The Switch. . .
Location: Afghanistan
Mission: Patrol Overwatch
As much as I hated Chicago, Illinois, I would have given anything to deal with the summer heat there than where I was. The heat in Afghanistan was dry like cotton mouth, if that made sense. There was no air or wind, so it was like the dust stuck in the air. None of that mattered, because I had a job to do and soldiers to protect. I was on an overwatch mission.
I worked so hard to get where I was, and I was proud of how far I came. From birth, it felt like God said I would be a fighter. A bastard child born to a crackhead mother, I overcame. The system is no place for a child to grow up, but Iwas proud that I didn’t get sucked in. I tried to stay out of as much trouble as I could. In high school, my guidance counselor suggested Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), and it was the beginning of my life as a soldier.
When I enlisted after high school, I was able to enlist as an E-3 (private first class). My mind was on the prize from the moment I stepped foot on Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, for basic training. I wanted to be a ranger and a sniper. That was a big feat for a woman if you considered that women were not even allowed to take part in Ranger School until 2015.
It was an agreed-upon fact that I snapped on all the requirements when it came to becoming not only a ranger but a ranger sniper. I was what some considered elite, and I was a black female. As much love and respect that I got, I received just as much envy and hate.
Our mounted patrol moved through a village corridor that was infamous for IED activity. We couldn’t get caught slipping in any way, shape, or form. A two-story rooftop of a mid-compound was my spotter’s and my position. My bipod was steady, scope dialed, and body prone. I was ready and trained for something that I prayed that I wouldn’t have to do, . . . pull the trigger.
“You good, Winters?” my spotter, Zimmer, questioned.
Without taking my eyes off my field of view, I responded, “I’m always good.”
When it came to me and overwatch, I never took my eye off the field of view. A millisecond was all it took for something to change lives. Our field of view today was the main road, an intersection with a market, and an alley that had been known to be used for ambushes. My ear was filled with steady radio chatter. The platoon moved methodically slow.
This wasn’t my first overwatch, and I was certain that it wouldn’t be my last.Scan the field, take a pause, take a breath, then repeat.That was the current process on my mind. The pace of my heartbeat was steady, as it should have been, then it happened.
I saw something, or should I say someone. It wasn’t anything alarming, per se. There were kids running and playing around the market, but this boy stood out to me. He wasn’t playing; he wasn’t a vendor or there to help a vendor. He stood near what looked like an abandoned car in the same alley that had been proven a problem in the past.
“Zimmer, do you have a visual? Three o’clock. The boy near the car. I don’t like it,” I said sternly.
Zimmer took less than ten seconds to confirm. “I see it, Winters. Keep watch.”
My eyes didn’t move from the boy as Zimmer scanned the rest of the field. The boy continued to gaze down the road, then the alley, then back down the road. When his eyes moved toward the platoon, I did a quick radio check. I confirmed that they continued their forward movement.
As the platoon got closer, the boy’s body tensed and shifted. One of his hands moved from his hip to inside of the vest that he wore. As if I couldn’t be any more focused, I zoned in to a dimension that I thought didn’t exist. It was as if my eyes saw 3.2 gigapixels.Wires.They were almost invisible. You would have missed them if you weren’t as focused as I was in the moment.
“Three o’clock, alley, forty meters, possible trigger man,” I radioed immediately, which allowed patrol to shift their position. This was why I was here . . . to overwatch.
When patrol shifted their position, the boy’s eyes shifted upward. He searched until he found me. We locked eyes and Isearched for that thing in his eyes. That thing that confirmed whether he was hostile or friendly.
The second that I saw it, I knew. I knew his hostile intent and knew what was required of me per the rules of engagement. Seconds was all I had to exhale, get centered, and squeeze the trigger. There was no time to shake, for hesitation; it was what needed to be done.
PEW! The shot sounded throughout the village, and the boy’s body fell like a sack of potatoes.Nothing! There was no sound, no patrol movement, no trigger, no explosion. It was just nothing. Moments later, voices took over the radio. I had done my job.
Some Years Later
Back to Reality
Atlanta, Georgia . . .
I jumped out of my sleep. God, I hated this. The nightmares came when I least expected them, usually after what I would call a good day. It was like they had to remind me of what was. I remembered that day as if it had just happened yesterday.
The report said that he was wired to trigger a pressure-plate IED buried only twenty meters ahead of the patrol. My shot had saved several lives. I was commended for my shot by my spotter and commander. “Good shot, Winters!” was all I heard for the rest of the day after the IED was secured and the area was cleared by patrol. I stayed professional with my thank-yous and smiles, but my insides felt different.
There was something different about that shot. Before that day, overwatch was just a tactical job that I did. When I saw that boy, yes, he had hostile intent, but he wasn’t this evil boy. Hecouldn’t have been any older than fifteen years old, but his baby face made it hard to tell. The millisecond before I took the shot, he hesitated. I took that shot, not knowing why. That wasn’t my job to know the why, but now in the aftermath, it bothered me.
Was the hesitation fear? Was he sent there as a test for something that he never wanted to be a part of to begin with? If I hesitated just one more second, would he have left his position and gone on about his day? That was a question that I couldn’t have risked finding out the answer to.
I huffed when I felt the wetness in my bed from my night sweats. I glanced at my bedside clock:0500.“Geez! Let me get my day started.”
I woke up at the same time every morning so that I could get in my five-mile run. It only took me about thirty to thirty-five minutes to run five miles. Since I wasn’t in the military anymore, I relaxed and let myself take, at the max, forty-five minutes. My apartment complex had a ten-mile trail behind it that I used. During the day, it was busy, so I opted to run earlier, when the majority of Atlanta were still asleep. I hated Atlanta, if I had to be honest, but I refused to go back to Chicago. I was overstimulated here.
