Check-Point Basra Affidavit (in Heroic Couplets)

A flame peeled forth and split the night.

I’d kept one eye winked shut to save my sight.

For flares and muzzle flashes we’d been trained

to be half blind when darkness came.

Then tracers poured down from above.

The 60’d opened up its sturdy love;

then paused, the barrel got too hot I guess.

My closed eye opened to a riddled mess.

The car that didn’t listen would get towed,

all cleaned up before the shells got cold.

The captain yelled about a job well done;

“If they don’t get English, they’ll get the gun”.

I chewed my tongue till it got raw

and swallowed down, and reloaded my SAW.

Then some Brass came and asked,

which one fired first.

Who turned a car of Iraqi senators

into a crumpled hearse?

And then my captain told them it was me,

"stand trial... and, make your apology".

l'a-ro

60 (sixty): M-60 machine gun, belt feed, 7.62mm

SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon): M-249, belt feed, 5.56mm

Brass: U.S. Military rank of Colonel (0-4) and above.

Tracer: Phosphorous round (bullet) that burns as it travles through the air, often mingled one in seven with standard rounds in a belt of automatic weapon's ammunition. The streak helps one zero in on a target's center mass in low light conditions; or just trim the woodline.