Rubicon w/ Sean Griobhtha
excerpt from X Rubicon chapter Puppets
[You watched/read the Hunger Games, and sided with the resistance; you watched Divergent, and sided with the resistance; you read about history, and sided with the resistance. When it’s fiction or excessively historical, you understand Oppression. Why do you refuse to see it now, in reality?]
Kyrie Irving
Puppets
…Close to the extraction point was a little village about 125 yards downhill from the western ridge I was on, and blocked from immediate sun on the east from another ridge. When I reached this point it was daybreak, the sun was not over the eastern ridge, yet there was light. There was a rock under a tree on the path, and I sat to rest and look at the village. I was enjoying myself because the early morning seemed pleasant and beautiful, and I was very happy that I hadn’t had to kill anyone.
There was a central square with a small fountain. The streets branched from the center in four directions, and the fourth direction was toward my position and the road dead ended. The square and streets were surrounded by living and business quarters. On the street branch closest to me a native girl, all of 15 years old, her skin the color of rich brown-red molasses, danced in circles in a multi-colored skirt and white blouse with colored embroidery, proudly twirling her skirt. She looked so happy, and I felt happy watching her be happy. It was a beautiful scene and I thought it must be her birthday. She was so happy.
Then a jeep (US provisioned) came barreling into the square, around the fountain, and came to a stop 10 yards from the girl. She froze, and still didn’t move when the two men, Salvadoran military, ordered her to stay. The jeep was provided to them by the US. The M-16s they carried were provided to them by the US. The .45cal pistols they carried were provided to them by the US. No one emerged from the buildings inside to stand by the girl. These military men, supported by the US, by US taxpayers, and hell, by me, were known for cruelty, rape, and death. I observed through my scope.
One stood directly in front of her, the other a few yards back to the north, their right sides facing me. They appeared to ask a question, but didn’t like the answer, so the front one smacked the girl hard across the face. The girl cried and tried to walk away, but he grabbed her arm and made her stand still. The rear trooper appeared to giggle and twitter like a hyena, then circled her and pulled her shirt down over her shoulder, popping buttons. I fixed my suppressor and continued to observe through my scope. The front trooper walked around her slowly, pawing at her as he went, then stopped in his original position. He used his rifle to lift her skirt above her waist, rubbed the muzzle in her crotch, then handed it to his partner, who smiled and giggled more while he continued to point his rifle at the girl. The girl cried harder and was stiff with fright. The front trooper lifted her chin with one hand, and used his other to push her blouse down past her shoulders, exposing her breasts. I could see where this was going, and it was going there fast.
I chose the rear trooper as the first target, because that would allow me time to focus on the other before he realized what was happening. The rear trooper was still and his head provided a stable and viable target. A suppressor doesn’t eliminate noise, but it does a fair job reducing it and reducing flash. An M-16 round traveling in a downward trajectory with wind at its back… can’t miss. An M-16 round is meant to tumble upon impact and break into multiple fragments to cause the greatest amount of damage possible, and this one didn’t disappoint. The trooper’s head fairly exploded in the direction of fire. The girl started. The front trooper hadn’t heard the shot, he was so intent on his own kill. He looked at her shaking, then turned around and saw his partner crumpled on the ground. His turning provided a larger target and the next round went into his chest, but he was still up, so I put another round through his head and the back of his skull blew out, and he dropped immediately.
The girl panicked for a few seconds then ran off in fright. No one emerged from inside the buildings, which angered me. I packed up and continued on my path for extraction. On the ride out I fully realized that I was fighting someone else’s war… and I was helping the wrong side. What the fuck was I doing this for? We were supporting, and being, fascists (corporatists), and I felt sick knowing I had become what I hated most.
I never felt guilty killing those two, they were psychopaths and deserved it with all the pain that they may have felt; unfortunately, I don’t think they had a chance to feel anything or enough. The fact that no men or women in the village emerged to help the girl angered me to rage. Surely they heard what was happening. Surely they heard the girl crying – I heard from over 100 yards! Surely someone was peeking out of their shutters. Why would no one help?
These killings were never reported nor documented. If Bill had been around, I’m sure I would have told him in private. I possibly could have told the CIA Operations officer, as his attitude as previously expressed was that “it doesn’t matter who dies so long as the mission is completed successfully without any knowledge of US involvement”. However, I kept it to myself. It was a decision that I don’t regret making, yet it also feels like a Catch-22 inside a bizarro world. I never even told details to the former 1st SOW chaplain to whom they sent me when I told them I wanted out. I told NO ONE these things for forty years, yet they lived in my head constantly, and still do.
This event has taken on new life for me in the last year. Just as I had withheld my military trauma from my wife, she had withheld her own trauma. When she was 18, a psychopathic football player named Curtis The Rapist, from M_____ Center, took her in a storage/workout room at a school dance. He tried forcing sex which wasn’t working, so he became even more violent and tied her up on the floor to a bench with cord, and he raped her with extra violence and malevolence. When he was done, he left her there to free herself, after threatening her life if she ever told anyone. Like most rape victims, woman or man, she blamed herself and was sure no one would believe, and she was deathly afraid that her father would find out and kill the boy and be sent to prison. Curtis The Rapist made sure to express forcefully that she deserved it and if she ever opened her mouth to anyone, he would track her down and get her. So she kept it to herself. The painful irony for me is I could be there to save a native girl in a foreign country, but I couldn’t be there to save my future wife.
I so want to believe that the girl lived a long and happy life, but I’ll never know, just as she’ll never know who killed her attackers. My wife, a bit of a Buddhist spiritualist, communes with her, which makes me cry when I think about it; I’m an atheist, yet I hope with all my heart they hear each other.
**********
Rubicon spent just under three years as a military Scout. During that time he was awarded the “AF Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 4 Bronze Stars, Defense Superior Service Medal, AF Good Conduct Medal, and the CIA Distinguished Service Medal” (ODNI). When he refused to kill further, he was stripped of these awards and was abandoned with his PTSD by the military and thrown away.
Sean Griobhtha (gree-O-tah) is a combat veteran. His latest book is X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat, which details the life of Rubicon, another combat veteran. You can find him mostly on SubStack & Facebook. He can be reached at O.Griobhtha+XRubicon@gmail.com. It’s important that you read the Foreward (Vanguard); written by a highly intelligent woman with a heart of empathetic gold; she’ll bring you in gently, which neither Rubicon nor I would ever do.