Of Vital Interest (eBook)

Frank Demith (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
292 Seiten
Ballast Books (Verlag)
978-1-962202-33-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Sergeant Abdullah is a trained linguist, a soldier, and now a mechanic, giving everything he has to serve the country that gave him a better life. This stalwart soldier is heading out on his fourth deployment to Iraq, where he grew up in a small village before moving to the States with his parents under a military visa program. He is eager to deploy to Iraq yet again and assist the military's mission in any way he can. Meanwhile, Specialist Al Khafaji joins the US Military as part of another special recruiting program through which he ultimately becomes a US citizen and soldier. However, Al Khafaji's motives are unclear to his superiors, who cannot discern what is different about him. While Al Khafaji moves through linguist training, he receives cryptic phone calls and emails as he prepares to deploy to Iraq, where his family still resides. What could these unsettling messages mean? Who is sending them? In Of Vital Interest, Abdullah's and Al Khafaji's lives interweave as the two men join teams in Iraq, where the US Military works to dismantle a terrorist militant cell operating in a nearby village. This riveting and fast-paced novel will have you hooked from the very first page as each soldier makes his mission, whether good or bad, his life's number one priority.

Textauszug

2

The forty-three soldiers stood outside of the unit orderly room waiting for their first sergeant to arrive. This was a bittersweet day for many of them. The Army leadership had decided to disband their current Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), but some of the soldiers had scored high enough on their ASVAB test to be offered the opportunity to reclassify into another MOS. They were now just waiting to be told what MOSs they would be moving on to.

“So what do you think you will do?” a specialist named Bashir asked his squad leader, Sergeant Abdullah.

“Well, I think I’ll just wait and see what comes up,” Sergeant Abdullah replied. “It won’t be easy to move on to another MOS, but at least we are getting a chance. The majority of our company is being released from active duty.”

“That is right, but many of our people are moving on to better-paying civilian jobs as linguists,” Bashir countered, trying to gauge the response from his squad leader’s body language. “I think that Al Saadi is going to make almost twice what he made as a soldier.”

“I am glad that he is going to do well,” Sergeant Abdullah said with a visible level of angst. He had issues with Al Saadi as a soldier and was not really unhappy to see him go. “The good thing is that we will still be able to be soldiers and support the greatest country in the world. Hooah?”

“Hooah, Sergeant!” came the reply from the three soldiers standing nearby.

The first sergeant walked out of the door to the orderly room with a sheet of paper in his hand. He came over to the message board and pinned the paper to the corkboard wall.

“OK, soldiers,” the first sergeant said as he turned to face the group. “Here are the new MOSs you have qualified for. Take a look and let me know in the next day or so if you have any issues or questions. If I don’t hear anything from you by COB Friday, we will move forward with your out-processing and issue you travel orders to your follow-on training. Sergeant Abdullah, can I see you for a moment?”

“Yes, First Sergeant,” Sergeant Abdullah responded.

“Let’s go for a walk,” the first sergeant suggested.

The pair walked down the hall to a small room that was used as a study area. When they stepped inside, the first sergeant asked Sergeant Abdullah to take a seat at the table with him and closed the door.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” the first sergeant asked.

“Of course, First Sergeant,” Sergeant Abdullah replied. “There is nothing else I would rather do than stay in the Army as a soldier. Why do you ask?”

“I just think that all of you are getting a raw deal,” the first sergeant said. “All of you joined the Army knowing that you would deploy as soon as you finished your training.”

“Yes, but everyone knew that when they joined,” Sergeant Abdullah said, not quite understanding the first sergeant’s point.

“Most soldiers join the Army with a chance of deploying. It isn’t a certainty,” the first sergeant explained. “You shouldn’t have to do this with all you have already done for this country. Nobody would question you if you decided to walk away.”

“I choose to do this,” Sergeant Abdullah stated firmly. “That is the best part. I can make that choice, and it is mine. That is why I will stay in the Army.”

“You have served in combat three different tours and have earned three Army Commendation Medals, two Purple Hearts, and a Bronze Star,” the first sergeant pressed with a serious look on his face. “You have earned the right to go out and make the big bucks as a linguist. It’s just not right for the Army to be treating you like this.”

“When my class graduated from individual training, an officer came down from the Pentagon and spoke to us,” Sergeant Abdullah murmured as he tried to recall exactly what the officer had said. “He told us of the plans to make 09L a permanent occupational specialty, but he said that the program could only be what the Army would allow it to be. He told us all to be happy with the program because there were no promises of what might happen in the future.”

