Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

No Hand Jobs

My room was nice and warm when I opened the door, the heat rolling out of the room and covering me. I'd taped a copy of my profile to the door after giving another copy to the CQ so that people would leave me alone for the next five days. I felt weak and shaky still, but was glad to be alive. Stillwater and Bomber were in worse shape and still in the hospital, but they'd released me this morning. I'd had to wait almost two hours for someone to pick me up and it had taken another five hours to get back to the barracks.

"Hey, Foster," Drake said when I walked in. Pv2 Drake was my room-mate, another radioman, only assigned to 3rd Squad, a wiry guy from Colorado with black hair and blue eyes. "Heard you were dead, man."

"Damn near," I said, staggering in and sitting down on the bed.

"You look like Hell, Paul," Drake told me.

"Thanks," I said, taking off borrowed PT Uniform shirt. The woman who had came and got me, a mean looking female Private by the name of Nagle, had brought it to me.

"What happened?" He asked me as I laid back on the bed. All my muscles hurt.

"We found our ammo site, turned out there was a chemical weapon leak and a radiation leak," I told him. "We had fatalities, Drake. The only people left are me, Bomber, and Stillwater."

Drake shook his head. "Those two are harder to kill than a shithouse rat."

I just laughed at that.

"How bad are you?" Drake asked me, sitting down in the chair and picking up his boots. He'd already broke out the Kiwi and rubbing alcohol to give his boots a good spitshine. Master Sergeant Crowe didn't care about how our boots were, but too many of the officers and NCO's in other platoons seemed to wait around every corner to jump out and yell at anyone who's boots were spitshined and their uniforms starched.

"Not too bad. I wasn't that close. Stillwater and Bomber were about half dead by the time we got there. When I left they were on dialysis to keep their kidneys from shutting down," I told him. I sighed. "You think it's going to be like this the whole time?"

He was silent for a long moment. "I don't know, man. This is my third unit. I thought I was going to be put out but they sent me to this place." He was quiet a bit longer.

I itched all over, but the doctors had told me not to scratch and given me calamine lotion to smear on myself. I figured I'd take a shower later and then do it.

"This place ain't normal, man," Drake said, slamming down his boot. He looked at me and I realized his eyes were full of tears. "If I had known I was coming here, Paul, I would have just let them send me to Leavenworth."

"Dude, don't cry," I told him.

"We're going out to look for our ammo site again tomorrow, Paul," he said. "What if it's like yours? I don't wanna die, man." He wiped his eyes, "Goddamn, this place is terrible."

I nodded. Hell, I didn't know what to say. The other man had been in the Army six years to my less than six months, was on his third unit to my first. Hell, he'd been a Staff Sergeant before they had busted him three ranks for trying to rob the PX. He was trained in the cryptography gear, and the training NCO had him teaching all of us the gear the first month he was here.

"The whole goddamn thing scares the hell out of me," He said. "If I thought it would get me out of this place I'd start sucking dudes off, Paul, swear to God."

"If you're offering, I could use one," I joked. Drake laughed, a sharp brittle sound. Before he could say anything there were three sharp knocks on the door.

"I'll get it," Drake told me, setting down his boot. He walked through the small hallway to the door and opened it.

"Foster in here?" Private Nagle asked. She had a slight sneer on her face and her voice and body language were aggressive.