my life as a foreign country by brian turner

The soldiers enter the house with Mrs Garoupa from Senior English at Madera High. The soldiers enter the house with Mrs Ingram from the 2nd grade at Vinland Elementary School. They kick in the door and bring in the horses from the barn, hitching them to the kitchen table inside. They kick in the door and pull in the toboggans and canoes from the hillsides and lakes of Minnesota. They kick in the door while cradling their little sisters in their arms. They kick in the door and enter the house with the memory of backyard barbecues on their minds. The soldiers enter the house with only nine credits earned toward an associate’s degree in history from the University of Maryland. The soldiers enter the house having just ordered a new set of chrome mufflers on eBay for the Mustang stored under blankets in a garage north of San Francisco. The soldiers enter the house with their insurance policies filled out, signed, beneficiaries named, last will and testaments sealed in manila envelopes half a world away. They enter the house with their left foot, they enter the house the way one enters cemeteries or unclean places. The soldiers enter the house Straight Outta Compton or with Eminem saying, ‘Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity’. The soldiers enter the house with paperbacks in their cargo pockets, Starship Troopers and Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers Once and Young.

The soldiers enter the house with cunt and cooch, cock wallet and butcher’s bin on their tongues. They enter the house and shout ‘Honey, I’m home!’ and ‘Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!’ The soldiers enter the house with conversations of Monday Night Football and the bouncing tits of the Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders. They enter the house with Toledo and Baton Rouge imprinted on the rubber soles of their desert combat boots. The soldiers enter the house with the flag of their nation sewn onto the sleeves of their uniforms. The soldiers enter the house one fire team after another, and they fight brutal, dirty, nasty, the only way to fight. The soldiers enter the house with ghillie suits and Remington sniper rifles, phoenix beacons and night-vision goggles, lasers invisible to the naked eye, rotorblades, Hellfire missiles, bandoliers strapped across their chests. The soldiers enter the house with pixelated camouflage, flex-cuffs, chem lights, door markings, duct tape. Soldiers, determined and bored and searing with adrenaline, enter the house with shouting and curses and muzzle flash, det cord and 5.56mm ball ammunition.

The soldiers enter the house, the soldiers enter the house.

My life as a foreign country by brian turner