Neil Shea

DO NOT KILL

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The MPs stand by their enormous armored trucks, waiting for the briefing that comes before they head out on the road. The morning cold wanes as the sun rises, and on the base the day is taking shape. Civilian contractors resume their work, the details of material sustenance—food service, computer service—that keep the military running. Local Afghanis resume their jobs, too, emptying trash barrels, loading the coolers with bottled water, soda, and Gatorade, the official beverage of the war. Beyond the walls and blast barriers, smoke rises above the houses and villagers walk through morning along the solitary road, along the edges of fields, faces wrapped against the fading chill. In the cemetery dogs, bark among the jagged, unmarked headstones.

The soldiers smoke and tease, shift on their feet. Waiting. A pair wrestles until one suddenly seizes up and grabs his back; immediately the others give him shit—oh, hurt your back again, pussy? Always the same. From the east a small dog trots into view, her face at ease, her tail held high. She is white with brown patches, and the tip of her brushy tail is weirdly green, as though she’d been painting with it.

“Here comes Lucky,” a soldier says. “Means we won’t get shot at today. Yesterday she didn’t show and we got fucked up.”

Lucky is sweet and hopeful, she curls between the camouflaged legs and they speak to her but they are not allowed to touch. Regulations, fears. I’m not bound by them so I kneel and whistle and she bounds over and folds herself softly into me. Someone has fashioned a collar for her and gone further—making her a single silver dog tag. It reads DO NOT KILL.

“First sergeant shot the last dog,” someone explains. Mascots are not allowed.

The men discuss whether Lucky lives up to her name.

“She is. She is,” says an MP in dark sunglasses.

“Naw, man. The other day she came by and we still got shot at.”

“No, dude. She is—look at her. She don’t even like hajjis.”

Lucky has chased off after an Afghan man, his traditional dress flapping in the breeze, Lucky nipping playfully at the loose cloth.

“Get ‘im, Lucky! Bite hajji!” The Afghani laughs; probably he does not understand the insult.

The dog loses interest. She walks a few feet off and settles down in the dust and sunshine, watching, listening. A tall sergeant arrives carrying breakfast in a foam container. Lucky perks up, stands up, walks toward the sergeant, expectant. She rises slightly on her back feet toward the tray and suddenly the big sergeant kicks her with all his weight. She howls and tumbles, then flees, tail folded tightly under and howling, running in terror up and away. The sergeant spits.

“Fuckin’ dog don’t get my breakfast, fuck that,” he says.

Other MPs stare after the dog. They shake their heads and toe at the dirt.

“That was fucked up,” several say, just out of earshot of the sergeant, who outranks them all. “Back home, someone does that to my dog, I’d fuckin shoot them.”

Finally the soldier in charge arrives and the briefing begins. We must watch out for this and that; in case of attack, we will do this. No civilian casualties, please, keep children away from your trucks and don’t shoot them. Lucky reappears in the distance toward the end of it. Possibly she is limping. She does not come near. As we move out through the gate and into the valley, old men standing silent and still on the roadsides, the soldiers in my truck place odds on whether or not we will be shot. No one is very optimistic.