimpse into the life and mind of this unique modern day cowboy for whom normal social norms don't apply. That's why for me, the disregard for grammer rules just exemplifies his attitutude on the whole. Yes, he could have had someone proof read it, but why should he. He's above that. Small little rules made by society, like which side of the road to drive on, or that flashing cop lights mean pull over, or that a particular word is supposed to be spelled a certain way, all these rules are for the peons. The force of his personality comes across not only despite the grammer errrors but in a way because of them.(reply to this comment) |
| | From xolox
Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 11:39
(Agree/Disagree?)
I think you've totally missunderstood your favorite teacher. There are many authors who use intentional misspellings to convey a desired effect. Making random mistakes does not fall under the same category.
I don't know what "kingdom" you live in, but here there are no peons or peasants, just as there are no kings. (no real ones anyway).
If you look a little farther up the author never claimed his mistakes as deliberate, or even desired. IMO they do nothing but subtract from a seedling of a story.
How unfortunate that my personal critique merits more disscusion from you, than any specific point of the story. Which brings us back to my original point, misspellings aren't helping here.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | from geo
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 08:54
(Agree/Disagree?)
I don’t know, I quite enjoy driving around town here. Of course getting in a car wreck or shot by IP’s is always a possibility, though, for someone who likes to speed and drive aggressively its almost worth the risk. But then I’m not doing PSD so getting home safely is less important to me.
(reply to this comment)
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