Michael Yon

Ash had been standing at that machine gun in the back of the Land Rover since 8:30 the morning before, and except for normal nature breaks, he’d been nearly continuously manning that weapon as we drove in the sun on dusty, bumpy roads, or he was standing in the sun (and later under starlight) for what must have been 16 or 18 hours straight. I’d gone mostly numb on my seating parts, but at least once an hour, like clockwork, Ash would manage to check in on me.

“How ya doin’ Michael?” he’d say. “Need any wata?” (Ash didn’t use the letter “r” much.) “Drink lots of wata Michael. We got plenty o’ wata and ya bein’ a civvy an all, I gotta look afta ya.”

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British soldiers often make fun of each other’s accents, saying people from such-and-such area are inbred, or that others are wimps or dolts. These observations, offered as scientific fact, are then followed up with strings of jokes that leave everyone rolling. But the jokes are often just foreplay for the hardcore wrestling matches, which invariably end up with one guy taking on two or more and getting pummeled. And then, they brush each other off and go back to work as if nothing untoward happened.

Young American soldiers wrestle like this, too. But not nearly as often, and never with quite the same ferocity. American soldiers don’t usually beat each other as hard during the wrestling matches. The Brits actually punch each other in the body, while American soldiers sometimes choke each other into unconsciousness. It’s the young soldiers’ way of saying they love each other.

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