“I know,” the first sergeant sighed, as he had heard the same thing before he was assigned as one of the two active-duty 09L company first sergeants in the active Army. “Just because the Army can do things doesn’t always make it right.”

“This country and the Army do not owe me anything,” Sergeant Abdullah insisted as he touched the patch above his left breast pocket that said US Army. “It is I who owes this country everything, and I am proud to be a soldier.”

The two of them walked back out to where the list was posted. Sergeant Abdullah looked until he found his name. As he glanced across the different fields on the printout, he saw that he was going to be trained as a mechanic. He was hoping to be moving into the infantry, but if the Army needed him to be a mechanic, than he would be the best mechanic possible. Sergeant Abdullah knew that his father would be very happy for him.

“All right, let’s get with it, ladies and gentlemen. Find a seat behind an information packet,” the man on the stage said as the soldiers filed into the large theater. “Welcome to reclassification training for the wheeled vehicle mechanic’s course. Because there are so many of you in this cycle, you will be going through the training with new soldiers attending Advanced Individual Training. We expect you to be outstanding role models and mentors.”

Sergeant Abdullah looked down at the stack of papers in front of him. With a sigh, he reached down and took out a pen from his rucksack. He was not going to let anyone see his displeasure, but he would rather be almost anywhere else but here. It seemed like anything a person did in the Army required some type of paperwork to be filled out.

As he looked down at the first form, he chuckled to himself. Last name, first name, middle initial. The Army was still the same, no matter where he was.

The training was not difficult, but Sergeant Abdullah found that he had trouble when it came to the written exams. His English was not perfect, and he needed additional time to read through the test questions. Where he excelled was the hands-on training with the vehicles. He had helped his father who had owned an automotive repair shop in Iraq. Sergeant Abdullah had an uncanny ability to diagnose problems with the engines.

When the class did practical exercises on the vehicles, all the soldiers looked to Sergeant Abdullah for advice. One day, they were working with an old military version of an ambulance. The class was told the basics of the vehicle and instructed to try to determine why it would not start.

Everyone gathered around the engine compartment and began to go through the possible problems that would prevent the engine from starting. Sergeant Abdullah looked at the engine and knew what the problem was before the others had the diagnostic machine hooked up to it. One of the soldiers leaned over the compartment and tried to point out the same thing Sergeant Abdullah had noticed, but the other soldiers were too busy trying to hook up the machine to pay attention to what he was saying.

“Stupid pigs,” the soldier muttered in Arabic as he backed away.

As the group of soldiers began to run diagnostics, Sergeant Abdullah walked over to the soldier who was still standing somewhat near the vehicle.

“Do you think they will find the loose wire?” Sergeant Abdullah asked the young soldier.

“Excuse me?” the soldier replied, looking a little shocked.

“I am guessing that you noticed the loose wire like I did, and that is why you are not crowding around the vehicle like the rest of them,” Sergeant Abdullah clarified with a small grin.

“Uh, yes, Sergeant,” the young soldier stammered. “I believe that is the problem, but I am not that good with engines.”

“Well,” Sergeant Abdullah said, “you would seem to have a keener eye than the others. Maybe you are just more inclined to notice things that seem out of place.”

The soldier was considering how to respond when the instructor walked back to the area where the vehicle was sitting.

“OK, soldiers,” the instructor said. “Let’s wrap it up.”

The soldiers stopped what they were doing and gathered once more around the front of the vehicle.

“So who can tell me what you found?” the instructor asked as he looked out over the group.

“Excuse me, Sergeant,” the young soldier said to Sergeant Abdullah. “I need to get back to the group.”

Sergeant Abdullah nodded as the soldier rejoined the others. They all stood and looked at the diagnostic machine, which was searching for an answer but not working very quickly.

“I believe a wire has become disconnected inside the engine compartment,” Sergeant Abdullah stated as he walked closer to the vehicle and then pointed at the loose wire.

“All right, soldiers,” the instructor called out as he looked at the group. “How many of you agree with Sergeant Abdullah?”

Several of the soldiers raised their hands, while the others still seemed puzzled and continued to look for an answer from the diagnostic...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.12.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 1-962202-33-X / 196220233X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-962202-33-6 / 9781962202336