Shenanigans

         

 Lil' ball-o-pain.

            “Vance, I want you to shoot me in the ass,” Bullis asked.

            “Shoot you in the ass with what?” I inquired.

            “The non-lethal paintball gun.”

            “You realize if I miss your ass cheek and hit your asshole, its not going to be so non-lethal, right?”

            “That’s why I’m asking you to do it.  I trust you.”

            “This is gonna to be hilarious.”

            Bullis was my platoon’s medic and if I’ve learned anything in the army, it’s that medics are crazy and very creative when it comes to killing boredom.  Bodily harm is apparently not above them. 

            Every platoon was assigned a few paintball guns.  These guns weren’t like the ones you shoot at your buddies in the States.  These paintball guns were shaped like Tommy Guns with a ten round disc that slipped right in front of the trigger.  As a butt stock there was an oxygen tank that gave the paintballs a high velocity.  In fact, these rounds came out of the short barrel at such a speed that if you hit someone in the eye it would go right into the brain and cause death.  It didn’t help that after 20 or 30 feet these rounds took nasty curves and could be highly inaccurate if you didn’t practice first.

            The rounds themselves were anything but circular.  The rear of the paintball round was filled with yellow paint and had a flat bottom so you could stand the round up like a regular bullet shell.  The front, or top, portion was dome shaped and filled with little metallic bee bees.  These bee bees combined with a plastic shell and high velocity maid for quite the violent strike.

One day a vehicle was driving too fast for my comfort while my Stryker was in a blocking position nearby.  I aimed for the driver’s side door to warn the fucker to drive carefully around American forces.  Car bombs, or VBIEDs, were a big threat.  The round curved up and flew into the vehicle hitting the driver in the left shoulder.  There was a huge yellow splatter as the round hit, covering his neck and head, so at first I thought I hit the guy in the ear and killed him.  Luckily I just scared the shit out of him as he swerved, hit the curb and then got the hell out of Dodge thinking he got shot with an actual bullet.

Another local encounter with my girly Tommy gun was when an unsuspecting teenage boy was riding his bike too close to our position while on patrol.  This was a time when suicide bike IED’s were not uncommon.  Knowing this and being aware of my surroundings, I decided to give him a strong warning to go away.  I put a paintball round right in the center of his handlebars.  To give you an idea of how these paintball rounds freak people out, it caused the kid to completely flip his bike face forward.  His entire torso and face were covered in yellow victory as we all had a laugh at his expense.  This might seem cruel, but some Americans would have shot him with a real bullet thinking he was a suicide biker driving at that speed so close to our forces.  Even his friends were laughing.  That’s what I call winning “hearts and minds.”

            Back to Bullis.  He’s a little over six feet tall, brown haired, well built with a face for modeling and he hales from a suburb of Boston.  Let me contest that while heavily intoxicated a thick Boston accent comes out of nowhere and you might as well be listening to fucking Chinese.  Bullis walked about 30 feet away and bent over with his hind parts facing me.  One of the guys walked behind me to film this exciting moment as I turned to the camera.

            “What Bullis doesn’t know is that I’m not that great of a shot,” I whispered with a smile.

            “What?” Bullis hollered with his head between his legs.

            “Nothin’!  Stay down and look away!”

            “The suspense is killing me.”

            Half the platoon was watching eagerly, grinning from ear to ear.  As I took aim, I noticed a bulge in his right butt cheek.  It had to be his wallet.  It might be thick enough to sustain the pain.  We’ve had our differences, but he was a dear friend and great drinking buddy back in the states so I had to hit that bulge to spare pain.  The problem is that with this inaccurate weapon at that exact range, I have to play the curve perfectly.  I wait for the breeze to die, exhale, hold steady and squeeze.

            “Poof!” went the gun.

            “Uhh!” went the Bullis.

            I missed by about an inch to the right, but considering the weapon it wasn’t a bad shot at all.  Bullis and I hugged it out as everyone laughed and cheered in the middle of our motor pool.  It was a brief moment of entertainment and escape from our insane operational tempo of two to four missions a day for 15 months in my first deployment to Iraq.

            “How bad?” I asked.

            “It stings,” Bullis said with a frown and half smile.

            Bullis was an outstanding and creative medic I’m privileged to have seen him in action and give what little help I could, but on that day, he volunteered to be the butt of all jokes.  Pun intended.  On behalf of a lot of guys that needed a laugh we thank you Bullis.