A short story adapted from the novel Travis Hunter by Stephen Michael Berberich

Nov. 4, 2003

Dear Travis,
Everybody back here in Georgia is eager to welcome
home the best damn soldier in the U.S. Army. Son, I trust you are
still serving our country well over there. Be a leader always, son.
Only six weeks left on your tour. You will report to my buddy at
Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning. I arranged everything.
I’m counting on you, Travis. Don’t mess up. Make me proud.
Dad.
*
In a barren, rocky region of Afghanistan, several armored
combat vehicles travel at a deliberate pace up a dusty road into
a cluster of tan and gray mounds leading to an open dryland
hummock. Big, rugged U.S. Army Sgt. Travis Hunter rides
shotgun in the lead vehicle. He pulls out the little folded letter
after he can no longer see through the dirty windshield.

The soldier driving says, “We are approaching the target, Sgt.
Should you be reading?”

Hunter, bristling with strong-minded determination,
ignores the question and keeps reading the letter from home.
Hunter replies hurriedly, “Letter from Dad. It came just as we
packed up.”

“Everything okay, Sgt.?”

“He’s getting me into officer training.”

“You deserve it after four combat tours. But I thought
enlisted personnel need special clearances to get into officer
training.”

Hunter smiles and replies, “You don’t know my father.”

The old road is rocky, creating too much vehicle noise and
slowing progress.

The soldier at the wheel says, “We’re here, enemy
compound is over the ridge. The lieutenant says that a soldier
interpreter on the patrol picked up Taliban chatter. They are in
that flat structure just a bit more. Yes, right over there, Travis.” He
slows the vehicle to a crawl with the others.

Hunter folds his father’s letter and tucks it into a chest pocket as
the armored convoy drifts to a halt, motors silenced.
Hunter takes charge. “Listen. The lieutenant wants us to go on
foot. Come on. Take your weapon and follow. Watch for side
movements.”

The U.S. patrol forms two columns, each in a single file
up the ridge. Point men for each column sweep for improvised
explosive devices, IEDs. The columns move quickly and lightly
with minimal clamor. The two columns converge near the earthen
structure.

A crackle of automatic weapons breaks the silence and
a premature grenade explodes in the air, sending the soldiers
scattering behind boulders.

Hunter stays up halfway on his knees and pumps both hands,
palms down, for the men to lower their voices randomly saying,

“There, there. … See ’em? … Heads up.”

He ducks flat to the ground with Lt. Sam Jones who
whispers, “Hunter, take six guys and advance to the right. We’ll
go left. Go, go, go, go.”

The soldiers open fire on the structure, raising clouds of
dust. As they advance, return fire hits Jones, the first up. Another
round hits a soldier who then stays back with wounded Jones who
is holding his bloodied right knee.

The firefight lasts just five minutes until shooting ceases
from the earthen structure.

At the quieted structure, armed U.S. soldiers kick in an
old wooden plank door. They find a large cache of weapons and
just two dead enemy soldiers.

Hunter quickly assesses the situation, “Men, pile these
weapons up. I’ll check on the lieutenant and get a vehicle to load
up.” He then speaks into his hand radio to Jones. “All clear, sir.”

When he then spots the lieutenant huddled behind
with another man, Hunter runs to Jones and the soldier who is
frantically working with bandages and tourniquets. The soldier
ignores his shoulder wound and treats Jones first.

Jones says, “We need to get back to the forward operating
base before sundown, Sgt. Hunter. Get stretchers. Harris here
caught one in the shoulder and will be okay, but my knee, oh.”

Jones is writhing in pain but maintains a self-assured tone and
demeanor.

Hunter is inspired by the lieutenant’s fighting spirit and
reports stalwartly, “Sir, the men are loading the cache. We took
out the only two enemy. I’ll be back soon. This area should be
okay, sir, the Marines cleared it Monday.”

“Be careful, sergeant and make each of your steps back to
our vehicles exactly the way we approached.” Hunter is already
off running as Jones adds, “Same footsteps. Hear me, Hunter?”

Hunter hastens down the hill with an M249 light machine gun
and his holstered M9 Berretta on his hip. He feels for his father’s
letter over his heart as he climbs into a vehicle to drive to the
wounded men.

He doesn’t realize that the soldier who drove the vehicle
to the firefight left the front wheels turned sharply to one side.

Hunter begins driving. The vehicle veers off the uncertain course
of the dust-covered road.

An explosive sound and flash of light in the fading
daylight flips the vehicle, throwing bulky Hunter 10 feet away.

Moments later, the semi-conscious warrior Hunter hears an
approaching Medivac helicopter’s pulsating wop-wop-wop of the
spinning blades and its roaring turbine engine.

Baltimore, Maryland, five years later
On a misty cold October weekday morning, former U.S. Army
Sgt. Travis Hunter, a wounded warrior now 33, wakes up lying
on concrete under the Russell St. exit ramp. He pours water from
an old army canteen over his head and wipes his face. His full,
reddish-brown beard is unkempt and to his chest.

He ambles off aimlessly, carrying a folded wheelchair full of
rust and dents. The ambulatory chair is missing one footrest. He
carries it only to the edge of the darkness near Oriole Park at
Camden Yards where amber streetlights might expose his game.
Only then he gets into the rickety chair and covers his legs with
an olive-green blanket.

Travis wheels himself through a smelly alley leading to his first
stop of garbage cans and a dumpster behind a Greek restaurant on
Pratt St.

A Purple Heart medal is pinned to his tattered greasy Army shirt.
He wears a well-worn Atlanta Braves baseball cap from the
1980s. Travis is big and muscle-bound even in the wheelchair.
Yet the most distinguishing feature of his physique is his twisted
and awkward posture that leaves his tanned and chiseled features
in an expression of perpetual pain.

Yes, he fakes needing the wheelchair. He is not faking the twisted
look.

Down the alley, Travis is disturbed to find another vagrant lying
next to the dumpster. He becomes anxious, causing spasms
to begin in his twisted muscles. He holds his jaw to the left to
control tremoring spasms.

He continues wheeling to the unconscious soul. He walks to the
limp body to check for life. It is a woman. “Hey, you there, lady.
Wake up.” The former soldier gathers up semi-conscious Mary
Ann Gilford, 28. He gently places her in his wheelchair and starts
pushing it.

Mary Ann regains consciousness quickly, fearfully, “You a doc?
Hey, I can walk, mister. Get your hands off!”

Daylight is breaking slowly with a heavy, low cloud cover.

“Listen, lady,” Travis barks to the ungrateful woman, “I just want
to help you. You’ve got blood all over your clothes.”

She panics, “Are they gone? … I mean, them dogs. Oh God,
where are they?”

“Do you mean street dogs did this to you?”

“Well, I didn’t do it to myself. Hey, what’s wrong with your neck?
You look worse off than me. Your head’s all crooked, mister.”

Travis turns away, disgusted.

“Okay, none of my damned, whatever, right?” she says. “Yeah,
dogs were in the dumpster, angry. The Greeks throw bags of
uneaten lamb in there. I tried getting in to get some.”

As he takes charge of the situation, the pangs of anxiety calm in
his stomach. Travis’s muscle spasms stop. He says, “I know about
the Greeks’ throwaways. Dogs got to the meat first? I’m sorry.
Come, I’ll fix you up. Got a name?”