An American sergeant
Sardar Aziz
A few hours later, the word came in: sergeant Leija had died. He died when he was scanning a kitchen. Illegal weapons he was searching for. Just one wall away from his body, a girl dressed in black, sitting beside a space heater, cradling an infant. It was after 9 a.m. on a sunny day on Haifa Street in central Baghdad.
The sergeant was young. He was American. He was from Texas. Neither the girl nor the infant have ever heard in their short life of somewhere like Texas or of a name like Leija. Leija is not an American name, or may be, America has people from everywhere.
The kitchen was dark. It was part of a complex building built in a time when the two countries were in peace. Infant’s country same as the sergeant’s country don’t like peace. The infant was male. He was born when the city fall for the last time six months ago. As the sergeant was born as American the infant was born as Shiite. His ancestors came from the south.
Sergeant Leija got hit in the head. He was with his platoon. They were part of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The kitchen was narrow and dark. The sun ray was sneaking in from a single bullet hole; it was fired by a sniper. The sniper was a man from Yemen. He kept beard. He carried in his pocket a small book. It was called signs on the road by Qutb. He disagreed with the world. He came to Baghdad to go to heaven. In the area the crack-crack of machine-gun fire was rattling since dawn.
The platoon medic collected the sergeant’s body. The gunfire outside intensified the infant start crying piercingly. His father was in custody. The little black dressed girl was shivering. They went into the back room for safety. The marines told the girl to keep her mouth open. A boom, then another even louder shack dust from the walls. For the Americans, it was time to go.
In the base they rapped the sergeant’s coffin with the American flag. The sergeant for the first time felt American. He liked to be American. He wanted to be rich and always vote Republican. That’s all he wanted, that’s all he knew.