Deployment of a Darkhorse

by J. Van Dickens

In the hot, barren Mojave Desert, PFC Yazzie is training for an upcoming combat deployment with a Marine Corps infantry battalion, call sign Darkhorse. Untested, he and hundreds of other young men are preparing to fight an unconventional enemy. After a few days leave, they travel across the world where desert sand chokes throats and sucks any moisture the air once held. Arriving at their new Area of Responsibility, they find out about recent carnage in the battalion they are about to relieve, from faces revealing blank stares of those who had just tasted the worst of war only days away from returning home. Soon, the Marines of Darkhorse experience for themselves the bloody insights of their predecessors. Slogging their way through the days, weeks, and months of combat deployment, the grunts learn, often the hard way, how best to defend against a determined foe. Despite injuries, deaths, and hardship, squads of veterans convoy and foot patrol their way in an effort to gain the cooperation of local villagers who are torn between working with American infidels, or siding with a brutal parasite known as Al Qaeda. By late deployment, Darkhorse begins to see signs of success, but at a cost. Yazzie, faced with the injury of a close friend and the other losses of his company, must come to terms with his personal search for meaning in the midst of war. He finds it in a surprise encounter with a young Iraqi girl, and in a split-second decision he must make. Under great stress, and in the midst of bullets and bombs, the best and worst of our nature is revealed in Deployment of a Darkhorse, evidence that war is not waged in black or white ideologies, but in the gray areas of the human spirit. Deployment of a Darkhorse connects the narrative of our nation's long involvement in a difficult and controversial war to today's readers through the experiences of the ones fighting the battle. Given the ongoing strife in an area better known for bloodshed than for stability, difficult questions must be raised. Is there hope for sustained peace in Iraq? In Afghanistan? Can the fight against fundamentalist extremism be won, or contained? To what extent should the United States be involved in this effort overseas? More than ever, these questions must be answered not only by politicians and theorists, but by anyone who would consider sending a son or daughter to war.

197 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 31, 2017